{"id":21301,"date":"2014-08-09T01:17:56","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T17:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=21301"},"modified":"2014-08-09T01:24:13","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T17:24:13","slug":"defense-prosecution-bicker-about-photocopying-truckloads-of-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/08\/09\/defense-prosecution-bicker-about-photocopying-truckloads-of-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense, prosecution bicker about photocopying \u201ctruckloads of evidence\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MANILA, Philippines\u2013The first cross-examination of whistle-blower number one, Benhur Luy, on Monday was marked by grumbling from the side of all defense lawyers and by rather comedic exchanges between both sides.<\/p>\n

The cause of the muttering? The delay in reproducing the \u201ctruckload\u201d of evidence against their clients.<\/p>\n

The defense lawyers – Joel Bodegon for Sen. Bong Revilla, Stephen David for Janet Lim-Napoles and Remigio Miguel Ancheta for Revilla\u2019s senior staff member Richard Cambe – complained about the length of time that it is taking the prosecution to furnish their side with copies of evidence.<\/p>\n

David pointed out that he has still not received a full copy of Luy\u2019s files. Bodegon and Ancheta, on the other hand, said that it was only two days ago that they received the first batch of Luy\u2019s evidence.<\/p>\n

Acting Chief Special Prosecutor Joefferson Toribio, however, pointed the accusatory finger at the defense team, saying that the delays in getting copies of the prosecution\u2019s evidence were due to the defense team\u2019s non-provision of money for the exorbitantly priced cost of photocopying.<\/p>\n

The laughter this comment elicited was fueled even more when the Sandiganbayan\u2019s First Division chair, Efren de la Cruz matter-of-factly stated that the court could not advance money to pay for the cost of photocopying the evidence, which amounts to P5 per sheet of paper.<\/p>\n

Evidence and case documents in the Office of the Ombudsman allowed to be photocopied only on the premises of its headquarters in Quezon City at a cost which is up to ten times higher than the average price of photocopying in commercial or business establishments.<\/p>\n

Inquirer.net reported that a source from the side of the prosecution said that the defense lawyers were just using the delay as a poor excuse, and that it was the defense\u2019s own duty to ascertain that the documents were reproduced on time. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to spoon-feed them everything,\u201d the source said<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Philippines\u2013The first cross-examination of whistle-blower number one, Benhur Luy, on Monday was marked by grumbling from the side of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":15186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,95],"tags":[7240],"class_list":["post-21301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news-ph","tag-pork-barrel-hearings","mauthors-angie-duarte","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}