A year on, Jinggoy urges court to act on second bail plea

Detained former Senator Jinggoy Estrada. PHOTO BY VINCE F. NONATO

Detained former Senator Jinggoy Estrada has pressed the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division to act on his Sept. 12, 2016 omnibus motion to secure bail while undergoing trial for plunder and graft.

“We’re still waiting for the resolution to come out and hopefully, they take action because we’ve been detained for over three years. I hope the court will understand our condition,” Estrada told reporters on Monday.

This was after the scheduled start of his graft trial on Monday was postponed to Sept. 25. The prosecution and defense panels have yet to sign the pretrial order governing the presentation of evidence and the outline of issues.

It was also disclosed on Monday that Estrada had to be rushed to the Philippine National Police General Hospital on August 28 after complaining of “severe chest pain and difficulty in breathing.”

In an Aug. 29 letter, Chief Insp. Romulo Flores II, chief of the PNP Custodial Services Unit, said he instructed the duty officer of the day to call the attention of the PNPGH Emergency Room at around 2:50 p.m.

At 3:51 p.m., duty physician Chief Insp. Jonas Cleofre Accad conducted a medical checkup and recommended that Estrada undergo X-ray examination.

Thus, Estrada was escorted to the hospital at 6:07 p.m. by ambulance and the X-ray examination was done at 6:20 p.m. Estrada was returned to the custodial center at 6:22 p.m., which meant his brief emergency leave was over in 15 minutes.

Asked about his condition, Estrada told reporters that he “only had chills and high fever.” He added: “What I’m complaining of is my right shoulder that needs to be operated on.”

Estrada has been detained since June 2014 after he was charged for allegedly receiving P183.8 million in kickbacks in exchange for funneling his Priority Development Assistance Fund allocations to dubious foundations allegedly controlled by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles.

He backed up President Duterte in his recent tirades accusing the Ombudsman of selective justice and slowness in handling the pork barrel scam cases.

“The president knows what he is talking about, because being a prosecutor before, he knows and must have read up on our cases, where we were singled out because we were with the opposition in the last administration,” he said. je