Pinning his hopes on the Supreme Court, former Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. filed an urgent motion seeking to stop the Sandiganbayan from conducting further proceedings in the plunder case filed against him in connection with priority development assistance fund (PDAF) or the pork barrel scam.
Revilla, together with former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and former Senator Jinggoy Estrada, has been charged with plunder, a non-bailable offense along with alleged brains of the pork barrel scam Janet Lim-Napoles. All three have been detained in 2014.
However, both Enrile and Estrada was able to post bail for their temporary liberty. In 2015, the high court allowed Enrile to post bail for humanitarian reasons while Estrada was allowed by the Sandiganbayan to post bail in 2017.
Revilla said he has been in detention since June 20, 2014 or 1,371 days which violates his right to due process, right to be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved, right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him and right to an impartial trial.
Quoting the high court’s decision on the Enrile bail case, Revilla said “the name of the game is fair play, not foul play…In the instant case, the petitioner has been in the ‘game’ not just with one arm tied to his back but with both eyes completely blinded.”
He said the Sandiganbayan has compelled him to present evidence for his defense, specifically against the 5,134 pieces of evidence it has admitted.
But Revilla said none of the 5,134 pieces of evidence has shown that the basic elements of plunder exists.
“Given these injudicious circumstances, petitioner was constrained to give up several trial dates out of the 60 dates allowed by the Sandiganbayan for him to present evidence and he is already in peril of losing all the dates allowed for his defense,” the motion stated.
Last January, Revilla already filed a petition before the Supreme Court accusing the Sandiganbayan of violating his constitutional rights.
Revilla told the SC that while the anti-graft court has denied his motions, it has accepted all the evidence presented by the prosecution even if the evidence, he added, does not point directly to his alleged participation in the pork barrel scam.
The former senator explained that under the law, plunder is supposed to be committed by a series of overt acts but that in the case filed against him, the prosecution failed to present evidence to show the overt acts he committed, except for his endorsement of the non-government organization of Janet Lim Napoles.
This, he stressed, does not identify or show the particular overt acts committed but rather describes an entire process within which those acts are to be found. Still, he said the anti-graft court ignored these, proceeded to dismiss his motions and continued with the trial of his case.
READ: Bong Revilla in petition to SC: Sandiganbayan violated my rights
READ: It’s final: SC denies Revilla plea to junk P224-M plunder case