No substantial changes in plunder raps, say prosecutors

MANILA, Philippines–Saying the twin setbacks they suffered in court last week had given them pause, state prosecutors on Monday withdrew their motion to amend the plunder charges they had brought against Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile that would have shown the Senate minority leader as collecting instead of merely receiving millions of pesos in kickbacks from the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

In withdrawing the motion, the state prosecutors told the Sandiganbayan Third Division that they wanted to avoid “serious delays” that might be caused by an “exchange of pleadings.”

But Enrile’s lawyer, Joseph Sagandoy, told reporters in a text message that the prosecutors backed off because they expected the court to reject the motion, as the First Division and the Fifth Division did with similar motions in the plunder cases against Senators Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada last week.

Sagandoy said the withdrawal of the motion “favored” and would “strengthen” the defense of Enrile, who is accused of pocketing P172 million in kickbacks from businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains behind the pork barrel scam.

Also accused of plunder are Napoles, Enrile’s former chief of staff Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, Napoles’ nephew Ronald John Lim and her driver-bodyguard John Raymund de Asis.

Enrile is also accused of 11 counts of graft along with 45 others in the country’s biggest corruption scandal in a decade.

Change of mind

In a motion they filed on Monday morning, the prosecutors said they changed their mind after considering the “issues” that arose when they tried to amend the plunder charges against Revilla and Estrada last week.

“Events that unfolded in relation to similar motions filed by the prosecution and heard before the First and Fifth Divisions of the court have given [the prosecution panel] pause,” the prosecutors, led by Deputy Special Prosecutor John Turalba, said.

“Issues [arose] during [the] hearings and the process it could have entailed for all involved to file their respective pleadings became a consideration,” they said.

While insisting that they were not making substantial changes in the plunder charges, the prosecutors said they were withdrawing the amendments to avoid “serious delays imminent from an exchange of pleadings.”

Plunder properly alleged

The prosecutors maintained “that the crime of plunder was committed by the accused and the definitive acts constituting conspiracy among all of them were properly alleged.”

Turalba’s team had wanted to rephrase the plunder information “to emphasize that the senator was the one who amassed, accumulated and acquired ill-gotten wealth in connivance or in conspiracy with his coaccused public officer and private individuals.”

They had also wanted to delete the phrase “enabling Napoles to misappropriate the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) proceeds for her personal gain.”

They had wanted to include a phrase that would say the senator enriched himself through kickbacks and commissions “by exerting undue pressure on the implementing agencies to favorably act on his endorsement of the nongovernment organizations of Napoles to ensure that his PDAF be in the possession and control of Napoles and her cohorts.”

Chief beneficiary

The amended information would have made Enrile, not Napoles, the one who chiefly benefited from the pork barrel scam.

It would have also removed the element of “conspiracy” among the accused by alleging that Napoles was a mere collaborator.

The prosecutors had believed that amendment would have corrected their error of bringing plunder charges against Napoles, who is an ordinary citizen.

Under the law, only public officials who amass at least

P50 million in ill-gotten wealth may be charged with plunder.

But reducing her role from conspirator to collaborator would allow her to get away with a light sentence.

Within the day, the Third Division allowed Turalba’s panel to withdraw its motion.

Probable cause

Amending the original information in the way the prosecution wanted would alter the court’s finding that there was probable cause to make Enrile stand trial, the same reason that the First and Fifth Divisions rejected the amendments to the charges against Revilla and Estrada.

Revilla is accused of amassing P224.5 million in ill-gotten wealth while Estrada is accused of pocketing P183.7 million in kickbacks from the pork barrel scam.

Both have been arrested without bail and detained in the Custodial Center of the Philippine National Police in Camp Crame, Quezon City. They would have been ordered freed had the information against them been amended to show them and not Napoles as the central figures in the large-scale embezzlement of public funds.

Unlike in their cases, however, the Third Division has not yet decided whether there is probable cause to order Enrile’s arrest based on the original plunder information.

Questionable case

Sagandoy said the “sufficiency and validity” of the case had been questionable from the start.

“Now that they withdrew the motion, they may not be able to cure or remedy the defects,” he said, referring to what he called “insufficiency” and “vagueness” in the information.

Despite the setbacks for the prosecution, Malacañang insisted on Monday that the government had enough evidence to prove the guilt “beyond reasonable doubt” of Revilla, Estrada and Enrile.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the government was just as confident in the cases against Napoles and the others accused in the pork barrel scam.–With a report from Christian V. Esguerra

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