"Credit should go to this man for Sabio's dropping of the charges against the President before the International Criminal Court."
"Credit should go to this man for Sabio's dropping of the charges against the President before the International Criminal Court."
In the NBA, Robert Horry earned the nickname Big Shot Bob because of his clutch shooting in important games. In fact, Big Shot Bob is widely considered to be one of the greatest clutch performers and winners in NBA history, being the only player outside of the legendary Boston Celtics to have won at least seven championship rings.
We also have our own version of Big Shot Bob, not in the basketball court, but in the field of politics—lawyer Larry Gadon.
Though not having occupied a high-ranking post in the government, Big Shot Larry has been a thorn in the neck of the political opposition.
In January 2018, Big Shot Larry filed an impeachment case against Ma. Lourdes Sereno whom former President Noynoy Aquino appointed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 2012 and would have served until 2030, apparently as an insurance against him and his cohorts.
And it was Gadon’s case against Sereno which dealt with her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, which led to the discovery that her appointment was void from the beginning because she had failed to comply with her SALN requirements. This resulted in the filing of a quo warranto case that led to her ouster.
Two years, after, Big Shot Larry again scored big against the political opposition when he facilitated the withdrawal of fellow lawyer Jude Sabio’s case against President Rodrigo Duterte which Sabio had filed before the International Criminal Court. It should be noted that when Sabio filed a case of crime against humanity through mass murder against Duterte, the political opposition hailed Sabio as a jewel and that would be the case which would eventually nail Duterte down.
Unfortunately for them, Sabio had already been contemplating for so long on the accuracy and morality of the case he had lodged before the ICC. And that was where Big Shot Larry came into play—convince Sabio to spill the truth. Spill them he did.
According to Sabio, he was contacted by Fr. Albert Alejo in 2016 after his article on the Matobato testimony, which dealt with the alleged testimony of Edgar Matobato, a self-confessed hitman and who claimed to be a member of the Davao Death Squad, was published in a national daily. He was asked by the priest to serve as Matobato’s counsel.
It was Fr. Alejo, Sabio narrated, who facilitated his trip to Manila and who brought him to former Senator Antonio Trillanes. It was Fr. Alejo, Sabio added, who brought him to jailed Senator Leila de Lima.
At first, Sabio said Trillanes told him he would only be handling Matobato’s case. But when Arturo Lascanas surfaced in February 2017, Trillanes reportedly told him he would be the one instead to go to the ICC.
In collaboration with and upon the direction of Trillanes, in the last week of April 2017 when De Lima was already in detention, and as part of his professional legal work, Sabio said he went to The Hague, Netherlands, and on 24 April 2017, “I personally submitted to Rogier Emeric, ICC’s Chief of Preliminary Examination Section, a 77-page communication providing information regarding the alleged crimes against humanity through mass murder committed by Duterte and company in the war on drugs in the Philippines.”
It was an exuberant moment for the political opposition then. But that was then. Sabio, with the assistance of Gadon, is now singing a different tune—that the whole thing was nothing else but a political propaganda of the opposition effected through the machination of De Lima, Trillanes and company.
At the time of Sabio’s filing of the case before the ICC, the political opposition was ecstatic. Now they are in disarray. And in Gadon’s own words, “As the propaganda objective of the case has been demolished and destroyed, the purpose for which the ICC case has been filed has also been demolished.”
And while it was Sabio who has to take credit for demolishing the opposition this time, credit should also go to Big Shot Larry for facilitating a slam dunk.