Former Senate Pres. Juan Ponce Enrile INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/LYN RILLON
The P172.83-million plunder case of former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile in relation to the pork barrel scam is sufficient enough to proceed to trial, the Sandiganbayan has affirmed.
In a 19-page resolution聽on Thursday, the antigraft court鈥檚 Third Division denied Enrile鈥檚 appeal to throw out the charge on the grounds that the allegations do not constitute the elements of a valid plunder case.
The court affirmed the sufficiency of the case and said the defense failed to raise new arguments to warrant the reversal of the聽Jan. 31 resolution that first denied his motion to quash.
Enrile had questioned the June 2014 charge聽 because it supposedly did not state the 鈥減articular overt acts鈥� showing unjust enrichment.
He also raised the lack of finer details on his alleged receipt of聽 kickbacks and the lack of enumeration of anomalous projects linked to alleged scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles.
But, the court maintained the alleged acts of receiving kickbacks and taking advantage of his official position were the 鈥渙vert acts or predicate crimes鈥� stated to make a case for plunder.
Enrile鈥檚 plunder case is currently lagging behind those of detained former senators Ramon 鈥淏ong鈥� Revilla Jr. and Jose 鈥淛inggoy鈥� Estrada, whose trials are currently scheduled to begin in June three years after they were charged in connection with the multibillion-peso scam. The Enrile camp鈥檚 legal maneuvers meant the pretrial process could not proceed.
He first tried to ask for a bill of particulars to make the allegations more specific. The Sandiganbayan鈥檚 denial of the request prompted him to go to the Supreme Court, which ordered prosecutors to detail the charges in August 2015. The Office of the Ombudsman complied after the decision attained finality, and the SC 鈥渘oted鈥� its action in June 2016.
But Enrile was not satisfied by the additional details provided by prosecutors, so he sought the quashal of the case.
The Sandiganbayan in January, however, said that by requesting a bill of particulars, Enrile 鈥渋mpliedly admitted鈥� the validity of the charge and only wanted more information so he can mount a proper defense. It added that the nitty-gritty of the plunder allegations are 鈥渆videntiary matters鈥� best threshed out by allowing the case to head to trial, the court said.
The 92-year-old politician is currently out on bail for an otherwise nonbailable offense after the SC in August 2015 allowed him to do so on 鈥渉umanitarian considerations.鈥� 聽Besides plunder, he also faces 15 counts of graft for the alleged misuse of his Priority Development Assistance Fund allocations./rga