Enrile on plunder acquittal: This is vindication

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile on Friday expressed vindication following his acquittal in the 10-year plunder case filed against him and several others over the pork barrel scam.

''I thank the magistrates. This is vindication for all of us,'' Enrile told reporters following the announcement of his acquittal by the Sandiganbayan Third Division.

After a decade of trial, the Sandiganbayan Third Division on Friday acquitted Enrile, his former chief of staff Atty. Jessica “Gigi” Reyes, and businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles in the P172-million plunder case. 

According to the Sandiganbayan, the three were acquitted "due to the prosecution's failure to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt."

Napoles, however, will remain in jail due to at least two plunder convictions also in connection with the pork barrel scam.

In a separate message to GMA News Online, Enrile's daughter, Chief Executive Officer Katrina Ponce Enrile of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority, said they were thankful that the ordeal was over and that ''justice was served.''

She deemed the case filed against her father ''politically motivated.'' 

''We are all relieved that this ordeal that started in 2013 with a politically motivated charge is finally over and that justice was served. We thank the Lord for looking over us,'' she said. 

Napoles, in a separate interview, also felt joy over her acquittal. “Siyempre, masaya (Of course I'm happy,” she said.

Reyes, on the other hand, did not respond to multiple queries from journalists if she thought justice has been served.

In a radio interview on Saturday, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, who spent three years in detention due to his PDAF cases before he was released on bail in September 2017, echoed Enrile's sentiments.

“Halos pare-pareho naman kasi ang finile na kaso laban sa amin ng dating Ombudsman, kaya talagang napakahina nung kaso na inihain nila laban sa amin… kaya we were very confident from the very start that we were going to be acquitted in the near future, at ito na nga ang nangyari,” Estrada said.

(The former Ombudsman filed almost the same cases against us, which is why the cases were all very weak… that is why we were very confident from the very start that we were going to be acquitted in the near future, and that is exactly what happened.)

Estrada in January was acquitted of plunder charges in connection with the alleged PDAF misuse. He was found guilty of bribery and he appealed the conviction.

The Sandiganbayan reversed the bribery conviction in August.

“Acquitted din ako. Wala naman ako kinalaman dun sa mga kasong pinaratang lang sa akin. So itong pangalawa, yun din, acquitted din ako. Siguro talagang lalabas at lalabas ang katotohan. The truth will set you free,” he added.

(I was acquitted. I had nothing to do with the cases I was accused of. I was also acquitted in the second case. I guess the truth will always come out. The truth will set you free.) —with a report from Jiselle Anne Casucian/KBK/VBL, GMA Integrated News