Senator Teofisto Guingona III issued a subpoena Tuesday to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, compelling her and whistleblowers to the Php10-billion pork barrel scam to appear before the senate.
Sen. Guingona heads the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, which is independently investigating the alleged misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), the formal name of pork barrel, by former and current lawmakers in a scam purportedly masterminded by Filipino businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles.
Sec. de Lima attended the hearing of the committee today without the whistleblowers.
She explained in a letter to Sen. Guingona that she is “inclined to reserve my consent to the appearance of all the whistle-blowers in the next scheduled hearing of the Committee, in deference to the primary role the Ombudsman now plays on the matter of publicizing the testimonies of the whistle-blowers in a public hearing after the complaints have already been filed with her office.”
She said that her review of the law in these cases gives precedence to the Ombudsman for presenting witnesses, so as to avoid publicity and creating prejudices for the case.
Sen. Guingona, for his part, accused the secretary of attempting “to undermine and diminish the power” of his committee.
“What you have done is unprecedented .I am very, very disappointed, and I do not agree with your stand,” he said.
He stressed that the committee has “the power to compel people to come to their legislative investigations.”
“So I am therefore issuing a subpoena for you, directed to you, to have the whistleblowers appear before the Blue Ribbon Committee on Thursday at 10 o’clock in the morning,” he told Sec. de Lima.
Senate President Franklin Drilon had earlier sought advice from Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales as to whether the senate can compel Napoles to appear before the committee.
In a letter to the senate president dated September 23, the Ombudsman advised against the subpoena issued to Napoles, citing her office’s own rules.
“It cannot be gainsaid that the publicity that may be spawned by the testimony of Ms. Napoles, would among other things, adversely affect public interest, prejudice the safety of witnesses or the disposition of cases against her and/or her co-respondents pending before this office, or unduly expose them to ridicule or public censure.” she said in the letter.
Sen. Drilon defered the matter to the Ombudsman, saying, “Out of prudence and out of respect for her office, we must defer to the judgment of the Ombudsman as she has acquired primary jurisdiction over the case.”
Sen. Guingona said he is disappointed with the difference of treatment between whistleblowers and Napoles, and sees no logical sense that the senate president signs the subpoena for the former but defers the latter.
“If we accept the invocation of the Ombudsman’s power to protect the confidentiality of matters before it, then the Senate President should not have signed the subpoena for the whistleblowers,” he said.
The committee is investigating the misuse of PDAF in bogus organizations headed by Napoles that were funded by lawmakers, including three incumbent senators.
(with reports from The Manila Bulletin, The Philippine Inquirer, and The Philippine Star)