Ombudsman to appeal SC ruling on Enrile bail

MANILA, Philippines - The Office of the Ombudsman will appeal the controversial Supreme Court (SC) decision granting Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile bail on humanitarian grounds.

“We are about to file a motion for reconsideration with the SC on the case of Senator Enrile,” Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales told the House appropriations committee chaired by Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab.

She said she could not discuss the merits of the case because it is pending resolution by the high tribunal.

Enrile was detained for one year before the SC freed him on bail. He is facing plunder and graft cases before the Sandiganbayan in connection with the alleged misuse of millions in his pork barrel funds.

Also facing the same charges are Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr., businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the suspected mastermind of the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam, some senior aides of the three senators and officers of state corporations used as conduits of the senators’ funds.

In the course of a wide-ranging media interview last week, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno said the Enrile bail ruling was not yet final.

She told journalists who asked about the case to just “wait, wait.”

The high tribunal freed Enrile on an 8-4 vote, with Justice Lucas Bersamin writing the majority decision. Justice Marvic Leonen wrote the dissent, which Sereno and Justices Antonio Carpio and Estela Perlas-Bernabe shared.

In his dissent, Leonen said the constitutional and legal grounds cited by Enrile in pleading for bail were not the reasons the Bersamin majority used in freeing the Cagayan senator.