{"id":101554,"date":"2017-05-09T05:57:27","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T09:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=101554"},"modified":"2017-05-09T05:57:27","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T09:57:27","slug":"clergy-napoles-acquittal-only-adds-to-peoples-mistrust-in-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/05\/09\/clergy-napoles-acquittal-only-adds-to-peoples-mistrust-in-courts\/","title":{"rendered":"Clergy: Napoles’ acquittal only adds to people’s mistrust in courts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Members<\/a>
Members of the clergy said the Court of Appeals\u2019 (CA) decision to acquit Janet Lim Napoles, the alleged brains behind the PHP10-billion priority development assistance fund scam, only fuels suspicion that PDAF money talks. (PNA photo<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u2014Members of the clergy said the Court of Appeals\u2019 (CA) decision to acquit Janet Lim Napoles, the alleged brains behind the PHP10-billion priority development assistance fund scam, only fuels suspicion that PDAF money talks.<\/p>\n

“Also, it just adds to the mistrust of our people in our courts, (that) only the poor, the unknown and has no connection are convicted,” said Bataan Bishop Ruperto Santos.<\/p>\n

“We are waiting to see the moneyed and those in higher ups to be convicted by courts.”<\/p>\n

For his part, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-Public Affairs Committee (CBCP-PAC) executive secretary, Fr. Jerome Secillano, expressed hope that the CA decision would not affect Napoles’ other cases.<\/p>\n

“Let’s just hope that the acquittal would not have an impact on her other cases. If it does, then it is going to be the \u2018mother of all injustices\u2019,” Secillano said.<\/p>\n

“With all the bogus foundations she put up, I guess those are overwhelming indications not only of an intent to steal from government coffers but of thievery itself with the connivance of some unscrupulous politicians.”<\/p>\n

On Monday, the appellate court reversed the decision of a Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) against Napoles in the criminal case filed by Benhur Luy, who had accused her of locking him up inside a subdivision in Makati City to prevent him from exposing the PDAF racket.<\/p>\n

In 2015, the Makati RTC sentenced the alleged PDAF scam mastermind up to 40 years in prison for illegally detaining her cousin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u2014Members of the clergy said the Court of Appeals\u2019 (CA) decision to acquit Janet Lim Napoles, the alleged brains behind …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":101555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95],"tags":[11083,3675,1494],"class_list":["post-101554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-catholic-bishops-conference-of-the-philippines","tag-court-of-appeals","tag-janet-lim-napoles","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}