Sandiganbayan admits all evidence vs. Bong Revilla, Napoles

The Sandiganbayan has admitted all the evidence presented by the prosecution in the plunder case against detained former Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. and his co-accused, including businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles.

In a minute resolution dated November 9, the anti-graft court's First Division said it has accepted the more-than-400-page formal offer of evidence submitted by state prosecutors in October after evaluating its merits in the case of Revilla and his co-accused.

"The court resolves to admit all the exhibits offered, in the tenor that they were testified on by the witnesses, over the objection of the accused to the purposes for the offer and the relevance or hearsay character of the exhibits offered, which will be considered in the evaluation of the evidence in the decision of the case on the merits," the resolution read.

First Division Associate Justices Efren Dela Cruz, Geraldine Faith Econg, and Edgardo Caldona all signed the resolution.

Revilla's former aide Richard Cambe and Napoles filed their motion for leave to file demurrer to evidence on November 24.

A demurrer to evidence is a motion seeking to dismiss a case on the ground of weak evidence from the prosecution.

In her motion, Napoles said the plunder law prosecutes a public officer, and not a private individual like her, who allegedly amassed ill-gotten wealth worth at least P50 million.

"The reason behind the plunder law is to give meaning to the avowed principle that public office is a public trust. And that the public officials are at all times accountable to the people. When it is a private individual who amasses, accumulates, and or acquires ill-gotten wealth, then there is no plunder," Napoles said.

"In a plunder case, it must be shown that the public officer was principally and ultimately benefited or enriched and not a private person, like herein private-accused Napoles," she added in the motion.

Napoles, through her lawyers, further said there is no evidence from the prosecution showing who served as the main plunderer, or the principal person who benefited in the amassing of ill-gotten wealth in the multi-billion-peso scam.

"It is clear as daylight that there is no crime of plunder that exists insofar as accused Napoles is concerned and that accordingly, the plunder charge should be dismissed," Napoles said.

For his part, Cambe said the prosecution failed to prove that he acted in conspiracy with Napoles, Revilla, and his other co-accused that would constitute the crime of plunder.

Cambe also criticized the prosecution for implicating an employee like him, saying he did not have control of his former boss's PDAF.

"He has no hands in the implementation of PDAF projects that allegedly was the factor that made his co-accused allegedly amassed and accumulate ill-gotten wealth," Cambe's motion read.

"It would be entirely absurd for a legislative employee like the accused to be performing a purely executive function of implementing projects, programs emanating from the General Appropriations Act which was he himself worked on every year since 1994," he added. — BM, GMA News