DETAINED Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. has asked the Supreme Court to stop the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan’s proceedings and from compelling him to present evidence in connection with the plunder and graft cases filed against him for alleged misuse of his Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel.
In a 62-page petition for certiorari filed through his counsel, former Solicitor General Estelito Mendoza, Revilla also sought his provisional release from jail pending the High Court’s action on his petition.
The senator argued that the proceedings before the Sandiganbayan violate his constitutional right to due process, to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusations against him, to have an impartial trial and to meet the witnesses face to face.
Revilla is principally questioning the Sandiganbayan’s ruling issued on December 7, 2017 denying his motion to file a demurrer to evidence that would have sought the dismissal of his plunder case in connection with the multibillion-peso pork-barrel scam, as well as its December 28, 2017, resolution denying his motion for reconsideration.
The anti-graft court, in the said decision, instead directed the senator to submit his evidence that would disprove the allegations against him.
Revilla is also questioning the Sandiganbayan’s February 23, 2017, resolution denying his motion to quash the case, as well as his motion for reconsideration.
For issuing the said resolutions, the petitioner accused the Sandiganbayan of failure to perform its constitutional duty to enforce his rights that resulted to his continued detention in the past four years.
“The Sandiganbayan order of December 7, 2017, principally challenged in the instant petition, in ruling that there is a need for the accused to present their evidence, implicitly, by way of defense or more directly put, to controvert the charge in the information and the evidence offered by the prosecution, violates petitioner’s right to ‘due process’ and disregards that petitioner is ‘presumed innocent’ even at this stage of proceedings,” Revilla argued.
Revilla insisted that the prosecution has failed to offer any evidence to show that he or his representative personally received at least P224 million in kickbacks or commissions from alleged pork-barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles.
“In the instant case, the petitioner has been in the game not just with one arm tied to his back but with both eyes completely blinded,” Revilla lamented.
Revilla maintained that his petition for demurrer of evidence should have been granted due to the prosecution’s failure to present evidence linking him to the pork-barrel scam.
Aside from the nullification of the December 7, 2017, ruling of the Sandiganbayan and asking for his immediate release from detention, Revilla also asked the Court to issue a temporary restraining order to enjoin the Sandiganbayan from conducting proceedings on the case for the purpose of receiving his evidence against the case which will start on January 25.
Revilla’s camp earlier argued before the Sandiganbayan that the court’s First Division erred in its December 7 ruling denying his motion for leave to file a demurrer to evidence.
“At bottom, the ruling of the Court that ‘there is a need for the accused to present their evidence’ requires the accused to prove his innocence, reversing the immutable right of an accused ‘to be presumed innocent,’” the senator said.
Revilla maintained that the prosecution’s evidence against him is “grossly and patently” inadequate in proving that he committed the elements of plunder provided under Republic Act 7080 or the plunder law.
Revilla reiterated that the prosecution also failed to establish the “combination or series of overt criminal acts” he supposedly committed in order to amass kickbacks or commissions from the pork scam, which, based on the charge sheet filed by the Ombudsman in June 2014, amounted to P224.5 million.
Revilla is currently detained at the Philippine National Police
Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City.