Sandigan denies bid to make Mercado as witness vs Elenita Binay

THE Sandiganbayan denied the bid to include former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado as witness in the graft trial of Vice President Jejomar Binay’s wife.

In a resolution, the anti-graft court Fifth Division rejected the prosecution’s request to include Mercado on the list of witnesses against Dr. Elenita Binay.

The prosecution wanted to put Mercado in the witness stand to authenticate a Commission on Audit (COA) report that found anomalies in the deal for Makati City Hall furnishings when Dr. Binay was mayor.

The said report, used as the basis for the graft charges, could not be identified by audit commissioner Heidi Mendoza because she had testified that the document was given to her by Mercado.

The court said Mercado could not testify on the authenticity of the report because he is not part of the COA.

“As former Vice Mayor of Makati City, Mr. Mercado has no official connection with the Commission on Audit, as none has been shown, for him to have custody of the Audit Report itself. The prosecution witnesses were clear in their statements that copies of the Audit Report were then only submitted to the Office of Overall Deputy Ombudsman Margarito Gervacio and the Office of the Mayor of Makati City,” the court said.

The court said it seems Mercado got a copy of the audit report from a shady source.

“How he was able to obtain the original copy of the audit report itself, which the Commission on Audit oddly does not even have in its official custody, would only nag the persistent question that it could have come from a dubious source,” the court said.

Mercado was supposed to testify on the original audit report he supposedly furnished to Commissioner Mendoza last August 2014. Mendoza was then having trouble testifying in the trial proper against Dr. Binay because she could not present to court the original copy of the audit report that found anomalies in Dr. Binay’s furnishings deal.

When Mendoza then presented the original copy of the audit report and said it was handed to her by Mercado, the court said Mercado should be the one testifying about the authenticity of the original audit report.

But the court said Mercado could not authenticate the report because he was not part of the audit team.

“Mr. Mercado will certainly not be able to fulfill these requirements since he was not a member of the audit team which took part in the audit investigation and in the eventual preparation and submission of the audit report. At the outset, therefore, he cannot be expected to identify or authenticate the audit report itself, let alone the purported original, to which he was not privy to,” the court added.

Dr. Binay’s graft case stemmed from the alleged P21.536-million overpricing of the P72-million contract for panel fabric partitions and connector brackets for the Makati City Hall when Dr. Binay was mayor.

Dr. Binay allegedly bypassed bidding procedures to favor bidder Office Sales International, to the disadvantage of the government.

The case is the result of audit findings led by Mendoza who said the bidding for the contract was rigged.

Mercado is the main witness against Vice President Binay, his son Makati Mayor Junjun, their alleged dummies, and other Makati officials in a Senate investigation over the purported overpriced construction of various Makati projects when the vice president was mayor.