We have been following news reports in the Inquirer about the P10-billion pork barrel scam supposedly masterminded by Janet Lim-Napoles. She has been remonstrating against this paper for having “tried me by publicity.” She cried foul for not having been allowed any opportunity to air her side. Whether true or not, that chance was given her to remove any doubt.
A powwow was arranged for her to ventilate her grievance and tell her side of the story. For five days in a row—Aug. 11-15, the Inquirer put out installments of the transcripts of her conversations with the paper’s reporters and columnists.
What a colossal waste of ink and paper space! Front page na, almost an entire inside page pa! Napoles was running circles around the Inquirer staff and columnists. Not only was she irritatingly evasive, she was totally playing dumb. We wondered why the Inquirer people had to endure all that nonsense and didn’t just leave her alone in that room to rant and rave all she wanted. She was not saying anything worth anybody’s time. And printing all the tommyrot she was dishing out, my goodness, whatever happened to this paper’s impeccable sense of newsworthiness?
—STEPHEN L. MONSANTO,
Monsanto Law Office,
Loyola Heights, Quezon City,
lexsquare.firm@gmail.com
On the whole, Janet Lim-Napoles’ answers in that “powwow,” however Stephen Monsanto saw them, were of crucial relevance to the reported P10-billion “pork” scam and to the question of whether or not she is indeed the brains behind it. If the Inquirer didn’t come out with anything about that meeting because of the way she fielded the questions, it would only have strengthened Napoles’ claim that she was not given the opportunity to air her side.
On the other hand, a straight news story about it, given her answers, could only have appeared biased, selective and self-serving. The Inquirer, therefore, deemed it best to present verbatim the entire exchange in that meeting, and let the readers judge for themselves.—Ed.