Travel ban imposed on Jinggoy, Napoles

MANILA, Philippines - The Sandiganbayan issued yesterday hold departure orders (HDOs) on Sen. Jinggoy Estrada and 13 other respondents in connection with their alleged involvement in the pork barrel fund scam.

In a two-page order, Fifth Division magistrates led by Associate Justice Roland Jurado directed the Bureau of Immigration to implement the directive barring Estrada and others from leaving the country without prior permission from the anti-graft court.

Estrada’s co-accused in the plunder and graft charges covered by the HDO are his former staff Pauline Labayen; businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles; one John Raymund de Asis; Budget Undersecretary Mario Relampagos; Department of Budget officials Rosario Nuez, Lalaine Paule and Marilou Bare; National Agribusiness Corp. (Nabcor) president Allan Javellana; and former Nabcor officials Rhodora Mendoza, Maria Julie Villaralvo-Johnson, Victor Roman Cacal, Maria Ninez Guanizo and Romulo Relevo.

Other Sandiganbayan divisions are also expected to issue HDOs against Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon Revilla Jr. and their co-accused within the week.

Before office hours closed yesterday, Napoles, alleged pork barrel fund scam mastermind, filed a motion for judicial determination of probable cause covering all three plunder cases and 42 graft charges she is facing.

“Accused Napoles humbly invokes the wisdom of this Honorable Court to painstakingly revisit, review and carefully study the records of the preliminary investigation which became the basis of the filing of the charges against her for the serious crime of plunder, and thereafter to make a separate and just determination on the existence of probable cause, or the utter lack of it,” Napoles’ lawyers stated in the motion.