(UPDATE) CHIEF Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile was acquitted on Friday by the Sandiganbayan’s Special Third Division of 15 counts of graft over the alleged misuse of nearly P173 million of his pork barrel funds.
Also acquitted were Enrile’s former secretary, Jessica Lucila Reyes, pork barrel scandal mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles, and Enrile’s former deputy chief of staff, Jose Antonio Evangelista, as well as former Department of Budget and Management officials Mario Relampagos, Rosario Nunez, Lalaine Paule and Marilou Bare, former Technology and Resource Center (TRC) officials Dennis Cunanan and Antonio Ortiz, National Agribusiness Corp. (Nabcor) president Alan Javellana, National Livelihood Development Corp. (NLDC) Gondelina Amata, other officials and employees of the TRC, Nabcor and NLDC, and several private individuals including Jo Christine and James Christopher Lim Napoles.
Several of the accused, including Napoles, were ordered to pay damages worth P302 million and an interest of 6 percent per annum from the finality of the decision.
Enrile, Reyes, Valera, Relampagos, Nunez, Paule, Bare, the Napoles children and other private respondents were found to have no civil liability and were not ordered to pay damages.
Enrile was not personally present during the promulgation, appearing only through a video link from his hospital room.
Napoles also appeared via video link from the Correctional Institution for Women, where she has been detained.
Reyes was present at the Sandiganbayan to hear the decision.
In its 192-page per curiam decision, the court said the prosecution failed to prove the accused were guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
The prosecution also failed to prove that the accused acted with “manifest partiality, evident bad faith, or gross negligence.”
The evidence was insufficient to prove that the public officers and employees received kickbacks representing portions of Enrile’s Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), and that he demanded or received any form of kickback, commission or rebate in exchange for endorsing several nongovernment organizations (NGOs) linked to Napoles.
According to the court, the testimony of Ruby Tuason, the former social secretary of former president Joseph Estrada and the alleged agent in the transactions involving Enrile, was “unreliable” because it lacked specifics, such as the exact amount, tranche, project involved.
Another witness, pork barrel scam whistleblower Benhur Luy, confirmed he never saw Enrile visit the office of JLN Corp., Napoles’ firm, or witnessed his supposed agents delivering kickbacks to him.
The prosecution was not able to substantiate allegations that officials from the TRC, Nabcor and NLDC received kickbacks, which ruled out evident bad faith and manifest partiality.
The entries in the daily disbursement reports (DDRs) and summary of rebates presented by the prosecution were deemed unreliable, partly because the external hard drive used to print the DDRs was not assured of integrity, having been accessed while out of custody, and the printed copies were unsigned
Despite the failure of the prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the court established a preponderance of evidence that public funds were transferred to Napoles-linked NGOs for fictitious projects, causing actual damages to the government.
The court said the actions of certain public officials, particularly Cunanan, may have constituted gross inexcusable negligence for failing to exercise due diligence, but they could not be convicted on this basis because the information only charged them with “evident bad faith and manifest partiality.”
In separate statements, Mamamayang Liberal Party-list Rep. Leila de Lima and Gabriela Party-list Rep. Sarah Jane Elago slammed the acquittal of Enrile and his co-accused.
De Lima, who was justice secretary at the time the cases against Enrile were filed, said that they started “fresh and strong on the evidence when we filed the PDAF cases, strong enough to even deny Enrile and Reyes bail in the separate plunder cases.”
“The problem is the slow wheels of justice, with the accused relying on the public’s short memory to eventually be absolved because of less scrutiny over their cases over years of trial,” de Lima said.
Elago said the acquittal is the “face of the rotten justice system in the Philippines.”
“Twelve years after the PDAF scam, the very same people who plundered public funds are once again walking free,” Elago said.
Malacañang, meanwhile, urged the public to respect the Sandiganbayan’s decision.
“The court has spoken, so let’s respect it. Let’s respect whatever decision the court has made,” Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said during a press conference.
Castro also denied that the accused were getting off lightly because Enrile is an official in the Marcos administration.
“How can we exert any influence on the court? It is a court, there is a separation of powers, and we need to respect it, because if we do not respect the decisions of the court, we will become a chaotic country, so that is difficult; we should trust our justice system,” Castro said.
She added that what President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. wants “is that when a case is filed, it shouldn’t be rushed — the evidence must be complete. Because if there are even small mistakes, especially in a criminal case, any doubt — and if the accused is not proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt — will lead to an acquittal.”
