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FORMER President Joseph Estrada asked the Sandiganbayan to junk the
new perjury case filed against him.
In a six-page opposition, Estrada, through his
lawyers Dean Pacifico Agabin and Jose Flaminiano, argued that the
Supreme Court already ruled that the revived perjury case is now
considered dead for it has attained finality.
Estrada pointed out that if the High Court
committed an error when it junked the revived perjury case on
September 18, 2007, it should be clarified before the High Court and
with the Sandiganbayan.
“If the prosecution believes the Supreme Court
erred on September 18, 2007, should it not first move to reconsider
and vacate that resolution and not act as if the unresolved petition
it had filed was decided in its favor? The prosecution concedes that
the subject resolution dated September 18, 2007 became final and
executory on 24 October 2007,” the pleading stated.
It was pleaded that the motion to set the case
for trial must be denied and that the ruling of the High Court must
not be disregarded for the sake of orderly procedure.
The High Court must have also considered the
acquittal made by the Sandiganbayan on the perjury case of Estrada
on September 12, 2007, which contains similar defenses with the
latest perjury.
The defense avers that by “treating perjury as
another case apart from plunder may violate the double jeopardy
rule.”
The pleading states that the intent of absolute
pardon which was granted by President Gloria Arroyo to the former
president “was for the nation to move on.”
Deputy Special Prosecutor Robert Kallos argued
that the case remains alive despite the conclusion of the joint
trial on Estrada’s plunder, perjury and illegal use of alias cases
at the Sandiganbayan Special Division on September 12, 2007.
The prosecutors argued that what was included in
the joint trial of the Special Division was Criminal Case no. 26905
or the perjury case concerning the alleged misrepresentations in
Estrada’s 1998 statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).
But it was pointed out that the other perjury case pending before
the First Division is Criminal Case no. 26564 concerning Estrada’s
1999 SALN.
This unresolved perjury case failed to reach its
termination due to a legal quagmire in November 2001 during the time
of the late Presiding Justice Francis Garchitorena, then chairman of
the First Division. Garchitorena disallowed the documentary evidence
on the basis that government prosecutors failed to enumerate them in
the list they submitted during pre-trial conference.
Included in the documents were bank papers which
showed that Estrada maintained two deposit accounts containing at
least P74 million when he only declared a net worth of only P35
million, including non-cash assets.
-- Jomar Canlas
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