Napoles wants 'Napolist' excluded from Ombudsman evidence

MANILA, Philippines — Citing her right against self-incrimination, businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles has moved for the exclusion of her sworn statements on the pork barrel scam as evidence of the Office of the Ombudsman in her plunder case.

In her six-page motion filed before the Sandiganbayan First Division, Napoles, through her legal counsels, said the ombudsman's prosecution team must not be allowed to use against her own testimonies on the multibillion-peso fund anomaly.

Napoles, the alleged mastermind of the scam, was specifically protesting the prosecution's inclusion in its list of documentary evidence her two sworn affidavits executed on May 12 and May 26, 2014.

Napoles said the prosecution must also not be allowed to present a witness from the Senate that would testify on the existence and authenticity of her affidavits.

The First Division is set to start hearing on Thursday the plunder case against Napoles and the primary accused, former senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr.

In her motion, Napoles' camp pointed out that she executed the affidavits in the hope of being accepted in the Witness Protection Program (WPP) of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

It can be remembered that the DOJ under its then secretary now incumbent senator Leila de Lima, denied Napoles' application for WPP, saying that she is among the most guilty in the scam.

Napoles pointed out that under Section 11 of Republic Act 6981 or the Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act, if the application for WPP is denied, “sworn statement and any other testimony given in support of said application shall not be admissible in evidence except for impeachment purposes.”

Napoles said that under Section 7 of the same law, no documents submitted by an applicant of the WPP shall be released except upon written order from the DOJ or the proper courts.

Napoles also cited Section 17 Article 3 of the Constitution which states that “no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.”

“The right against self-incrimination prohibits the government from compelling any person to give testimonial evidence that would incriminate him or her during a present or subsequent criminal case...the affidavits contain statements and narration of facts that will incriminate the herein accused in the present case,” Napoles' motion read.

Napoles' camp further pointed out that the sworn statements were given only to the DOJ, particularly to its then Justice Secretary De Lima thus, “the authenticity of any copies of sworn statements executed by herein Accused produced by any other agency aside from DOJ is doubtful.”

Napoles' sworn affidavits include the list of names of about 20 former and incumbent lawmakers with whom she allegedly had transactions with concerning their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel. The list was later dubbed by the media as the “Napolist”.

Previous media reports as well as the investigations conducted by the Commission on Audit and the Office of the Ombudsman show that several lawmakers allocated millions of pesos of their PDAF to fake non-government organizations allegedly put up by Napoles in exchange for hefty kickbacks.

The lawmakers in an alleged conspiracy with Napoles and her former employees supposedly made it appear that their PDAF allocations were for the implementation of various livelihood and agricultural projects in their districts.

The COA and the Ombudsman later found out that most of these projects were “ghost” or non-existent.