Belmonte: Enrile shouldn’t be jailed in a regular detention cell

Saying Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile “needs to feel okay in his twilight years,” Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Monday said the 90-year-old legislator should not be jailed in a regular detention facility once the Sandiganbayan orders his arrest over a plunder case.

 

“Even the law allows some leniency in the case of persons already of advance age like myself, more so for people like him (Enrile),” he said.

 

When asked if he is in favor of house arrest for Enrile, Belmonte said: “Yes, basta at least not the usual thing [where] they confine you in an enclosure facility. Let him move around even if it’s inside a camp, basta ‘wag siyang ikukulong.”

 

Last Friday, the Office of the Ombudsman filed plunder charges against Enrile and Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon 'Bong' Revilla Jr. in connection with the alleged multibillion-peso pork barrel scam.

Also charged was businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged mastermind. At present, Napoles is detained at Fort Sto. Domingo in Sta. Rosa, Laguna over a serious illegal detention case.

 

Belmonte, however, stressed that only Enrile should be spared from going to jail since Estrada and Revilla are “strong” enough to be inside a detention facility.

 

“Malalakas naman yung mga bata,” he said.

 

A news report quoted Estrada as saying in a radio interview on Saturday that while he is willing to go to jail, the government should spare Enrile from prison.

 

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, one of Enrile’s staunchest critics, earlier said his colleague should not be put in a regular jail if he is arrested because he may be too old to handle the heat inside a normal detention facility. — Xianne Arcangel/RSJ, GMA News