A hypothetical admission of everything presented by the Prosecution, with the claim that even if all were admitted nothing would have been proved against the accused. There was no need to rebut, because there was nothing proved. The Sandiganbayan denied PGMA’s demurrer. The Supreme Court thought the Sandiganbayan had gravely abused its discretion in so denying it. The result is that PGMA is, as is only just, acquitted. She should now forthwith be released. But as of this posting she is still in Veterans, because the release papers have not yet come. The dissenters, it seems, are taking their time about dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s. There is something eerily familiar here. When the Supreme Court granted a TRO against the Ombudsman, Leila de Lima (for whom I have a particular fondness these days because of her vigilance) instructed immigration personnel to ignore the TRO and to prevent GMA from leaving for treatment. As if on cue, another case was filed to keep her detained—even if it was in the form of a hospital arrest.
But it is significant that 11 of the 15 justices found merit in the demurrer—it means that they agree that she was kept behind bars for six years with really nothing in the hands of the prosecution against her. If this is not the definition of injustice, I now do not know what is.
I am glad for PGMA. She was demonized and pilloried. But she was a brilliant woman, and many of the gains that were later to be claimed by unworthies who succeeded her were the fruit of what she sowed.
And something is amiss when she is threatened with another plunder charge just as she is packing her bags for her trip home! Then, it seems that it is no longer justice that is the issue here but something personal, something visceral. And one cannot but wonder what it was that must have triggered all the bile that oozes against her! It was not like she escaped by the skin of her teeth. She walks, a free woman, by a very wide margin from her prosecutors. Stage 2 of the judicial proceedings against her would have been her defense. We did not get that far. There was no need to go that far. It was like eleven justices telling the prosecution: “You really had nothing to go by!”…to which should be added: “And you should have known that!” Because it is one thing to be acquitted on the basis of a different appreciation of evidence by an appellate court, and quite another to walk away on the basis of a granted demurrer. In the first case there is what we can call “epistemological parity”: the trial court appreciates the evidence one way, the appellate court, another, but since the latter occupies a higher rung in the hierarchy of courts, the former yields, but one appreciation of facts is not necessarily better or “truer” than the other. In the case of PGMA, there was no epistemological parity. There is nothing there—except, probably, “probable cause.”
I think it is time we revisit the law on plunder which has its own share of oddities, not to say absurdity. Estrada v. Sandiganbayan (2001), through Mr. Justice Jose Bellosillo, authoritatively defined it. To commit plunder, you need “a series” or “a combination” of any of the criminal acts enumerated in the law. One act of malversing a hundred million pesos will not be plunder but simply malversation. For plunder you will need either a series—two or more acts of malversation—or a combination, say: one act of malversation and another act of direct bribery. Absurd, is it not? And it is under that law that PGMA was denied her liberty—as are others even now—for six PNoy years! Much besides it is a law that has lent itself to purposes of political vengeance and the convenient incarceration of one’s foes!
I also urge a revisit of the way the right to bail has been interpreted by our courts. This is a reprise of what I wrote earlier. The only basis for the denial of bail is when one is charged with an offense punishable by reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment AND when evidence of guilt is strong. Before the court, therefore, has ascertained that evidence of guilt is strong, there is no basis for the denial of bail. The current practice is unconstitutional, unjust and immoral: Courts deny the accused the right to bail, curtail their liberties severely, while they determine whether evidence against them is strong or not. How did that illogicality—and immorality—find its way into our legal system?
Change must indeed come!