All based on humanitarian and legal grounds

The eight Associate Justices of the Supreme Court who voted to grant bail to Sen.  Juan Ponce Enrile are now the object of scorn and ridicule by various groups for supposedly engaging in "selective justice" and a "double standard of justice" for favoring someone who is rich and keeping the poor in jail. 

      

But what’s the real score?

      

Enrile is charged with plunder and graft for alleged involvement in the pork barrel scam. The majority of Supreme Court justices said that since Enrile, who is  93 years old and suffering from various ailments, should be granted bail on humanitarian grounds. Besides, because of his advanced age, he is not likely to be a flight risk.

      

But it is not humanitarian considerations alone that Enrile was granted bail despite the fact that plunder, according to our laws, is a nonbailable crime.

      

Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, Dean of the San Beda Graduate School of Law,  has pointed out that a legal principle that has been missed by laymen and kibitzers, that is, "where bail is not available as a matter of right, it can be denied only after it has been determined that evidence of guilt is strong."
      

In the case filed against Enrile, Fr. Aquino said "there has as yet been no determination that the evidence against him is strong—this, being possible only after the prosecution presents its evidence, which it has not yet finished doing so."  

      

Enrile's lawyers have been asking government prosecutors for a bill of particulars, or an item-by-item narrative of how he is alleged to have pocketed his PDAF allocaions. This bill of particulars should be detailed—when, where and how each transaction took place, who were the persons involved, and so on. Apparently, the supposed truckload of evidence collected by the NBI and the DOF did not contain these details which are crucial in pinning down Enrile for plunder and graft. 

      

Without the "smoking gun", therefore, how can the Sandiganbayan say that the evidence against Enrile is so strong that he should be denied bail?

      

Fortunately for Enrile, he appears to have hired good lawyers—and the kibitzers have been out in their proper places. –End-

Image by: www.rappler.com