As a result of the series of coup attempts staged by disgruntled military personnel against the administration of President Corazon Aquino, then-Senate Minority Floor Leader Juan Ponce Enrile was arrested by law enforcement officers on suspicion of rebellion on the strength of a warrant issued by Hon. Jaime Salazar of the Regional Trial Court. The warrant was issued on an information charging Senator Enrile, the spouses Rebecco and Erlinda Panlilio, and Gregorio Honasan with the crime of rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder allegedly committed during the period of the failed coup attempt from Nov. 29 to Dec. 10, 1990. Senator Enrile was taken into custody at the National Bureau of Investigation headquarters and held without bail, none having been recommended in the information and none fixed in the arrest warrant.
As a result, Enrile filed a petition for habeas corpus before the Supreme Court. In his petition, he argued that the crime he was being charged with is nonexistent. He insisted that there is no such crime as rebellion with murder and multiple frustrated murder. Enrile invoked the ruling in the landmark case of People vs. Hernandez where it was ruled that rebellion cannot be complexed with common crimes such as murder; as such, the proper crime that should have been charged against him is simple rebellion—which is bailable.
Enrile’s petition was granted. The Court, speaking through Justice Andres Narvasa, later Chief Justice, said that the Hernandez ruling was still good law, that is, rebellion could not be complexed with murder, that there was no such crime as rebellion with murder. Common crimes such as murder are absorbed in rebellion and so only the latter can be charged. Enrile was entitled to bail as a result.
In Enrile vs. Sandiganbayan, a case decided last year by the Supreme Court, bail was also granted to Enrile. In this case, Senator Enrile, now more than 90 years old, once again stands as an accused before the Sandiganbayan in the crime of plunder, a non-bailable offense, on the basis of his purported involvement in the Priority Development Assistance Fund scam.
Before the Supreme Court, Enrile assailed the resolution by the Sandiganbayan denying his Motion to Fix Bail and his Motion for Reconsideration. He asserted that before judgment of conviction, an accused is entitled to bail as a matter of right; that it is the duty and burden of the prosecution to show clearly and conclusively that Enrile comes under the exception and cannot be excluded from enjoying the right to bail; that the prosecution has failed to establish that Enrile, if convicted of plunder, is punishable by reclusion perpetua considering the presence of two mitigating circumstances—his age and his voluntary surrender.
Voting 8-4, the magistrates granted the petition of Enrile. The decision, penned by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin, stated that even non-bailable charges in offenses punishable by death, life imprisonment or reclusion perpetua is subject to judicial discretion. The majority said “bail may be granted as a matter of right or discretion” in allowing Senator Juan Ponce Enrile’s temporary freedom. It further said the granting of Enrile’s motion was due to humanitarian considerations. “Enrile’s poor health justifies his admission to bail,” the ruling said.
Four magistrates registered their dissenting opinions from the majority decision. In particular, Justice Leonen, dissenting, found no grave abuse of discretion by the Sandiganbayan when it failed to release the accused on bail for medical or humanitarian reasons. According to Leonen, Enrile’s release for medical and humanitarian reasons was not the basis for his prayer in his Motion to Fix Bail filed before the Sandiganbayan. Neither did he base his prayer for the grant of bail in this Petition on his medical condition. For Leonen, the grant of bail by the majority was a special accommodation for Enrile as it is based on a ground never raised before the Sandiganbayan or in the pleadings filed before the court. Leonen also criticized the decision for having a weak legal basis—the grant of bail over mere humanitarian grounds. He also claims that the court has no authority to use humanitarian grounds. The dissenting justice wrote: “not only is this contrary to the rule of law, it also undermines the legitimacy and the stability of our entire judicial system,” adding that “bail for humanitarian considerations is neither presently provided in our Rules of Court nor found in any statute or provision of the Constitution,” and that the conditions for bail under court rules were “so canonical”—hence, clear-cut.
In my view, the Salazar ruling was correct but I see that prosecutors have adjusted and charged revolutionaries with common crimes instead of absorbing them into the political crime of rebellion. This is a distortion. I hope the Supreme Court sees through this and applies the Hernandez and Salazar rulings to favor revolutionaries.
As for Enrile vs. Sandiganbayan, I favor a more liberal approach to bail but I am uncomfortable with humanitarian considerations as a basis for provisional liberty. It is too subjective a standard and opens up courts to special pleadings by powerful people.
In the last three columns, I have summarized and analyzed several cases involving Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. Together, they form an interesting pattern of cases that do not speak well about the history of human rights in our country. In a way, this is symptomatic of the mixed record of human rights since 1986. True, we are no longer a dictatorship, but still extrajudicial killings of journalists, murders of leaders of indigenous peoples and their forcible eviction from their ancestral lands, involuntary disappearances of political and social activists, torture of detainees, and other atrocities continue.
I hope that we will be able to do better in the next 20 years and come 2036, on the 50th anniversary of the Edsa revolution, we can say that we now have a country where the Bill of Rights reigns supreme and that powerful persons are not favored by the law.
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