Enrile arrives at Sandigan for bail processing

SENATOR Juan Ponce Enrile arrived at the Sandiganbayan on Thursday evening for the processing of his P1.45 million bail application for his plunder case stemming from the pork barrel scam.

Enrile left his detention place at the Philippine National Police (PNP) General Hospital at 5:55 p.m. and at 6:30 p.m., the 91-year-old senator arrived at the Sandiganbayan to appear for the application of bail.

He is now with Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje Tang for the approval of his bail.

Enrile’s lawyers paid the P1.45 million bail which consisted of 14 bundles of cash of P100,000 each counted with a machine at the Sandiganbayan cashier.

The bail was paid after the Sandiganbayan issued the produce order instructing the police to bring Enrile in court for the processing of his bail application for plunder case, ordinarily a non-bailable offense.

Enrile posted bail after the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday in a vote of 8-4 granted his motion to reverse the Sandiganbayan Third Division’s ruling, which denied his bail plea.

The decision came exactly a week after the SC 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 paid a total amount of P1.45 million.

Enrile went to the Supreme Court after the Sandiganbayan Third Division last year denied his motion that he be allowed to post bail.

In his 70-page petition for certiorari filed 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 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 Napoles, who referred to Enrile as “Tanda” in the use of codenames for 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 Janet Lim-Napoles is serving life sentence for the serious illegal detention of her former entrusted financial officer Benhur Luy, who turned against her when he was detained by the businesswoman over suspicions he was starting his own scam.