P46,387,500. That was the most the Sandiganbayan could tie to Juan Ponce Enrile and his former chief of staff, and it falls short of the P50 million plunder threshold. On Friday, October 4, 2024, the Philippine anti-graft court acquitted Enrile, Jessica “Gigi” Reyes and businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles in the P172-million pork barrel case.
The Third Division said the three were cleared “due to the prosecution’s failure to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.” Its decision ran to 84 pages.
Where the evidence fell short
The prosecution leaned on two witnesses, Benhur Luy and Ruby Tuason, and on Luy’s Daily Disbursement Report, which listed payments said to go from Napoles to Enrile and Reyes. The court was not persuaded. Luy printed the reports in 2013 from an external drive. They were unsigned, and they described transactions from 2004 to 2010. The signed originals, Luy said, sat in a vault at the office of JLN Corporation along with the matching checks. Prosecutors never produced them.
“How can we treat these unsigned DDRs as credible pieces of evidence,” the court asked. Tuason, who allegedly carried the money, never gave an exact figure for what she received from Napoles. The court added that the five reports added up to only P46,387,500, and that the prosecution had not shown Enrile or Reyes received even that.
Napoles fell with them. She had been charged as a conspirator, and the court held that without proof of the money reaching Enrile and Reyes, the conspiracy charge could not stand.
A case that outlasted its verdict dates
Prosecutors from the Office of the Ombudsman had charged the three over the alleged misuse of Enrile’s Priority Development Assistance Fund, the formal name of pork barrel. Under Republic Act 7080, plunder requires ill-gotten wealth of at least P50 million gained through a series or combination of criminal acts. The case ran for 10 years, with prosecutors finishing their evidence in January 2024. The verdict was meant to come in May 2024, slipped to June, then to July, and arrived in October.
Enrile, then 100 years old and serving as Chief Presidential Legal Counsel, had been given provisional liberty in 2015 after posting P1.45-million bail. Outside court he told reporters: “I thank the magistrates. This is vindication for all of us.” Napoles, in a separate interview, said she was happy. She stays in detention because of at least two plunder convictions in other pork barrel cases. Reyes did not answer reporters’ questions. Two co-accused, Ronald John Lim and John Raymund de Asis, are still at large.
The appeal that came too late
The prosecution tried to reverse the result. According to Rappler, the Sandiganbayan later rejected a motion for reconsideration, ruling that granting the demurrers to evidence worked as an acquittal and that double jeopardy protected the accused. The deadline had been Monday, October 21, 2024. The motion arrived on October 28.
Sources
- Sandiganbayan acquits Enrile, Reyes, Napoles of plunder over pork barrel scam
- Sandiganbayan: Plunder acquittal for Enrile, Napoles, Gigi Reyes in pork barrel scam stands
