Davao  City Representative Karlo Alexei Nograles has rejected a proposal to transfer the supervision of the government’s Witness Protection Program (WPP) from the Department of Justice to the courts,  saying that the move would compromise the integrity and impartiality of the country’s justice system.

Nograles, the vice president for internal affairs of the National Unity Party (NUP), said that while the measure might be well-intentioned, it will only raise doubts over the objectivity of the courts to appreciate the merits of cases brought before them.

"With all due respect to the proponent, I believe the proposal would create problems in our justice system. The WPP rightly belongs to the DOJ primarily because they are the prosecutorial arm of government," Nograles said.

"That's their witness. As prosecutors, they will be the ones presenting the witness in court and so they have the right to protect their own witness. If you transfer the WPP to the courts, you are damning the accused. The accused will be good-as-convicted," he added.

Nograles was referring to a bill filed by Deputy Speaker Sergio Apostol seeking to amend Republic Act 6981 or the Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act by transferring the administration of the WPP from the DOJ to the local courts purportedly to insulate it from politics.



“I would still rather keep the witnesses under the protection of the prosecutors and keep the courts isolated from politics. Let the courts keep their neutrality so that when the prosecutors present their protected witness and place them on the witness stand, the courts can freely judge whether or not to believe the testimony of that witness bias-free and politics-free," Nograles said.


Nograles, who also chairs the House labor committee, said placing a witness under the protection of the courts would be unfair and disadvantageous to the defendant, whose objective is to disprove the testimony of the witness against him.

The  measure is also impractical because judges themselves lack the funds to maintain their respective offices, he noted.