Arraignment of Estrada, Bonoan set for June 4

June 3 ------ THE Sandiganbayan Second Division on Tuesday reset the arraignment of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada and former Public Works and Highways secretary Manuel Bonoan on the graft charge they are facing to June 4. The court said this would enable it to “fully thresh out" Estrada's motion seeking to void the charge sheet, dismiss the case, and, in the alternative, remand the case to the Office of the Ombudsman.

Bonoan's lawyer manifested to the court that the former secretary, whose blood pressure was checked at the court, was not ready to be arraigned because of his health. Bonoan, who was brought to the hospital on Monday for hypertension, was in court during the scheduled arraignment. He was brought out of the courtroom on a wheelchair.

The Ombudsman filed the case before the Sandiganbayan on Thursday. It also filed a graft case against former DPWH-National Capital Region officials Denryl Caesar Cortuna, Manny Bulusan, and Arturo Gonzales Jr. All five were named accused in the plunder case filed by the Ombudsman that Thursday.

There is a scheduled arraignment on the plunder case before the court's Fifth Division on June 4, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. Meanwhile, the arraignment on the graft case wherein only Bonoan and Estrada were the accused was set for 1:30 p.m. on the same day.

Bonoan, who was brought to the court on Tuesday by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group to which he surrendered on Monday, was brought back to the Philippine National Police General Hospital after the scheduled arraignment was reset. He filed a motion for hospital arrest before the court's Fifth Division.

Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano said the cases stemmed from "an intricate mechanism involving illegal budgetary insertions and project allocations within the DPWH infrastructure portfolio for Fiscal Year 2025." Clavano said case records pointed to "an accumulated sum of illicit payouts" totaling P573 million, which were systematically delivered to" Estrada. Both Estrada and Bonoan have denied the charges.

Source: manilatimes.net