Estrada, however, is not completely off the hook because he still faces graft allegations over the pork barrel scam
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This is a flip because in January, the Fifth Division’s Associate Justices Rafael Lagos, Ma. Theresa Mendoza-Arcega, and Maryann Corpus-Mañalac all voted unanimously to downgrade the plunder charge to the lesser offense of direct and indirect bribery and convict Estrada of those charges. In the P9.875 million worth of deposits that matched NGO withdrawals and Special Allotment Release Orders , the court initially found that P1 million was deposited to Estrada’s bank account. The court used the variance rule to convict him of direct and indirect bribery.
“Estrada could not have reasonably prepared his defense for a potential finding of indirect bribery and he may had been taken by complete surprise to be facing the same, unlike in the predicate crime of direct bribery where allegations in the Information could have aroused Estrada to prepare for the same as a lesser offense necessarily included in the plunder charge,” the court explained.
“Indeed, the delivery of the subject money to Labayen cannot be construed as the bribe received by Estrada, since the prosecution failed to establish the connection between the cash received by Labayen from Napoles and the deposit made to Estrada’s account,” the Sandiganbayan said. “Thus, there is reasonable doubt as to the presence of the second element, or the fact of receiving the bribe by the accused Estrada, as there is no proof of his actual receipt thereof.
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