A lamentable decision

BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
4/16-17/2011



There is a saying among those who bother to harness a bit of their common sense that one need not be a lawyer to know the law. But in this latest judgment rendered by the Sandiganbayan, where it ordered former First Lady, now congresswoman for the 2nd district of Ilocos Norte Imelda R. Marcos to return the P10 million allegedly “pocketed” by her late husband, former President Ferdinand Marcos, the saying could now be restated that one need not even go to school to know how the Sandiganbayan came out with that lamentable decision.

Maybe for the hypocrites the decision was absolutely perfect. After all, it is not justice they seek. They just want to satisfy their primeval lust for revenge. In fact, one wonders how a criminal case of graft could survive after the accused died, more so that he was never arraigned. The facts are so simple that one could easily detect the incongruous logic that runs between the admitted facts from the conclusion. The error is not one of law or of perception to say there was a misapprehension of facts that led it to an error in judgment, but one borne out of downright stupidity.

The decision is not even a case of travesty of justice, which in the first place is common in this country, but one that delivers a straight insult to human intelligence. The public fears that the decision would now serve as jurisprudence to allow courts to pass on their verdict to the surviving spouse. Easily, government functionaries will use that discordant decision as their instrument to harass their enemies with the thought of keeping themselves popular. Beyond commenting that something is terribly wrong with the outrageous decision, people cannot be wrong in judging that possibly, they need a doctor.

Even if the public would give the court the widest latitude that the criminal complaint against the former President survived; that indeed he ordered then National Grains Authority administrator Jesus Tanchangco to release said amount, still it did not seep into their brain that what they heard was the open admission made by Tanchangco himself. Uncannily, he was allowed by the Sandiganbayan to pass on the crime he admitted to have committed to a person who by death could no longer defend himself. The mere fact that the alleged order was made by Marcos through telephone is enough to elicit serious doubts.

Nonetheless, the court instead muddled the entire case by believing that the comptroller of the then NGA, Cesar Aquino, delivered the P10 million in three bags to Security Bank president Rolando Gapud upon instruction of Tanchangco (not Marcos), despite the fact that there was no paper trail that an amount of P10 million was withdrawn from the deposits of the NGA at the Philippine National Bank, least to confirm that said act of pocketing transpired.

Every angle and every phase of how the alleged crime was committed clearly indicates that the one who testified was the one who committed the crime. Such is the only conclusion one could draw. In the absence of any paper trail, the self-serving testimony of the witness to acquit himself is nothing more but a scrappy fiction story. Maybe stupidity is bliss for instead of punishing the witness for his prevarications, they took his word hook, line and sinker.

To make sure that the court won’t change its mind, the witness demanded that he be given immunity. Surely, at the back of his mind he was laughing at how he managed to convince the magistrates to believe him. Perhaps, they were not really that dumb. Maybe they were just a bunch of willing accomplices aspiring to be promoted and thereto come out with much more silly decisions. Such is the perception because many are asking why the court entered into an agreement that would exempt the very person that unmistakably pocketed the money. The dilemma was not a case of selecting between the most guilty and from the least guilty, but a case of one person standing as guilty.

More than anything else, there was malice in the court’s decision use of the word “pocketed” to describe how the deceased allegedly committed the crime. The court was unmindful that to pocket, the accused must personally perform the act to consummate the crime. To laymen, the words “to pocket” refer to his physical taking of the things not owned by him, not through a third person, from somebody’s pocket as it literally means. Rather, it was used casually, and it was the most grievous slur for it was intended to malign a dead man. Here, one could see the difference between one who uses his tact so as not to offend the sensibilities of others from one concededly tactless not to know that.

To make sure that such stupidity will not go unnoticed, the 5th Division of the Sandiganbayan sought to the punish wife who was not even aware that such a case exists by letting her pay the P1 million in moral damages and the P1 million expenses in court litigation. Solicitor General Jose Anselmo-Cadiz and PCGG commissioner Gerard Mosqueda then wasted no time to enforce the decision, which according to them has become final. But even if we take it at that, the question is where those bunch of bigots got their bright idea that they could proceed to collect the amount from the wife?

Even in civil cases that survive after the death of the respondent, properties which could be the subject of execution need to be submitted to the court. The plaintiff is not free to grab anything as he pleases. But since the case is obviously criminal in nature, it would be most unprecedented and insane for the Sandiganbayan and the PCGG to punish the wife by garnishing her savings or levying her properties in a case where she was not even impleaded as co-accused. Anyway, the decision now stands as another landmark in the continuing retrogression in our judicial system.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)