The Sandiganbayan has allowed former Makati City Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay Jr., who faces trial over an allegedly overpriced building project, to take his children to the United States for a vacation this month.
The court’s Third Division allowed Binay, a widower and solo parent, to leave the country from June 8 to June 30. He was allowed to go to the states of California, New York and Washington.
The travel is subject to the P608,000 bond posted by Binay in August last year when he was allowed to go to the United States for the medical consultation of daughter Maria Kennely, then aged 6. The travel bond has not yet been withdrawn.
The court required Binay to appear before the clerk of court within five days after returning to the country to present his passport. Should he fail to return, the court said it would hold his trial in absentia.
In a May 22 travel motion, Binay told the court that his children “asked to spend their vacation, as a family, outside the Philippines” after finishing the school year.
He said taking his four children, all minors, on vacation would “foster the love, confidence, trust, responsibility and belongingness,” as he invoked their “constitutional right, if not solely humanitarian right, to be accompanied by parents in traveling to new places.”
“Without sounding too moving, this is a time where accused must be a father and a mother to his minor children,” his motion stressed.
In August 2009, after giving birth to Maria Kennelly, Binay’s wife Kennely Ann died of complications arising from a difficult pregnancy. Binay, after serving as councilor, was elected city mayor the following year and succeeded his father, Jejomar Binay.
The younger Binay’s second term was cut short in October 2015 after the Ombudsman dismissed him from public office in connection with the allegedly overpriced P2.2-billion Makati City Hall car park building. Criminal charges were filed against him in February 2016.