Category: supreme court

presidential backing #cj trial

day 24.  the prosecution’s request that the court subpoena justice ma. lourdes sereno to testify on her dissenting opinion (re the TRO on de lima’s watchlist order) was denied by presiding judge enrile.  senator judge trillanes also withdrew his request of day 23 that justice sereno be sent questions to be answered in writing.  on grounds that it would violate the doctrine of judicial privilege.

prosecutor colmenares pleaded that the feb 14 judicial privilege resolution, effectively forbidding members to testify against each other, was making it difficult for them to get witnesses, and that it might take a subpoena to make justice sereno appear in court.  or something to that effect.

enrile suggested that the prosecution try inviting the justice muna, because what if the senate issued a subpoena and sereno did not comply, then malaking kahihiyan para sa senate court.  and then what?  cite her for contempt?  it would mean a major major clash with a co-equal branch of govt that has the power to declare the senate impeachment court unconstitutional.  or something like that.

senator judge joker arroyo, for his part, expressed amazement at the prosecutor’s statement re difficulty of getting witnesses from the supreme court just because the respondent is the chief justice himself.

“But you have the backing of no less than the President of the Philippines! You should have no problem getting witnesses!”

true.  napa-tweet tuloy ako na medyo uncreative yata ang presidential backing for the prosecution.  kung sa West Wing yan, nagapang na ng palasyo ang mga anti-corona sa supreme court at meron nang nag-surprise witness sa senate court.  kumbaga, ala enrile and ramos nuong EDSA.

or maybe the palace has tried, pero talagang mas matindi lang ang firewall ng supreme court kaysa ng banking system?

as for the abs-cbn cameraman on the justice beat who took videos of sc spokesman midas marquez and of the lawyer topacio & cash, i hope it’s not true that he doesn’t understand what he was covering, not the TRO, not the cash bond, etc.  i hope he was only advised to pretend that he doesn’t understand what’s going on to save him from being grilled by the defense.  otherwise, medyo nakakadismaya for someone who has worked more than a decade in the country’s largest media network.

corona impeachment: let’s hear it all, prosecution AND defense!

i like it that chief justice corona is not resigning, instead will face trial in the senate.  it would be good for us all, since phnoy has seen fit to get him impeached by the house of reps, to see due process taking its course, whether toward an acquittal or convicton.  i hope corona does not change his mind over the holidays.

i still remember erap’s trial, all the dirt and rot that surfaced, and the named names, which i suspect was the underlying reason for the representatives-prosecutors’ pouncing on the second-envelope fiasco, any excuse to walk out before the defense could be heard, which may also be the reason certain quarters would prefer that corona do a merceditas na lang?

please lang, no walk-outs, let us hear it all, prosecution AND defense!

meanwhile, listening to lacierda lash back at corona after the latter’s address to the nation only makes me wonder/wander back to why phnoy has gotten so ballistic.  he got his way, after all, on holding gma in the country and getting her arrested (in another blitzkrieg process).  kinda creative naman sila pag gitgitan na.

read Hell to the Chief by Theodore Te on move.ph

armida: what if, people power vs SC

read armida siguion-reyna‘s What people want.  she ends with thoughts of people power.

I’ve been told there are lawyers invoking “the rule of law” and the Philippine Constitution, and I understand where they’re coming from. But, and this is a big but for me, what about the rule of justice? What about what people want? Is the law bigger than the people’s will?

When Corazon Aquino took her oath of office as 11th President of the Philippines, Filipinos generally did not demand for a recount of the ballots cast in the 1986 snap elections because four days of revolutionary people power took precedence over legally cast ballots. Marcos loyalists believed that it was still Marcos who won the vote, pero ang kagustuhan ng lumabas na nakararaming taong-bayan sa Edsa I ang namayani, naluklok si Cory bilang pangulo.

When Gloria Arroyo pledged allegiance on the Bible held by then Supreme Court Justice Hilario Davide Jr., with a crowd much, much lesser than the first Edsa, the duo combined to make legal her ascent into the presidency, kesyo President Estrada had by then already resigned and by that resignation rendered the Office of the Chief Executive vacant, kesyo this, kesyo that. Napamukha nilang legal ang illegal and thus managed to overrule the gargantuan mass that made up Edsa III, much, much bigger than what passed off as Edsa II.

Exactly how many times was the law twisted and flouted to make the nation believe that Arroyo won over Fernando Poe Jr. in 2004? Only God in heaven knows. Still, even without knowing for sure how often the woman has manipulated legalities, the law cannot be bigger than the people’s will.

Bakit hindi magtawag ng tao, sa Edsa kung sa Edsa. Sa Luneta, kung sa Luneta, sa kahit saan, para sagutin ang tanong: Gusto n’yo bang makulong si Gloria Arroyo?

And my goodness, if people come in droves, if, say, two million show up, how can the Supreme Court (SC) overrule so clear a manifestation of popular will? If in the past, fewer numbers installed presidents, surely much larger figures can jail another.

