Arsenio, who’s on trial for the 2004 murder of Bombo Radyo station manager Gerson Hinolan, didn’t realize that Cebu media would keep tabs on him even outside the courtroom.
Slipping out of his handcuffs, he had time for lunch in an air-conditioned restaurant with his lawyer and a jail guard. This was an open defiance of rules of the custody of prisoners and the authority of the court itself hearing his case.
Not many detainees get this kind of slack time with benefits.
If Arsenio were an ordinary inmate, he would have been brought straight back to his cell in the Cebu provincial jail after his hearing in the Palace of Justice. With handcuffs firmly on.
To his misfortune, his detour was duly recorded by the Cebu news media. A Cebu Daily News reporter and a TV5 news crew saw him, spoke to him, got rebuffed for an interview, but nevertheless recorded the encounter on videotape.
At the time CDN approached him, Arsenio was holding a thick wad of money bills in hand, cash handed to him by a male aide.
He had the arrogance to wave aside the jail guard who approached to slap the handcuffs back on – so that it would look proper and legit when they returned to the jail – but Arsenio motioned, “Not yet”. He hadn’t finished counting his money.
How many inmates get the opportunity to feast on lechon kawali and pochero with their jail escort outside the prison, then attend to personal banking on the side?
Arsenio is one special inmate. For the meantime, now that the limelight is on him, the privileges will be withdrawn.
Arsenio’s liberties are tantamount to spitting in the face of authority – the trial court, his guard escort, the jail warden, and in a larger sense, the country’s justice system.
The ex-mayor has enjoyed special favors before, says Assistant City Prosecutor Ghandi Truya.
And why is this so? The murder trial was moved from Aklan to a Cebu court in 2004 precisely to neutralize whatever power or undue influence Arsenio wielded.
The jail guard, coopted for a price we can only imagine, has been reassigned by Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia. So with the warden, Algier Comendador and his assistant pending further investigation.
The spit on the face of authority can’t be wiped off so easily with a reprimand the weight of paper tissue.
There’s a word to explain the killing of Filipino media practitioners, whose body count has reached 178 since the 1986 Edsa revolt –- impunity. It means letting someone get away with murder. Not in Cebu. So we’ll be watching.