SC remands Lacson et al. Marcos-era rights case to lower court

MANILA, Philippines—The Supreme Court has ordered a remand to the lower court of a human rights violation case against Senator Panfilo Lacson during the Marcos period.

The high tribunal upheld a 2003 decision of the Court of Appeals, reversing the award for damages against Lacson and several others, saying the ruling lacked “procedural due process.”

In a 24-page decision, the high court’s Third Division through Associate Justice Jose Catral Mendoza said the Court of Appeals ruled correctly when it reversed the findings of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court in 1993 that Lacson, the late Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Fabian Ver and several others should pay damages to suspected subversives they allegedly arrested and tortured during the martial rule of former strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

Lacson worked at the Metropolitan Command Intelligence and Security Group from 1971 until the fall of Marcos in 1986.

The high court said Lacson and Ver, together with Colonels Fidel Singson, Rolando Abadilla, Gerardo Lantoria, Galileo Kintanar, Maj. Rodolfo Aguinaldo, 1Lt. Pedro Tango, M/Sgt. Bienvenido Balaba, were deprived of due process when they were ordered by the lower court to pay damages without giving them the chance to give their side.

“Procedural due process is that which hears before it condemns, which proceeds upon inquiry and renders judgment only after trial. It contemplates notice and opportunity to be heard before judgment is rendered affecting one’s person or property,” the high court said.

The Court of Appeals, in 2003 said that petitioners Rogelio Aberca, Rodolfo Benosa, Nestor Bodino, Noel Etabag, Danilo Dela Fuente and 14 others did not follow the Quezon City Court’s August 17, 1990 order that they should report the addresses of Lacson and the other respondents so they could be properly notified by the court. The court eventually dismissed the case but was reversed a year later and allowed petitioners to serve the notice to Lacson and his co-accused via publication in a national daily.

The notice was published on Balita in 1991. However, Lacson and the others failed to answer the complaint for damages and they were declared in default and allowed petitioners to submit evidence. The court ruled based on the evidence they have presented and ordered Lacson and the others to pay P350,000 each in damages to petitioners.

This ruling was reversed by the appeals court in 2003 and remanded the case to the lower court.

“The rules on service of pleadings, motions, notices, orders, judgments and other papers were not strictly followed in declaring the respondents in default,” the high court said.

It also dismissed the arguments raised by petitioners that publication of the notice was meant “to safeguard the defendants [Lacson et al] and was done in pursuant to the inherent power of the courts to control its proceedings to make them comfortable to law and justice.”

“The exercise of such inherent power must not violate basic court procedures and must not disregard one’s basic constitutional right to procedural due process,” the high court said.