DOJ: Witness Protection Program increased conviction rate

Justice Secretary de Lima on Tuesday said the conviction rate increased in cases where witnesses under the state's witness protection program (WPP) were involved. De Lima said the conviction rate for WPP-covered cases from January 1 to June 30, 2011 stood at 90.11 percent. "It has been consistently high whenever the witness is covered by the WPP," she said during the day's Senate finance committee hearing on the proposed budget of the Department of Justice for 2012. The WPP was created under Republic Act 8961 and mandated the state to protect witnesses from threats to life and bodily harm so that they can appear before the court. De Lima said that since Jan. 1, 2010 to Dec. 31, 2010, 179 applications were filed with the WPP. Out of this number, she said 133 were admitted - a "substantial number" of which are witnesses for the Maguindanao massacre case. She said the program was given allocation of P175 million for 2012, an increase from its appropriation of P51 million for 2011. The DOJ had submitted a proposed budget of P18.5 billion for 2012 to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). But De Lima said the DBM only approved P9.7 billion, which is still 14.79 percent higher than its 2011 budget. — Kim Tan/RSJ, GMA News