Pasay City court clears Arroyo of 2007 electoral sabotage

FILE: House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with President Rodrigo Duterte (Photo: KING RODRIGUEZ/ Presidential Photo)

A Pasay City court junked the electoral sabotage case filed against House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in connection with the 2007 midterm elections.

In an order dated December 17, Judge Jesus Mupas of the Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 112 said, “For failure of the prosecution to prove the guilt of accused Arroyo beyond reasonable doubt and moral certainty despite ample opportunity and even without evidence in favor of said accused, the demurrer to evidence is granted and the charge of electoral sabotage against accused Arroyo is hereby ordered dismissed.”

The demurrer to evidence is a pleading filed by Arroyo to dismiss the case against her for lack of sufficient evidence to convict her. This motion can be filed after the prosecution rests its case.

The court also said it will return the P1-million bail the House Speaker posted in 2012 for her temporary liberty.

Arroyo, who was then serving as the country’s Chief Executive, was accused of instructing former Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan, Sr. “to ensure a ’12-0′ victory” for the senatorial bets of “Team Unity” in the 2007 polls.

Following such “instruction,” Ampatuan allegedly directed his provincial administrator Norie Unas, and former Election Supervisor Lintang Bedol “to tamper with elections results.”

Unas is the case’s whistleblower who said he heard the former President saying, “Dapat 12-0 sa Maguindanao, kahit ayusin o palitan pa ang resulta (It should be 12-0 in Maguindanao, even if we have to fix or change the results).”

The court, however, said there is no evidence showing that Arroyo “committed any overt acts towards the commission of electoral sabotage, nor did she directly participate therein, or even exerted moral ascendancy over her co-accused to commit the crime.”

It added that Unas’s testimony was “uncorroborated” by 12 other witnesses in the case, noting that none of them mentioned Arroyo or produced any document connecting the latter to the case.

“This alone is fatal to the case of the prosecution,” Mupas stressed.

Furthermore, Mupas said Arroyo’s alleged instruction to Ampatuan “cannot constitute the crime of ‘electoral sabotage.'”

“As noted by the Court, the Information is silent as to how accused Arroyo wanted accused Ampatuan to ‘ensure’ such victory. There is no allegation in the Information that accused Arroyo ordered, or even suggested, that election documents be tampered with, or that votes for any candidate be increased or decreased,” the judge ruled.

“This defect cannot be remedied by any testimonial evidence without violating the Constitutional rights of the accused,” he added.

The decision of the Pasay City RTC Branch 112 came after the Supreme Court (SC), in 2016, acquitted Arroyo of plunder in connection to the alleged misused funds of the state-run Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).

Also in the same year, the Sandiganbayan dismissed the graft charges against her over the anomalous National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with Chinese firm ZTE.