MANILA, Philippines - Former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo remains under arrest after the Supreme Court (SC) deferred ruling yesterday on a petition to stop her prosecution for electoral sabotage and void the warrant for her arrest.
In full court session yesterday, the magistrates did not issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) and instead required the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to submit within five days comments on her petition and those of her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, and former Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos Jr.
The three separately filed petitions questioning the legality of the joint DOJ-Comelec investigating panel that recommended the filing of electoral sabotage case against Rep. Arroyo and two others.
A TRO would have suspended her arrest and prosecution for electoral sabotage before Branch 112 of the Pasay City Regional Trial Court. The case stemmed from allegations of manipulation of results of the 2007 senatorial elections that favored the candidates of then President Arroyo.
In a news briefing, SC spokesman Midas Marquez said the justices also set oral
arguments on the case on Nov. 29 at 2 p.m. to determine whether a TRO should be issued as sought by petitioners.
Also yesterday, 10 magistrates voted to have the SC handle the consolidated petitions while four magistrates voted to remand them to the RTC.
Without a TRO, there is no legal impediment for Judge Jesus Mupas of the Pasay RTC to continue with the proceedings on the electoral sabotage case against Arroyo, Marquez explained.
“Probably the petitioners were not able to show that they were entitled to the relief they prayed,” he said when asked why no TRO was issued in favor of the Arroyos.
Judge Mupas ordered Arroyo’s arrest last Friday a few hours after the Comelec filed the electoral sabotage case in the RTC.
The arrest warrant was served in her suite at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City.
In their petition, the Arroyos and Abalos said the joint preliminary investigation violated the equal protection clause of the Bill of Rights because it singled out certain persons and incidents in the 2004 and 2007 polls.
It was the same argument upheld by the high tribunal earlier this year in junking with finality President Aquino’s first executive order creating a truth commission to investigate alleged anomalies during the nine-year Arroyo administration.
The petitioners also stressed that the joint probe violated the independence of the Comelec by placing it under the power of the executive branch.
Prosecutor General Claro Arellano of the DOJ chairs the panel.
They stressed that there was no need for a special joint panel since the DOJ and the Comelec shared jurisdiction over investigation into poll fraud charges under RA 9369.
They also claimed that the investigation by the joint panel was political persecution, citing pronouncements from President Aquino, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. that cases should be filed against the Arroyos before the end of the year.
Earlier, the joint panel cleared the former first gentleman of involvement in elections cheating in 2007, and vowed to gather more evidence against Abalos.
But while the Arroyo camp has already acknowledged the jurisdiction of the RTC – and not the Sandiganbayan – over the election case against her, some lawyer-prosecutors in the Office of the Ombudsman believe the Sandiganbayan may be the proper court to hear a similar case against Abalos.
One of the lawyers said Section 4(b) of Republic Act 8249 or the Sandiganbayan Law states that the anti-graft court has jurisdiction over “other offenses or felonies whether simple or complex with other crimes committed by the public officials and employees… in relation to their office.”
“I agree (that Abalos case should be filed before the Sandiganbayan) if an offense is committed in relation to office,” an Ombudsman prosecutor who declined to be named said.
Another prosecutor said the Omnibus Election Code is very specific about the authority of the RTC to handle election cases. “The Sandiganbayan has never handled election offenses,” the lawyer said.
One of the prosecutors argued that if Abalos is to be accused of conspiring with Arroyo, the case against the former president should have also been filed with the Sandiganbayan.
“Wasn’t Arroyo’s alleged crime not related to office? She was president when she allegedly ordered the vote rigging,” one legal expert said.
“She was president when she allegedly ordered a 12-0 sweep. She is also an incumbent congresswoman so the Sandiganbayan should have jurisdiction.”
Small victory
The Comelec called the SC’s not issuing a TRO a “small victory.”
“It’s a good thing that the panel can continue working but what we are looking for is a final decision (of the SC) – whether or not the panel is constitutionally infirm. That’s the real battle here,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said.
“So while this is a small victory certainly, we are really very interested in finding out what the SC thinks about the constitutional soundness of the panel,” he said.
“It’s always a good sign if you are not prevented from doing your work so, I guess, along those lines, it is definitely a good sign,” he added.
For the former first gentleman, the SC’s position is good enough, at least for the time being.
“So long as the Supreme Court takes it (petition) up,” Arroyo said in a text message to The STAR. “Arguments are scheduled and respondents are made to answer. Good enough for me,” he said.
“We follow whatever the honorable Supreme Court says unlike (Justice Secretary Leila) De Lima. We follow the rule of law,” he said, referring to De Lima’s defiance of the SC TRO on the watchlist order on him and his wife.
His lawyer Ferdinand Topacio said they have a strong case to prove the unconstitutionality of the DOJ-Comelec panel.
Arroyo said that in removing him from the watch list order, De Lima simply wanted his pending petition declaring illegal and unconstitutional DOJ Department Circular 41 before the SC moot “so no one can question” it anymore.
“It is not beyond the Aquino administration to thwart the highest court of the land. They have been doing that,” Topacio said.
People power
As the Arroyo camp accuses the administration of railroading her prosecution, Aquino’s political adviser Ronaldo Llamas said the government’s swift action on her case was “not vindictiveness nor persecution, but the pursuit of justice.”
“This government is committed to uphold the rule of law,” Llamas said in a statement.
“There is no mob rule under the Aquino administration,” Llamas said.
“This is not mob rule. It’s called People Power,” he stressed, referring to numerous calls for the prosecution of the Pampanga congresswoman.
“Many civil society groups fully support the Aquino administration’s ‘daang matuwid (straight path)’. And they fully support the government’s efforts to make Arroyo accountable for wrongdoing while she was in Malacañang for nine long years,” he said.
He said the Aquino administration “exercised extraordinary political will” when it promptly filed charges against Arroyo which led to her arrest.
“President Aquino and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima are determined to make Arroyo accountable for crimes that took place during her term,” he said.
Llamas also assailed Arroyo counsel and spokesman Lambino for “twisting the truth and obfuscating the issues.”
Lambino claimed that Llamas had misinterpreted Arroyo’s failure to challenge the joint DOJ-Comelec investigation as a sign that she intended to flee the country to avoid prosecution.
“Lambino is too economical with the truth. The truth is that Arroyo desperately wanted to leave the country last Nov. 15 so she would not face the ignominy of finding herself charged in court for high crimes during her term,” Llamas said.
“How else would she explain the fact that she booked no less than six flights out of the country immediately after the Supreme Court issued its TRO on the watchlist order against her?” Llamas asked.
Llamas said that if the DOJ and immigration agents had not stopped Arroyo from leaving, “she would not be in a hospital right now but quite possibly seeking political asylum in another country where we do not have an extradition treaty so she could escape prosecution at home.”
“If Arroyo had been allowed to leave the country, then the six complaints of plunder now under preliminary investigation by the Ombudsman as well as the investigation by the DOJ-Comelec of electoral sabotage would have come to naught as she would now be beyond the reach of our laws,” he pointed out.
Now under arrest for an offense that may land her in prison for the rest of her life, Arroyo “has to face the music and prove her innocence before the proper judicial forum,” Llamas said.
“It was Arroyo who virtually turned her administration into a criminal syndicate involved in plunder of the national treasury, rigging of elections and human rights violations for which they must be held accountable before our judicial system,” he said. With Sheila Crisostomo, Michael Punongbayan, Paolo Romero - By Edu Punay
