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8-6
SC Vote In Favor of Estrada Looms
Sandiganbayan Justice Badoy under
pressure to resign
Eight Supreme
Court (SC) justices are poised to sign a draft Decision stating ousted President
Joseph Estrada should not be charged with plunder on the ground that the Plunder
Law was "vague."
BY
BULATLAT.COM
Is ousted President Joseph Estrada going to be out of jail before Christmas?
This possibility looms as eight Supreme Court (SC) justices are poised to sign a draft Decision stating ousted Estrada should not be charged with plunder on the ground that the Plunder Law was "vague."
A highly-placed insider told Bulatlat.com that the SC decision will be promulgated on or before Nov. 20.
But the high court is also reportedly being asked by Sandiganbayan Overall Presiding Justice Francis Garchitorena through a letter addressed to Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., to disqualify Anacleto Badoy, presiding justice of the anti-graft court, from hearing the plunder case on the ground that he had not resolved the pending motions of the Estradas but continued to hold trial for the presentation of evidence.
Reacting to Garchitorena's letter, a highly-reliable source in the Sandiganbayan said, Davide wrote Badoy to explain his side.
The Estrada camp is expected to mount pressure on Badoy in the next few weeks to resign or inhibit himself from the plunder case as the Estadas unleash their most vicious vilification campaign against him by spreading lies and accusing him of immoral acts, according to the source.
Estrada's lawyers have several times sought the inhibition of Badoy from the case, especially after he wrote a three-page epilogue to the court's decision denying the former president's petition for house arrest. Badoy, they said, "lost the cold neutrality of an impartial judge" when he referred to the jailbreak of
then military putschist Gregorio Honasan during the Aquino administration and when he exhorted the public to "sustain he momentum of the moment" in apparent reference to People Power II.
This is the first time however that the Sandiganbayan's presiding justice formally expressed his position regarding Badoy's inhibition from the case.
Meanwhile, the reported SC draft ruling is in response to the motion earlier filed by Estrada's lawyers questioning the "constitutionality" and "vagueness" of the Plunder Law. The draft decision apparently agrees that the law is vague but itself does not use the word "unconstitutional."
Legal experts say that if this happens Estrada can only be charged with graft, a bailable offense which does not carry the death penalty unlike the crime of plunder. It also becomes possible for Estrada to temporarily get out of jail once he posts bail before December.
For and against
Lawyer Antonio Carpio formally joins the SC after Nov. 21 as associate justice, replacing Justice Minerva Gonzaga-Reyes, an Estrada appointee, who retired last September. Since he was a signatory to the
plunder complaint, Carpio said that he would voluntarily inhibit himself from the SC's deliberation of the Plunder Law's constitutionality.
The draft SC decision that is currently being circulated among the SC justices does not explicitly declare the Plunder Law unconstitutional. However, the it states that Estrada cannot be charged with plunder since the law, as formulated, is "vague."
The source stressed that six justices appointed by Estrada are expected to vote in favor of this decision. They are Associate Justices Leonardo Quisumbing, Bernardo Pardo, Arturo Buena, Consuelo
Ynares-Santiago, Sabino de Leon, and Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez.
Associate Justice Santiago Kapunan, whose son-in-law was a lawyer for Estrada during the impeachment trial, did not inhibit himself despite a motion to inhibit filed by Solicitor General Simeon Marcelo as well as calls for his inhibition from civil society. Kapunan, who was appointed by former President Fidel Ramos, is also inclined to vote in favor of Estrada.
According to Bulatlat.com's source, it is possible for Justice Josue Bellosillo, an Aquino appointee, to also vote in favor of the decision. A looming scenario therefore is an 8-6 decision in favor of Estrada.
The source said that, on the other hand, Chief Justice Davide and Justices Reynato Puno, Jose Melo, Jose Vitug, Vicente Mendoza and Artemio Panganiban will vote to uphold the regularity and validity of
the law.
Davide was appointed by former President Corazon Aquino, although he took his oath as Chief Justice during the time of Estrada. Meanwhile, Puno, Melo, Vitug, Mendoza and Panganiban were appointed by former President Fidel Ramos.
"Vague"
The defense lawyers' 40-page petition claimed that the Plunder Law, as amended by the Heinous Crime Law or Republic Act 7659, was "vague and unconstitutional'' and allegedly violated the right of the accused to due process.
"Both statutes suffer from the vice of vagueness, thus infringing on the guarantee of due process in its substantive aspect," the petition said.
The defense earlier refused but failed to prevent to have Estrada arraigned, insisting that the high court should first rule on the constitutionality of the anti-plunder law before any arraignment could take place. They argued that the law on plunder - defined as illegally amassing more than P50 million (about one million dollars) - was new and contained "ambiguities" that should first be cleared up.
On Oct. 1, Estrada's first trial day before the Sandiganbayan, all nine defense lawyers boycotted the hearing due to the court's alleged bias against their client and court's failure to address pending motions, including their Supreme Court petition on the Plunder Law.
Review of plunder charges
Estrada, the first Asian leader and Philippine president to stand trial for corruption, was charged with illegally amassing over P4 billion in the three years that he was president. Information read by the court also stated that he acquired his ill-gotten wealth through illegal commissions and kickbacks.
The prosecution cited four instances in which Estrada allegedly committed plunder:
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when he allegedly accepted P545 million in bribes from operators of the "jueteng" illegal numbers
game;
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when he allegedly took P130 million from an allocation of tobacco excise tax revenues;
-
when he allegedly opened and kept a secret bank account with P3.1 billion under the alleged alias
Jose Velarde; and
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when he allegedly earned kickbacks after compelling the state pension funds Social Security System
and the Government Service Insurance System to invest in Belle Corporation, a private company run
by his cronies.
Estrada's other co-accused in the plunder case - Charlie "Atong" Ang, Yolanda Ricaforte, Delia Rajas, Eleuterio Tan and Alma Alfaro - remain at large.
Bulatlat.com
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