Justice Secretary Leila De Lima. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Justice Secretary Leila De Lima on Tuesday branded as illogical the proposed legislation in the House of Representatives seeking the removal of the Witness Protection Program (WPP) from the control of the justice department to ensure that it is insulated from “corrosive politics.”
De Lima told reporters that the witness protection is an “essential and indispensable ingredient in the prosecution of criminal offenders.”
“Prosecution is indubitably an executive function. It’s therefore quite illogical and unwarranted to divest the executive, thru the DOJ of the powers and prerogatives relating to WPP,” she said.
House Bill 4583 filed by Deputy Speaker Sergio Apostol seeks to amend Republic Act 6981 or the Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act by transferring the administration of the WPP from the DOJ to the local courts to insulate it from politics.
De Lima said Apostol made such a “sweeping and reckless accusation.”
“I’m afraid that the author of that bill has started off from a wrong premise, that WPP or the determination of who can be WPP-covered is tainted by partisan politics. That certainly is a sweeping and reckless accusation and lest everyone forgets, there are hundreds of WPP-covered witnesses spread all over the country at any given time and in various criminal cases,” de Lima said.
The DOJ chief explained that witnesses are admitted in the program based on a set of standards and their testimonies are carefully vetted and evaluated by state prosecutors to ensure that politics never intruded into the program.
She stressed that as WPP implementor, the DOJ is aware of the need to insulate the program from politics and maintain the highest degree of professionalism in their work of administrating it.
“The DOJ admits witnesses into the WPP on the basis of clear standards, foremost of which are security threats and the necessity of the testimony of the subject witness, with due assessment of both factors by highly professional DOJ officials, who are mostly prosecutors. As in the fulfillment of DOJ’s overall mandate, politics is never a consideration in our administration of the WPP,” she said.
“As WPP implementors, we are ever conscious of the sensitive nature and crucial importance of WPP. Hence, we fulfill our WPP-related tasks with utmost diligence, objectivity and professionalism,” de Lima added.
Under RA 6981, the Secretary of Justice is the final arbiter concerning the program’s implementation.
But Apostol claimed that the justice department may not be in the best position to administer the program especially since it is under the Executive department.
“When cases that the DOJ is prosecuting conflict with the interests of the Executive department and its officials, the implementation of the WPP will be detrimentally affected, and any applications that risks undermining the government will be likely rejected,” the lawmaker said adding that it is best that the local courts should administer the program instead of the DOJ.
The DOJ was earlier criticized after it gave “provisional” witness status to former Technology Resource Center chief Dennis Cunanan who testified in the Senate probe on the P10-billion Priority Development Assistance Fund scam.
Cunanan has denied receiving any kickbacks from the multi-billion peso scam but this was debunked by main whistleblower Benhur Luy who said he received P960, 000 in alleged kickbacks.
Another witness who was initially given the same status was socialite Ruby Tuason who was eventually declared a state witness by the Office of the Ombudsman after she promised to returned P40 million in alleged kickbacks she earned from the pork barrel scam along with her testimony.
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