Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile said the Supreme Court’s decision favoring his motion for bill of particulars showed that the charges against him and his former chief of staff, Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, were “defective and unsubstantiated.”
Enrile issued the statement Monday night in response to lawyer Levito Baligod’s claim that the high court’s decision could leave Reyes principally liable for the alleged misuse of his pork barrel funds. Baligod is the former counsel for the whistleblowers in the P10-billion pork barrel scam involving the funding of nonexistent projects of bogus NGOs of businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles with pork barrel funds from several lawmakers.
READ: Enrile legal tack leaves Gigi Reyes holding the bag
“Baligod is a discredited lawyer who was dropped by the ‘star whistleblower’ Benhur Luy himself,” Enrile said.
“How can the Supreme Court decision on my bail leave Atty. Gigi Reyes ‘holding the bag’ when the same Supreme Court ruled in favor of our motion for bill of particulars?” asked the senator.
Enrile pointed out that both he and Reyes were accused as co-conspirators under the same complaint and, thus, the “action of the Supreme Court regarding the bill of particulars must benefit Atty. Reyes as well.”
“I understand she also refused to enter a plea precisely because of the denial of her right to due process,” he said of Reyes.
“The grant of the motion for bill of particulars shows that apart from the fact that she was denied due process, the charges against her and against us were defective and unsubstantiated,” the senator added.
The high tribunal allowed Enrile to post bail last week after ruling in favor of his motion for bill of particulars, which allows the petitioner to secure specific details of the crime imputed to him.
Enrile returned to the Senate on Monday, more than a year after he was placed under hospital arrest at the PNP General Hospital on plunder and graft charges in connection with the pork barrel scam.
Reyes and others accused including Senators Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada and Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. remain in detention for the same charges.