Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — An administration lawmaker cautioned Justice Secretary Leila de Lima against exonerating Technical Education and Skills Development Authority chief Joel Villanueva and other government officials implicated in the pork barrel scam just because they claimed their signatures were forged.
“I don’t think that any of the accused can be excluded from prosecution simply on the basis of the claim that their signatures were forged,” said Akbayan Representative Walden Bello, whose party-list group belongs to the majority bloc in Congress.
Bello said “the authenticity of the signatures must be left to the judicial process to determine and the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) opinions must be entered at that stage, not in the pre-trial process. This rule should hold for everybody.”
De Lima hinted on Monday that Villanueva, the son of Jesus is Lord Church founder Eddie Villanueva, might not be included in the third batch of former and incumbent lawmakers linked to the pork barrel scam, allegedly masterminded by Janet Lim-Napoles.
The NBI has delayed the filing of charges against Villanueva so it can take a second look at the evidence against him.
De Lima claimed that a unit of the NBI had found that most of the documents in the case of the former representative of the party-list Citizen’s Battle Against Corruption bore signatures that were not his.
Navotas Representative Tobias Tiangco, spokesperson of the United Nationalist Alliance, said De Lima’s recent declaration showed the government’s bias for its allies in the pork barrel case.
Tiangco pointed out that Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada and Bong Revilla had also claimed that their signatures were forged but the NBI and the Department of Justice still proceeded with the filing of cases against the senators.
“When Napoles and (whistle-blower) Merlina Suñas spoke against the three senators, they were branded as credible by the DOJ-NBI. But when they named (Budget Secretary Florencio) Abad, what the DOJ-NBI stated came back to them,” said Tiangco. “It’s either yellow is above the law or they have a yellow vaccine, which makes them (administration allies) immune to corruption charges.”
Bello shared a similar observation. “Action with respect to Mr. Abad and Mr. (Proceso) Alcala (the agriculture secretary) should be based on the principle of probable cause given the DOJ’s and Ombudsman’s assessment of the evidence. This should hold for everybody,” the Akbayan lawmaker said.
“It is important that the administration must be seen as being impartial and must not be seen as favoring administration allies,” said Bello.
He said the government’s anti-corruption drive would be adversely affected if the public perceived the government as prejudiced in the pork barrel scam.
Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate said the public would not get an impartial and complete resolution of the pork scam “if the DOJ applies different standards for each group of respondents—one for the pork allies and a different one for the non-allies.”
Zarate said that instead of “dillydallying and prematurely absolving some respondents, it would be well for the DOJ to hasten its investigation and charge and make accountable all who are involved.”
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