Napoles as state witness a mockery of justice – Leni

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) move to make alleged multi-billion peso pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles a government witness is a mockery of the justice system, Vice President Leni Robredo said Sunday.

Napoles is now under the provisional coverage of the government’s Witness Protection Program.

“She is the architect in making the fake NGOs to funnel in huge amounts of taxpayers’ money. Then now she will turn into a state witness, what is the implication of that?” Robredo said in Filipino in Baguio City.

Robredo, a lawyer, was appalled at the DOJ’s decision to place Napoles under the WPP since the person who can be a state witness, according her, should be the least guilty.

The Vice President pointed out that Napoles made a mockery of Philippine laws.

Napoles was put under WPP on February 27, 2018 by DOJ, which only disclosed the move on Friday.

Napoles is facing multiple charges before the Sandiganbayan including plunder and graft in connection with her involvement in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam.

Robredo is concerned that the justice department is slowly eroding the public’s trust in the institution for its decision to put Napoles under WPP.

“We just came from a blow when Peter Lim and [Kerwin] Espinosa were exonerated, then this came next. It looks like it wants to tell the people we should not trust our own justice system,” she said.