Janet Lim-Napoles will probably make it to the Guinness Book of records as the world’s wealthiest laundry woman.
For laundering ill-gotten money from the Philippines to the United States, pork barrel scam queen Janet Lim-Napoles has been indicted by a US court. Napoles, children Jo Christine, James Christopher, Jeane Catherine together with brother Reynaldo Lim and his wife Anna Marie could face extradition to the US for attempting to commit a conspiracy of money laundering which is a serious offense under US laws.
A US federal court said the respondents used money from the Philippines to purchase real estate property, expensive cars, shares in businesses and transferring the rest of the money in other accounts to hide huge amounts of dollars remitted to US banks. The money was sourced from the government’s Priority Development Assistance Fund.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevara said his department has been working with US authorities and will continue to cooperate with their US counterparts in the extradition process once the case against Napoles has been resolved. Napoles is presently held at the Bagong Diwa, Taguig detention center pending the trial of her case. Her petition to turn state witness has been denied by the court.
The fate of Janet Lim-Napoles should be a lesson to those whose appetite for money knows no bounds. While it’s a virtue to take care of relatives by spreading money around, you could also be putting them at legal risk.
Napoles’ daughter Jeane Christine though did her mother in by posing and posting on Facebook a photo of herself inside her Porsche car and saying that “I had just bought out everything on Rodeo Drive.” The place is famous for its expensive strip of stores in Los Angeles. She probably didn’t realize how expensive that Facebook posting was going to cost her mother and herself. The whole Napoles family faces jail time if convicted in the US.
In another celebrated case involving another woman named Janet, a 12th complaint was filed against former Health secretary Janette Garin, executives of Sanofi Inc., the French manufacturer of the lethal anti-dengue vaccine Dengvaxia, and its Philippine distributor Zuellig Pharma Inc.
The complaint alleged that respondents failed to inform the Department of Health, the parents of the children who died after taking the inoculation shots that the vaccine had dangerous side effects.
‘Con us’
House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said she is open to separate voting by the House and the Senate on the issue of Charter change.
“It is better to move forward and achieve something than be stubborn and do nothing,” said the House Speaker. It was the insistence of former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on joint voting by the upper and lower chambers that stalemated the issue of changing the 1987 Constitution. Another contentious issue was Alvarez’s proposal to convene Congress into a Constituent Assembly.
ConAss is opposed by the citizenry who suspect the congressmen are only pushing for selfish interests including shelving next year’s midterm elections. If the polls are postponed or scrapped, incumbent officials will automatically extend their term sparing them from spending campaign money. This would also deprive voters the opportunity to replace corrupt and non-performing legislators.
The Senate is against joint voting because the votes of 292 congressmen would overwhelm the votes of the 24 senators. But of course. The people must oppose ConAss, joint voting and the scrapping of the 2019 elections. They must let the congressmen know that the taxpayers won’t allow being conned by public officials at the expense of voters.
We hope GMA does not let House members who installed her as Speaker convene themselves into a Constituent Assembly. That would be a betrayal of public trust and a blot to her name.
Meanwhile in a related development, President Duterte said his daughter Davao Mayor Sara Duterte is not running for Congress in next year’s polls. But then even dad Digong knows Inday Sara has her own mind and she might still seek a House seat. There is, after all, a bigger game than just being Davao mayor. Her own father proved this by ascending to the presidency—the first mayor and local official to do so.