Court enters ‘not guilty’ plea for Revilla
The Sandiganbayan on Monday entered a not guilty plea on behalf of former Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., after he refused to enter his plea to the graft charge filed against him in connection with an alleged ghost flood control project in Pandi, Bulacan province.
Apart from that case pending before the antigraft court’s Fourth Division, the Third Division hearing the malversation case against Revilla and accountant Juanito Mendoza deferred their arraignment to Feb. 16, pending a resolution by the court to their motions for reconsideration.
Revilla had also filed a motion for inhibition against Third Division Associate Justice Karl Miranda, the brother of a lawyer for a government witness against the former senator.
It was the Third Division that ordered the Jan. 19 arrest and hold departure of Revilla and six other dismissed officials and employees of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), including Mendoza, former finance section chief of the agency’s Bulacan First District Engineering Office.
The rest, who pleaded not guilty, are former assistant district engineers Brice Hernandez and Jaypee Mendoza, engineers Arjay Domasig and Emelita Capistrano-Juat, and cashier Christina Mae del Rosario-Pineda, all of that same office.
Inhibition
In his motion for inhibition filed on Monday, Revilla noted that Justice Miranda is the brother of lawyer Buenaventura Miranda, legal counsel of former DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo during the Senate blue ribbon committee hearings on the flood works scandal.
Bernardo had testified to his close relations with Revilla—both were “godparents” to each other’s children—and his efforts in behalf of the former senator to secure at least P250 million in “commitments” from DPWH projects “ostensibly to help him in his national campaign.”
“If you recall, Usec. Bernardo testified there. The rules state that you should not only be impartial but also have the appearance of impartiality. This means you must show—or give the impression—that you are not favoring anyone,” Revilla’s spokesperson, lawyer Francesca Señga, later explained to reporters about her client’s motion.
But Justice Miranda explained to the defense during the hearing that he had already disclosed his ties to Bernardo’s lawyer.
“There are no grounds for my mandatory inhibition. I should not inhibit mandatorily, and that’s the reason why I’m staying here because this is my duty. Nevertheless, I’d like to inform everyone that the motion for inhibition will be studied with the utmost care and resolved as soon as possible to determine if I should inhibit myself, keeping in mind that public confidence in the administration of justice must at all times be preserved,” he said.
Funds released
Revilla had earlier posted bail of P90,000 for his graft case but will remain in jail because malversation of public funds is a nonbailable offense.
Hernandez, Jaypee Mendoza and Pineda are the other accused in this case and had pleaded not guilty on Jan. 28.
The Office of the Ombudsman filed the graft and malversation charges on Jan. 16. Regarding the graft case, Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano had explained earlier that the accused allegedly conspired to have at least P76 million released as payment for the P92.8-million flood works project.
But upon inspection of the project site in Barangay Bunsuran, Pandi, it was found to have never been implemented, although it was already reported “completed.”
******
Get real-time news updates: inqnews.net/inqviber
