It’s final: SC upholds graft raps vs Jinggoy

MANILA, Philippines -  The Supreme Court (SC) has upheld with finality the indictment of former senator Jinggoy Estrada for graft charges in addition to the plunder case against him involving the multibillion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam.

In summer session in Baguio City yesterday, the high court denied the appeal filed by the detained former senator and instead affirmed its ruling last Jan. 24 junking Estrada’s petition seeking dismissal of the new cases filed by the Office of the Ombudsman against him before the Sandiganbayan last year.

The SC found no new argument in his appeal that could warrant the reconsideration of the earlier ruling.

In his petition, Estrada asked the high court to reverse and set aside the rulings of the Sandiganbayan denying his motion to dismiss the graft charges that were based on the same allegations in the plunder case against him.

Estrada specifically assailed the resolutions of the 5th Division of the anti-graft court dated July 14, 2016 and Oct. 4, 2016, which dismissed his motion for lack of merit.

He alleged that the Sandiganbayan committed grave abuse of discretion in giving due course to the graft cases against him.

The Sandiganbayan dismissed the motion as it affirmed the position of the ombudsman that the cases should be separated as they pertained to different periods of the alleged PDAF transactions by the former senator.

It was not the first time Estrada sought relief from the high court in the plunder case against him.

In March 2015, the SC dismissed with finality his 2014 petitions seeking to stop his trial for plunder in the Sandiganbayan in relation to the PDAF scam.

The high court instead upheld the ruling of the anti-graft court affirming his indictment and the Ombudsman’s findings of probable cause in preliminary investigation.

Estrada and his colleagues, Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon  Revilla Jr., were charged in connection with the pork barrel scam allegedly perpetrated by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles in connivance with lawmakers who channeled their pork barrel allocation to bogus non-government organizations she established.