MANILA, Philippines - Principal whistle-blower Benhur Luy surprised defense lawyers yesterday when he submitted nine folders of documentary evidence against Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. to the Sandiganbayan supposedly detailing his illegal transactions from 2006 to 2012.
Ombudsman prosecutors, in a bail hearing before the anti-graft court’s First Division, moved to have the documents accepted and marked, prompting defense counsels to object.
Luy, taking the stand again as a primary witness against Revilla, his former chief of staff Richard Cambe and suspected pork barrel fund scam operator Janet Lim-Napoles, said the documentary evidence he is submitting is a printout of the contents of his hard drive.
Luy identified specific entries in the documents he submitted, pointing to the alleged rebates and kickbacks received by Revilla and Cambe in various amounts.
The prosecution revealed how Revilla allegedly received a total of P224.5 million, with Cambe getting his own cuts in amounts as much as P3 million in a single transaction.
Joel Bodegon led fellow defense counsels Remigio Ancheta and Stephen David, representing Cambe and Napoles respectively, to ask the Sandiganbayan not to allow the documents to be marked as evidence.
Noting that the hard drive cannot be admitted for not passing authentication required under the electronic evidence rule, they said the documents brought by Luy were not revealed or pre-marked during the preliminary and pre-trial conferences.
Defense lawyers also tried to block Luy’s testimony for being hearsay, considering the hard drive was a copy of an original that was in a computer at the office of JLN Corp. of Napoles.