LuisTeodoro.com

By a vote of 8-4-2 (eight in favor, four against, and two abstentions; one of the justices, Renato Corona, was on leave), the Supreme Court re-affirmed the other day, October 7, its April 1, 2003 resolution re-opening for trial the 11 “Kuratong Baleleng” murder charges against Senator Panfilo Lacson.

The ruling dismissed Lacson’s motion for reconsideration filed after the April 1 ruling, and reiterated the majority justices’ opinion that the two-year limit for the revival of criminal cases could not apply in his case. The Court cited for its reason Lacson’s failure to expressly agree to the provisional dismissal of the cases in March 1999 and to notify the victims’ heirs of the dismissal.

Because of the ruling, one of the Quezon City special courts dealing with heinous crimes, once assigned to try the 11 cases against Lacson, can issue a warrant of arrest against him. Lacson would then be detained without bail, the crimes he is accused of being non-bailable, and if found guilty could be sentenced to death.

No matter how expertly the majority opinion (written by Justice Romeo Callejo, Jr.) justifies the decision, the Supreme Court cannot avoid accusations that it acted in furtherance of a political purpose. Senator Aquilino Pimentel may be right in saying that the closeness of the Supreme Court vote suggests that there was no pressure from Malacanang on the justices to rule against Lacson. But much of the public, and not only that part of it that supports Senator Lacson, is likely to suspect it anyway.

There are at least two reasons why. Lacson is a proclaimed candidate for the Presidency. The Supreme Court ruling will certainly affect the decision of the opposition groups on whether to field him as their official candidate, or to choose someone else. Should they proclaim him nevertheless, a trial at the height of the campaign period that unofficially began last Saturday, October 4, will almost certainly have an adverse effect on his chances in May, 2004.

It is of course possible that a volatile electorate will see him as an underdog against whom the might of the entire state has been unleashed, resulting in a voter backlash that will send him to Malacanang and oust the present occupant. It is also possible that he will be acquitted, an event that will almost guarantee his victory in May. But what is certain is that in the event of the worst-case scenario, a conviction for multiple murder, Lacson will be disqualified as a candidate and imprisoned, if not sentenced to death.

Coincidentally (some say deliberately, to make it appear that the Court was sabotaging his chances even at that time), Lacson had announced his intention to seek the Presidency last March, almost on the eve of the April 1 decision of the Supreme Court allowing the reopening of the cases. The present decision on his subsequent motion for reconsideration, on the other hand, came at the start of the political season, on the heels of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s October 4 announcement that she will run for the Presidency in 2004.

The second reason is the growing public distrust of the Supreme Court, the approval ratings of which have been steadily dropping (it was a low +16 percent in September, down from +21 percent the previous quarter). Although this can be interpreted as part of the general skepticism over government and its agencies rampant among the citizenry, it can also be due to the efforts of former President Joseph Estrada, the urban poor groups associated with him such as the People’s Movement Against Poverty, sundry opposition figures, and Senator Lacson himself to paint the Supreme Court as an institution biased in favor of the Arroyo government and of President Arroyo herself.

It’s easy to make these accusations. Seven of the Supreme Court justices are Arroyo appointees, a fact that opposition groups have repeatedly said affects their decisions. While two of these Arroyo appointees abstained and one was on leave and did not vote, which suggests that their being Arroyo appointees did not have much to do with the Lacson decision, this is a point of information much of the public is likely to miss.

Whatever be the case, the Supreme Court is in many ways a damaged institution.

Several Supreme Court justices including Chief Justice Hilario Davide have been widely depicted as political partisans, the landmark indication of it being their supposedly bending the Constitutional provisions for Presidential succession in favor of then Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in January 2001.

Members of the opposition in the House of Representatives have also initiated impeachment proceedings based on this allegation, even as detained former President Joseph Estrada has repeatedly impugned the impartiality of both the Court and the entire justice system in the course of his trial on plunder charges.

These claims are themselves easily ascribed to the exigencies of politics, and even to the desperation of a former President whose conviction on plunder charges could mean a death sentence But they cannot but have some impact on whether the Supreme Court will continue to be regarded as an institution unsullied by partisan politics, or as merely one more administration instrument in furthering its political agenda.

Unfortunately for the Supreme Court majority, at least one of the justices seems convinced that the Court, because of its ruling on the Lacson cases, will be regarded as the latter, and, what’s worse, that it is compromising the Bill of Rights in the process.

While the lawyers sort out the legal complexities of the Supreme Court decision, those Filipinos already concerned over the Bill of Rights should themselves study the decision closely, and should note the warning in the dissenting opinion of one of the four justices who voted against it.

Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago warned that civil liberties would suffer as a result of the ruling, because the Supreme Court had “allowed the use of the strong arm of the law to oppressively prosecute and persecute a public officer whom the powers that be detest and whom they seek to render completely ineffective.”

In Justice Santiago’s mind, the Court decision—which emphasized that the cases against Lacson could be reopened because “the state is entitled to justice,” and that the rule that proscribed the reopening of cases after two years was approved by the Court to “enhance” not only the right of accused persons to due process but also that of the state—sets a dangerous precedent.

In effect, the Court extended the right to due process to the state. It’s an absurd formulation, the right to due process being meant to protect individuals from the arbitrary use of state power. From whom, on the other hand, does the state need protection, given its monopoly over such coercive powers as its control of the police and the military and the judicial system? By arguing that the state also has a right to due process, and what’s more, that it is also “entitled to justice,” the Court seems to have placed the rights of the state above those of Lacson’s—or of any individual’s.

Because Supreme Court decisions become precedents on which its own future decisions as well as those of lower courts can be based, “equating the awesome powers of the state with individual freedoms and formally extending the protection of the Bill of Rights to the state is not a healthy development,” said Justice Santiago.

“Bewildering” is how Santiago described the Court’s extending the protection of the Bill of Rights to the state. “This is not only an error; it is also not healthy for the development of the law of the Constitution,” said Santiago.

Santiago’s views imply that the Court ruling was politically-motivated. Of course those views could themselves be as burdened. But even if Santiago’s dissent is itself politically-motivated, that would not detract from the validity of her argument. Santiago was also saying that as a result of that bias in favor of “the powers-that-be,” the Court might have established a precedent damaging to the rights of others who could, in the future, be in the same predicament as Lacson.

Lacson’s appeal had been based on the claim that the Court’s own rule banning the re-opening of cases two years after their provisional dismissal applied to the cases against him. But the Court ruling did sound as if it had gone out of its way to use a technicality (Lacson’s not having agreed to the cases’ dismissal and to notify the victims’ heir of it) in dismissing Lacson’s appeal.

The ruling, however, goes beyond Lacson, but would apply to future cases—in which decisions adverse to individual rights could be based on the “bewildering” argument that the state has a right to the protection of due process! Theoretically, it would be possible for the courts to argue that the state’s right to due process outweighs those of the very individuals that right is meant to protect.

It would indeed be ironic if the Court, by reopening for trial cases that themselves involve the right of individuals to life and to a fair trial (the supposed members of the Kuratong Baleleng gang were allegedly killed on the orders of then National Police Chief Lacson while already in police custody), ends up affirming instead the superiority of the rights of the state over those of individuals.

Although related to, and possibly occasioned by, its determination to bring to trial someone detested (Santiago’s word) not only in Malacanang but also within Supreme Court and other elite circles, whether the Court has indeed compromised the Bill of Rights in the process is an issue more important than that of its alleged partisanship. That would make the Court not only the damaged institution its detractors says it is, but also a damaging one.

(abs-cbnNEWS.com, October 9, 2003)

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