Sandiganbayan clears Enrile’s co-accused in pork barrel case

The Sandiganbayan has junked the 15 counts of graft against company driver Fernando Ramirez, one of the co-accused of then senator Juan Ponce Enrile in the alleged misuse of his discretionary or pork barrel fund.

In the eight-page resolution dated February 11, 2025, the anti-graft court said there was no probable cause to charge Ramirez since he merely served as driver for businesswoman Janet Napoles, who is also one of Enrile’s co-accused in the cases.

Enrile is the current Chief Presidential Legal Counsel.

“It must be underscored that a plain reading of the Joint Resolution dated March 28, 2014 of the Office of the Ombudsman finding probable cause to indict accused Ramirez of the crime charged reveals that there was no discussion on the supposed participation of accused Ramirez in the alleged conspiracy. The Office of the Ombudsman simply held that accused Ramirez worked for respondent Napoles at the time material to these cases,” the Sandiganbayan said.

“Quoting from the same [March 2014] Resolution, its finding of irregularities in the subject transactions were all anchored on the respective participation of the other accused," it added.

Given the details of the Ombudsman office’s March 2014 decision, the Sandiganbayan said that government prosecutors “failed to sufficiently account for the supposed illegal, or even conspiratorial, acts committed by accused Ramirez.”

“It merely found that accused Ramirez, together with his other co­ respondents (now accused), [supposedly] acted under the direction of Janet Napoles,” the Sandiganbayan said.

The anti-graft court also cited then Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Maria Cristina Cornejo’s separate concurring opinion in its September 2014 decision where she said that while there is probable cause to hold the other accused for trial, “the same is not true with accused Ramirez, considering that accused Ramirez appears to be simply a driver and, per the records of these cases, had no signatures appearing on the documents relative to the operations and/ or transactions of JLN (Janet Lim Napoles) Corporation.”

The same September 2014 decision of the Sandiganbayan ordered government prosecutors to submit additional evidence to prove that there is probable cause to charge Ramirez with multiple counts of graft.

State prosecutors, however, submitted a manifestation and compliance in October 2014 stating that they would no longer present any new evidence against accused Ramirez and would merely rely on the evidence submitted for the other accused.

The anti-graft court said this action by the prosecution panel was duly noted by the Sandiganbayan in a November 2014 Resolution. The November 2014 action by the anti-graft court, however, did not determine whether there was probable cause to charge Ramirez.

The Sandiganbayan’s February 11 resolution issued only this year did not state why it took the court almost 11 years before ruling on Ramirez’s case.

The resolution said, “it should be remembered that jurisprudence has consistently defined probable cause as the existence of such facts and circumstance as  would excite the belief, in a reasonable mind, acting on the facts within the knowledge of the prosecutor, that the person charged was guilty of the crime for which he was prosecuted.”

“A finding of probable cause needs only to rest on evidence showing that, more likely than not, a crime has been committed and there is enough reason to believe that it was committed by the accused. With the foregoing jurisprudential guidelines vis-a-vis another review of the records of these cases, this Court holds that there is no probable cause as regards accused Ramirez in these cases,” the Sandiganbayan said.

Under the same Resolution, the Sandiganbayan ordered the recall of the Hold Departure Order issued on Ramirez on June 16, 2014.

The resolution was penned by Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Bernelito Fernandez and concurred upon by Associate Justices Ronald Moreno and Juliet Manalo-San Gaspar.—LDF, GMA Integrated News