THE Department of Justice, following President Rodrigo Duterte’s order, will revisit the pork barrel scam cases and address the so-called “selective justice” the previous administration was accused of in handling the controversy.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II expressed Monday the opinion there was something fishy in the way the DOJ conducted the investigation during the time of his predecessor and now Senator Leila de Lima.
“What I know is that the DOJ then suppressed evidence against other politicians (involved in pork barrel scam),” Aguirre said in an interview.
Aguirre noted that critics of the Aquino administration accused then DOJ chief de Lima of being selective in its investigation and spared administration allies.
The DOJ secretary said he would talk to Janet Lim-Napoles, the jailed businesswoman tagged as architect of the anomaly involving the Priority Development Assistant Fund of lawmakers, to shed light on the matter.
“When Napoles first surfaced, she was brought to Malacañang and Mar (Roxas) accompanied her to Camp Crame. The question is why? They were obviously hiding something,” Aguirre noted.
According to him, he would ask Napoles to really divulge everything she knew about the multibillion-peso anomaly without being selective this time.
Aguirre said he believes that Napoles was fooled into cooperating with the previous administration when she did not benefit from her supposed “tell-all” affidavit and list personally submitted to de Lima.
“Why did she cover up for others when she knew they were all guilty. She won’t be able to get away with it anyway—unless the President grants her pardon,” he stressed.
“She could be a witness again, not necessarily a state witness. Anyway she will be in jail due to her conviction in another serious illegal detention case. The only benefit she could get is to just tell the truth,” he said.
According to Aguirre, the DOJ reinvestigation “is part of the President’s platform to rid the government of corruption.”
Aguirre also gave assurance that witnesses of the previous administration, including whistle blower Benhur Luy, would remain under the government’s witness protection program.
In the list she submitted to the DOJ in May 2014 for her bid for immunity from criminal suits in the PDAF scam, Napoles tagged nine senators in the PDAF scam: Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jinggoy Estrada, Juan Ponce Enrile, Vicente Sotto III, Loren Legarda, Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, Alan Peter Cayetano, Gringo Honasan and Francis Escudero.
However, only Revilla, Estrada and Enrile have since been charged with plunder by the Ombudsman office before the Sandiganbayan.
Former senator Manny Villar was also in the list where Napoles affixed her signature and two thumb marks.
Also in the list were Liberal Party members—former budget secretary and Batanes representative Florencio Abad and former Technical Education and Skills Development Authority head and now senator Joel Villanueva.
No charges were filed against Abad.
The list also included the names of 69 incumbent and former congressmen as well as those of alleged conduits for the implementing agencies like the Departments of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, National Livelihood Development Corp., Technology Resource Center and National Agribusiness Corp.