Jinggoy suspended anew for plunder
The Sandiganbayan’s Fifth Division on Monday suspended Sen. Jinggoy Estrada for 90 days due to his plunder case.
This is his second suspension after another division of the antigraft court had earlier suspended him last June for graft.
Special prosecutors said Estrada’s case stemmed from alleged “intricate mechanism involving illegal budgetary insertions and project allocations” worth P573 million in the infrastructure portfolio of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for fiscal year 2025.
Republic Act No. 7080 or the Anti-Plunder Act provides for the preventive suspension of any official charged with plunder, a nonbailable offense.
Associate Justice Zaldy Trespeses, Fifth Division chair, penned the five-page resolution on Estrada’s suspension promulgated on Oct. 12.
“[A]ccused Senator Jose “Jinggoy” P. Ejercito Estrada is suspended from his position as Senator of the Republic of the Philippines and from any other public office which he may now or hereafter be holding for a period of ninety (90) days from receipt of this Resolution,” the resolution stated.
The Fifth Division said a copy of the resolution should be sent to the Office of the Senate President to implement Estrada’s suspension. The court division also requested the Senate to inform the court of its action within five days from receipt of the order.
Estrada’s suspension shall automatically be lifted upon expiration of the 90-day period from implementation of the court’s resolution.
The court said it had resolved all motions questioning the validity of the case information containing the formal charges against Estrada.
Estrada filed a motion for reconsideration (MR) on the court’s approval of the special prosecutor’s move to amend the case information to discharge former DPWH chief Manuel Bonoan from the plunder case as he became a state witness for the Office of the Ombudsman.
The court denied Estrada’s MR on Oct. 9.
With the validity of the case information being settled, the court said the suspension order becomes its ministerial duty.
“As already stated at the outset of this resolution, with the court’s disposition of all incidents relating to the validity of the Informations against him, his preventive suspension is now in order,” the court said.
Estrada is currently detained at the New Quezon City Jail Male Dormitory, after the Fifth Division on June 1 ordered his arrest in connection with charges of graft and plunder.
On June 22, the Sandiganbayan’s Second Division which is hearing separate graft charges against Estrada, had also ordered his suspension for 90 days.
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