Ombudsman prosecutors ask SC to dismiss Honasan petition to dismiss ‘pork’ case
PROSECUTORS under the Office of the Ombudsman are asking the Supreme Court Third Division to dismiss the petition for certiorari filed by Sen. Gregorio Honasan 2nd in connection with the Sandiganbayan Second Division’s denial of his plea for a case dismissal.
Honasan and other individuals are facing graft cases before the anti-graft court in connection with the alleged misuse of his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel allocation totaling P29.1 million in 2012.
“No grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction can be rightfully attributed to the respondent court when it denied the petitioner’s Omnibus Motion to Quash Warrants of Arrest, To Dismiss Case or To Order Its Reinvestigation, and To Defer Arraignment and Motion for Reconsideration, as it correctly characterized the omnibus motion as a motion for judicial determination of probable cause, a prohibited pleading under the Revised Guidelines on Continuous Trial of Criminal Cases,” the prosecutors said in a Comment.
They also argued that the petition “raises issues that are evidentiary in nature — a position clearly misplaced in this instance — that are best threshed out in a full-blown trial on the merits of the cases.”
The Office of the Ombudsman filed the cases before the Sandiganbayan in August 2017. Later, the Sandiganbayan Second Division found basis to proceed with the trial.
The first case involved P27 million and the second P2.1 million. MA. REINA LEANNE C. TOLENTINO
The post Ombudsman prosecutors ask SC to dismiss Honasan petition to dismiss ‘pork’ case appeared first on The Manila Times Online.