UNA secretary general Toby Tiangco FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The independent minority bloc in the House of Representatives urged Justice Secretary Leila De Lima to release Janet Lim-Napoles’ list of pork barrel scam beneficiaries.
“De Lima has no right to withhold the contents of the list… Among others, she is not the lawyer of Napoles,” the independent minority said in a statement on Monday.
The bloc said they would issue a subpoena for De Lima and Napoles to attend a House committee hearing or to a House question hour for them to release the list.
The independent bloc made the statement just after a separate minority group also urged De Lima to release the list. Navotas Representative and United Nationalist Alliance Secretary General Toby Tiangco has also filed a resolution calling such.
The independent bloc urged the House leadership to call for a caucus and to “spearhead efforts on how to handle the reputation crisis which has plagued the House by the non-disclosure of names.”
“We in the bloc can no longer take the cloud of suspicion which continues to hang over the heads of all members of the House…” the bloc said.
“The damage (De Lima) has inflicted upon the integrity and sanctity of the House must be stopped now,” they added.
The bloc also said lawmakers must be given the “presumption of innocence and the chance to defend his or her reputation.”
“In the same breadth, those who are not on the list must be cleared and spared from further doubts by their constituents and the people on their integrity,” they said.
The pork barrel scam is an elaborate scheme of diverting the now defunct Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) to the bogus organizations of Napoles for kickbacks among the businesswoman, lawmakers and other government officials.
At the House, among those accused of involvement in the scam were former members-incumbent Masbate Governor and former Masbate Rep. Rizalina Seachon-Lanete, former APEC Rep. Edgar Valdez, former Agusan Del Sur Rep. Rodolfo Plaza, former Benguet Rep. Samuel Dangwa, and former Cagayan de Oro Rep. Constantino Jaraula.
While the Office of the Ombudsman has found probable cause to file plunder and graft charges against the senators in the scam, it has yet to release its resolution on the former House members.