MANILA, Philippines?The ?Morong 43? will remain in military detention on the strength of a martial law doctrine, the Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. Defense lawyers called it an antiquated doctrine.

In dismissing the petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by the 43 health workers arrested last month in Morong, Rizal, on suspicion of being communist rebels, a special division of the appellate court said they could no longer question their detention once criminal charges had been filed against them in court, regardless of irregularities in their arrest and inquest.

The court voted 3-2 in citing the Ilagan v Enrile case.

The health workers, mostly women and including two doctors and a nurse, have been held at Camp Capinpin, the headquarters of the Army?s 2nd Division, in Tanay, Rizal, since they were taken at gunpoint from a farmhouse in Morong on Feb. 6.

Jules Matibag, one of the health workers? lawyers, Wednesday told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that they would appeal the ruling.

?We are saddened by the denial of the privilege of habeas corpus. It means our clients will continue to be deprived of personal liberty,? Matibag said.

But he said he and his colleagues believed that the detainees had a ?fighting chance? at the Supreme Court.

The military claims that based on the explosives, firearms and ammunition reportedly confiscated at the farmhouse, the Morong 43 were engaged in a bomb-making seminar, and not in a health training seminar.

?Desertion of duty?

?Once a person detained is duly charged in court, he may no longer question his detention through a petition for issuance of a writ of habeas corpus,? the appellate court said in the ruling dated March 9 and written by Senior Associate Justice Portia Alino-Hormachuelos, who chairs the special division.

The majority opinion also said that whatever violations had been committed?as one of the health workers, Dr. Alexis Montes, narrated during one of the habeas corpus hearings?were ?cured? by the filing of criminal charges and the issuance by the Morong Regional Trial Court (RTC) of commitment orders for the Morong 43?s continued detention in Camp Capinpin.

Associate Justices Magdangal de Leon and Sesinando Villon concurred; the two original members of the special division?Associate Justices Normandie Pizarro and Francisco Acosta?dissented.

Pizarro and Acosta said that in upholding the arrest of the Morong 43, the court in effect ?desert[ed] its duty as guardian of civil liberties.?

?Any action on our part upholding the detention bodes ill for this Court and the entire nation. It is a desertion of our most solemn duty as the guardian of civil liberties instead of continuously bearing, mighty and proud, the torch of freedom to illuminate the nooks and crannies of our democratic country,? Acosta said in his dissenting opinion.

He said the search warrant used by military and police operatives to raid the resort of Dr. Melecia Velmonte was invalid because it was issued against one Mario Condes, who was not among the 43 arrested, and did not specify an exact address.

?Curative information?

Acosta also said the inquest proceedings were not valid because the Morong 43 were denied their right to counsel. Thus, he said, the information filed in the Morong RTC was also invalid.

?The subsequent filing of the information based on defective proceedings would just put to naught the most cherished right in all civilized nations,? he said, adding:

?Once and for all, we must free ourselves from the shackles of ?curative informations? if we are to protect our cherished constitutional rights ... Allowing curative information to justify illegal searches, arrests and detentions would definitely make every habeas corpus proceeding an exercise in futility, similar to salt that had lost its taste.?

In his own dissenting opinion, Pizarro also maintained that the arrests and subsequent filing of charges should be nullified because the health workers? constitutional rights were violated.

?... [T]he use of force cannot make wrongs into right. An illegal search and seizure as well as an irregular inquest cannot ripen into a valid information, otherwise referred to as ?remedial? or ?curative? information,? Pizarro said.

He said the Morong 43 were not caught in flagrante delicto, or in the act of committing an offense.

?I am not oblivious of the prevailing jurisprudence that a writ of habeas corpus should not be allowed after the party sought to be released had been charged before any court. Nonetheless, I owe it to my oath of office and to the public to exhibit more than just an inflexible obeisance to a martial law era jurisprudence, Ilagan v Enrile, with all due respect that allows unlawful state acts to graduate into some valid indictments,? Pizarro said.

Illegal possession

The health workers were charged before the Morong RTC with illegal possession of grenades and explosives and violation of the Commission on Elections? gun ban.

They were subjected to inquest by State Prosecutor Romeo Senson of the Department of Justice on Feb. 7, a day after their arrest.

On Feb. 12, or a day after lawyers filed the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the Morong RTC Branch 78 presided over by Judge Amorfina Cerrado-Cezar issued a commitment order directing the jail warden of Camp Capinpin to take custody of the health workers.

In their petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the lawyers of the health workers denied that they were communist rebels and asked the court to order their release from military detention.

The lawyers said the Morong 43 were held incommunicado and some in solitary confinement for days, and subjected to prolonged tactical interrogation and physical and psychological torture. They said the military denied visits by the health workers? relatives and lawyers.

The lawyers also said the Morong 43 were members of the Community Medicine Development Foundation and Community for Health Development undergoing training to give health services to poor communities.

?Outdated? doctrine

But Matibag said he and his colleagues ?maintain that the case is a compelling reason for the court to modify the Ilagan doctrine and to make the case an exception.?

He said the arrest of the Morong 43 was ?illegal, improper and irregular,? and that ?the filing of charges within the prescribed time period does not cure the illegality of the arrest.?

In a statement, the health workers? lead lawyer, Romeo Capulong, said he and members of the Public Interest Law Center and the National Union of People?s Lawyers said they had ?no recourse but to elevate the case to the highest court.?

?In simply adhering to the outdated Ilagan v Enrile, a notorious martial law doctrine, the Court of Appeals seriously disregarded the litany of blatant violations of the constitutional rights of these 43 health workers from the time they were unlawfully arrested and the continued abuse of their basic human rights in the hands of the military,? Capulong said.

He lamented that the Morong 43?s right to due process had been ?gravely violated by the recent CA ruling.?

?It is high time the Supreme Court reexamined this antiquated doctrine which has served as a tool of the government, the [military and the police] to carry out the unlawful warrantless arrest and arbitrary detention of members of progressive organizations,? he added.

The lawyers are also preparing for a hearing set by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on March 18. The CHR has ordered the Morong 43 to be taken to the hearing, and also summoned military, police and justice officials, as well as the judge who issued the search warrant.

Martial law relic

The militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, through its secretary general Renato Reyes Jr., assailed the majority decision and lauded the dissenting opinions of Pizarro and Acosta.

?It was a close decision, and provides basis for revisiting the martial law relic that is the Ilagan doctrine,? Reyes said.