The Supreme Court has paved the way for the trial proceedings by the Sandiganbayan of the plunder charges filed against alleged pork barrel scam architect Janet Lim-Napoles in connection with the multi-billion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund anomaly.
In its en banc session, the SC also resolved to dismiss the similar plea of lawyer Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, former chief-of-staff of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile who is also facing plunder trial in the anti-graft court.
Napoles and Reyes earlier asked the high court in their separate petitions in 2014 to nullify the resolutions of the Sandiganbayan and the Office of the Ombudsman approving their indictment for plunder over the multibillion-peso PDAF scam.
“Wherefore, the petitions are dismissed for lack of merit. Accordingly, the assailed resolutions and orders of the Office of the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan are hereby affirmed,” SC spokesperson Theodore Te said, quoting from the resolution adopted by the SC justices.
“In so acting, the Court found that neither the Ombudsman nor the Sandiganbayan committed grave abuse of discretion in finding probable cause to charge petitioners and to order their arrest,” Te said.
Apart from the petitions of the two principal accused in the pork barrel plunder cases, the high tribunal also dismissed the petitions of Napoles’ children Jo Christine and James Christopher questioning the arrest warrants issued against them over the separate graft charges filed against them by the Ombudsman before the Sandiganbayan.
Petitioners all claimed violation of their right to due process in assailing their indictment over the PDAF scam.
Napoles is currently serving jail term at the Correctional Institute for Women in Mandaluyong City after she was convicted by a Makati City regional trial court for the serious illegal detention of PDAF scamwhistleblower Benhur Luy.
Reyes, on the other hand, is detained at the Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City.