Napoles placed under witness protection program

DETAINED businesswoman Janet L. Napoles, the alleged mastermind in the 2013 pork-barrel scandal, is to be placed under the Witness Protection Program (WPP) of the Department of Justice’s (DoJ), Justice Secretary Vitaliano N. Aguirre II said on Friday.

“We confirm that Janet L. Napoles has been placed under Provisional Admission of WPP subject to [an] affidavit she submitted which is now undergoing assessment,” Mr. Aguirre said in a text message.

But he also qualified that, “as of the moment, physically she is not under WPP due to provisional status of admission.”

Sought for comment by reporters, DoJ Undersecretary Erickson H. Balmes said “[the] contents of her [Ms. Napoles’s] provisional admission [are] confidential.”

Ms. Napoles, who surrendered to then president Benigno S.C. Aquino III in 2013, is alleged to be the mastermind in the misuse of some P10 billion of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allotted to legislators. Three incumbent senators at the time were arrested soon after her detention, but two of them have since been released.

Ms. Napoles was acquitted last year by the Court of Appeals from charges of serious illegal detention of her second cousin, PDAF whistleblower Benhur Luy, but she remains detained in Camp Bagong Diwa in connection with the pork-barrel scam.

In response to this development, Senate President Aquilino Martin L. Pimentel III called it “unbelievably crazy.”

He added: “Do some people in the DOJ really believe that Janet Lim Napoles is qualified to be a state witness in the PDAF scam which she herself invented organized and perpetuated???”

For his part, Senator Panfilo M. Lacson said “the DoJ has no control whatsoever over her possible discharge as a state witness,” because the Office of the Ombudsman is handling Ms. Napoles’s cases in the Sandiganbayan.

He added: “Even if the DoJ is prosecuting, it is still the court that will decide whether or not a respondent may be dropped from the case and discharged as a witness.” — Dane Angelo M. Enerio, with Camille A. Aguinaldo