All is not lost in cases vs Jinggoy, Bong, JPE - Fortun by Ira - TopicsExpress



          

All is not lost in cases vs Jinggoy, Bong, JPE - Fortun by Ira Pedrasa, ABS-CBNnews Posted at 07/01/2014 6:26 PM | Updated as of 07/01/2014 6:26 PM MANILA - Seasoned lawyer Raymond Fortun said all is not lost for the prosecution in the plunder cases against Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., and Juan Ponce Enrile. While some believe that the prosecution’s motion to amend the charges against the three was a sign of weakness, Fortun begged to disagree. “Right now, the attempt to change the information is pretty indicative of the kind of evidence that the prosecution has in intending to prove plunder,” he said in an interview with ANC on Tuesday. The Ombudsman prosecutors initially asked, among others, to include the phrase “collecting directly or indirectly” in the charges filed against the senators. This would have put emphasis on the role of the senators as primary suspects, which would not be the case if they merely “received” kickbacks from businesswoman Janet Napoles. “Whether or not the cases filed were rushed, it could probably have been better crafted. But I feel that they charged it the right way, Fortun said. The lawyer, who represented former President Joseph Estrada during his impeachment trial, believes Napoles is still the principal accused, as what the original information states. Plunder by the senators can still be proven, but this means the prosecution has a lot on its hands, he said. “If the evidence showed they had committed acts far and beyond what was required under their role in the PDAF [priority development assistance fund], then that may be proven as acts that would prove conspiracy,” Fortun explained. Plunder is when a public official, by himself or in connivance with others – including private individuals – amasses at least P50 million through a series of overt criminal acts. CRITICAL ELEMENT Fortun said the most critical factor is proving “criminal intent.” This is what distinguishes plunder from simple graft, he said. If the public official is merely responding to an offer from an individual, this would merely constitute bribery or graft, not plunder. The criminal intent in plunder is when “youre talking about a master plan, a conspiracy. Again, simple definition, when you connive, you actually agree to a common criminal intent, meaning, that from the beginning, they actually sat together to say ‘Ok, how am I going to release my funds?’ That’s a conspiracy situation. In fact, the law actually requires the prosecutors to prove the conspiracy angle in much the same way as proving the crime,” he said. Will it be difficult to prove connivance? Fortun said: “One person who’s actually pretty critical to prove all that, her name is Janet Lim Napoles.” The problem with Napoles is her credibility, he said. The businesswoman initially denied any wrongdoing then later on named several lawmakers involved in the alleged modus operandi. The other issue is evidence, he said. Documents, meetings or any other relevant evidence related to the crafting of the master plan has to be proven, he added. “It’s very difficult now because all we have are testimonies from Benhur Luy, et al, all of whom are merely saying, ‘this is what was told us by Napoles,’” he said. TOTAL EVIDENCE At the end of the day, however, Fortun said the crime of plunder will still depend on the appreciation of the totality of the evidence by the court. “There’s also circumstantial evidence – putting together all small facts that were proven and arriving at a conclusion that the [plunder] happened… The existence of conspiracy can be proven by the acts of the accused before, during, and contemporaneous to the criminal acts,” he said. The anti-graft courts decision on all three plunder cases is not on the horizon, however. “Unless the courts come out with a plan to have a series of hearings, to speed up the case, maybe 2-3 hearings a week should be it. Were looking at more than 50-75 witnesses for the prosecution and I heard more than 5,000 documents. And its going to take so much court time,” he said, “Just to give you a comparison, during the Erap case, the prosecution presented 75 witnesses, the defense presented 75 witnesses, 500 documents on both ends, it took us what? 6 years and tatlo lang ang nililitis doon: si Erap, Jinggoy and Ed Serapio. Here, were talking about how many? 21 accused in one case,” he said. abs-cbnnews/focus/07/01/14/all-not-lost-cases-vs-jinggoy-bong-jpe-fortun
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 16:07:01 +0000

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