THE lawyer for Senator Juan Ponce Enrile on Thursday said he found it unusual that the Supreme Court (SC) failed to immediately implement the release of his client after it granted the senator’s plea to post bail last Tuesday.
In an interview at the Sandiganbayan, Atty. Eleazar Reyes said it is “out of the ordinary” the Supreme Court did not immediately implement its main decision granting Enrile bail after its spokesperson Ted Te announced it to the media.
Reyes, who was in the court waiting for the Sandiganbayan to produce the order that would allow Enrile to personally post bail bond, said he felt that the Supreme Court is delaying the implementation of the decision.
“There is that feeling,” Reyes said when asked if he felt the high court is dragging its feet.
“Many of us old practitioners know that this is a little bit irregular, I mean, out of the ordinary. When an immediate release order is given on the same day, they serve it and it is immediately implemented,” he added.
“The justices themselves have ordered immediate release. How come they’re delaying…? It doesn’t seem regular,” Reyes said.
Asked what might be causing the delay, Reyes does not want to speculate.
“I don’t want to impute anything. I don’t want to get into trouble,” Reyes said.
Enrile is now waiting for the Sandiganbayan’s release order after the SC in a vote of 8-4 on Tuesday granted his motion to reverse the Sandiganbayan Third Division’s ruling denying his bail plea from plunder over the pork barrel scam.
Reyes said Enrile’s camp has received a copy of the SC 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 high tribunal set the bail amount for his plunder case 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 Sept. 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 at 91 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 allegedly 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. Marc Jayson Cayabyab