MANILA – The Supreme Court has upheld the junking of graft cases against former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo over the botched $329-million national broadband network project with ZTE Corporation.
In a resolution made public on Thursday afternoon, the High Court’s Third Division dismissed the state prosecutors appeal to overturn a previous Sandiganbayan decision granting a demurrer to evidence on the graft case against Arroyo.
In 2016, the Sandiganbayan has granted the former President’s demurrer to evidence appeal since the state prosecutors have submitted an insufficient evidence to prove her guilt on the botched deal.
The SC said the prosecutor’s appeal lacked merit and also violates Arroyo’s constitutional right against double jeopardy, a legal principle in which a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice.
“Thus, even if the first trial is not completed, a second prosecution may be grossly unfair. It increases the financial and emotional burden on the accused, prolongs the period in which he is stigmatized by an unresolved accusation of wrongdoing, and may even enhance the risk that an innocent defendant may be convicted,” the SC said.
“A cursory examination of the petition readily reveals that in essence, petitioner excoriates the Sandiganbayan’s evaluation and assessment of the evidence presented by the prosecution. Petitioner bemoans the ‘gross misapprehension of the facts and the evidence on record’ which led to the grant of the demurrer in favor of GMA (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo),” the Court said in a resolution dated Oct. 14, 2020.
The SC further said that a writ of certiorari can only correct errors of jurisdiction or those involving the commission of grave abuse of discretion, not those which call for the evaluation of evidence and factual findings.
“Accordingly, we cannot condone this specious approach at stretching the allowable limits of questioning a judgment of acquittal,” the High Court’s decision read.
Apart from Arroyo’s case, the Sandiganbayan also dismissed the similar charges against her husband Mike Arroyo and former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr.
In 2007, then-President Arroyo has scrapped the broadband deal with the Chinese telecommunication company amid allegations of corruption in the awarding of the contract./PN
