Sandiganbayan junks Jinggoy’s plea to revert to old hearing schedule

MANILA, Philippines – The Sandiganbayan on Thursday denied the motion filed by detained Sen. Jinggoy Estrada to revert back the previous schedule of his weekly bail hearing.

In its latest resolution, Sandiganbayan Fifth Division said Estrada’s appeal “to return hearing days to Mondays on an exclusive basis… was not well taken.”

Estrada asked the anti-graft court to return his bail hearing schedule on the mentioned schedule since “from the time his case was heard on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, the allotted time for it had been drastically reduced.”

Although it appears that Estrada has been requesting more hearing days, he said that he requested to revert his hearing schedule to have “more time allotted for the accused’s bail petition.”

The senator claimed that his new hearing dates affected the schedule of his legal team and cited that they are “obligated and constrained to allot three days in a week."

Sandiganbayan replied in its motion that the accuracy of Estrada’s claim has yet to be confirmed.

Estrada is currently detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center inside Camp Crame in Quezon City. He has been detained since 2014 facing charges of graft and plunder due to the pork barrel scam.