Court waives cross examination by Jinggoy's counsel on 2 witnesses in PDAF case

The Sandiganbayan Fifth Division on Thursday waived the chance of the counsel of Senator Jinggoy Estrada to cross examine two witnesses in the 11 counts of graft charges he is facing over the alleged misuse of around P255 million of his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

This developed after Estrada's co-accused, former National Livelihood Development Corporation (NLDC) president Gondelina Amata and former Technology Research Center group manager Francisco Figura moved to waive the scheduled cross examination on them by Estrada’s counsel, Atty. Paul Mar Arias.

Both were supposed to take the stand to defend themselves from the charges.

Since Amata and Figura’s motions were seconded by the prosecution and Arias was not yet present in the courtroom during this time, the anti-graft court ruled in their favor.

The next hearing on the 11 graft cases against Estrada and the rest of his co-accused are scheduled on March 10 and April 8.

Earlier, the Sandiganbayan cleared Estrada of P183 million plunder, direct bribery and two counts of indirect bribery charges over the alleged misuse of his PDAF or the discretionary fund members of Congress meant to aid their constituents.

In clearing Estrada of plunder, the anti-graft court said the prosecutors failed to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt and that Estrada was not aware of the scheme concocted by Napoles and that she had been making a business out of PDAF.

On the other hand, the Sandiganbayan said Estrada is not guilty of direct bribery and two counts of indirect bribery charges due to lack of evidence because aside from the P1 million deposited to Estrada’s Bank of Commerce’s account back on September 18, 2008 reflected in prosecution witness Benhur Luy's "9/18/2008" Summary of Rebates, the prosecution did not present other evidence which proved that money was sent to Estrada. —VAL, GMA Integrated News