Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Justice Secretary Leila De Lima on Friday warned that the Napoles list she gave the Senate which was released to the public Thursday “does not represent the truth per se.”
De Lima said she hoped that those who saw the list would take it simply as “a list of names.”
She explained that the inclusion of the other names cannot even be characterized as true or false at this point “because we don’t exactly know what Mrs. Napoles is accusing them of.”
“It would take further investigation and painstaking collection of evidence-as what was done before complaints were filed before the Office of the Ombudsman-before we arrive at the truth,” De Lima said in a statement Friday.
“But as I have said before, the truth can be revealed in unexpected ways and even from unexpected sources. It is our job in the DOJ to ferret it out, even if we have to wade through rivers of lies and scale seemingly impenetrable walls of silence,” she added.
On Thursday, De Lima went to the Senate to personally deliver her letter asking for a one week extension to submit the complete affidavit of Napoles who, she said is still in the process of talking to her lawyers in completing the affidavit and supporting documents.
The DOJ made the request believing that another week is not an unreasonably long period of time. The Senate, however, granted De Lima’s request with respect to the affidavit only, and insisted that the list should be turned over to them.
Despite De Lima’s appeal for it to be prudent when dealing with the document she had just submitted, Senate still made the list public.
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