MANILA, Philippines–The Supreme Court has upheld Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s indictment for plunder and graft in connection with the P10-billion pork barrel scam, rejecting the lawmaker’s bid to stop proceedings against him at the Sandiganbayan.
Voting 9-5, the high court en banc dismissed Estrada’s petition for certiorari during its Wednesday session “for failure to obtain the required number of votes to grant the reliefs prayed for,” the court’s spokesman, Theodore Te, said in a press briefing.
Estrada lost the case just as his father, Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, a former President, got a favorable ruling in the disqualification case against him during the same en banc session.
The magistrates who voted against the younger Estrada’s petition were Associate Justice Antonio Carpio (who penned the ruling), Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, and Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Mariano del Castillo, Martin Villarama Jr., Jose Perez, Bienvenido Reyes, Estela Perlas-Bernabe and Marvic Leonen.
The five who dissented were Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Arturo Brion, Lucas Bersamin and Jose Mendoza.
Associate Justice Francis Jardeleza kept his hands off the case “due to previous participation as Solicitor General,” Te said.
The court came up only with a one-paragraph summary of the decision and has yet to release the full ruling, including what convinced the court to throw out the petition.
Estrada is one of three senators detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame while facing separate trials at the Sandiganbayan for alleged links to the diversion of their Priority Development Assistance Fund allocations to ghost projects, through alleged scam brains Janet Lim-Napoles.
Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Bong Revilla were also charged in the antigraft court, each with their separate bids to stop the proceedings against them.
Estrada sought relief in the high court last year, saying the Office of the Ombudsman had violated his right to due process in filing the charges against him.
The Ombudsman filed plunder and graft charges against Estrada for allegedly receiving P183.79 million in kickbacks in the pork barrel racket.
Enrile was charged with allegedly pocketing P172.8 million and Revilla with getting P224.5 million in kickbacks.
Estrada said he respected the Supreme Court decision. “I reserve the right to carry out the appropriate legal action later on, upon advice of my lawyers,” he said in a statement.
He said he had yet to receive and read the copy of the court’s ruling.
Malacañang said the Supreme Court decision affirming the plunder case against Estrada strengthened the mandate of the Office of the Ombudsman to make public officials accountable for their actions.
“Let’s make it very clear, the Ombudsman is an independent body. It is not under the executive branch. So our statement is it strengthens the Ombudsman’s mandate to exact accountability on all public officials. So that’s the tenor of the Supreme Court decision,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said in a press briefing.
The plunder cases filed against the senators were seen to bolster the anticorruption campaign of President Aquino. “Public officials are supposed to be held accountable and that’s in the Constitution,” Lacierda said.–With reports from Nikko Dizon and Leila B. Salaverria