Arroyo asks court anew to dismiss plunder case

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has asked the Sandiganbayan to dismiss the plunder charge against her on the ground that the prosecution failed to prove her guilt in the case involving the alleged misuse of P365 million in funds from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).

In a reply to the opposition to her motion for reconsideration dated May 29, 2015, Arroyo, through counsel, asked the antigraft court to reconsider its earlier resolution denying her demurrer to evidence.

A demurrer to evidence is a motion to dismiss a case for lack of sufficient evidence to convict the accused.

Arroyo said the prosecution failed to refute her valid arguments in her motion for reconsideration dated April 22, 2015. In that motion, she said that the senators who deliberated on the plunder law on June 5, 1989, distinguished between the amount of transaction and the amount that is amassed, as well as the intent to commit a crime for personal benefit.

She said that even the author of the plunder law, Sen. Wigberto Tañada, equated “ill-gotten wealth” with “personal benefit.”

Arroyo argued that the prosecution in the PCSO case against her merely fixed the wealth that all the accused were supposed to have amassed in conspiracy with each other at the “precise amount of P365,997,915,” supposedly the amount of the transaction.–Cynthia D. Balana