Juan Ponce Enrile acquitted of plunder in pork barrel scam case

The Sandiganbayan Special Third Division acquitted former senate president and now chief presidential legal counsel Juan Ponce Enrile of plunder concerning the pork barrel scam. His former chief of staff Gigi Reyes and businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles were also cleared of plunder.

The anti-graft court's decision on Oct. 4 came after over a decade, with the scam making the headlines in 2013.

According to The Philippine STAR, Associate Justice Ronald Moreno said the prosecution failed to prove Enrile, Reyes, and Napoles' guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The scam involves the officials' alleged misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), or popularly called pork barrel, a lump-sum discretionary fund given to congressmen to spend on priority projects that are mostly on the national level. In it, lawmakers gave their pork barrel to an implementing agency, which then transferred it to Napoles' alleged fake non-government organizations.

In 2014, the Ombudsman filed plunder cases against Enrile, Reyes, and Napoles, the scam's alleged mastermind.

Enrile was accused of amassing P172 million from his PDAF via Reyes from 2004 to 2010.

In 2018, Sandiganbayan found Napoles guilty of plunder in another case involving Sen. Bong Revilla's pork barrel fund. She's also serving her sentence for bribery and other charges related to other lawmakers' pork barrel scam cases.

But last July, the court acquitted Napoles of graft involving alleged misuse of a lawmaker's PDAF worth P15 million. (Plunder involves pocketing over P50 million, else it's graft. The former can lead up to 40 years imprisonment with no bail, while the latter can lead up to 10 years imprisonment with bail.)

Another lawmaker, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, faced a plunder charge but Sandiganbayan acquitted him of it last January. The court, then, convicted Estrada of the lesser offense, bribery, on three counts—but only initially. Last August, the court's fifth special division granted his motion for reconsideration, clearing him in his pork barrel scam case.

Enrile’s graft cases are still pending in court.