Napoles gets new title: ‘Amnesia Queen’

She came, she spoke, she underwhelmed.

A defiant look, a perfunctory denial and consistent invocation of her right against self-incrimination were all it took for Janet Lim-Napoles to survive the much-awaited Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam she allegedly engineered.

Arriving under heavy guard and wearing a bulletproof vest, Napoles took the hot seat at the plenary hall at exactly 10:06 a.m. In the end, she proved to be a tough nut to crack, giving very little information, much to the frustration of senators and a national TV audience.

“Some of our countrymen are frustrated right now. I’m also frustrated,” said Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito.

Led by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, committee members questioned Napoles for six hours—from the sources of her wealth and the fake foundations she allegedly put up, to the millions in kickbacks she supposedly distributed to legislators and even the authenticity of her religiosity.

But Napoles dodged the questions each time, either saying “Hindi ko po alam (I don’t know)” or shifting the burden to her accusers (“Hindi ko po alam sa kanila.”).

Without batting an eyelash, she told the committee she believed she would be acquitted in the plunder case now pending in the Office of the Ombudsman.

“Yes,” she told Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, who posed the question, also denying she even had any “dealings” related to the graft-ridden Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

Assisted by three counsels from the Public Attorney’s Office, Napoles initially sought an executive session, a request that was promptly rejected. But asked by Sen. Bam Aquino if her answers would still be the same in a closed-door hearing, she replied they would be the same.

‘Many want to kill you’

If the questioning had any effect on her, it showed only when her blood sugar dropped and she requested a lunch break.

Napoles didn’t bend even when warned by Santiago that “many people want to kill you” and thus, she should consider turning state witness. She looked Santiago straight in the eye whenever the senator asked questions. In contrast, she hardly turned toward the direction of Benhur Luy and five other whistle-blowers seated across her.

“That person is watching us now. He’s not showing himself. That’s his style but he’s listening and he has a lot of money. After this, he will use his tentacles to destroy me, for instance, and then you,” Santiago told her.

“Tell the truth before the senators affected have you assassinated,” she added, also warning that Napoles could face 20 to 40 years in prison if convicted. “Tell it now because that will save you.”

“They haven’t invented a cream that will take away 20 years from your face, so that’s disastrous for a woman,” Santiago said in jest.

Besides Napoles, also charged with plunder in the Office of the Ombudsman were Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr.

‘Teach me to be rich’

Still unable to solicit any meaningful response, Santiago questioned how Napoles could afford to send her son to an international school in Manila and a daughter to a fashion school in the United States, where she stayed at a posh Ritz Carlton unit in Los Angeles.

“It’s clear that you started poor,” said Santiago who, like other senators, questioned the legitimacy of the sources of Napoles’ wealth.

When Napoles invoked her right against self-incrimination yet again, Santiago said her wealth started only when she put up her nongovernment organizations (NGOs).

“I’d like you to teach me so I can also become rich,” the senator said with sarcasm.

Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, the committee chair, set the tone of the hearing, recounting the accusations contained in the affidavits of the whistle-blowers for Napoles to answer one by one.

But Guingona’s questioning, which took up much of the morning session, appeared to be going nowhere, as Napoles’ expression remained stoic, denying the allegations with curt responses. Guingona sought reactions from her accusers, led by Benhur Luy, but Napoles held her noncommittal ground.

‘I feel for the senators’

Guingona sounded incredulous that Napoles denied instructing her former employees—“some of them were your relatives, even”—to put up bogus foundations, which were later allegedly used to channel the PDAF to legislators.

“How could you say that it’s not true?” the senator asked, to which Napoles, sounding a bit exasperated, replied in Filipino: “I don’t know, I don’t know what they want to say. Besides, they already filed a case against me in the Ombudsman.”

Luy said his cousin Napoles was “lying” when she denied running the allegedly pork barrel scheme that allowed legislators to pocket millions in PDAF.

Before he joined Napoles in 2002, Luy said there had been at least three NGOs involved in the alleged racket, as purportedly shown by financial records and a list of transactions at that time.

“I feel bad for those senators and congressmen whose names are being dragged [into the controversy] because it’s not true,” Napoles said in Filipino, triggering some heckling from the gallery.

Guingona ended the hearing at 4 p.m. but left the door open for Napoles’ reappearance at the Senate.

“I cannot say that we’re done,” he said.