JUSTICE APPLIES to all, otherwise none at all — a famous line that doesn’t seem applicable to former Public Works and Highways Secretary Manuel Bonoan whose name had just been dropped from the list of respondents facing non-bailable charges of plunder and graft before the court.
This comes as the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division granted the Ombudsman’s motion to drop Bonoan from the plunder and graft charges in connection with the so-called flood control scandal.
Voting two against one, justices of the Sandiganbayan division said that it is within “prosecutorial discretion” to determine who to use as its witness.
“The decision to move for the discharge of an accused is part of the Ombudsman’s Prosecutorial discretion of who should be used as a state witness to bolster the successful prosecution of criminal offenses,” reads of the ruling.
Bonoan is co-accused of Senator Jinggoy Estrada and three others, who were charged by the Ombudsman in May for allegedly conspiring to amass more than P500 million flood control project kickback.
In June, the Ombudsman requested the Sandiganbayan to exclude Bonoan from the charge after the former secretary said he was willing to cooperate with the agency.
The Ombudsman said that Bonoan’s testimony is necessary to uncover the system behind the kickback scheme in the anomalous projects.
“His (Bonoan) cooperation was indispensable to undercover the architecture that may have set the entire machinery in motion,” the Ombudsman stated in its June 11 motion.
Beyond the power to pick state witnesses, the Sandiganbayan also took note of the Ombudsman’s power “to grant immunity.”
“The Court is likewise guided by the fact that the Ombudsman’s exercise of its power to grant immunity under Republic Act 6770.”
Bonoan has yet to be arraigned in view of pending motions.
