Two down, dozens to go.
The Sandiganbayan has dismissed two criminal cases against Budget Undersecretary Mario Relampagos and three members of his staff in connection with the alleged misuse of P20.8 million of the pork barrel of former Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Constantino Jaraula.
In a May 13 ruling, the antigraft court’s First Division ordered the dismissal of the two cases for malversation of public funds and direct bribery against Relampagos, Lalaine Paule, Marilou Bare and Rosario Nuñez for lack of probable cause.
The four had been indicted for graft in all the cases brought by the Ombudsman against Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla and five former congressmen in connection with the P10-billion pork barrel scam allegedly masterminded by Janet Lim-Napoles. All those cases number in the dozens, of which the two were just a small part.
The four had also been ordered suspended from office.
The court said the special allotment release order (Saro) covering the two cases against Relampagos et al. showed that the documents were signed by former Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya.
“[A]pparently, accused Relampagos, Nuñez, Paule and Bare had no participation therein,” the court said in a six-page resolution penned by Associate Justice Efren de la Druz, chair of the First Division.
“Considering that the basis for the indictment of the… accused in the two criminal cases was their participation in the preparation and issuance of the said Saro, the court therefore rules that there is no sufficient ground to find the existence of probable cause for the issuance of warrants of arrest against [them].”
The court, however, threw out Jaraula’s motion to quash the criminal cases against him and his attempt to exclude the prosecution’s opposition to his plea to be absolved of the crimes.
The court also set Jaraula’s arraignment for June 1.
“Finding no valid ground to give due course to the instant motion, the court is of the view that the issue of [Jaraula’s] participation… are evidentiary matters which should be raised and threshed out in a full-blown trial on the merits,” the court ruled.