Senator Sergio Osmeña III. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—The Napoles list should be made public at the same time when the businesswoman testifies in the Senate to leave little room for speculation, Senator Sergio Osmeña said Tuesday.
“Instead of waving that list out there in the public, I would want to have it disclosed at the same time that we call [Janet] Napoles here, so she can right away validate which names are which,” Osmeña said in an ambush interview.
“That will leave less room on speculating on innocent people,” he said.
The Blue Ribbon Committee on Monday issued a subpoena to Justice Secretary Leila De Lima for her to submit the affidavit of Napoles that listed all the government officials who were involved in the pork barrel scam.
Osmeña said he agreed that the list in the custody of De Lima is the only one that matters because it has been signed and sworn to by Napoles.
“That’s the one attested and signed; that’s the valid one. Anybody else’s list is not sworn to,” he said. “If I want to invent a list I can write one now.”
“Evidence is evidence and first you must have personal knowledge. It has to come from Napoles herself and it can be verified by people like whistleblower Benhur Luy and Ruby Tuazon,” Osmeña said.
He however did not discount the other list that is in the hands of former Senator Panfilo Lacson, saying that they will have to ask Napoles to look at Lacon’s list.
“We want to take a look at [the Lacson list] to see if it bears much, little, or no resemblance to Napoles list,” Osmeña said.
“When we ask Napoles to testify, we will also show her the Lacson list and say ‘there are some names here that are not in the other list so which is which?’ and let her clarify,” he said.
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