Kapunan: Napoles ‘talking to self’

MANILA, Philippines – Solitude can do things to people. In the case of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles, it’s causing mental harm.

“She’s in solitude. She’s alone by herself at night. It is natural for a person who’s alone at night to be talking to one’s self, to be imagining things,” Lorna Kapunan, lawyer of Napoles, said Friday, October 25.

Concerns over her mental well-being come a day after Napoles was rushed to a hospital because of pain, nausea, and constant vomiting caused by stones in her ureter. Napoles was reported to be in stable condition by Thursday, October 24.

“The resident doctor at Fort Sto Domingo [said] that he himself could hear Mrs Napoles at night making troublesome sounds,” said Kapunan.

A previous Rappler report described Napoles as “diabetic, claustrophobic, and suffering from hypertension.” She is said to also be afraid of being left alone, even in her sleep.

And even when she slept with her husband, Napoles wanted someone else to watch over her. She is said to be paranoid about being killed, either through suffocation or strangulation.

“We have been told by her doctor that she has been taking tranquilizers to calm her down,” Kapunan said.

Her mental state is also one of the reasons why her camp is asking for a “more humane treatment” while she is detained at Fort Sto Domingo in Sta Rosa, Laguna.

Napoles wants someone to accompany her in her detention center at night. She has been detained in the Laguna fort a little more than a month now, because of serious illegal detention charges. 

On Saturday, October 26, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a radio interview that once her lawyers file a motion in court that touches on her mental or physical health, government doctors will check for themselves and determine if claims are true.

Special treatment?

Kapunan also defended her client from allegations of “special treatment.”

“Mahaba itong plunder investigation and it is to the public’ s interest that she be maintained in good physical and mental health,” she added. (The plunder investigation will take a long time.)

Napoles’ lawyer would not say if her physical and mental condition would bar her from attending a Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing on November 7. The Senate, she also said, will send its own doctor to check on Napoles’ health.

“Just so there’s no misunderstanding that we are laying the basis na kailangan ng hospital arrest or so that she would not attend the November 7 hearing,” said Kapunan.

She earlier told the media they would not go for the “wheelchair defense” or request for a hospital arrest. – Bea Cupin/Rappler.com