Lawyers to visit Pacific Plaza to view Luy’s alleged rescue

MANILA, Philippines - A Makati City regional trial court judge hearing the bail petition of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles is allowing defense and prosecution lawyers to visit the Pacific Plaza Tower condominium in Bonifacio Global City to view the original CCTV footage of the reported rescue of Benhur Luy by operatives of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in May last year.

Judge Elmo Alameda of Makati RTC Branch 150 said the visit may be scheduled after the defense’s presentation of witnesses on Nov. 21. It was Luy, a former employee of Napoles, who squealed on her alleged anomalous transactions with some lawmakers involving the latter’s pork barrel, officially called Priority Development Assistance Fund. Napoles is detained at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City for serious illegal detention. She is also on trial before the Sandiganbayan for plunder and malversation.

Defense lawyer Bruce Rivera told the court yesterday that they could not retrieve and present the original copy of the CCTV because the security system of the building was “too big.”

The prosecution earlier objected to the presentation of a “third generation” copy of the CCTV by defense lawyers.

Rivera said that upon request of the camp of Napoles, security personnel of the condominium copied a portion of the CCTV recording and saved it in a flash drive.

But the prosecution said the original CCTV footage was automatically deleted three months after the recording.

Assistant State Prosecutor Maria Elvera Herrerra told The STAR after the hearing that although they have nothing against visiting the Pacific Plaza to view the original footage, they would block any effort by Napoles’ lawyers to present only a duplicate copy of the CCTV recording in future court hearings.

The prosecution yesterday ended its cross examination of defense witness Abelardo Gernabe, a secretary of Monsignor Josefino Ramirez who admitted that Napoles had donated money to his church.

Under cross-examination, the witness said Napoles gave P2 million to Ramirez as donation.

Gernabe, however, clarified that the money was turned over to Caritas in Mindanao to fund charity works of the Church.

The witness also admitted that he was one of the signatories to a joint affidavit attesting that Luy was not kidnapped.

However, he admitted that only one paragraph of the affidavit was his statement and that the rest was dictated to him.