Bong appeals suspension, cries harassment

MANILA, Philippines - Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. has asked the Sandiganbayan to reconsider its July 31 decision suspending him from office for three months “in the interest of substantial justice and fairness.”

Charged with graft and plunder over his alleged involvement in the pork barrel scam, Revilla said the 19,513,521 Filipinos who voted for him in the 2010 elections will lose their representative in the Senate.

“The suspension of Senator Revilla from office will serve no useful purpose but to harass him and unduly put to waste the millions of votes cast in his favor during the last senatorial elections,” Revilla’s lawyer Joel Bodegon said in a motion for reconsideration filed yesterday.

He added that the suspension order against his client is premature and without basis because the plunder complaint against him has not yet been declared valid with finality.

Bodegon also called the attention of the anti-graft court’s First Division on the petition for certiorari they filed before the Supreme Court as well as motion for reconsideration of the denial of their motion for judicial determination of probable cause.

He said the Sandiganbayan committed an error in ordering his suspension since both petitions have yet to be resolved.

Revilla has the right to challenge the validity of the information filed against him, including criminal proceedings, which led to the filing of such information, prior to his being suspended from office, the seven-page appeal stated.

Revilla’s suspension from public office for 90 days would trample upon his rights and render nugatory his remedies under the law, Bodegon added.

He said it is also “unimaginable as it is impossible” how Revilla would still be able to intimidate or influence possible witnesses against him or tamper with documentary evidence considering that he has been in jail since June 20.

Napoles witnesses

Meanwhile, the lawyers of detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles yesterday presented two security officers of the Pacific Plaza Towers condominium as witnesses in the continuing hearing of the illegal detention case filed against her at the Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 150.

The security officers testified that whistle-blower Benhur Luy told agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) who rescued him on the night of March 22, 2013 that he was not kidnapped and that he refused to go with them.

Fernando Masayon said he was manning the main gate of the Pacific Plaza Towers when the NBI team arrived to rescue Luy, who was then allegedly being held against his will inside a unit of the condominium owned by Reynald Lim, a brother of Napoles.

He said he accompanied Luy’s brother, two male agents and a female agent to the unit where Luy was allegedly being detained.

When asked by Makati Assistant Senior Prosecutor Christopher Garvida, Masayon said he distinctly heard Luy, despite all the noise and shouting inside the condominium unit, telling the NBI agents that he was not kidnapped.

Masayon said he was standing about four feet away from Luy, who was seated on a sofa and was clutching a throw pillow.

But when asked by Garvida if he heard Luy’s mother Gertrudes crying while talking, Masayon said, “he did not notice.”

Feliciano Alcantara, security supervisor at the Pacific Plaza Towers, also testified that Luy refused to go with the NBI agents who were supposed to rescue him.

He said he saw Luy shouting at his brother and telling him that he was not kidnapped, adding that he saw Luy resisting being taken by the NBI agents.

Napoles’ lawyers led by Bruce Rivera told reporters they would present 18 witnesses, including several Chinese priests, to prove that Luy was not illegally detained at a house inside the Magallanes Village in Makati. The house is allegedly owned by Napoles and was being used by Chinese priests.

He said they would present Madylon Habana, closed circuit television (CCTV) camera operator, and Adeline Susan Carag, general manager of the Pacific Plaza Towers at the next hearing on Sept. 16.

Defense lawyers also asked the court to subpoena the CCTV footages taken at the condominium between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. of March 22, 2013 when the NBI allegedly rescued Luy.

The defense lawyers also intend to present Napoles and her brother, who remains at large, and co-accused Reynald.

No immediate relief

As this developed, Napoles failed to get immediate relief from the Supreme Court (SC) in her bid to stop the plunder and graft cases against her.

The high court deferred ruling on her plea for issuance of temporary restraining order enjoining the Sandiganbayan from proceeding with the cases against her, and instead opted to require comments from the anti-graft court and the Office of the Ombudsman.

SC spokesman Theodore Te said the respondents are given 10 days from receipt of notice to comply with the order.

In three petitions filed on Aug. 13, Napoles asked the high court to void the resolutions of the ombudsman approving her indictment as principal accused in the separate plunder cases against Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Revilla.

Through her lawyers led by Stephen David, she also urged the SC to order the recall of the arrest warrant against her.

She said the ombudsman committed grave abuse of discretion in indicting her despite the supposed absence of the element of “amassing ill-gotten wealth” in the aggregate amount of P50 million required under the plunder law.

Napoles also argued that plunder is a crime committed by public officers and that a private individual can only be held liable for plunder if he conspired with the public officer in the commission of the crime of plunder. With Mike Frialde, Edu Punay