THE camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay on Monday slammed Justice Secretary Leila de Lima for allegedly giving priority to the internal affairs of the Iglesia Ni Cristo instead of getting back the people’s money allegedly stolen by Janet Lim-Napoles and the officials involved in the Priority Development Assistance Fund scam.
Binay spokesman Rico Quicho also took a swipe at Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II for addressing Napoles as “Ma’am Janet” when he and the Palace communications group escorted her to the Makati City jail two years ago.
He also questioned the Justice Department’s apparent unusual interest in the internal problems of the INC instead of giving priority to going after people who had been involved in siphoning off billions of pesos from the National Treasury and the case of the brutal slaying of 44 police commandos in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
He also criticized De Lima’s earlier statement that the third batch of PDAF cases filed recently were the “final” batch when her department had investigated only those allegedly involved with fund misuse through the non-government organization of Napoles, the alleged mastermind of the PDAF scam.
Quicho said that while De Lima had said her department’s work was done with the filing of the third batch of PDAF cases, she had ordered a probe into the alleged abduction of INC ministers and relatives of INC head Eduardo V. Manalo.
“The Napoles’ alleged network is only one of 80-plus NGOs which were identified as involved in the misuse of the P10-billion PDAF. But the DOJ stopped the investigation. Why?” Quicho said.
De Lima told media there are “urgent” cases she had to personally attend to.”
“What could be more urgent than filing the cases to get back the funds allegedly stolen and put the perpetrators in jail? Those billions of pesos can be used for development projects to prop up the economy. Remember the economic growth was pegged at only 5.6 percent in the second quarter of this year,” Quicho said.
“What could be more urgent than hauling to jail those involved the killing of the SAF 44?”