Sen. Bong Revilla is now cleared of all charges in connection to his alleged involvement in the misuse of billions of pesos in pork barrel or discretionary funds as the Sandiganbayan absolved him in his remaining graft cases.
The Sandiganbayan Special First Division, in a decision promulgated on July 1, granted the demurrer to evidence filed by Revilla and dismissed the remaining 16 counts of graft against him on grounds of insufficiency of evidence.
Revilla said the dismissal of his remaining pork barrel cases showed that all the accusations against him were baseless.
"I am not, and never have been involved in graft and corruption. This is the reason why I did not run; I did not hide; and did not evade the judicial system. I put my trust and my life in our Courts," he said.
"The truth has come out. Now, I can move forward to serving our nation and our people even further, free of this nuisance," he added.
Revilla faced plunder and graft charges after he allegedly pocketed millions in kickbacks from diverting his Priority Development Assistance Fund or PDAF allocations to fake non-government organizations linked to businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles.
The court, in its decision, said Revilla's endorsements to NGOs associated with Napoles were "merely recommendatory" and did not "command nor compel the implementing agencies to award the projects to the recommended NGOs."
It also said no other witness or co-accused was able to conclusively show that Revilla received money from Napoles or her representatives.
"The glaring absence of evidence proving that accused Revilla directly received the proceeds from the PDAF projects or any money from accused Napoles that motivated him to give her and her NGOs unwarranted advantage to the detriment of the government cannot be ignored by this court," the court said.
"The continued lack of evidence that would prove beyond reasonable doubt accused Revilla's involvement in these PDAF transactions leads to a conclusion not different from that reached in the plunder case," it added.
In 2018, the Sandiganbayan also acquitted Revilla of plunder still in connection with the pork barrel scam, allowing him to go out of detention after more than four years. He then ran and won in the 2019 senatorial elections.
Napoles also asked the court to dismiss her charges by filing a demurrer to evidence, but the Sandiganbayan rejected it and said that she merely repeated the arguments she raised in her previous motions earlier denied by the court.
