Convicted pork-barrel-scam queen Janet Napoles lost another round at the Sandiganbayan in the plunder case against her and former Senator Jinggoy Estrada after the anti-graft court dumped her plea to require the Ombudsman to identify the main plunderer in the P183-million case.
The court’s Fifth Division said Napoles’ plea had no bearing since Estrada, being a public official at the time the crime was allegedly committed, was supposed to be the main plunderer.
“The eyes are useless when the mind is blind. It is apparent that the Information refers to Estrada as the mastermind of the PDAF scheme or the main plunderer. The main plunderer is a public officer,” the Sandiganbayan’s resolution said.
The court said Napoles could not invoke the dismissal of the P366-million plunder case of former President Gloria Arroyo because all of the accused in that case were public officers.
“In the Arroyo case, it is hard to determine who the main plunderer is considering that there is an enumeration of the name of all the accused who are all public officials who occupy positions with authority, connections and influence, which is not the case in the present information,” the court said.
In the case involving Estrada and Napoles, the Ombudsman claimed that it was the projects funded by Estrada’s discretionary Priority Development Assistance Fund “that turned out to be ghost or fictitious projects, while Pauline Labayen was a public employee and a member of Estrada’s staff.”
Labayen is a co-accused in the case.
“Estrada was in custody and in control of the subject PDAF, while Labayen was an agent or an intermediary for the latter. Also, for the sake of argument, even if there was no express mention in the Information that Estrada was the mastermind, it suffices that the Information used the words ‘conspiring with one another,’ connoting a joint and several liability, negating a separate and individual culpability,” the court said.
The Plunder Law does not recognize the identification of the main plunderer and recognizes that the crime of plunder may be committed in conspiracy or collectively, the court said.
Thus, the case will go on full trial.
Napoles filed her motion in an effort to have her removed from the complaint, in effect absolving her of wrongdoing in the case.
“The constitutional rights of herein accused [Napoles] may very well be exercised during the presentation of her evidence, the court said.
Napoles claimed in her motion that the case against her was void due to the absence of a main plunderer.
