Voluminous records, staff changes lead to delays in Dichaves case

The sheer volume of records and the fact that former President Joseph Estrada’s original prosecutors have moved on elsewhere have slowed down progress on the case of his alleged dummy, Jaime Dichaves.

Dichaves has yet to be ordered arrested for the nonbailable plunder case. His camp, led by Estrada’s former defense lawyer Estelito Mendoza, wants to know first which evidence served as the basis for a finding of probable cause to try him.

Before the Sandiganbayan Seventh Division could resolve Dichaves’ motion, the court, on April 11, gave the Ombudsman’s Office of the Special Prosecutor 30 days to submit its comment or opposition.

The prosecution, however, still could not answer Dichaves’ plea. After being granted a 20-day extension, the OSP sought another 20 days to come up with its response with the court agreeing to extend the deadline to June 20.

In its latest motion for extension, the OSP again cited the “volume of the records of the case which the handling prosecutors need to peruse.”

But, the motion also pointed out that “none of the members of the present prosecution team was part of or involved with the original Team that prosecuted the case” and won the resigned president’s conviction for plunder.

“All of the former prosecutors are no longer connected with the Office of the Special Prosecutor,” the motion stated.

The OSP added that it also felt the need to prepare a table of contents and paginate each folder to better facilitate the proceedings.

It may be recalled that during an April 11 hearing, Assistant State Prosecutor Loreto Cunanan told the open court that the plunder case had long been decided against Estrada and the prosecution’s efforts have been sustained since. He hinted that this showed a finding of probable cause against Dichaves, who had, so far, never faced the court.

Cunanan, however, said that he had yet to see the records personally because they had been already archived.

Dichaves claims to be the true owner of the Jose Velarde bank account at Equitable-PCI Bank. Prosecutors alleged that Estrada conspired with the businessman to use the account to stash P3.23 billion in ill-gotten wealth—including commissions from the government’s purchase of shares from leisure firm Belle Corp.

Dichaves, however, could not be tried alongside Estrada in Criminal Case No. 26558 as he slipped out of the country by the time the Sandiganbayan first ordered his arrest on Jan. 29, 2002.

He returned only on Nov. 19, 2010, three years after the former president was convicted for plunder in September 2007 but pardoned six weeks later. (Estrada placed second in the 2010 presidential elections and has been elected Manila mayor twice, in 2013 and 2016).

The Sandiganbayan proceedings only recently resumed after the Supreme Court, in December, lifted a three-year temporary restraining order and upheld the validity of the Ombudsman’s 2011 reinvestigation of the case.

Mendoza invoked the constitutional right of the accused to be informed of the nature of allegations as part of due process in Dichaves’s case.

This was the same tactic he employed in the pork barrel scam cases of former Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon Revilla Jr., although the legal heavyweight was arguably more successful in the senior senator’s case.