Revilla arrest ordered

MANILA, Philippines - The Sandiganbayan ordered yesterday the arrest of Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. for plunder – the first arrest in the pork barrel scam – after junking his last-minute plea for the dismissal of the case.

But the arrest warrant needs one more signature – that of First Division chairman Efren de la Cruz – before it can be served, possibly today.

LIVE UPDATES: 'Pork barrel' scam arrests

Only Associate Justices Rafael Lagos and Napoleon Inoturan signed the arrest warrant yesterday.

In his Bacoor, Cavite home, the senator declared before his supporters he is ready to go to jail and face the charges.

On Tuesday, the Sandiganbayan barred Revilla and co-accused Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada from leaving the country through hold departure orders issued one after another.

Arrest orders against Enrile and Estrada are likely to follow.

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said executive officials are ready to implement any order from the Sandiganbayan.

“We will await the full resolution of the Sandiganbayan. The executive is ready to follow and implement whatever the Sandiganbayan order will be,” Coloma said in a text message.

The Sandiganbayan also junked the pleadings of Revilla’s former chief-of-staff Richard Cambe, Budget Undersecretary Mario Relampagos, suspected pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles and several others charged with plunder.

Ready for jail

In his hometown in Cavite, Revilla promised his supporters that he would fight hard to clear his name.

“I am ready to face this. The day will come when truth will come out. I am ready to go to jail even if I did nothing wrong,” Revilla said in Filipino.

He said the only thing that he is asking is to be given the opportunity to defend himself in court.

“To many of you I appeal that you don’t judge us yet,” Revilla said to chants of “Revilla! Revilla!” by his supporters.

“To the Aquino administration: Mr. President, I’m ready to go wherever you want me jailed. I believe I did nothing wrong and I am not afraid, Mr. President,” Revilla said.

“No matter where this fight takes me, I will fight for my right,” he added.

Revilla told his supporters he owes them his success and he will never betray their trust by committing the crimes he has been accused of.

“I am not acting here. I only ask that we be heard. We have been beaten up, made to suffer and being maligned for close to one year already. Now that this is already in the courts, I hope that we will be given a fair fight,” he said.

SC help sought

The Sandiganbayan decision came two days after Revilla filed with the Supreme Court an 81-page petition for the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the anti-graft court’s hearing his case.

The Office of the Ombudsman filed the plunder case with the Sandiganbayan against Revilla last June 6.

Through lawyer Joel Bodegon, Revilla questioned his indictment, arguing that his constitutional right to due process was violated.

Revilla also asked the SC to declare null and void the ombudsman’s joint resolution last March 28 finding probable cause in the charges against him. He said the high court should also reverse a June 4 ruling of the ombudsman denying his appeal.

In seeking the dismissal of plunder charges against him, Revilla said it was established in the trial of former President Joseph Estrada for the same offense that filing of such case requires proof that an accused official had amassed ill-gotten wealth of least P50 million.

“Indeed, the assailed resolutions do not even have a proof that Senator Revilla has the qualifying amount of P50 million in his possession or in his bank account, much less proof that any money that is in his possession has been acquired unlawfully,” Bodegon said, referring to the ombudsman’s rulings finding probable cause to charge the senator with plunder.

Bodegon also said the ombudsman violated Revilla’s constitutional right to due process when it used statements in the counter-affidavits of the other respondents in the pork barrel scam against him without furnishing him with copies or giving him an opportunity to defend himself.

“There is no credible evidence on record to establish that Senator Revilla is part of the conspiracy to commit the crime charged. Indeed, all testimonial evidence against Senator Revilla are hearsay and are inadmissible, while the documents that purport to establish Senator Revilla’s participation in the conspiracy are not shown to have been executed with his participation or knowledge,” the lawyer said.

“Without an independent evidence to prove the existence of conspiracy and the specific acts allegedly committed by Senator Revilla, the testimonies of the whistle-blowers, who are self-confessed co-conspirators, cannot be admitted in evidence against Senator Revilla,” the senator’s petition read.

Unjustly restrained

With the filing of charges with the Sandiganbayan, Revilla is now “under threat of being suspended from office, and far worse than that, provisionally detained pending trial without bail as plunder is a non-bailable offense,” Bodegon said.

He said a Supreme Court TRO on the Sandiganbayan proceedings would ensure protection of the rights of the senator as well as those of the 20 million people who voted him into office.

“Even as he is entitled to file petition for bail, Senator Revilla would have to be detained until he is permitted bail after the bail hearing. The period of his suspension, and, worse, his provisional detention pending resolution of his bail petition, means that he would not be able to perform his duties as a senator for all the time of his provisional detention,” he added.

Revilla insisted that the use of his Priority Development Assistance Fund was regular and aboveboard.

He said the only involvement of his office in the release of his PDAF is limited to writing an endorsement letter to the Senate president and the chairman of the Senate committee on finance for the designation of projects.

Revilla explained that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) never released the PDAF directly to him but only to implementing agencies for the identified programs.

He stressed that it was not his responsibility to closely monitor the implementation of projects as such task was the concern of the DBM and the implementing agencies.

“The DBM, the IAs and the self-confessed criminals are the ones accountable for the alleged misuse of the government money,” Revilla pointed out.

He lashed out at the ombudsman for denying his motion for reconsideration without even reading his arguments.

Revilla said the ombudsman should have instead dismissed the charges against him due to the absence of expert testimony. He said such testimony would have proven that his supposed signatures on PDAF documents were forged.

He cited an admission from whistle-blowers led by Benhur Luy that they had forged the signatures of lawmakers found on PDAF-related documents.

“If at all, the prima facie findings of the two reputable handwriting experts should have impelled the ombudsman to request the proper government agency to examine the original documents and determine whether the findings of the expert witnesses of Senator Revilla are accurate,” Bodegon said. “This, the ombudsman chose not to do,” the petition stated.

It was the third time for Revilla to seek relief from the high tribunal.

Last March, Revilla filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition seeking to stop the ombudsman from investigating him. But he withdrew his petition after the ombudsman issued a resolution in the same month ordering his indictment for plunder.

The SC had also turned down Revilla’s request for an oral argument on his petition and directed him and the ombudsman to submit their respective comments on the issue.

Last May, he filed another petition seeking issuance of a TRO on the filing of cases against him before the Sandiganbayan.

SC spokesman Theodore Te, meanwhile, visited the Sandiganbayan to inspect areas where widescreen projectors could be set up for media coverage of the PDAF scam trial.

Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang and the anti-graft court’s executive clerk of court, Renato Bocar, toured Te around the building. – With Edu Punay, Marvin Sy, Aurea Calica