The anti-graft court has turned down Senator Jinggoy Estrada’s attempt to bring together the corruption and plunder charges against him under a single division, ruling that the cases rest on separate transactions and should move forward on their own tracks.
In an eight-page resolution, the Sandiganbayan’s Fifth Division, led by Associate Justice Zaldy Trespeses, found no legal footing for the senator’s request. The justices reasoned that lumping the charges together would only slow down the proceedings rather than streamline them.
Estrada had petitioned to have all three of his pending cases placed under the Second Division, which holds the matter bearing the lowest docket number. He argued that the charges trace back to the same web of questionable dealings, specifically alleged budget insertions tied to the 2025 national spending plan. The senator described the cases as “hinged on substantially similar transactions” and warned that splitting them across courts could produce “conflicting findings and inconsistent rulings.”
The court saw the matter differently. It pointed out that the charges spring from two distinct sets of dealings, which undercuts any rationale for a merger. The case before the Fifth Division concerns roughly P350 million in flood control work in Metro Manila and Oriental Mindoro, with Estrada joined by three engineers from the Department of Public Works and Highways National Capital Region office: Denryl Cortuna, Manny Bulusan, and Arturo Gonzales. The matter assigned to the Second Division covers about P213.75 million in flood control projects in Bulacan and names Estrada alongside former DPWH chief Manuel Bonoan, now hospitalized under police guard.
Forcing the two together, the justices wrote, would mean dragging the three DPWH engineers into “proceedings they are complete strangers to.” The resolution also stressed the practical cost of a merger: “To consolidate these two cases involving wholly different acts or transactions would be to halt their progress in separate divisions so that they can be tried in the same proceedings, one after the other.”
The court flagged another complication. Estrada’s three co-accused in the plunder case have pending bail petitions, and folding the cases into one would leave those motions “stalled for as long as the court conducts hearings on the bail petitions.” Kept separate, the justices noted, “the anti-graft cases, which do not require a bail hearing, may go directly to trial.”
The flood control controversy centers on supposed budget insertions and a kickback arrangement embedded in certain projects. Estrada faces one graft count before the Second Division and a separate graft charge plus the plunder case before the Fifth Division.
Since his June 1 arrest on the non-bailable plunder charge, Estrada has been held at the New Quezon City Jail in Payatas, though he has secured bail on both graft counts. A separate blow came on June 17, when the Sandiganbayan handed down a 90-day preventive suspension that strips him of his legislative functions, salary, and benefits, while leaving his office and staff free to keep working. Per Senate Secretary Renato Bantug, that order also disqualifies Estrada from sitting as a senator-judge.
Bantug told reporters Thursday that the chamber had formally relayed the suspension to Estrada’s office, with the Senate president confirming it took effect on June 22.
