| source : staff | |||
| Monday, 14 July 2008 16:19 | |||
 The Sandiganbayan has ruled that former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez would have to stand trial for falsification of public documents.The third division of the anti-graft court junked with finality Perez's motion seeking the dismissal of the case. Associate Justice Francisco H. Villaruz Jr., in a seven-page resolution issued Monday, said there is sufficient basis to proceed with trial in the falsification case, contrary to the defendant’s argument that the offense should have been absorbed by the graft charge now pending before the graft court’s Fourth Division. Perez was accused of using his former post as justice secretary to extort $2 million from former Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez in 2001 after the latter declined to execute affidavits that would have implicated several private individuals in the Estrada plunder case. The Office of the Ombudsman had filed four criminal charges at the Sandiganbayan indicting Perez, his wife Rosario, brother-in-law Ramon Areco and businessman Ernest Escaler for robbery and graft, which are now pending before the First and Second Divisions. In the second graft and falsification of public documents cases, Perez is the lone accused. The court ruled that, "in the instant case, the Court found that the essential elements of Falsification of Public/Official documents… have been sufficiently alleged." Citing the Supreme Court’s pronouncements in the case of People vs. Relova, the court said it is possible for a single act to offend against ‘two or more entirely distinct and entirely unrelated provisions of law thus justifying the prosecution of the accused for more than one offense.’ The court also said there is no basis to admit into the record newspaper clippings that Perez claims to constitute evidence that the Office of the Ombudsman bowed to ‘political considerations’ in charging him in court. The news clippings, the court said, were "hearsay evidence" since none of them contained direct statements from the Ombudsman. Likewise, none was part of the pleading from the very start, unlike the newspaper excerpts of the diary of Sen. Edgardo Angara, which were admitted in the case of Estrada vs. Desierto
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