This is a re-posted opinion piece.
As one recalls, when Ninoy Aquino had to ask for permission to go to the US for a heart operation, he had already been convicted by court-martial of murder, and prior to that he had been incarcerated by Marcos since the declaration of martial law. Contrast that with Gloria Arroyo’s situation (not that she has asked to go to the US at this point): no charges have been filed against her, she has not been arrested for, much less convicted of, any crime. And yet, to read the newspaper reports, she is prohibited from leaving the country if she so desires — by order of DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima. Unless, says the good secretary, Health Secretary Enrique Ona says that Arroyo’s health status indicates that she must seek medical help abroad.
Excuse me. But where does De Lima get off constraining a Filipino citizen’s freedom to travel, whether for health reasons or otherwise, with nary a basis for doing so? Isn’t the right of unimpeded movement a human right, just as it is our constitutional right, and wasn’t De Lima chair of the Human Rights Commission at one time? Has she forgotten so soon? In the early years of the Marcos dictatorship, the freedom to travel was curtailed, for no discernible reason. Are we back to that, then?
Hey. If this administration wants Arroyo to remain in the country, then it must file charges against her — enough to warrant her arrest. Until then, she should be free (as should all of us be) to go where she pleases, when she pleases. Let the legal beagles like Fr. Joaquin Bernas and Senator Franklin Drilon dot the i’s and cross the t’s on the matter. The basic point is our freedom, or the curtailment thereof. I don’t care if Gloria Arroyo is hated by many. The right to hate her ends where her right to travel begins. Period.
Frankly, I don’t know what has happened to Leila de Lima’s thought processes. Maybe she is just punch drunk from the many blows her decisions and recommendations have received from the Palace. Or, and I sincerely hope this is not so — she is preparing to run for the Senate in 2013, and is riding on the hate-Gloria wave — it at least keeps her in the eye of the public.
Don’t get me wrong, reader. In spite of this (and other) shortcomings, I still think she’s great. As a person, as a professional, and as Cabinet member (very definitely compared to a lot of her Cabinet colleagues). Plus, there hasn’t been a whisper of a rumor that she is on the take, which is more than one can say for some of her predecessors in the Department of Justice.
And which is more than one can say for some of her current underlings. Which is why she was right to appoint another panel to handle the Motion for Reconsideration of the first preliminary investigation’s decision on the Gerry Ortega murder. It took the first DOJ panel four months (they were impaneled on Feb. 7, 2011, and signed their report on June 8, 2011) to determine that there was probable cause for charging Rodolfo Edrad, Armando Noel, Dennis Aranas, and Arwin Arandia for the murder of Gerry Ortega. But seeing as all of them had already confessed to their participation — Edrad on Feb. 6, Noel on Feb. 13, Aranas on Feb. 22, and Arandia on Feb. 27 — that was a no-brainer. On that basis, the investigation should have lasted three weeks, not four months.
What was problematic for the panel, it seems, was how to handle the fact that Edrad, in his confession, had pointed to former Palawan Governor Joel T. Reyes as the one who gave the orders and paid for the murder of Ortega. Edrad had also identified former Marinduque Governor Jose Antonio Carrion as the person who first told him of the plot and the price for the murder. Others implicated by Edrad were persons connected in one way or another to Reyes.
That Ortega’s killing was by guns for hire was obvious: Edrad, Noel, Aranas, and Arandia were not residents of Puerto Princesa (they are all from Edrad’s hometown in Quezon), and were neither acquainted with, nor even knew of Ortega prior to their involvement in the case. So of course it was vital to determine who the mastermind/s was/were. In other words, who wanted Ortega dead.
So how did the DOJ panel solve the problem of who had probable cause to want Ortega dead? In other words, who paid Edrad et al. to kill Ortega? Simple. After three more months of investigation, they just completely ignored the question. They merely stopped at saying that there was not sufficient evidence to show probable cause that Reyes, et al. should be charged with murder. And how did they come to that conclusion? By accepting in toto the statements of Reyes et al. and by pointing to inconsistencies in the statements of those who would have implicated them.
Amazing. But if the DOJ thought that Reyes et al. had no hand in the crime, why then was Edrad placed (by the DOJ) under the Witness Protection Program, and is still there? If not Reyes et al., who else could Edrad be witnessing against, that his life is in danger and he should be protected? And protected he still is, because when I saw him last week at the reinvestigation, there were at least eight guards around him, complete with M16s (I asked). Inconsistent behavior, right?
What’s more, rereading the June 8 resolution of the first DOJ panel, I have to point out that Reyes claimed none but the most casual of acquaintances with Edrad. Not close-in security type of relationship, but just somebody he would give money to as “balato” and “pambigas-bigas.” Really? Why were there 41 texts sent from Reyes’s cell phone to Edrad’s cell phone from December 2010 to early February 2011? And why were there 16 texts sent from Reyes to Edrad on Jan. 24, 2011, alone? That, by the way, was the day Ortega was killed. That doesn’t sound like a balato-pambigas acquaintance to me.
Perhaps Leila de Lima, instead of concentrating on preventing Gloria Arroyo from traveling, should concentrate on having lifestyle checks conducted on some of her subordinates. That would certainly be a major step in cleaning up the DOJ, and in belying a statement attributed to former National Security Adviser Jose Almonte: that the Philippines has the best justice system — that money can buy. Show your real stuff, Leila. And make your mark a good one.
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By: Solita Collas-Monsod – Calling a Spade
Source: Business World, November 2, 2011
To view the original article, click here.
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