De Lima: SC to decide if Revilla’s plea vs preliminary probe of pork is moot

By: Christine O. Avendaño - 11 years ago

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Has the petition of Senator Ramon Revilla Jr., now before the Supreme Court and up for oral arguments on April 22 been rendered moot and academic now that the Ombudsman has approved his indictment for plunder along with others?

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said on Wednesday this would be for the high court to determine.

“Let’s leave it to the Supreme Court to decide whether the petition has become moot and academic,” De Lima told reporters, in reference to Revilla’s petition.

De Lima was talking about the fate of Revilla’s petition for certiorari — which he filed on March 14 — where he had asked the high court to stop the Ombudsman from proceeding with its preliminary investigation of the plunder complaint filed against him by the National Bureau of Investigation.

But the Ombudsman had already completed its preliminary investigation when it approved on Tuesday the indictment of Revilla as well as Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada, businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles, among others, for plunder and graft in connection with the alleged illegal disbursement of their Priority Development Assistance Fund.

Under the rules, the Ombudsman will file the information against them in the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan once it rules on the individual motions for reconsideration with finality.

Before Tuesday’s Ombudsman’s announcement of the results of its preliminary investigation against Revilla and the others, the high court had set oral arguments on Revilla’s petition for certiorari on April 22 in Baguio City where it was currently holding its annual summer session.

Actually, from April 1 and from being handled by the SC third division, the high court has decided to hear Revilla’s petition as a full court and moved the oral arguments on April 22.

The high court though did not grant but merely noted Revilla’s appeal for a temporary restraining order (TRO) pending the resolution of his petition before it.

Speaking to reporters, De Lima said since the high court did not issue any TRO on Revilla’s petition for certiorari, there was no legal impediment for the Ombudsman to release its resolution on its preliminary investigation against those accused of plunder and graft in the pork barrel scam.

She said the high court had enough time to issue a TRO if it were convinced that it should stop the Ombudsman from proceeding with its investigation.

Revilla, who was accused of pocketing P224.5 million in kickbacks from Napoles whose fake nongovernmental organizations got his pork barrel entitlements, had gone to the high court when the Ombudsman denied twice his bid to suspend its proceedings.

Meanwhile, De Lima said the Ombudsman’s approval of the indictment of Revilla and 54 others has put everything in the “right forum of the

legal arena.”

“Even the respondents or those accused — if this case is filed before the Sandiganbayan — would welcome this so they would have the chance to air their defense,” the justice secretary said.

She said people were waiting for the Ombudsman to file the cases.

Asked on the fate of Ruby Tuason and Dennis Cunanan who wanted to be state witnesses in the pork barrel scam investigation but were also recommended to be indicted by the Ombudsman, De Lima said the Ombudsman has yet to act on their request.

“There is no decision yet on this issue because (the Ombudsman) first tackled their liability,” she said, adding this was the usual process.

“If it was determined that Tuason and Cunanan were not liable, their application to become state witnesses will not be irrelevant,” De Lima said.

Tuason, a former social secretary of former President Joseph Estrada, had executed an affidavit and testified before a Senate blue ribbon committee hearing that she delivered money to Enrile’s chief of staff, Estrada and Revilla that came from Napoles.

Cunanan, on the other hand, claimed that as head of the National Agri-business Corp., he spoke to Revilla and Estrada who had lobbied for the release of their pork barrel funds to Napoles’ fake NGOs.