Revilla still hopes to be home for Christmas

By: Marlon Ramos - 10 years ago

Sen. Bong Revilla INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA

It will be a cold and lonely Christmas.

But detained Sen. Bong Revilla is not about to give up hope that the Sandiganbayan will eventually grant him temporary freedom.

Revilla on Monday said he was still expecting the antigraft court’s First Division to act favorably on his petition for bail even after it rebuffed his original motion.

“Of course, I’m sad. But I still believe that there’s justice in our country,” the senator told reporters after attending the hearing of his motion for reconsideration.

“In God’s time. Maybe it’s not this December. But I really wish my motion for reconsideration would be granted,” he added.

Asked how he would spend the holidays for the first time in detention, Revilla said: “It would be a cold Christmas. But I’m OK.”

“I’m ready to make sacrifices. Life’s like that sometimes,” the actor-turned-politician said.

As to the aborted attempt of three Sandiganbayan justices to withdraw from the plunder and graft cases of his bosom buddy, fellow opposition Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, Revilla briefly said: “We still believe in the fairness of our justice system.”

Revilla, whose purported plan to seek the presidency in 2016 had been dashed by his indictment for plunder and graft over his supposed role in the P10-billion pork barrel racket, has been detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City, since June.

In asking for a reversal of its decision, Revilla said the court erred when it ruled that the prosecution presented “strong evidence” to justify his detention and indictment in connection with the alleged misuse of his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allotments.

He reiterated that his signatures which appeared in some PDAF documents had been forged as attested to by his lone witness, a retired National Bureau of Investigation handwriting expert.