Justice owed across three generations of Filipinos sits at the center of Akbayan Party’s response to the latest legal move against Senator Jinggoy Estrada, with the group framing his looming detention as overdue restitution for public money it says was diverted from classrooms, hospitals, housing, flood defenses, and ordinary people’s livelihoods.
The party’s statement followed the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division’s issuance of an arrest warrant against Estrada on Monday, June 1, over a non-bailable plunder charge tied to roughly P573 million in alleged kickbacks from manipulated 2025 flood control project allocations. Ordered arrested alongside the senator were former Public Works and Highways secretary Manuel Bonoan and three DPWH engineering officials from the National Capital Region. The warrant came days after Estrada posted P90,000 bail in a separate, bailable graft case handled by the court’s Second Division.
For Akbayan, the warrant validates a principle it says should govern every official: that state resources exist for citizens rather than private enrichment, and that no one holding public office stands beyond legal reach. The party described Estrada as a repeat figure in graft controversies spanning multiple administrations, pointing to his earlier charges, arrest, and jailing in past corruption matters as evidence of what it called entrenched elite impunity.
The group pressed the anti-graft court to refuse any motion seeking to delay or hold off the warrant’s enforcement. Estrada’s camp has, in fact, asked the Sandiganbayan to throw out the plunder charge or freeze proceedings while his other legal remedies are weighed, with his lawyer confirming the filing of an omnibus motion ad cautelam. “In anticipation of the possible issuance of an arrest warrant in the plunder case filed against me, I respectfully urge the Court to first give due consideration to the motions I have already filed and to uphold the principles of due process,” Estrada said in a statement.
Akbayan extended its demand beyond the senator himself, urging the Ombudsman, the Department of Justice, and the courts to move on every credible corruption case against implicated officials in both legislative chambers, with charges, convictions, and imprisonment to follow wherever the evidence holds and due process is observed.
The party reserved pointed language for the chamber’s leadership, cautioning Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano against meddling in Estrada’s case as it claims he did during efforts to bring fugitive Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa to account. Akbayan said the Senate must cease operating, in its words, as a refuge for fugitives, accused plunderers, and mass killers.
