Jinggoy Hopeful Of Bribery Reversal

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada is “keeping his fingers crossed” that he would be able to reverse the Sandiganbayan’s conviction of him for bribery over the pork barrel scam.

In a dwIZ interview on Saturday, Jan. 21, Estrada said he still saw the anti-graft court’s Fifth Division ruling a “legal victory” because he was acquitted of the main charge of plunder.

“I think there’s still reason to celebrate despite the fact of my conviction of bribery. What’s most important to me is the main plunder case,” he said. “I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed.” 

Estrada will file a motion for reconsideration or go all the way to the Supreme Court to appeal his conviction for bribery, which he said was not mentioned in the charge sheet filed in court.

“We cannot be confident. We want to make sure the motion for reconsideration will have no loopholes so that it could be granted by the Sandiganbayan,” he said.

The senator denied he benefited from the misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel during his previous stint as senator.

“Maybe I was careless in the old days. But one thing is for sure, I did not steal people’s money,” Estrada said.

He said the decision – which could see him perpetually disqualified from public office and unseat him from the Senate – is not yet final and executory.

Estrada vowed to continue serving his duties as a senator who garnered over 15 million votes in the last elections.

“I will continue working with the mandate given to me by the people,” he said in Filipino.

While he was acquitted of plunder, Estrada was found guilty of receiving bribe money from accused pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles, and alleged middleman Ruby Tuason, in exchange for endorsing Napoles’ bogus foundations to implement his pork projects.

Labayen benefitted from PDAF – Sandiganbayan

It was Estrada’s former deputy chief-of-staff, Pauline Labayen, who “primarily benefitted” from his PDAF when she took advantage of her connection with the senator to “casually” drop his name whenever she transacted with Napoles, the Sandiganbayan said.

In its nearly 400-page decision released on Friday, Jan. 19, the anti-graft court said based on evidence, it was “made clear” Labayen actively participated in the “grandiose scheme” of funneling PDAF from Estrada’s office to the bogus non-government organizations of Napoles, making them the co-conspirators in the case and not Estrada and Napoles.

“Criminal intent on the part of Senator Estrada is absent in this case. Although he may be negligent for not monitoring his PDAF, Labayen’s involvement in its diversion is incontrovertible… His negligence cannot be construed as an overt act in furtherance of conspiracy with Napoles and the other accused,” the decision read.

“As evidence proves, the public officer who primarily benefitted from the PDAF of Senator Estrada is no other than Labayen,” it added.

Citing whistleblower Ruby Tuason’s testimony in the case, the Sandiganbayan said Estrada had already declined Napoles’ offer to divert his PDAF allocation, but Labayen was found to have later on involved herself in the scheme.

In the documents submitted as evidence, Labayen was found to have been the signatory in the documents involving the funding for implementing NGOs controlled by Napoles.

Estrada had denied, on record, signing letters endorsing the NGOs in the case, but was unable to present expert testimony on forgery.

The cases against Labayen and former government official John Raymund de Asis, have been archived as they remain at large. The court has since reissued an alias warrant, stipulating that once they are arrested, their cases would be revived.

“Labayen could have chosen to defend herself instead of being a fugitive from justice. The flight of an accused, in the absence of a credible explanation, would be a circumstance from which an inference of guilty may be established, for a truly innocent person would normally grasp the first available opportunity to defend (oneself) and to assert innocence,” the court added.

Aside from these, Estrada was cleared of plunder because of the lack of evidence to link his financial activities and the PDAF scam, wherein out of the P183 million he allegedly pocketed, only P36.5 million were funneled to his bank accounts.

Still, prosecutors failed to link the bank deposit with the PDAF scam.

However, Estrada was convicted of two counts of indirect bribery and a count of direct bribery. He was sentenced to up to 16 years in prison, and ordered to pay P3 million.

Napoles, meanwhile, was found guilty of seven counts of corruption of public officials. – With an additional report from Neil Jayson Servallos