The Twelfth Division of the Court of Appeals has acquitted Janet Lim Napoles of illegal detention.
The decision, penned by Associate Justice Normandie Pizarro and concurred in by Justices Samuel Gaerlan and Jhosep Lopez, said a Makati court erred in convicting Napoles of detaining her relative Benhur Luy because the evidence supporting Luy’s claim was grossly insufficient to sustain a conviction.
There was reasonable doubt, the court said, because Luy, who claimed he was detained at the Bahay ni San Jose retreat house in Magallanes Village, Makati, did not exhibit behavior consistent with somebody being held against his will.
According to the CA, Luy did not try to escape or tell anybody of his captivity, even as he was able to meet with his family three times during the period in question. His journal of his retreat contained spiritual reflections and no hint of a life in captivity. Finally, Luy even resisted rescue by the National Bureau of Investigation even if his brother was part of the supposed rescue team.
To be sure, the link between Luy’s supposed detention and his eventual role as whistleblower for Napoles’ other cases remains too much of a coincidence. But whatever the judgment on the illegal detention case, it’s a great consolation that Napoles is not walking free anytime soon.
She still faces plunder and malversation charges before the Sandiganbayan for her role in the pork barrel scandal—she is accused of setting up dummy non-government organizations through which numerous lawmakers channeled their Priority Development Assistance Fund.
For many months, the pork barrel scandal galvanized Filipinos. We were all aghast at the great lengths which some public officials took to siphon off people’s money.
Unfortunately, the strong public sentiment was used as a political tool such that affiliations rather than actual guilt or innocence became the basis of who were prosecuted and who were not.
It is apparent Napoles has a story to tell. It is the anti-graft court that must now pull her story apart and ensure nothing is left out, nothing is invented, and that all guilty parties must pay, whatever their political color.
Prosecutors must make the cases airtight. If they botch the plunder cases by failing to present sufficient evidence, public outrage is sure to follow.