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<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-7/napolis.webp" alt="Janet Lim Napoles" />
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(Janet Lim Napoles)
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During the term of the previous regime, the affidavit of Napoles was subjected to several revisions and which then Department of Justice secretary Leila de Lima exposed piecemeal, resulting to several batches of charges throughout the six years of Benigno Aquino III's reign.


The political targets were prioritized in the first batch through the filing of plunder against then opposition senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla, which was swift, while the allies got the preferential foot-dragging from De Lima.


The Napolist enumerated a cross-section of the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives who abused their PDAF allocations.

Based on the 2013 Commission on Audit (CoA) Special Report on the PDAF, Napoles cornered P6 billion of the total amount of the scam, while several other bogus non-government organizations (NGO) that were not part of the “operation” of Napoles were conduits for the rest of the amount.


One of the named NGO was the Citizens Battle Against Corruption (CIBAC) partylist of now Sen. Joel Villanueva.


Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales only acted to penalize Villanueva in 2016, months after President Rodrigo Duterte took over the reins of government, as he made clear that he would work for the undoing of the misdeeds of the disciples of selective justice that included Morales.


Villanueva was ordered dismissed from government service by the Office of the Ombudsman in November 2016. However, the Senate refused to implement it, citing the Ombudsman lacked jurisdiction over members of Congress.



The Office of the Ombudsman, however, insisted that it retained authority over Villanueva, since he was Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) chief when the fund diversions happened.


Legal experts criticized then Justice secretary De Lima for being timid to prosecute allies and was quick to employ the entire government apparatus against political opponents.


The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) even issued a statement calling the attention of De Lima on the delay in the filing of PDAF cases where several administration allies, then Tesda director general Joel Villanueva, who is now senator, Centrist Party Rep. Rufus B. Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro and former Lakas Rep. Rachel Arenas of Pangasinan, were implicated.


San Beda College of Law Graduate School dean Fr. Ranhilio Aquino also posed a question to De Lima: “Why were some hurriedly prosecuted and why does it take so long to conclude investigations against the President's allies? Has any high-profile ally like (former Budget Secretary Florencio) Abad been prosecuted?”


Abad was included in the supposed tell-all testimony of Napoles.


Napoles even referred to Abad as her mentor in the multibillion-peso racket.


The PDAF anomaly was considered the worst blackeye in the reputation of Congress yet, until now, seven years after, many of those involved have not been made to account and even got reelected.




Sources: 

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Time to bare Napolist, The Daily Tribule Commentary, July 13, 2020 <a href="https://tribune.net.ph/" class="news_link" target="_blank" title="Source">The Daily Tribune</a>
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7 years have passed, Napoles PDAF scam full list of names involved is yet to be made public