New Sandigan justice to sit in Jinggoy’s trial
PRESIDENT Aquino’s newly appointed Sandiganbayan justice will sit in the arraignment on Monday, June 30, of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada and his coaccused in the pork barrel scam-related plunder and graft cases.
Associate Justice Ma. Theresa Gomez-Estoesta, reported to the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division on Tuesday, a day after the announcement of her appointment, which had raised constitutional questions.
A former Manila Regional Trial Court judge, Estoesta became the third member of the Fifth Division in place of Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang whom the President promoted in February.
The Fifth Division, which is chaired by Associate Justice Rolando Jurado with Associate Justice Alexander Gesmundo as member, handles the consolidated cases against Estrada and his 25 coaccused.
Tang, who was the most junior member of the antigraft court when she was promoted, now chairs the Third Division which handles the consolidated cases against Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile and his 48 coaccused in the pork barrel scam cases.
Along with the arraignment, the Fifth Division justices will also hear Estrada’s request to be granted bail after he turned himself in on June 23.
Estrada, Enrile and Sen. Bong Revilla Jr., along with principal accused Janet Lim-Napoles and five others, are charged with plunder, a nonbailable offense.
Revilla and his 31 coaccused will have their own arraignment on Thursday, June 26, before the First Division.
Revilla and his coaccused and staff member Richard Cambe also immediately asked for bail after they turned themselves in on Friday, June 20.
Under evaluation
The plunder and graft cases leveled against Enrile are still being evaluated by the Third Division.
The division’s most senior member, Associate Justice Samuel Martires, reportedly received from the Ombudsman the complete case records only on June 23.
Martires had reportedly requested his own copy of the voluminous documents that exceeded 9,000 pages.
The other two divisions han- dling the consolidated cases of Estrada and Enrile were each provided a copy of the entire pile of the case documents on June 13, when the cases were raffled to the three divisions.
To order the arrest, all three members of a division must unanimously agree that there is probable cause to try the accused based on the evidence laid by the Ombudsman.
But if one member dissents, the court will have to get two other justices from other divisions to form a special fivemember division which will decide based on majority vote.
The third member of the Third Division, Associate Justice Alex Quiroz, had temporarily sat as member of the Fifth Division when this decided on Monday that there was probable cause based on the evidence to place Estrada and his coaccused under arrest.
The First Division, chaired by Associate Justice Efren de la Cruz with Associate Justices Rafael Lagos and Napoleon Inoturan as members, had ordered the arrest of Revilla and his 31 coaccused last June 19.
The President’s latest appointment had raised questions since he exceeded the constitutionally mandated 90-day period to fill in a vacancy in the judiciary.
The deadline to choose from the list of nominees submitted on Feb. 28 by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) lapsed on May 28.
Before appointing Estoesta, the President returned the list to the JBC on June 19 but was promptly rebuffed by Chief Justice and JBC Chair Lourdes Sereno, who said the selection process was over.
In her reply to Malacañang, Sereno did not comment on the lapse of the constitutionally set deadline.
According to reports, the President would have appointed Quezon City Regional Trial Court Bernelito Fernandez who received the unanimous endorsement from the six JBC members.
The President reportedly had second thoughts when he found out that Fernandez is the son of the Sandiganbayan justice who had presided over the trial that cleared the late Gen. Fabian Ver of murder charges in the 1985 assassination of the President’s father, Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.