Sandigan wants Napoles to attend bail hearings at antigraft court

THE Sandiganbayan Third Division wants alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles to attend her bail hearings at the antigraft court even after she has been transferred to another jail following her conviction for illegally detaining whistleblower Benhur Luy.

In a press conference Wednesday, Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje Tang said she has asked the Supreme Court to allow Napoles to travel from the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong, where she serves her life sentence, to the court to attend her weekly bail hearings for her plunder case over the pork barrel scam.

The Third Division chaired by Tang has required Napoles to attend her weekly bail hearings.

Tang said under the Office of Court Administrator circular, only the Supreme Court can allow a convict to travel to any other place from the jail facility. This means until the Supreme Court allows Napoles to attend court hearings, the Sandiganbayan justices would be the ones going to the correctional facility to conduct the bail hearings.

“There is an imperative need for the court to secure approval. Only the Supreme Court can allow the transfer of a national prisoner from national penitentiary to any other place such as this court. In that circular, the Supreme Court says the court may grant such a request for practical reasons or where conduct of proceedings in the national penitentiary would be impractical,” Tang said.

Tang said conducting the proceedings in the correctional facility would be impractical and risky.

“There are voluminous documents… and it would be cumbersome to the court to bring all these every time we conduct hearings… There is always this serious concern for the security of the Justices from travelling every so often from the court to the correctional,” Tang said.

Napoles, the accused architect of the scheme of pillaging lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to ghost projects for kickbacks, has applied for bail before the antigraft court for plunder, a non-bailable offense.

The pork barrel scam case has resulted in the detention of Napoles, Senators Ramon Revilla Jr., Jinggoy Estrada, and Juan Ponce Enrile, and former representatives Edgar Valdez and Rizalina Seachon Lanete and their aides for allegedly conniving with each other to earn kickbacks.

Napoles was convicted to serve life sentence on the serious illegal detention case filed by Luy, her former entrusted finance officer who blew the lid off the alleged scam.

In August 2013, Luy accused Napoles, a cousin, and her brother of illegally detaining him at Bahay ni San Jose and at the South Garden Pacific Towers in Taguig City, a Catholic retreat house in Magallanes Village, Makati City, after they reportedly found out that Luy was having separate business transactions allegedly involving lawmakers’ PDAF. AC