Sandigan upholds Jinggoy bail for plunder

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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO
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MANILA – The Sandiganbayan has affirmed its earlier decision allowing to post bail former senator Jinggoy Estrada who is charged with graft and plunder for the alleged Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam.

The Sandiganbayan Special Fifth Division dismissed the motion for reconsideration of the Office of the Ombudsman questioning the bail grant.

The anti-graft court said it was merely following an earlier ruling of the Supreme Court that a main plunderer should be identified in a graft case.

“The main plunderer principle is not only necessary but also essential to safeguard the rights of all the accused to be properly informed of the charges against them for which they were being made answerable for,” it said.

The court believed that “the evidence presented by the prosecution in the bail hearings did not sufficiently establish that the accused was one of the main actors or masterminds” in the so-called PDAF scam.

The Fifth Division, in a 3-2 ruling on Sept. 15, granted Estrada’s pleading to post bail since he was not the “most plunderer” in the scam.

Estrada, son of former President and now Manila City mayor Joseph Estrada, was accused of pocketing P183 million in kickbacks from fake projects, with the help of suspected pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles.

Estrada, detained in 2014 yet, is one of three senators detained for the alleged scam. The two others are former senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla and Juan Ponce Enrile.

Enrile was allowed by the Supreme Court in August 2015 to post bail citing “humanitarian reasons” in light of poor health./PN
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