Court to rule on Jinggoy Estrada’s bail plea

After nearly 18 months, the Sandiganbayan is set to conclude the bail hearing of detained Sen. Jinggoy Estrada after it denied the state prosecutors’ attempt to block the admission of documentary evidence submitted by his lawyers.

In a three-page resolution, the antigraft court’s Fifth Division scheduled the oral arguments for Estrada’s bail petition on Dec. 3 at 8:30 a.m.

It also admitted several documents presented by the defense lawyers of Janet Lim-Napoles, the suspected mastermind of the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

“With the admission of the documentary exhibits and the testimonies of their witnesses, accused Estrada and Napoles are deemed to have rested their case on the bail hearing,” the court said in its Nov. 25 resolution.

Prosecutors from the Office of the Ombudsman had asked the court to discard the documents submitted by Estrada’s lawyers for being “self-serving, uncorroborated and contrary to what had been established during the bail hearing.”

The government lawyers also claimed that Estrada’s evidence were “irrelevant and immaterial” to the plunder and graft charges brought against him.

The court, however, thumbed down the prosecution’s move, saying the objections it raised “relate more to the probative value rather than the admissibility” of the documents’ numerous motions.