No Napoles in Malampaya Fund probe

MANILA, Philippines–The Senate blue ribbon committee isn’t inviting alleged pork barrel queen Janet Lim-Napoles to the opening of its inquiry into the alleged misuse of the Malampaya Fund during the Arroyo administration.

The committee is opening the investigation of the alleged misuse of P900 million from the fund, in which Napoles allegedly played a key role in collaboration with Malacañang, Monday morning.

“Not now,” Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, blue ribbon committee chair, said of his decision not to send an invitation to Napoles.

“In reality, do you expect her to talk? She might just invoke her right against self-incrimination,” he said.

Malacañang on Saturday welcomed the investigation into the alleged misuse of the Malampaya Fund.

“We hope that the investigation will provide a venue for the facts to be ferreted out. In any case, the [Department of Justice] has filed the charges [in] the Office of the Ombudsman,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

When she appeared before the committee during the inquiry into the P10-billion pork barrel scam last year, Napoles sidestepped questions by casually invoking her right against self-incrimination.

Napoles is now being tried along with Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr., and other former and current government officials in the Sandiganbayan on plunder and graft charges involving the embezzlement of P10 billion from the pork barrel Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) over the last 10 years.

For the first Malampaya hearing, the committee has invited only two resource persons, Commission on Audit (COA) Chair Grace Pulido-Tan and Assistant Audit Commissioner Susan Garcia.

Hoping to expose Ruby

“We start with the COA report to tell us how it happened, and how they used the Malampaya Fund. Basically, they channeled it through local government units (LGUs), and then LGUs to nongovernment organizations. They found out that the mayors’ signatures were fake,” Guingona said.

In short, the hearing will be “less sensational,” said Guingona, who presided over the committee’s inquiry into the pork scam that led to the filing of charges against Napoles, Enrile, Estrada and Revilla.

Estrada has been twitting the committee for being too slow in mounting the inquiry that he hopes will expose socialite Ruby Tuason, an erstwhile family friend who has linked him to the pork barrel scam.

Tuason testified before the committee that she delivered bags of pork barrel kickbacks to Estrada’s office in the Senate twice in 2008. Estrada denied Tuason’s claims.

Napoles claimed that Tuason convinced her to convert proceeds from the Malampaya gas project into campaign funds in 2010, and that Tuason pocketed much of the kickbacks.

DAR as conduit

It all began when Tuason showed her a list of government funds amounting to P25 billion from Malacañang, said Napoles, who worked with Tuason on projects involving the lawmakers’ pork barrel.

Napoles said Tuason told her about P900 million from the Malampaya Fund that would be coursed through the Department of Agrarian Reform, and handed her a special allotment release order (Saro) dated

Nov. 19, 2009.

The Department of Budget and Management cleared the release of P900 million from the Malampaya Fund in December 2009 for assistance to agrarian reform beneficiaries affected by Tropical Storms “Ondoy” (international name: Ketsana) and Tropical Depression “Pepeng” (Parma).

Prior to this, then Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman authorized the release of P300 million from Land Bank of the Philippines to 12 foundations controlled by Napoles, government documents showed.

Begun in 2002, the Malampaya project involves the extraction of natural gas from the waters off Palawan. The government collects royalties from the project.–With a report from Nikko Dizon

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