To one looking at the broader picture of the travel ban against former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, sans the witting or unwitting shortcomings of the key characters from all sides, it may be reasonable to assume that the question of great commonsensical importance may inevitably boil down to: Who among these players is actually acting honorably, honestly and in fair play?
The obtaining facts tell us that the adjudicatory phase of the criminal cases against Arroyo including electoral sabotage, plunder and other high crimes of graft and corruptions had been well approaching when she attempted to fly out of the country supposedly to seek medical attention from abroad for bone disorder. The former president, who ruled the country for nine years, was dramatically unglamorous when she was prevented by the Department of Justice (DOJ) from departing: she was carried on a wheelchair, face hidden by a medical mask, head and neck immobilized by braces. The airport scene had the effect of looking pathetic.
It is apt to note at this point that criminal procedure first goes through the investigatory stage initiated by the executing agency charged with the implementing of the law or laws violated. The next stage, the adjudicatory process, follows after the court assumes jurisdiction upon the filing of the criminal charges before it and then proceeds to perform its judicial functions. The potential accused is likely to frustrate the entire judicial process if she stays out of the reach of the court such as by hiding, or fleeing to a foreign jurisdiction with which the country has no extradition treaty. Under the present constitutional procedure in the Philippines, the trial may not even proceed in the absence of the accused if she is able to evade the court’s jurisdiction before arraignment (the entering of a plea of guilty or not guilty to the charges). On the other hand, while flight is an indicium of guilt, the constitutional presumption of innocence may continue, regrettably, to attach to her who could have conceivably bolted from justice.
The Constitution is clear that while the right to travel is a constitutional right, it may be restricted by lawful order of the court or “in the interest of national security, public safety or public health, as may be provided by law.”
The “law” upon which DOJ has acted to ban Arroyo from traveling outside of the country is not a legislative enactment or a statutory law but a DOJ circular, Circular 41, which, together with Watchlist Orders issued pursuant thereto, has the effect and force of law nonetheless and is presumed to be valid unless declared illegal or unconstitutional. It is the same law that the Arroyo administration has enforced to ban the departure of persons being investigated or under prosecution for various crimes.
In a petition by Arroyo assailing the validity of Circular 41, which her own administration has relied upon on many occasions to issue travel bans or hold-departure orders, the Supreme Court unfortunately issued a TRO (temporary restraining order), ex parte ( that is, even before the government has been given the opportunity to present its side) restraining the implementation of the said circular that would have allowed Arroyo to leave the country upon the pretense that her medical conditions necessitated the foreign travel, and be a fugitive from justice and ultimately upset the rule of law. The Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Renato Corona, a former Arroyo aide, immediately took cognizance of the petition for TRO and acted on it presumably at the expense of the piles of cases before it long awaiting action and involving equally fundamental rights of ordinary citizens. The underlying issue, the Court justified its hurried resolution, is Arroyo’s “right to life.”
Justice Secretary De Lima, apparently persuaded by facts that Arroyo was faking her medical conditions and therefore Arroyo’s intentions to leave the country was to escape prosecution, has decided to enforce Circular 41, notwithstanding unofficial knowledge that the Supreme Court has restrained her temporarily from doing so. Had De Lima vacillated, the Court’s temporary injunction would have permanently denied the People of the Philippines due process of law. Now, while Arroyo partisans were crying foul because De Lima supposedly violated the rule of law for defying the TRO, the enforcing agency of the government (the Commission on Elections, in this case) has accelerated the pace of the prosecution process and eventually filed a case for electoral sabotage, a non-bailable offense, before a regional trial court which ordered the arrest and detention of Arroyo. A triumph of the rule of law, De Lima supporters proclaim. “Justice has been served,” De Lima herself asserted.
The gutsy secretary of justice is now confronted with contempt charges, disbarment and incarceration. It is not highly improbable however for the Aquino government preferring to ignore a court’s order punishing De Lima if it deems it to be patently vindictive, unconscionable and has no place in a genuine regime of rule of law, one President Aquino has promised to restore in the country.
Meanwhile Arroyo no longer complains that her health or life will be imperiled in the hands of Filipino doctors unless foreign medical specialists intervene. Her spokesperson claims Arroyo still suffers from colitis (inflammation of the colon) which she developed more recently and Arroyo insists to have a laptop and a cell phone in her detention facility, a suite at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC)* in Manila, so she could start writing a book while in confinement. She faces the grim prospect of reclusion perpetua (permanent or life imprisonment). In the end, it could possibly be by these accounts that the underlying concern, to borrow somehow from the majority of the Supreme Court, is the protection of Arroyo’s right to liberty.
More cases are in the offing involving Arroyo’s crimes allegedly committed during her long tenure (not to mention petitions for other reliefs such to be allowed bail) that may end up before the high court but the robed sires are seemed not ready yet to play square with the Aquino government, when it comes to Arroyo’s interests in particular, or with President Noynoy Aquino’s avowed overarching interest in the rule of law.
It may be apropos to recall what we have said here about “full accountability” (This writer was then critical of the anti-corruption campaign of the Aquino government for having allowed the impeachment of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez to lapse after her resignation):
Full accountability demands that if the impeached official is culpable for betrayal of public trust, she is entitled to no quarter if only as matter of concrete exemplification but shall be removed from public office AND disqualified forever to hold any office under the Republic of the Philippines. There is no other more important business today in the Philippines, save perhaps the creation of in-country employment opportunities for Filipinos, than the matter of inculcating a culture of accountability (rather than countenancing impunity) to all, without which, any anti-corruption campaign, now or in the future, could only be an empty shibboleth.
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*VMMC is same facility where Joseph Estrada, Arroyo’s predecessor, was detained after he was overthrown in 2001 in a people power uprising. Estrada was convicted but was later pardoned by Arroyo.
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Is FilipinoVoices back for real?
Did not P-Noy breach traditional etiquette by directly attacking the Supreme Court?
Phil,
I actually like Randy David’s answer to this and other similar questions. David wrote:
Nothing is really unprecedented or unusual in what Noynoy Aquino did. On the contrary it shows that our democracy is vibrant. Note that President Obama did the same thing to the justices of the US Supreme Court at last year’s State of the Union address when in his speech he chastised the justices for a decision just handed down and then called on the Congress to pass legislation overturning the decision. He delivered his speech with the nine justices of the Court sitting just a few feet in front of him as congressional guests.
The Court decision Obama was critical about overturned a portion of the election laws that had made it illegal for corporations to spend money for political campaigns because according to Obama it would “open the floodgates for special interests” to spend unlimited amounts for such purpose.