Graft court affirms raps vs Binay

The Sandiganbayan Fourth Division yesterday upheld the graft case filed against former Makati City Mayor Elenita Binay, wife of incumbent Mayor Jejomar Binay, concerning the alleged anomalous purchase of P13.25 million worth of office furnitures between December 1999 and February 2000.

In a nine-page resolution issued July 27, the graft court affirmed the prosecution’s position that the indictment was valid having conformed with requirements of form and substance.

The Sandiganbayan also denied Binay’s motion to quash the complaint which she filed jointly with her co-accused former city general services chief Ernesto Aspillaga on the grounds that it failed to specify the ground for the prayer to dismiss the case.

“The court agrees with the prosecution. The said motion did not conform to the requirement of a motion to quash and hence, on this basis, the motion should be denied,” the court said.

Binay and Aspillaga claimed that the Ombudsman’s finding of probable cause was based on mere legal conclusions that were not supported by facts. They said this made the case information fatally deficient.

“The court is not impressed. As correctly observed by the prosecution, allegations contained in the information sufficiently provide factual details which tend to show that the award of the procurement (contract) was illegal and unlawful because it was made thru a repeat order based on a simulated/rigged public bidding,” the Sandiganbayan said in its resolution.

As to the questions raised by the defendants regarding the changes the prosecution made in the amount of the alleged damage to the government and the final determination of the guilt of innocence of all the accused, the Sandiganbayan said these are subject to the strength of evidence submitted during trial.

The two were accused of causing undue injury to the City government of Makati because the furniture bought from Office Gallery International were overpriced by P3.6 million.