MANILA – The Sandiganbayan has dismissed the 15 counts of graft filed against a co-accused of former senator and current Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile in the purported misappropriation of his discretionary or pork barrel fund.
In an eight-page resolution, the anti-graft court said there was insufficient probable cause to prosecute company driver Fernando Ramirez as he only acted as a driver for businesswoman Janet Napoles, another co-accused in the cases involving Enrile.
“It must be underscored that a plain reading of the Joint Resolution dated March 28, 2014 of the Office of the Ombudsman finding probable cause to indict accused Ramirez of the crime charged reveals that there was no discussion on the supposed participation of accused Ramirez in the alleged conspiracy. The Office of the Ombudsman simply held that accused Ramirez worked for respondent Napoles at the time material to these cases,” the Sandiganbayan said.
“Quoting from the same [March 2014] Resolution, its finding of irregularities in the subject transactions were all anchored on the respective participation of the other accused,” it added.
Based on the information of the Ombudsman office’s March 2014 decision, the Sandiganbayan said that government prosecutors “failed to sufficiently account for the supposed illegal, or even conspiratorial, acts committed by accused Ramirez.”
“It merely found that accused Ramirez, together with his other co respondents (now accused), [supposedly] acted under the direction of Janet Napoles,” the Sandiganbayan said.
The anti-graft court also referenced the separate concurring opinion of then Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Maria Cristina Cornejo in its September 2014 ruling.
In her opinion, she indicated that while there was sufficient probable cause to proceed with the trial against the other defendants, this was not applicable to accused Ramirez.
She noted that Ramirez appeared to be merely a driver and, according to the case records, did not have any signatures on documents related to the operations or transactions of JLN (Janet Lim Napoles) Corporation.
In the same September 2014 ruling, the Sandiganbayan instructed government prosecutors to provide additional evidence to establish probable cause for charging Ramirez with multiple counts of graft.
However, in October 2014, state prosecutors submitted a manifestation and compliance indicating that they would not present any new evidence against Ramirez and would instead rely on the evidence already submitted for the other defendants.
The anti-graft court acknowledged this action by the prosecution in a November 2014 Resolution. Nevertheless, the November 2014 decision did not address whether there was probable cause to charge Ramirez.
“It should be remembered that jurisprudence has consistently defined probable cause as the existence of such facts and circumstance as would excite the belief, in a reasonable mind, acting on the facts within the knowledge of the prosecutor, that the person charged was guilty of the crime for which he was prosecuted,” the Sandiganbayan said.
“A finding of probable cause needs only to rest on evidence showing that, more likely than not, a crime has been committed and there is enough reason to believe that it was committed by the accused. With the foregoing jurisprudential guidelines vis-a-vis another review of the records of these cases, this Court holds that there is no probable cause as regards accused Ramirez in these cases,” it added./PN
