After Jinggoy, Napoles wants bail

The camp of businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged mastermind of the multibillion-peso pork barrel fund scam, will file another motion to seek her provisional liberty from her plunder cases.

In a chance interview with reporters, Napoles’ lawyer Dennis Buenaventura said their camp will follow the move of former senator Jinggoy Estrada.

On Saturday, Estrada was released from the Philippine National Police Custodial Center at Camp Crame in Quezon City where he had been detained for more than three years.

He posted a P1.33-million bail bond for one count of plunder and 11 counts of graft.

Napoles was named Estrada’s coaccused in all his cases.

Estrada’s release from detention came after the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division, voting 3-2, granted his Omnibus Motion filed in September last year, in which he prayed to the court to either dismiss the case or allow him to post bail.

The Fifth Division denied Estrada’s prayer for the case’s dismissal for “lack of merit,” but it nonetheless granted his prayer for bail, siding with his argument that there was no evidence presented by the prosecution which shows that he is the “main plunderer” in the case.

“We will first file a similar motion here at the Fifth Division. Then, we will study the possible filing of the same motion before the other divisions,” Buenaventura said in Filipino.

“Insofar as we are concerned, this is favorable,” Buenaventura added, referring to the court’s resolution granting Estrada’s bail.

Napoles is also named as coaccused in the plunder cases against former senators Ramon Revilla Jr. and Juan Ponce Enrile, former Masbate representative and incumbent Gov. Rizalina Seachon-Lanete and former Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives party-list Rep. Edgar Valdez.

The court’s Fourth and Fifth Divisions last year granted the bail petitions of Lanete and Valdez, respectively, as well as that of Napoles.

The Fifth Division, in a 215-page resolution promulgated on Jan. 7, 2016, denied Estrada and Napoles’ petition for bail.

Estrada and Napoles appealed the ruling through their respective motions for reconsideration but the same were denied on May 11 of that year.

The magistrates composing the Fifth Division have since changed.

In its new ruling, the Fifth Division cited the Supreme Court’s July 2016 decision on the plunder case of former president and incumbent Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The case was in connection with the alleged misuse of the P366million intelligence fund of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PSCO)

In its ruling, the high tribunal reversed the Sandiganbayan’s decision and granted Arroyo’s demurrer to evidence which prayed for dismissal of the case on the ground of the prosecution’s failure to identify the main plunderer.

The ruling was upheld by the SC in April this year.