Huffington Post, international press, fall for hoax Jeane Napoles bathtub pic

MANILA, Philippines - When they ran out of floor space in the bedroom, she said, “we would place it in the bathtub.” Remember that statement made by government witness Gertrudes Luy? She recalled to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee in a recent hearing how employees of JLN Corp., the firm owned by alleged pork barrel queen Janet Lim-Napoles, how they would stash huge sums of money in their boss’s residence at a posh Bonifacio Global City residential tower.

The elder Luy, mother of chief whistleblower Benhur Luy, earlier also gave affidavits to the National Bureau of Investigation team looking into the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

While an earlier video posted by Napoles' daughter Jeane showing off her luxurious surroundings and possessions had already enraged social media weeks before her mother surrendered and was charged, the statement given at the Senate hearing about "bathtubs filled with cash" alone was enough to make people’s imagination run wild.

Apparently, even veterans in the news business were so obsessed with the imagery that even two international websites uploaded a photo of a woman bathing in money. The woman was identified as the controversial young socialite Jeane Lim-Napoles.

U.S.-based online news aggregator Huffington Post, and Australia-based
news website news.com.au ran the story about the young Napoles, but the girl in the photo was not Jeane at all.

The whereabouts of the young woman remain unclear, even though a luxury apartment in LA in her name was placed on the market over a week ago. Last week, the Bureau of Internal Revenue weighed in and filed a case accusing her of evading taxes.

source: interaksyon.com

Security plans all set for Napoles arraignment on Monday - PNP

MANILA - Security measures are adequate in the high-risk mission of transporting to and from Fort Sto. Domingo in Laguna the alleged “pork-barrel queen,” Janet Lim-Napoles, for her arraignment Monday in a Makati City court, the Philippine National Police said on Sunday.

Napoles' arraignment on serious illegal detention charges filed by pork barrel scam whistleblower Benhur Luy will proceed after the Makati court threw out Napoles' motion to defer arraignment pending action on her petition for certiorari at the Court of Appeals.

Superintendent Wilben Mayor, PNP spokesman, said Sunday: “Units of the SAF (Special Action Force) in coordination [with] and support from NCRPO (National Capital Regional Police Office), HPG (Highway Patrol Group) and PRO4A (Police Regional Office 4-A) are tasked to provide security.”

Napoles, currently detained at a bungalow at the anti-terrorism police training camp in Fort Sto. Domingo in Sta. Rosa City, will be transported to the sala of Judge Elmo Alameda at Branch 150 of the Makati RTC, where she will be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Monday. She will return to Laguna after that.

Benhur Luy, Napoles’ cousin and former bookkeeper of her transactions in the P10-billion pork-barrel scam, had accused the businesswoman of illegally detaining him for nearly four months starting December 2012 after she began suspecting he was setting up his own racket.

Funds sourced from lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations were allegedly funneled into Napoles’ fake nongovernment organizations. According to Luy, 50 percent of the allocation for a project was pocketed by some lawmakers as their “commission” from Napoles.

Senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Jinggoy Estrada, Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, some incumbent and former congressmen, incumbent and former government officials, and private individuals were charged last week with plunder and malversation of public funds by the Department of Justice at the Office of the Ombudsman.

Mayor did not give details on the route and time of Napoles's transport to , on ly saying the convoy must be at Alameda's sala in time for the 1:30 p.m. start of court proceedings.

Earlier, Senior Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, head of the PNP’s Public Information Office, said: “All security operations for this will be spearheaded by the PNP-SAF. Suffice it to say, all other information are sensitive operational data. Hence, they are classified. The SAF is testing all sorts of combinations based on all possible scenarios earlier discussed in yesterday’s (Friday’s) meeting.”

source: interaksyon.com