Former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA
Responding to the government’s opposition, former Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile reiterated that the Sandiganbayan should quash the plunder case filed against him as prosecutors had failed to show why the charge should be deemed valid.
In a 19-page reply dated Nov. 2, Enrile’s camp also took exception to the prosecutors’ claim that he had been filing groundless motions that “do nothing but delay his trial.”
It retorted that “the delays are singularly attributable to the fact that in response to every initiative accused Enrile takes to enforce his rights under the Constitution, the prosecution’s response has been ‘We object!’”
Enrile’s pending bid to throw out the case for vagueness and lack of probable cause arose from the Supreme Court’s Apr. 11 decision ordering prosecutors to clarify the charges through a bill of particulars.
While prosecutors have complied with the directive, Enrile’s camp told the court’s Third Division that the charges continued to be insufficient to head to trial.
The Ombudsman’s Office of the Special Prosecutor on Oct. 19 filed an opposition that said the charge sheet only needed to contain the “ultimate facts” of the crime and not the finer details that could be presented during the trial proper.
As a rebuttal, Enrile’s Nov. 2 reply maintained that prosecutors were only unable to controvert his claim that the charge sheet was insufficient in explaining what actions he committed constituting the charge of plunder.
Enrile’s lawyers said prosecutors did not dispute that the actions that supposedly allowed him to amass P172.83 million in ill-gotten wealth such as authorizing personnel to sign various documents were not actually “overt or criminal acts.”