Jinggoy Estrada suspended by Sandigan for 90 days

MANILA, Philippines—Detained Sen. Jinggoy Estrada will have to vacate his post for the next three months.

The Sandiganbayan has ordered Estrada’s suspension from office for 90 days over his alleged role in the diversion of some P10 billion in congressional pork barrel funds to bogus nongovernment organizations linked to businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles.

The antigraft court’s Fifth Division dismissed as “remote” Estrada’s claim that his constituents would be “paralyzed” if the court orders his preventive suspension.

Being a collegial body, the Senate has 21 other members who could carry out the functions and responsibilities of Estrada as a senator, the court said in a minute resolution promulgated on July 17 and was released Friday.

“The Senate President will surely know how to deal with the problem of filling up the temporary vacancies in accordance with the provisions of the rules of the Senate,” the ruling read in part.

Sen. Jinngoy Estrada leaving the Sandiganbayan after the hearing at the 5th division. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

“(Estrada) is hereby suspended from his position as senator of the Republic of the Philippines and from any other public office [that] he may now or hereafter be holding for a period of 90 days from receipt of this resolution unless a motion for reconsideration is seasonably filed,” it said.

The ruling was signed by the division chair, Associate Justice Roland Jurado, and Associate Justices Alexander Gesmundo and Ma. Theresa Dolores Gomez-Estoesta.

The Fifth Division directed the Office of the Senate President to serve its order on Estrada and report to the court its actions within five days of receiving the resolution.

Grounds for suspension

In granting the government prosecutors’ motion to suspend Estrada, the court argued that the criminal information for plunder that the Ombudsman filed against him was already “found to be sufficient in form and substance.”

It said the court “must issue the order of suspension as a matter of course,” considering that the charge against the senator fell within the ambit of the provision of Republic Act No. 7080, or the Plunder Law, invoked by prosecutors in asking for the suspension, and the mandatory tenor of the pertinent section of the same law.

Section 5 of RA 7080 states that any public official facing criminal prosecution “under a valid information under this Act … shall be suspended from office.”

The court added that Section 13 of the Anti-Graft Law also stipulated that government officials charged with graft or criminal offenses under the Revised Penal Code “shall be suspended from office.”

State prosecutors sought Estrada’s temporary removal from office, saying his being a lawmaker might “frustrate” and “prejudice” the prosecution of the plunder case against him.

They said the senator might also commit “further acts of malfeasance,” threaten the witnesses against him and tamper with the evidence the prosecution had gathered.

Estrada, who has vehemently denied being involved in the pork barrel racket, is detained in the Philippine National Police Custodial Center at Camp Crame, Quezon City.

Occupying a room adjacent to Estrada’s cell is another actor-politician and Estrada’s bosom buddy, Sen. Bong Revilla, who has also been arrested and detained for the same offense.

A third coaccused senator, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, is being held at the nearby PNP General Hospital while the court is resolving his petition to be detained in hospital because of his advanced age and various ailments.

Charges still in question

In opposing the government prosecutors’ move to suspend him, Estrada argued that the validity of the charges filed against him by the Ombudsman was still in question, as he had elevated them to the Supreme Court.

He also claimed that the prosecution was “willfully and blatantly engaged in the unethical act of forum shopping” in asking the Sandiganbayan to suspend him despite acknowledging the pendency of the petitions he had filed in the high court.

In addition, Estrada said the Ombudsman’s request for the court to temporarily remove him from office was made in bad faith and was “designed to punish him and deprive his constituents of his representation for as long as possible.”

Estrada said the state prosecutors’ move was tantamount to “removal from office.” It is also possible, he said, that there would be “piecemeal requests” for his suspension for every count of graft that the Ombudsman had filed against him.

This would result in his suspension for a total of 1,080 days, or close to three years, he said.

In his motion asking the court not to grant the suspension, Estrada said this strategy of piecemeal applications for suspension has already been declared as unlawful and unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

He argued that if the high court were to rule favorably on his pending motions, it would render the government prosecutors’ motion res judicata, or a matter on which the court had already ruled and which cannot be pursued by the party in another court.

Misplaced arguments

But the antigraft court said Estrada’s argument was “misplaced,” as the rules of court on forum shopping “do not apply” in the case of the Ombudsman’s petition for suspension.

“It must be stressed that this court … has found the existence of probable cause and ordered the issuance of a warrant of arrest against the accused. In view of the finding of existence of probable cause, the information is said to be sufficient in form and substance,” it ruled.

Senate to comply

Senate President Franklin Drilon on Friday said the Senate would comply with the Sandiganbayan order suspending Estrada from the Senate while he’s on trial.

“The Senate will abide by the process in accordance with the Constitution and the laws. The Senate will respect every step in the investigation of this case. We will fully abide by the preventive suspension order issued by the Sandiganbayan and we will implement the order,” Drilon said in a statement.

“A senator who is preventively suspended cannot in any manner perform the function of his office within the duration of preventive suspension. He is barred from attending sessions, filing bills, holding committee hearings and signing committee reports,” he added.

Drilon said the vice chair of the committee on labor, which Estrada chairs, will attend to the bills pending on the committee.

“We will continue to function despite the suspension order. The Senate is not about the senators and it is not about the pork barrel scam controversy. We have a mandate to fulfill and with our performance during the First Regular Session, we have proven that the Senate could not be hampered by any controversy,” Drilon said. With a report from Nikko Dizon

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