Napoles to name investigation bureau agent in 300mn pesos extortion attempt

By Ritchie A Horario & Jomar Canlas/Manila TimesJanet Lim-Napoles will name the agent of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) who reportedly offered to clear all the cases filed against her for P300mn, according to Napoles’ lawyer Lorna Kapunan.It was Kapunan who revealed that her client was approached by the agent who told her that her problems “would go away” if she came up with the money.The NBI is trying to determine if Napoles is involved in the alleged misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of some lawmakers.Napoles is detained on serious illegal detention charges filed by her former employee Bernard Luy.Kapunan refused to name the NBI agent but said Napoles has evidence to back her claim.“I will not name (the agent) now,” Kapunan said in an interview over ANC.She said Napoles recorded the extortion attempt on her mobile phone. Napoles has also claimed that Luy will drop the charges he had filed, if she paid him P300mn.Meanwhile, a former mayor of Boac, Marinduque, has asked the Supreme Court to declare the PDAF unconstitutional.In his seven-page petition, Pedrito Nepomuceno called on the court to issue a cease and desist order to President Benigno Aquino, as well as to the Department of Budget and Congress, to stop them from releasing PDAF allocations.Nepomuceno wanted the PDAF released to local government units (LGUs) instead.He said PDAF “has been proven to be counter-productive as projects are identified by legislators who are not familiar and knowledgeable with the situation in the LGUs, especially in congressional districts whose governors do not belong to the same political party as the congressman or senator.”Nepomuceno, also a former board member of Marinduque, said the  “PDAF has become the most abused and misused of all available funds in our government so that we may call it now as the ‘Mother of all Corruption’.”He said PDAF, instead of being a development tool, has become a tool that divides the people.Nepomuceno is the third petitioner to ask the Supreme Court to order the abolition of the PDAF system. Samson Alcantara of the Social Justice Society and Greco Belgica have filed similar petitions.The Supreme Court last year ruled that PDAF is constitutional.Alcantara, who ran but lost in the senatorial election in May, named Speaker Feliciano Belmonte and Senate president Franklin Drilon as respondents in his petition.“The pork barrel system allows the perversion by Congress of the constitutional power of taxation by providing opportunities for the members thereof to gorge themselves on funds collected pursuant to tax legislation they have enacted purportedly for the public good,” he said in his petition.He said the system “renders useless the constitutional principle of separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches” because the executive can end up “controlling” lawmakers by allowing or withholding the release of the PDAF.