The plunder trial of former senator Jinggoy Estrada has been set on June 19, almost three years since the filing of his pork barrel scam charges.
Estrada attended his scheduled pre-trial on his plunder and graft charges on Monday at the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division, which later ruled to terminate the pre-trial after both prosecution and defense panels agreed that the list of documentary evidence is faithful reproductions of originals.
The court set the trial date on June 19 and every Monday thereafter.
Division chairperson Associate Justice Rafael Lagos said the list of documentary evidence and witnesses submitted by the prosecution and not yet stipulated by both parties may follow in the course of the trial proper.
“Let’s leave out those documents which they don’t want to admit as faithful reproductions, and then we proceed to trial,” Lagos said in open court.
The court ordered both parties to sign the pre-trial order on or before May 2, and to formally submit the additional list of evidence on April 24.
The pre-trial order according to the rules of court would limit the issues to be taken up during the trial proper.
Meanwhile, the court cancelled the scheduled graft pre-trial due to documents which are not yet stipulated upon. The court set another date for preliminary conference on April 24 and reset the graft pre-trial on May 22.
Estrada faces a plunder trial for allegedly receiving P183 million kickbacks from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), which was allegedly spent in ghost projects for kickbacks through the bogus foundations of accused mastermind Janet Lim Napoles.
He was denied bail, and remains in police custody with co-accused Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center.
Another accused, the elderly Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, was allowed by the Supreme Court to post bail for humanitarian considerations.
Estrada was also accused of 11 counts of graft for violating Section 3(e) of the anti-graft law for allegedly causing injury to government and giving undue preference to Napoles’ bogus foundations to implement his ghost pork barrel projects.
READ: Sandigan denies Jinggoy bail plea
The former senators’ pork barrel scam charges were filed in June 2014.
Revilla was the first to be scheduled on trial for plunder. But because of Revilla’s request to trim down the evidence against him, his plunder trial was reset for a third time to March 30, which also did not happen. The court eventually reset the resumption of trial on Thursday, April 20.
Meanwhile, Enrile’s trial has yet to start since his quashal bid was denied by the court. AU/rga/JE
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