FORMER president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Monday petitioned the Sandiganbayan to dismiss the graft charges filed against her in connection with the failed $329-million national broadband deal.
In three separate documents filed with the anti-graft court’s Fourth Division, Arroyo’s counsels said there was no need to present counter evidence from her camp because the prosecution’s own evidence was “weak” as it failed to prove her “guilty beyond reasonable doubt.”
“Reasonable doubt, according to the Supreme Court, is the inability to let the judicial mind rest easy upon the certainty of guilt after a thorough investigation of the whole evidence,” Arroyo says in her plea.
“The prosecution’s evidence does not meet this exacting standard. In fact, the prosecution’s evidence does not even come close to meeting this standard.”
Arroyo also disputed the prosecution’s allegation that the national broadband network deal between the Philippine government and the Chinese company Zhing Xing Telecommunications Equipment Inc. was overpriced by more than 50 percent. “The prosecution failed to prove its allegations that the ‘actual cost of the ZTE proposal for the National Broadband Project was only US$130 million but was finally pegged and overpriced at US$329 million,’” she says in her petition.
She said the prosecution failed to submit the original copy of the NBN contract and its attachments, which made its allegation “baseless.”
“The prosecution did not present the original of the NBN Contract and failed to lay the basis for the introduction of secondary evidence. The NBN Contract that the prosecution offered into evidence is incomplete. It lacked several attachments,” Arroyo says.
