THE Sandiganbayan did not give special treatment to Senator Juan Ponce Enrile when it opened its door to allow him to post bail on a holiday.
In an interview Wednesday, Third Division Clerk of Court Atty. Dennis Pulma said it is only a local non-working holiday anyway or Quezon City (QC) Day, and the other courts are still operating outside the city.
He added that a bail matter should not be set aside just because it is a non-working holiday.
“Let’s remove the innuendo of a special treatment. This is just a local holiday. It would have been a different matter if it’s a national holiday,” Pulma said.
Pulma added that even on weekends, the court deploys skeletal force and an Associate Justice would be on duty in case an accused wanted to post bail.
He noted though that this may be the first time the court opened for an accused on a holiday.
Pulma said the court has yet to plan if the Supreme Court still fails to furnish the court a copy of its decision this Friday, August 21, a national non-working holiday to commemorate the death of opposition senator Ninoy Aquino Jr.
Enrile is now waiting for the Sandiganbayan’s release order after the Supreme Court in a vote of 8-4 granted his motion to reverse the Sandiganbayan Third Division’s ruling denying his bail plea.
The antigraft court has yet to act on the release order as it awaits a copy of the high court’s decision.
The SC decision came exactly a week after the high court also sided with Enrile’s request for bill of particulars in his plunder case over his alleged involvement in the pork barrel scam.
The Supreme Court set the bail amount at P1 million. On top of the P30,000 bail for each of his 15 graft charges, Enrile is set to pay a total amount of P1.45 million.
Enrile had been in hospital detention for over a year. He surrendered to the police on July 4, 2014 just days after he was charged with plunder. He was eventually committed to hospital detention because of his frail health.
In his 70-page petition for certiorari filed before the Supreme Court on September 4, 2014, Enrile said he should be allowed to post bail since the prosecution failed to present strong evidence against him and that the charges “cannot be considered a capital offense.”
At the same time, Enrile said he is not a “flight risk” considering that he even voluntarily surrendered to the authorities when the warrant for his arrest was issued by the anti-graft court.
He also cited his advanced age as another reason for the SC to grant his petition.
Enrile is under hospital detention while his chief of staff Atty. Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes is detained at the female dormitory of Camp Bagong Diwa as they face plunder and 15 counts of graft for their alleged involvement in the purported scheme of pilfering the senator’s Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) to ghost projects for kickbacks.
According to the financial records of principal whistleblower Benhur Luy, Enrile received P172.8 million in kickbacks from accused mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles, who referred to Enrile as “Tanda” in the course of the alleged scam.
The witnesses had also testified that they personally saw Napoles hand over Enrile’s kickbacks to his alleged agent Ruby Tuason.
State witness Tuason, a socialite and social secretary of former President Joseph Estrada, has said she delivered kickbacks for Enrile from Napoles through Enrile’s chief of staff Reyes over lunch meetings in posh restaurants.
Tuason said Enrile sometimes fetched Reyes and invited them for coffee after these supposed lunch meetings.
Accused mastermind Napoles is serving life sentence for the serious illegal detention of her entrusted financial officer Luy, who turned against her when he was detained over suspicions he was starting his own scam.