In a phone-patch interview on GMA News TV’s “Balita Pilipinas Ngayon,” Estrada’s lawyer Alexis Abastillas said they are preparing to file a motion for judicial determination of probable cause with the anti-graft court.
“We will be asking the Sandiganbayan justices to personally examine and evaluate the evidence presented before it in the record,” he said. “It is also for them to determine if there is a probable cause.”
According to the Supreme Court jurisprudence, a judicial determination of probable cause is made by a judge to “ascertain whether a warrant of arrest should be issued against the accused.”
It added that if the judge finds no probable cause, he or she cannot be forced to issue an arrest warrant.
Meanwhile, Abastillas said they may also ask the Supreme Court to intervene in the plunder charges filed against Estrada after the Ombudsman junked his motion for reconsideration.
Estrada is among three senators charged with plunder at the Sandiganbayan on Friday afternoon in relation to the supposed diversion of their Priority Development Assistance Fund allocations to fake foundations connected to detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles.
The other two senators are Senate Minority Floor Leader Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon Bong Revilla Jr.
This was the second time Estrada was charged with plunder. In 2001, he was charged with the same offense before the Sandiganbayan for allegedly conspiring with his father, former President Joseph Estrada, to amass billions of ill-gotten wealth from jueteng operations and kickbacks from tobacco excise taxes.
The Sandiganbayan acquitted Estrada in 2007, but convicted his father. On the same year, the elder Estrada was granted executive clemency by then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. —Amanda Fernandez/KBK, GMA News
