THE Sandiganbayan’s decision to automatically consolidate the cases against former Vice President Jejomar Binay with pending cases against his son, former Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr., before its Third Division contradicts the court’s internal rules and existing jurisprudence, the counsels of the former Vice President said.
The Revised Internal Rules of the Sandiganbayan explicitly provide that all cases should be raffled and nowhere in the rules does it allow the automatic consolidation of unraffled cases to pending cases before the Court, the Subido Pagente, Certeza, Mendoza and Binay Law Office said in a Motion for Reconsideration dated Feb. 17, 2017.
Citing the transcript of the Sandiganbayan raffle of cases held last July 15, 2016, the counsel, in a press statement, said the Raffle Committee, chaired by Associate Justice Oscar Herrera Jr., excluded the so-called “Binay cases” from the raffle. Instead, these were assigned for consolidation with previously filed cases pending before the Sandiganbayan Third Division, chaired by Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang.
The counsel asked the Sandiganbayan “to abide by its own clear rules, in order for it to be free from the appearance of impropriety and be beyond reproach.”
They also refuted Herrera’s statement, as recorded in the July 15 transcript, that the “Binay cases just filed emanated from the same resolution that the basis for the filing of the earlier cases pending in the 3rd Division.”
“With due respect, the consolidated cases do not arise from the same incident or series of incidents, nor do these cases involve common questions of fact and law,” the counsel said in their motion.
The counsel pointed out the decision of the Raffle Committee to consolidate the cases had given rise to more questions, such as, “Were the [Sandiganbayan] Justices able to deliberate the facts and issues, their supposed similarities and differences, in the numerous Informations before they consented to the automatic consolidation?”
“Had the Honorable Court’s Justices read the Informations prior to the automatic consolidation, they would find that the Informations involving Accused Binay Sr. were totally different and independent from the previously filed cases,” the motion said.
While the new cases and previous cases filed pertain to the Makati City Hall Building II, the Office of the Ombudsman had made it clear that it is treating each of the five construction phases as “separate and distinct charges.”
The cases filed against the former vice president primarily deal with Phases I, II and III, while the previous cases primarily deal with Phases IV and V.
“A perusal of the Informations in the instant cases and the previous cases would readily reveal that each phase was treated differently, considering that each Information pointed to a specific phase, and not the Makati City Hall Building as a whole,” said the statement, quoting the motion.
The counsels argued that trial on the former Vice President and his co-accused in the second set of cases could proceed independently from the progress of the first set of cases, as in the case of Neri v. Sandiganbayan.
“As provided by Neri, the different acts will require ‘different sets of evidence and witnesses’ which will unduly prolong the instant cases,” it said.