It’s what the people want that matters, it’s the spirit of the law that must prevail over what’s legal or made to appear legal, as here in this case it doesn’t matter who has got more evidence or less of it. Basta’t come hell or high water, eight in the SC will always vote for Arroyo wrong or right, and only five will go against her.

This, unless people power’s truly dead and gone.

televise the trial

In spite of the fact that the Maguindanao Massacre is an open-and-shut case, with the guilt of the accused very clear, justice for the victims and their families is still far off.

Can’t P-Noy’s administration and the Supreme Court make the wheel of justice move faster? Why is it much faster in other countries but very slow in ours? It is this slow justice that encourages crime in the Philippines. Even if a criminal is caught, it takes the government many years to send him to jail. In the meantime, he is able to continue committing more crimes, kill, buy or threaten witnesses against him, or bribe even judges and justices and therefore escape justice.

Why conduct only two hearings a week for the Ampatuans? And why only two witnesses per hearing? The Maguindanao Massacre is the most cold-blooded mass murder in the history of the Philippines and it shocked the whole world. It should not be treated so cavalierly like most petty crimes. What is wrong with holding daily hearings with no limit to the number of witnesses to be presented daily? What is wrong with holding hearings the whole day? The other cases of the court trying the Maguindanao Massacre can be transferred to other courts. What’s wrong with that?

Too bad capital punishment has been abolished in the Philippines, thanks to the bleeding hearts. If there is anybody deserving of execution, it is those who were responsible for the Maguindanao Massacre.

i agree with neal cruz.   besides, the law is biased enough in favor of the accused.   back in the ’90s i remember hearing the late quezon city regional trial court judge maximiano asuncion (branch 104) on tv saying that under our laws napakaraming karapatan ng akusado at iilan ang karapatan ng biktima o ng pamilyang naiwan ng biktima. to be sure, i googled it, and the issue turns out to be a very current one in the international arena, and there are continuing attempts to balance the rights of victims with the rights of the accused.   check this out, and this, and this.

of course there is dissent. belinda olivares cunanan, once of the inquirer, now of the the blog political tidbits, is one of many who are against media coverage:

First, the print media are already doing extensive  coverage of the trial. Second, live coverage could exacerbate the already super-high nationwide tensions over the mass murders, sapping the national energies further and making independent judgment impossible for a judge already boxed into an extremely difficult position when she accepted the Ampatuan case. Moreover, as De Lima correctly noted, live coverage could violate the court’s rule prohibiting the witnesses from hearing the testimony of their fellow witnesses.

first, the print media, due to space limitations, never quite capture and report all of the proceedings; neither do broadcast media, due to time limitations.   second, the slooooow pace is already “exacerbating the already super-high nationwide tensions over the mass murders.”   let’s not worry about judge jocelyn solis-reyes — she’s doing a good job off-cam, i expect she’ll do a good job on-cam.   as for witnesses being influenced by the testimony of other witnesses, surely each one has executed an affidavit beforehand, and testimony beyond such would not get past defense lawyers who would be very vigilant about calling public attention to anything like that.   and, finally, a televised trial would not sap national energies, rather, a televised trial would ease the tensions generated by the 53 victims’ families’ woes exacerbated by the supreme court’s seeming indifference to their very valid grievances.

as for those who are afraid that televised hearings might prove a diversion (distracting from the aquino admin’s serial flops, flaps, flip-flops?) or even as a means of entertainment, i suppose they’re coming from lessons learned in erap’s impeachment trial that led to edsa dos.   but there was a lot that was laughable about that proceeding, which cannot be said of the ampatuan trial that is seeking justice for the 58 lives violently ended, massacred in one sweep, by a private army in broad daylight.

Sen. Joker Arroyo has warned that with almost 200 defendants and 300 witnesses it could take 200 years for justice to be meted out to both the perpetrators and victims of the Maguindanao massacre. If it should take long to prosecute the case, let it go the whole route. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum. Let justice be done though the heavens fall. But surely something can be done to speed things up. Probably the number of witnesses can be limited to the most important ones and marathon hearings can be held. Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Quezon City Trial Court Branch 221 could also be relieved of her other cases so she can focus on the massacre trial.

The Maguindanao massacre trial should be no less important than the Estrada case, in which the fortune of one man was involved. Here the meting out of justice to 57 victims and 200 defendants is involved. The people also should know how a political Frankenstein’s monster was pampered and allowed to grow by a Machiavellian president to the point that they thought they would perpetually escape the clutches of justice. Televise the trial and let the people know.

yes, and hold daily hearings, eight hours a day, five days a week.   justice delayed is justice denied.

Slow wheels of justice encourage crimes
Balancing rights of the accused with the rights of the victim
Victims’ rights and the rights of the accused
Victims’ rights
Live trial coverage will exacerbate tensions
Ampatuan Watch: Elusive justice
Trials are not entertainment
Television and the Ampatuan trial
Televised trial
Former chief justice backs live feed for Ampatuan trial
Televise the trial