Prosecution rests case in Bong Revilla bail hearing

Government prosecutors on Thursday officially ended their presentation of evidence in the bail hearing of Senator Ramon Bong Revilla Jr., one of the three senators charged over the alleged pork barrel scam.

At the hearing of the Sandiganbayan First Division, the prosecution panel proceeded with the formal offering of all the evidence that it presented before the court in the course of more than four months of hearing Revilla's petition to post bail for the plunder charges.

The court has admitted almost all of the evidence submitted by the prosecution, despite objections from the defense panel.

Among the major evidence admitted by the court were:

- the special audit report done by the Commission on Audit (COA) on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel of several lawmakers including Revilla;

- the hard drive of primary whistleblower Benhur Luy allegedly containing daily disbursement reports pertaining to the transactions of trader Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains of the pork scam, with several lawmakers;

- and the inquiry report of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) on the bank accounts of Revilla, which shows that the  senator made various deposits and withdrawals amounting to millions of pesos around the same time that Revilla allegedly received pork “kickbacks” based on the ledger of Luy. The AMLC report also proves that Revilla closed around 20 bank accounts when the pork barrel scam started hitting the headlines.

The court also admitted the affidavits of Luy and the other whistleblowers Marina Sula, Merlina Suñas and Mary Arlene Baltazar, as well as the Special Allotment Release Order issued by the Department of Budget and Management to the implementing agencies Technology Resource Center, National Agribusiness Corp., and National Livelihood Development Corporation allegedly chosen by Revilla to implement his pork-funded projects.

The court also admitted as evidence the forensic examination done by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Luy's hard drive, supposedly proving that the files contained in the drive were authentic and unaltered.  

Other pertinent documents admitted by the court as evidence were the endorsement letters allegedly issued by Revilla with the authorized signature of his chief political adviser and co-accused Richard Cambe, memoranda of agreement between the NGOs and the implementing agencies, project listings, list of Revilla's PDAF beneficiaries and articles of incorporation of the NGOs filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The court will decide on Revilla's motion to post bail based on the evidence it admitted.

Plunder is a non-bailable offense if proven by the prosecution that the evidence against the accused is strong.

Defense's presentation

As the prosecution rested its case against Revilla, the defense panel started the presentation of its witness and counter-evidence.

Presented by Revilla’s lawyer Joel Bodegon as first witness was Desiderio Pagui, retired chief document examiner of the NBI.

Pagui was presented to testify on the result of his examination on several endorsement letters allegedly issued by Revilla, in which the senator allegedly named several Napoles-linked NGOs as beneficiaries of his PDAF allocations.

Pagui’s report found out that Revilla and Cambe’s signatures in the endorsement letters were forged.

However, upon scrutiny by the prosecutors, it was found out that many of the endorsement letters that Pagui examined were irrelevant to the case.

“Your honor, eleven of these endorsement letters named an NGO not linked with Napoles. This [report] is irrelevant and immaterial to the case being heard by this court,” said Justice Undersecretary Jose Justiniano, who was part of the prosecution panel.

Bodegon did not object to Justiniano’s manifestation.

During Justiniano’s cross-examination of Pagui, it was also found out that no one from the NBI counter-checked his report.

“Para sa’min walang strength ang report na ito. Hindi dumaan sa tamang proseso at walang nag-counter-check,” Justiniano said after the hearing.

Pagui's cross-examination by the prosecution will continue in next week’s hearing.

Meanwhile, Napoles’ lawyer, Lanee David, said they will also present next week a witness from the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to prove that her client was out of the country during the period Luy allegedly distributed kickbacks to several lawmakers, including Revilla.  —KBK, GMA News