BY ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS
JUSTICE Secretary Leila de Lima said she is still “vetting” the names of people in the list given to her by pork barrel queen Janet Napoles.
“You just have to trust me that I’m not gonna do that na isa-sanitize ko yung list. Pangako ko po yan sa taumbayan na hindi ko yan gagawin na isa-sanitize. Pangako ko rin sa taumbayan na gagawin ko yung mandato in a very responsible and prudent manner. Kaya kailangan munang magkaroon ng vetting,” De Lima was quoted to have said.
Malacañang supports De Lima’s non-disclosure of the Napoles list while she is still “vetting” the names in it.
Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr., head of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, said: “It will be irresponsible if the names are made public without being vetted. That is the essence of the appeal of Secretary de Lima, for her to be given time to vet the list.”
Online Free Dictionary defines verb “vet” as: “To investigate (someone) thoroughly to see if they should be approved or accepted for a job; to check (something) carefully to make sure it is acceptable.”
Okay. If her vetting revealed that some names in the list are not acceptable, what is she going to do? Will she remove the names from the list?
What’s her authority to tamper with Napoles’s list? If Napoles is lying with her list, expose her as a liar but De Lima should not tamper with it. Or else that list would no longer be that of the notorious pork barrel queen. It would then become a Napoles-De Lima list.
De Lima said the list containing the names of people who were beneficiaries of the Filipino people’s money Napoles stole by diverting some P10 billion for Priority Development Assistance Project to her and her cohorts’ pockets, was given to her personally by the pork barrel queen when she visited the latter at the Ospital ng Makati.
There’s another Napoles list and it’s with former senator now Rehabilitation Czar Panfilo “Ping” Lacson.
Here’s Lacson’s list:
Lacson said his list came from someone close to Jaime Napoles, a former Marines and husband of Janet.
Since the two lists (De Lima’s and Lacson’s) supposedly were prepared by one person – Janet Napoles, they should be similar.
But they are not, according to no less than the President of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino III.
Speaking to media in Burma, where he was attending the 24th ASEAN summit, Aquino said, “I think I have seen, iyong physically seen, I have seen two and they don’t agree with each other exactly…They supposed to have come from Mrs. Napoles.”
Aquino revealed something new in that Burma interview: he got the Napoles list before Lacson and De Lima got theirs. This belies earlier stories that when De Lima gave Aquino the list after she got it from Napoles, the President was shocked and deeply bothered.
Aquino said in Burma: “Iyong first one, I think, was transmitted to me, which I, in turn, gave to Secretary de Lima. At that point in time, she didn’t want to talk to Secretary de Lima. The second list naman with Secretary de Lima was when she asked to meet with Secretary de Lima when she had a change of heart.”
“Now, iyong list with Secretary Lacson, noong we were discussing Yolanda, so that was just a passing topic. Just parang give me a little highlight; and the highlight itself was not consistent already with the other two.”
Aquino said he heard that there’s a third Napoles list. Sandra Cam, president of the Whistleblowers Association, also has a Napoles list. She said it was given to her by a reliable source.
The common names in the three lists are that of the three senators charged by the Ombudsman with plunder: Juan Ponce-Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla.
Aquino admitted some of his allies are in the list.
“Merong alleged, maraming hindi. Pero alam ninyo kasi parang kapag sinabi kong may discrepancy, iyong number nagfa-fluctuate e. Iyong unang list na ipinadala sa akin X numbers sabihin natin, ano. Iyong next list na nakita ko, minus three. Tapos iyong binabanggit sa akin parang plus four. O di ba, parang, hindi merong ganun phrase: ‘Ano ba talaga ate?’ Hindi ba? Parang ganun,” the President said.
Ano nga ba talaga, Ate.