What else do you expect when too many crooks were named in the so-called Napolist. Will it succeed in spoiling the Napoles broth? And whose purpose it serves? What do you expect but all the cast of characters when thrown into the Napoles broth or Napolist either for boiling or exoneration. Except for the whistle blowers who are bent to throw them to jail, all the accused, the ones facing plunder, are enjoying the benefit of the doubt as far as the public eye is concerned. This, in the first place, was what they were cultivating at the first instance that their names were dragged into the pork barrel mess. Comes now Napoles who felt singled out as the mastermind, and out of the blue, turning the table on her confederates. At least by now, she is no longer alone in her misery by submitting an expanded list of lawmakers involved in the scam. For one, in the guise of stricken by conscience, Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged mastermind of the infamous P10-B pork barrel scam, succeeded in fooling the public around that she can afford a tell -all narrative if only to ferret out the truth…and nothing but… From the criminal mastermind to being the least guilty, Napoles is trying to project an image that she is pure as driven snow. What is she trying to drive at?

Expect the Filipino taxpayer to take her word at face value?

Of course not. But at least, Napoles and her handlers, were able to confuse the public which was their initial intention to gain a victory of sorts in the frenzied battle for public perception acceptance. As we mentioned earlier, by naming as many lawmakers as implicit in the scandal, the Napolist as it has come to be known, put the mastermind in a precarious situation that one cannot help but wonder if it was a deliberate attempt to muddle the issue. Any public relation expert will tell you that in crisis situations, stirring the issue to unrecognizable proportion is enough triumph if the game plan is to create the impression that neither party is guilty of the crime charged. However, if it will turn out not according to its operators' own liking, what happens is that good intentions will turn into public relation disasters.

In the case of Napoles, apparently knowing that she is guilty as hell, the most she can do under the circumstance is dragged all of her cohorts to jail. That was before, until she submitted to the Senate Blue Ribbon and Department of Justice the expanded affidavit. So there's no honor among thieves, after all; that all the accused will go to jail. But at what price? Nobody knows, really, but at the rate she is implicating every crook and cranny, Napoles, the two-bit hustler behind the pork barrel anomaly, may end up the most innocent among the cabal of thieves because she was being used to line up the pockets of corrupt legislators. Isn't her role in the supposed script to make her a state witness? As this zarzuela is being played out again and again, it appears that the outcome is working in her favor. If so, it won't be long that at the end of the day, Napoles will have her cake and eat it too in a scandal considered as the biggest story ever told in the history of corruption in the country.