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Revilla, though his lawyers, said the acts that the Office of the Ombudsman has accused him off do not
constitute plunder. Philstar, file
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MANILA, Philippines — Former Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. has asked the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court to dismiss a plunder case against him in connection with his alleged involvement in the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam.
In his 31-page motion to quash dated February 6 but released to the media only Wednesday, Revilla, through his battery of lawyers led by former Solicitor General Estelito Mendoza, said the case must be dismissed as the facts cited in the case information sheet do not constitute the crime of plunder.
Revilla also asked the court to declare “void” all previous proceedings in connection with the case.
The motion came three days before the scheduled first day of the trial of the case on Thursday, February 9.
It can be remembered that the supposed start of the trial on January 12 was postponed after the clerk of court noted that there were some errors in the prosecution's markings of its documentary evidence.
In his motion, Revilla said the case information filed by the Office of the Ombudsman in June 2014, is “insufficient” and therefore must be quashed, as it supposedly do not identify the “combination or series of overt or criminal acts” that he supposedly committed which led to the supposed accumulation of ill-gotten wealth.
“The heart of Plunder Law lies in the phrase 'combination or series of overt or criminal acts'. Hence, even if the accumulated ill-gotten wealth amounts to at least P50 million, a person cannot be prosecuted for the crime of plunder if this resulted from a single criminal act,” Revilla's motion read.
Revilla's plunder case stemmed from his alleged misallocation of his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel from 2006 to 2010 to bogus foundations linked linked to the alleged pork scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles.
Revilla is accused of receiving P224.5 million in kickbacks from the scam.
The former senator said that while the prosecution alleges that he accumulated the kickbacks by endorsing the Napoles-linked NGOs as the recipients of his PDAF, this mere endorsement is not among the overt or criminal acts described in Republic Act 7080 or the Plunder Law.
“There being no allegation in the [case] information that the amassing, accumulation or acquisition of ill-gotten wealth is through a combination or series of overt or criminal acts....the information do not sufficiently allege facts constituting the offense of plunder,” Revilla's motion read.
He also said that because of the “insufficient” case information, he was deprived of his constitutional right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him in order to prepare his best defense.
Revilla said undergoing trial based on insufficient information also violates his constitutional right to due process of law.
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