MANILA, Philippines – Senator Jinggoy Estrada is cleared in his pork barrel scam plunder case, after the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan flipped on an earlier decision to convict him of one count of direct bribery and two counts of indirect bribery.

The Sandiganbayan Special Fifth Division granted Estrada’s motion for reconsideration in a decision promulgated August 22, saying “there is reasonable doubt as to the presence of the second element — or the fact of receiving the bribe by the accused Estrada ) — as there is no proof of his actual receipt thereof.”

This is a flip because in January, the Fifth Division’s Associate Justices Rafael Lagos, Ma. Theresa Mendoza-Arcega, and Maryann Corpus-Mañalac all voted unanimously to downgrade the plunder charge to the lesser offense of direct and indirect bribery and convict Estrada of those charges.

When Estrada filed his motion, Lagos and Arcega changed their minds, but Mañalac stuck to her decision. As per Sandiganbayan rules that require a unanimous decision of 3 to rule, the division had to convene a special panel of five to break a tie. The ruling was 3 to 2. Associate Justice Bayani Jacinto voted with Mañalac to sustain the conviction, while Associate Justice Lorifel Lacap Pahimna voted with Lagos and Arcega to reverse the conviction.

“This ruling reaffirms the innocence I have consistently maintained throughout the ordeal, which spanned a decade, as I sought to prove the baselessness of the accusations against me,” Estrada said in a statement.

What happened

Estrada was accused of pocketing P183 million in kickbacks from his Priority Development Assistance Fund or PDAF, the discretionary funds for lawmakers which were corrupted using bogus non-governmental organizations (NGOs) owned by Janet Lim Napoles. The projects turned out to be fake.

Estrada was acquitted of plunder in January because the previous Fifth Division said that the verified transactions only amounted to P9.875 million, which is way lower than the threshold of P50 million to convict someone of plunder.

In the P9.875 million worth of deposits that matched NGO withdrawals and Special Allotment Release Orders (SAROs), the court initially found that P1 million was deposited to Estrada’s bank account. The court used the variance rule to convict him of direct and indirect bribery.

But after an appeal, the special division majority of three said “a second look and careful scrutiny” of the case showed that the charges against Estrada, which were tried for more than a decade, did not sufficiently accuse that the bribe was given because he was a senator. The charges, the court said, only mentioned “the giving by Napoles, or receipt by Estrada, of kickbacks or commissions were in consideration of the latter’s endorsement of Napoles NGOs.”

This was in favor of Estrada’s motion that his conviction of the different, albeit lesser, offenses violated his constitutional right to be informed of the charges against him.

“Estrada could not have reasonably prepared his defense for a potential finding of indirect bribery and he may had been taken by complete surprise to be facing the same, unlike in the predicate crime of direct bribery where allegations in the Information could have aroused Estrada to prepare for the same as a lesser offense necessarily included in the plunder charge,” the court explained.

Even though he was convicted in January, Estrada was not arrested nor detained because he still availed of legal remedies like a motion for reconsideration, which he filed and paved the way for his acquittal. He was also on bail.

“Hindi madali ang kabanatang pinagdaanan ko ngunit nanatili ang aking tiwala sa ating justice system at kumpiyansa na mapatunayan ang aking integridad bilang halal ng bayan (This chapter was not easy for me but my trust in our justice system remained and I was confident that I could prove my integrity as an elected official),” the senator said.

No proof for direct bribery

In convicting Estrada in January, the anti-graft court said all the elements of direct bribery were present: the senator is a public officer, he received bribe money, and he endorsed a bogus NGO for his PDAF project.

However, in the resolution acquitting him, the court said that aside from the identical transaction dates, there was no evidence to establish the transfer of money from Labayen to Estrada. According to the ruling, Luy’s records only mentioned Labayen as the recipient of the money, and did not give any testimony that Estrada received the same or a portion of the money.

The court added that the prosecution’s evidence lacked in showing a clear connection between the money deposited to Estrada’s account and the amount Labayen had received. It also noted that there was a discrepancy in the amount concerned — only P1 million was allegedly given to Estrada when Luy said Labayen was given P5 million for the senator — and the prosecution had no counter-argument on this.

“Indeed, the delivery of the subject money to Labayen cannot be construed as the bribe received by Estrada, since the prosecution failed to establish the connection between the cash received by Labayen from Napoles and the deposit made to Estrada’s account,” the Sandiganbayan said. “Thus, there is reasonable doubt as to the presence of the second element, or the fact of receiving the bribe by the accused Estrada, as there is no proof of his actual receipt thereof.”

Second plunder victory

In a span of over 20 years, Estrada has faced and won two plunder cases.

The senator, in the early 2000s, faced a plunder charge along with his father, former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada. The former president, ousted during the EDSA People Power 2 Revolution, was accused of conspiring with his son and others to acquire hidden wealth totaling P4 billion from jueteng (illegal numbers game) operations, kickbacks from tobacco excise taxes, stock manipulation, and use of a fictitious account to hide ill-gotten wealth.

After six years of trial, the former president was found guilty beyond reasonable of plunder, but Jinggoy was acquitted.

There are three reasons why the younger Estrada was acquitted in the first plunder: principal witness Chavit Singson’s testimony did not convince the court; the prosecution failed to fill in the gaps in his testimony; and the senator rebutted with documentary evidence the allegations by prosecution witnesses.

How the senator won in his first plunder case is similar to the way he was acquitted in the second one. To summarize, Estrada got away in his second plunder through a combination of hard evidence and by finding loopholes in the earlier ruling and in the prosecution’s evidence.

Estrada, however, is not completely off the hook because he still faces graft allegations over the pork barrel scam.

In addition, the senator’s acquittal further shows that big fishes implicated in the PDAF controversy continue to be cleared. Aside from Estrada, Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla was earlier acquitted by the court in his graft cases. Napoles was convicted in the Revilla case, while the senator involved walked free — similar to Estrada’s case.

Although he was acquitted, Revilla was ordered to return P124.5 million to the national treasury. But five years since his acquittal in 2019, the court has yet to collect the amount, Rappler has learned.

The only remaining big fish facing plunder is former senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who is now chief presidential legal adviser. His case dragged on in court because of technical petitions. – Rappler.com