MANILA, July 11 — The camp of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles asked the Supreme Court (SC) for temporary liberty in connection to one of the plunder cases filed against her before the Sandiganbayan.
In a five-page pleading filed before the SC last July 6, Napoles through her lawyer Atty. Stephen Davidasked the SC to reverse the Oct. 16, 2015 and March 2, 2016 rulings of the Sandiganbayan denying her motion to post bail in the case against her and former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile before the third division of the anti-graft court.
She insisted that she should be allowed to post bail in this case – just like Enrile – because prosecutors “failed to present strong evidence.”
“The prosecutions’ evidence is built on the questionable credibility of whistleblowers which if exposed to analysis shows inconsistencies manifesting the lies on which they are built,” read the pleading.
“Even the testimonies of the whistleblowers themselves failed to prove the alleged conspiracy b between petitioner, Senator Enrile and Atty. Gigi Reyes. Benhur Luy admitted that he did not witness any meeting between Senator Enrile and the petitioner. In fact, none of the witnesses testified that they were privy to or have personal knowledge about the supposed agreement which petitioner, Senator Enrile and Atty. Reyes may have in the alleged scheme to carry out the purported PDAF scam,” it argued.
With this, Napoles alleged that the Sandiganbayan committed grave abuse of discretion in denying her earlier plea for bail.
Aside from Napoles, also charged with the same office were former senators Jinggoy Estrada, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Juan Ponce Enrile.
The SC allowed Enrile to post bail for his temporary liberty, citing humanitarian reasons, while Estrada and Revilla remained in detention at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame.
Estrada and Revilla also file bail petitions, but were both junked.
Last May, the Court of Appeals acquitted Napoles in the illegal detention case filed by pork barrel scam whistleblower Benhur Luy before the Makati regional trial court.
But she remained in detention since she is still facing plunder, graft and malversation charges before the Sandiganbayan.
Napoles has previously filed several petitions before the SC seeking to stop her indictment in the PDAF cases, but all were dismissed by the high court. (Christopher Lloyd T. Caliwan/PNA)
