Lack of cooperation in DAP probe hit

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) are digging deeper into the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) funds accessed by fake nongovernment organizations controlled by alleged pork scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles.

They will be using main whistle-blower Benhur Luy’s digital files as their starting point.

“We are looking into the DAP funds accessed by Janet Lim-Napoles from 2011 to 2012. Benhur will be our main witness and the same government agencies are also involved. I just can’t recall how much is involved,” said DOJ Undersecretary Jose Justiniano in an interview.

But this early, Justiniano is complaining about the refusal of government agencies to cooperate with the DAP investigation.

“Our biggest problem is that other agencies are not very cooperative. We are asking for official copies of Saros (special allotment release orders), memorandums of agreement and vouchers, but so far, we are having a hard time getting them,” lamented Justiniano.

According to Justiniano, for the past few months, the DOJ-NBI probers had been requesting supporting documents from government agencies to flesh out the daily transaction records in Luy’s hard drive.

“I’m thinking of issuing a subpoena for these documents, but it won’t look good,” he said.

Justiniano explained that the DOJ-NBI’s simultaneous investigation of the pork barrel, Malampaya and DAP fund scams, which are making use of information from Luy’s hard drive, was the main reason the prosecution has refused to provide a copy of Luy’s files to the lawyers of Napoles and one of her coaccused in the P10-billion pork scam plunder case, Sen. Bong Revilla.

At last Thursday’s bail hearing in the Sandiganbayan’s First Division, Revilla’s lawyer, Joel Bodegon, said the prosecution lawyers should be cited for contempt, claiming that Luy and the prosecutors had earlier agreed to give the defense team a complete copy of the files.

“I do not think the prosecution can put limitations on the evidence,” Bodegon said.

Justice Raphael Lagos joined the defense in questioning why the prosecution was reluctant to submit Luy’s entire hard drive and asked if this was being made upon Luy’s request. Lead prosecutor Joefferson Turibio said that the hard drive contained personal files of Luy that were not relevant to the case.

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