Napoles to be state witness only in new PDAF scam cases —Aguirre

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II clarified Thursday that detained businesswoman Janet Napoles would be tapped as state witness only in possible criminal cases arising from her new revelations about the pork barrel scam.

In a radio interview, Aguirre said any testimony from Napoles would not be used in the pending plunder and graft cases against her and former lawmakers before the Sandiganbayan.

"Maaaring gamiting state witness ay doon lamang po sa mga bagong kaso ng PDAF [Priority Development Assistant Fund] scam na ipa-file sa amin. Hindi po kami makikialam sa mga pending cases ngayon sa Ombudsman at Sandiganbayan." 

Napoles is allegedly the mastermind of the multi-billion peso fund diversion scheme that involved the channeling of PDAF allocations of some lawmakers to the businesswoman's fake non-government organizations that implemented ghost projects.

Earlier, Napoles promised to divulge more names of government officials that supposedly benefited from the racket. This was after the Department of Justice announcement that it would look deeper into the corruption scandal.

Aguirre also defended his plan to consider turning Napoles into a state witness, an idea which Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales had rejected earlier. 

"Under the law, the DOJ is the only office that has the final say on who should be admitted under the Witness Protection Program (WPP)," he said in a text message to GMA News Online.  

"Even before the filing of any case, we could admit a witness under the WPP and the courts are duty-bound to accept it," he added.

Aguirre said Napoles had to submit an affidavit which will be evaluated by the DOJ to determine if she is qualified to become state witness.

He promised that the new investigation of the DOJ would be impartial, noting the previous probe under then-justice secretary and now Senator Leila De Lima had left out political allies of then-President Benigno Aquino III.

But, Ombudsman Morales earlier vowed to block any move to use Napoles as a state witness because the businesswoman is the most guilty  party in cases involving the pork barrel scam.

"As far as the prosecution is concerned, she is one of the principal alleged malefactors. So certainly the Office of the [Special] Prosecutor will block any attempt to make her a state witness," Morales said. —LBG, GMA News