Convict to seek executive clemency?
By Marlon Ramos
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:27:00 10/12/2008
MANILA -- In a desperate act to regain his freedom, a member of the so-called “Abadilla 5” who were convicted for the killing of Philippine Constabulary Col. Rolando Abadilla, might withdraw his appeal at the Supreme Court to enable him to apply for an executive clemency.
Lawyer Soliman Santos said his client, Lenido Lumanog, considered the option after he learned that convicted murderer Claudio Teehankee Jr. was released after serving his sentenced, which was commuted through executive clemency.
Lumanog, along with fellow police officers Augusto Santos, Cesar Fortuna, Rameses de Jesus and Joel de Jesus, were found guilty of killing Abadilla in 1996.
The five are now locked up at the maximum security compound of the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City.
“He’s desperate to take on the shortest way to get out of prison,” Santos said over the phone.
Santos explained that by withdrawing their petition for review, which they filed eight years ago, the Supreme Court may immediately issue a final conviction on Lumanog.
He said only prisoners who received final conviction would be allowed to apply for executive clemency.
Indicating that influence could play a role in the grant of executive clemency, Santos said he advised Lumanog to think about his decision as applications for executive clemency, especially for less fortunate inmates like him, could take time.
“I also told him that we’re not sure if (President Macapagal-Arroyo) will grant him clemency,” he added.
Although he respected Ms Arroyo’s decision to pardon Teehankee, Santos said the “Abadilla 5” were more deserving of executive clemency than the convicted murderer.
“The ‘Abadilla 5’ were innocent of the charges against them. Even their arrest was questionable,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
In an earlier interview, the NBP chaplain, Msgr. Robert Olaguer, said “qualipaid” inmates, or wealthy prisoners who had connections in government, got more attention than poor but qualified convicts.
Santos said they also sent a letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno to call his attention to the much delayed resolution on their appeal.
In his letter, Santos said the scandalous practice of some Court of Appeals justices in endorsing the ruling of their colleagues without reviewing its contents led to the prolonged incarceration of the “Abadilla 5.”
He said the five suffered the fate of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), which lost in a case with the Lopez-owned Manila Electric Company (Meralco) at the Court of Appeals.
“Like in the recent Meralco-GSIS case scandal in the CA... two other associate justices in the division that decided the ‘Abadilla 5’ case just went along with the ponente without studying his ponencia, much less, like him, the whole case,” Santos said in his letter.
(GSIS had tried to stop the election of the Meralco board in last May’s annual stockholders’ meeting by filing a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission, questioning the proxy votes used by the Lopez-led Meralco management. The Lopez group, however, questioned the jurisdiction of the SEC on the case. The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Meralco, but subsequent revelations by justices involved in the case showed alleged attempts by both sides to influence the case, the justices’ feud over who should have jurisdiction on the case and other irregularities.)
Last April 1, the appellate court upheld the guilty verdict handed down by a Quezon City regional trial court on the "Abadilla 5."’
But lawyers of the convicts questioned the decision, saying the associate justice who penned the decision merely copied the arguments of the lower court judge and the Office of the Solicitor General.
Santos said because of the delay in the disposition of the case, the five convicts already served 12 years in prison -- the minimum jail term for inmates applying for pardon.
The lawyer also cited the failing health condition of Lumanog, who barely survived a kidney transplant in 2003, as among the reasons for the Supreme Court to prioritize their appeal.
“He is running out of time on a borrowed kidney from... his wife,” Santos said.
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