Metro Manila, Philippines – Sen. Jinggoy Estrada has filed a motion before the Sandiganbayan seeking the dismissal of the charges against him, alongside a request for a reinvestigation into allegations implicating him in the pocketing of public funds, amid a looming warrant of arrest for non-bailable plunder.
In a statement on Monday, June 1, Estrada said his camp filed the omnibus motion, asking the anti-graft court to first consider the motions he filed amid the pending warrant of arrest for plunder and another count of graft in the fifth division.
Estrada said their latest pleading includes a motion for the case to be quashed and dismissed with prejudice or in alternative, a request to suspend the proceedings and remand the case back to the ombudsman for reinvestigation.
The senator’s camp earlier filed a motion to withdraw the warrant of arrest, as well as a request to consolidate the cases.
On May 29, Estrada posted a ₱90,000 bail with the Sandiganbayan Second Division for graft. The Fifth Division has yet to issue the warrant for plunder, a non-bailable offense.
The lawmaker said he only received a copy of the ombudsman resolution only on May 29. The case was filed on May 28.
“It is only fair and just that I be afforded the opportunity to fully exercise these legal remedies before any coercive measures are taken against me,” Estrada said.
“Buo ang aking loob na harapin ang kasong ito at patunayan na walang katotohanan ang mga ibinibintang sa akin,” he added.
[Translation: I am fully determined to face this case and prove that the accusations against me are false.]
The case stemmed from what the ombudsman called an “intricate mechanism involving illegal budgetary insertions and project allocations within the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) infrastructure portfolio” in 2025.
The ombudsman said Estrada alone pocketed over ₱573 million of supposed kickbacks from infrastructure projects.
Since plunder is a non-bailable offense, the senator may serve jail time in the New Quezon City Jail, the detention facility for the accused in the flood control scandal, while the trial is pending.
It is Estrada’s third plunder case in less than three decades. His two previous high-profile cases–the 2001 jueteng scandal and the 2014 pork barrel scam–both ended in acquittals.
READ: Jinggoy Estrada’s history of plunder cases
