Lawmakers tell Napoles: Speak up now, lighten your burden

Janet-Lim Napoles inside his cell in Fort Sto. Domingo CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/PNP/PIO

MANILA, Philippines — It’s about time that businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles speak up about allegations tagging her as the chief operator of the P10-billion pork barrel scam, to end speculations and to lighten her burden, according to lawmakers.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has backed Senate President Franklin Drilon’s decision to subpoena Napoles, who has been at the center of allegations that legislators’ pork barrel funds were channeled to private pockets via bogus projects and sham non-government organizations.

Belmonte said Napoles’ possible testimony could end speculations and debunk self-serving statements that some people have made in connection with the issue she had been embroiled in.

“We might as well hear Janet Napoles instead of people speculating, virtually claiming to be her spokesmen, and saying all sorts of thing to favor themselves. This is good. Let’s hear from Napoles,” he told reporters in an ambush interview.

Another lawmaker, Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate, said Napoles should choose to spill the beans instead of just clamming up or simply denying her involvement in anomalies, if only to ease some of the pressure off her.

Disclosing what she really knew would “lighten her burden,” even if such an act would implicate her in the scam, Zarate said, adding that her participation in the alleged scam of misusing public funds might just be a part of a whole scheme.

He cited earlier COA reports that only 10 of the 82 NGOs found linked to questionable transactions had something to do with Napoles.

But, at present, everything has been thrown at her, he noted.

“If she will keep silent, the people will think all the more that she is protecting someone. If she speaks up, even if she gets implicated, it will at least lighten her burden, whatever burden she has now,” he said in an interview.

Napoles has already been implicated in the alleged irregularities anyway, he added.

He said that in such a wide-ranging scandal, she would eventually be caught in her lies.

It has become a “damn if you do, damn if you don’t” situation for Napoles, whether she speaks up or not, according to Zarate.

If he were in her shoes, Zarate said he would speak up.

“It’s better if she does this now,” Speaker Belmonte, meanwhile, said.

Once she is arraigned for plunder over the pork barrel scam, Napoles, as a defendant, may exercise her right to remain silent so as not to incriminate herself, according to Belmonte.

The Speaker expressed confidence the Senate hearings on the pork barrel scam would be productive, as they have been on other controversies in the past.

He recalled cases were filed based on the pronouncements made by witnesses during Senate hearings.