Jinggoy ordered to attend ‘Boracay’ mansion inspection

As far as justices of the Sandiganbayan are concerned, former San Juan mayor Jinggoy Estrada is not yet a free man.

The anti-graft court ordered him yesterday to attend the March 19 ocular inspection of the Boracay mansion allegedly owned by his father, ousted President Joseph Estrada, and attend the resumption of the plunder trial on March 24.

Sandiganbayan’s special division, composed of Justices Minita Chico-Nazario, Edilberto Sandoval and Teresita Leonardo de Castro, directed the younger Estrada to go to the anti-graft court and sign a "waiver of appearance" or he would be forced to attend all the hearings on the charges filed against him and his father.

Jinggoy is one of his father’s seven co-accused in his plunder cases.

Last Thursday, Sandoval asked Estrada’s lawyer Noel Malaya why his client was "absent" from the proceedings. Malaya said his client had already posted a P500,000 bail and that he had already signed a waiver of appearance, which meant that he can do away with attending the hearings for so long as his lawyers are present.

But the magistrate, along with special division head and presiding Justice Nazario, clarified that what the accused had signed was actually a waiver on his detention (at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City) and not on his appearance in all the hearings on the plunder case.

Malaya assured the court, nevertheless, that Estrada would sign the needed waiver.

Chief special prosecutor Dennis Villa Ignacio moved that if the accused fails to sign the document, prosecution will have to ask the court to order his arrest.

The Office of the Ombudsman had earlier sought the reversal of the bail order on Jinggoy, pointing out that the court erred in its decision because he is just as guilty as his father, having conspired indirectly to commit a common purpose, which was to collect jueteng money for their own benefit.

The Sandiganbayan released Jinggoy on bail after they ruled that the prosecutors’ "theory of conspiracy" was highly-speculative as none of the witnesses have supported Ilocos Sur Governor Luis "Chavit" Singson’s testimony that Jinggoy worked as jueteng collector during his father’s tenure in Malacañang.