The usual suspects
December 16th, 2002
The decline of the satisfaction ratings of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is the only possible reason why the already settled question of whether to put former president Joseph Estrada under house arrest or to keep him where he is has once again been raised—and is apparently being seriously entertained in administration circles.
A member of Arroyo’s official family brought the proposal to media attention. Housing Secretary Michael Defensor claims that he initiated a brief discussion of the topic with Estrada when he visited his son Jinggoy at Veterans Memorial Medical Center. Although Defensor and Malacañang deny it, it is likely he was acting as the emissary of Mrs. Arroyo, an issue such as this being far beyond Defensor’s mandate as housing secretary to initiate. He could not have brought it up with Estrada—and alerted the media to it—without the authorization of his boss, the President.
Of course Estrada himself and his family, as well as his political allies in the House of Representatives and the Senate, have been asking for this form of “detention” for the former president while his trial for the non-bailable crime of plunder continues. Estrada’s lawyers have in fact filed a petition to allow their client house arrest, presumably so he can enjoy the comforts of home.
The campaign of family and friends for either bail or house arrest for Estrada and his son Jinggoy has been muted in the previous months. Apparently, however, the onset of the Christmas season has set visions of father and son’s being home for the holidays dancing in their heads, thus its revival.
This is to presume that the idea has been given new life on their initiative and not the government’s. The latter, however, is an even more distinct possibility. Whatever be the case, the fact that the administration is entertaining it can only be based on its perception that placing Estrada under house arrest could gain it points among the former president’s still considerable constituency among the poor.
Where it won’t gain points is among those sectors of Philippine society who regard the Estrada case as a landmark in deciding whether the Philippine justice system will continue to be skewed in favor of the wealthy and influential, or whether it has the capacity to be blind, as justice is supposed to be, to privilege and power.
The arrest and arraignment of a Philippine president, when it happened for the first time in this country in 2001, was a significant step in proving the impartiality of a system of justice so severely flawed that it has never prosecuted anyone of Estrada’s stature.
Estrada’s detention in a suite in the Veterans Memorial Hospital, however, is itself a privilege denied the poor, who as detention prisoners must endure disease and deprivation and rape in the country’s overcrowded prisons. The message it conveys is clear enough. It is that, arrested, detained and arraigned, Estrada is nevertheless influential enough to merit such entitlements, which of course says that everyone may be equal but the likes of Estrada are more equal than others.
House arrest for Estrada would send the same message, and worse: it is that there is one law for the poor and powerless, and another for the wealthy and influential. There is also the matter of house arrest’s being an unprecedented option for people in Estrada’s predicament, which gives the impression that Estrada should be given the privilege of staying in his home in the duration of his trial no matter what.
People have indeed been placed under house arrest before, but only during the martial law period and only when accused of political offenses. Although there are near martial law conditions in some areas of the Philippine countryside, the Philippines is nevertheless not under martial rule. And Estrada is not accused of a political offense, but of a criminal one.
These have all been pointed out before. This makes the need to re-argue the question on the legal and moral plane virtually pointless, and well it might be, because what the proponents of house arrest—the “leading political figures…and religious and civic leaders” Estrada’s lawyers say support house arrest for their client—what these proponents are saying is that there is a political justification for it.
That “justification” is that house arrest for Estrada would defuse current political tensions “characterized by bitter charges and counter charges of high officials in the land”—which refers, apparently, to such events as the furor over the bribery accusations against Justice Secretary Hernando Perez and President Arroyo’s premature denial that she received no bribe in exchange for her approval of the power contract with the Argentine firm IMPSA.
These events, however, have only added to an already poisoned political atmosphere with which the Estrada issue has little to do. What they have to do with are the elections of 2004, to prevail in which the country’s politicians, including and most specially President Arroyo, have been exerting their utmost efforts.
If house arrest is intended to win Estrada’s supporters over so they will vote for Mrs. Arroyo in 2004, that hope might well be as unfounded as it is surprisingly naive. The opposition has made it clear that it intends to run someone—anyone—popular enough to wrest control of the government from Mrs. Arroyo and company in 2004. In considering its choices it will certainly make sure that it will be someone Estrada’s constituencies will support, even as, on the other hand, there is enough resentment among the poor against Mrs. Arroyo to assure votes for whoever the opposition candidate will be in 2004 and to make her election then problematic.
The resentment is based on a multitude of factors, among them the continuing decline of the economy and rising unemployment; the tales of graft and corruption that now involve dollars rather than devalued pesos; and the rising tide of crime that has engulfed the poorest communities, among others. Not even house arrest for Estrada can blunt this resentment among his poor constituents—who, in any case, have been successfully convinced both by the Estrada camp as well as their own daily experience that the Arroyo government is a government of, for and by the rich.
These issues aside, the bottom line is that any decision on the conditions of Estrada’s arrest can be made only by the Sandiganbayan—not by the President of the Philippines, or by senators and congressmen no matter how numerous and no matter how loudly they demand house arrest for Estrada.
Mrs. Arroyo of course says that it will be up to the court, but there is no question where her sympathies lie. On this issue there should be no question at all where the sympathies lie of those who would like to see the Estrada trial proceed according to the rules, instead of its being the subject of the usual arrangements among the country’s power elite. For this proposal, which they perceive to be to their interest, the members of the elite are again the usual suspects.
(abs-cbnNEWS.com, December 11, 2002)