Credits: SunStar Philippines
The Supreme Court has authorized the Sandiganbayan to proceed with the plunder case against former senator and current Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile.
In an en banc decision dated February 24, 2024, and released on Monday, the high court dismissed Enrile’s petition for prohibition.
The Office of the Ombudsman filed plunder charges in 2014 against Enrile, his former chief of staff Gigi Reyes, businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles, and others in relation to the Priority Development Assistance Fund scam.
Enrile subsequently submitted a motion for a bill of particulars to the Sandiganbayan 3rd Division, seeking specific details from the prosecution to prepare for trial. The anti-graft court denied his motion, but the Supreme Court overturned this decision on August 11, 2015.
Despite the prosecution’s compliance with the Supreme Court’s order, Enrile objected to the contents of the pre-trial order, which includes the agreed facts, trial issues, and marked evidence. Enrile then filed a petition for prohibition with the Supreme Court.
In dismissing the petition, the Supreme Court stated that the prosecution should not be confined to the specifics of the bill of particulars.
“Because the bill of particulars does not and should not narrate the prosecution’s trial plan, it is to be expected that the prosecution, in the course of the trial, will present evidence not mentioned categorically in the bill of particulars,” wrote Associate Justice Maria Filomena Singh.
The court emphasized that Enrile could still object to inadmissible evidence during the trial, but it could not intervene in the Sandiganbayan proceedings merely because Enrile suspected potential procedural violations.
The Supreme Court concluded that the Sandiganbayan had acted within legal bounds and jurisprudence, dismissing Enrile’s claims of constitutional rights violations as meritless.
