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Whistleblower in Pastillas scam dropped from graft case before Sandiganbayan

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Mike Navallo, ABS-CBN News

<div>35 of 50 accused plead not guilty; others refused to enter plea</div>MANILA — A key whistleblower in the Pastillas scam has now been dropped as one of the accused in the graft case before the Sandiganbayan.This, after the anti-graft court on Friday granted the prosecution’s motion to amend the information or criminal charge, removing the name of Jeffrey Dale Ignacio from the list of accused.<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">JUST IN: Sandiganbayan admits amended information dropping Jeffrey Dale Ignacio, whistleblower in Pastillas scam, from graft charge. He was earlier granted immunity by the Ombudsman. Defense counsels argued for an hour opposing the amended information. <a href="https://t.co/l0AMkeii0N">pic.twitter.com/l0AMkeii0N</a>— Mike Navallo (@mikenavallo) <a href="https://twitter.com/mikenavallo/status/1568080455492333574?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 9, 2022</a></blockquote><div><script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charSet="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Ignacio has been granted immunity by the Office of the Ombudsman, according to statements from the prosecution and defense during the hearing.Ignacio is set to testify against 50 individuals engaged in a bribery scheme to bypass Immigration procedures from 2017 to 2020.Under the scheme, around 143 mostly Chinese foreigners entered the Philippines as tourists and later worked for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGO) hubs, each paying immigration personnel around P10,000.In his testimony before the Senate in October 2020, Ignacio tagged former Immigration deputy commissioner Marc Red Mariñas as one of the masterminds of the scheme.Mariñas allegedly claimed to have a contact at the Office of the Ombudsman who could help them in the probe they were facing.He also claimed another immigration officer told him that Mariñas allegedly asked them to prepare P100,000 as bribe for an insider at the National Bureau of Investigation.Defense lawyers took turns opposing the prosecution’s motion, claiming that any move to discharge an accused from the case to become a state witness should first be heard.Among those who objected was Marinas’ lawyer, Joel Ferrer.“Since Ignacio has submitted himself already to the jurisdiction of the court, we thought that he should not be excluded anymore as one of the accused. And in fact, among the accused, he seems to be the most guilty,” he said, citing a human trafficking case against Ignacio.But Sandiganbayan justices led by Associate Justice Zaldy Trespeses, pointed out that, based on representations from the prosecution, Ignacio would only be testifying as an ordinary witness.They added, the prosecution is entitled as a matter right to amend the information before the arraignment.Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang and Associate Justice Georgina Hidalgo joined Trespeses in Friday’s hearing.<div>ARRAIGNMENT</div>The justices overruled the objections and proceeded to the arraignment of the 50 accused, 44 of whom were former Immigration personnel who have mostly been dismissed from service.Thirty-five of the 50 accused, including Grifton Medina, former acting chief of the BI Ports Operation Division, pleaded not guilty.Fifteen others, including Mariñas, refused to enter a plea.<figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=2221691" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>Under the rules, the court will enter a “not guilty” plea for the 15 accused.Mariñas, the highest-ranking ex-Immigration official among the accused, refused to give any comment to the media, referring queries instead to his lawyer.Ferrer said his client refused to enter a plea because they intend to question the Sandiganbayan’s jurisdiction over the case during trial.He said Mariñas only held a salary grade 15 position, below the anti-graft court’s salary grade 27 threshold.“His designation was acting officer-in-charge of the Office of the Deputy Commissioner. It would have been different if he says that he as the acting officer-in-charge, deputy commissioner,” he explained.“Since jurisdiction can be raised any time, even on trial, even on appeal, we opted to do this in the trial proper since there are evidences necessary to support yung stand namin that the court has no jurisdiction,” he said.But prosecutors cited Mariñas’ actual designation as deputy commissioner in deciding to bring the case before the Sandiganbayan.The arraignment and pre-trial lasted for about 3 hours.Aside from a lengthy discussion on whether to admit the prosecution’s amended information, defense counsels also questioned the aliases attached to the legal names of the accused in the information.The prosecution said the aliases came from screenshots of a group chat and testimonies from the witnesses.Because of the amended information, both the prosecution and defense were given 10 days to amend their pre-trial brief, a document which lays down the stipulations and the evidence of the parties.The Sandiganbayan has also set 10 dates from September to November for pre-marking of evidence.

A key whistleblower in the 'Pastillas scam' has now been dropped as one of the accused in the graft case before the Sandiganbayan.

Whistleblower in Pastillas scam dropped from graft case before Sandiganbayan

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Whistleblower in Pastillas scam dropped from graft case before Sandiganbayan

Mike Navallo,

ABS-CBN News

Published September 09, 2022 02:57 PM PHT

Read More:

pastillas scheme

immigration

whistleblower

sandiganbayan

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