Aquino: Gov’t to take plea bargain issue to SC
MANILA, Philippines – President Benigno Aquino III was incredulous of the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court’s approval of a plea bargain agreement that allowed former military comptroller Carlos Garcia to evade a charge of plunder and get out of jail on bail even if his trial for the capital crime was halfway through.
“Personally I thought, how did the Sandigan arrive at this kind of decision? It’s as if it was in a vacuum,” President Aquino told reporters after attending the celebration of the 112th anniversary of the Commission on Audit in Quezon City.
He wondered whether the anti-graft court listened to the testimonies of witnesses during the Senate’s hearings on the controversial plea bargain struck by Garcia with the former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, particularly that one in which one of the special prosecutors said that had they known there was evidence against the retired major general, they would not have not pushed for the plea bargain.
“So how can you not be surprised here?” Mr. Aquino said.
He said that as soon as he learned of the court’s ruling, he communicated with Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz and Justice Secretary Leila De Lima to ask them to “find what else can be done.”
The Chief Executive said they reminded him that the plea bargain was a already a “done deal” as early as a year ago, before he assumed the presidency.
Mr. Aquino said his administration intends to exhaust all available remedies, starting with the filing of a motion for reconsideration with the Sandiganbayan. And if the petition is denied, the President said, the government will the case to the Supreme Court.
The President had been vocal about his opposition to the plea bargain agreement, under which Garcia pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of bribery and facilitating money laundering, which are punishable by about six years in prison, in exchange for the dropping of the plunder charge, a non-bailable offense punishable with life imprisonment.
