MANILA, Philippines – The daughter of a former Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Anacleto Badoy lamented the antigraft court’s decision allowing detained Senator Jinggoy Estrada to attend the graduation rites of his son.
In a Facebook post that has gone viral, Lorraine Marie Badoy said her father , who chaired the antigraft court third division which heard the plunder trial of convicted former president (now Manila mayor) Joseph Estrada, did not even allow the Estrada patriarch for house arrest despite a bribe given to him.
Jinggoy was also part of his father’s plunder case that included charges of accepting millions of pesos from proceeds of jueteng and misappropriating P130-million in excise taxes from tobacco but he was later cleared.
“And yet now, more than 14 years after that ruling, Sandiganbayan Justice (Roland) Jurado has allowed the repeat offender plunderer Jinggoy Estrada to attend his son’s graduation,” Badoy said.
The Fifth Division chaired by Associate Justice Roland Jurado allowed Jinggoy Estrada to attend the latter’s son Julian’s graduation at OB Montessori last March 17.
The senator is detained for plunder this time for allegedly amassing kickbacks from his Priority Development Assistance Funds in Janet Lim-Napoles’ purported pork barrel scam
Jurado in open court said Estrada must be present in his son’s graduation because his absence may be “traumatic” to the child. “We’re not doing this for Senator Estrada, we’re doing this for the son,” the Justice said.
Pictures on social media showed Senator Estrada sharing a light moment with his wife Precy and son Julian during the graduation. On his Twitter account, Jinggoy Estrada even posted a photo of him pinning a ribbon on Julian, an actor.
Badoy said this is a mockery of the justice system because the poor, less privileged detainees could not attend similar graduations of their children.
“I could bet you both my arms and I’ll throw in my legs… that right now, there are scores of children of prisoners who will not have their parents present in their graduation,” Badoy said.
She added that antigraft court’s decision to allow Estrada to leave jail briefly seems to show that justice only worked for the powerful and influential.
“(This) makes me see the REAL crime here is: the crime of being POOR AND UNCONNECTED,” she said.
“(T)he law will bend itself over backwards one hundred million times for the rich, will contort itself blue in the face and in various painful angles and give f*kingly inane and tragic-comical reasons for doing so such as ‘We are doing this for the son, not the father,'” Badoy added.
“What about the sons of the poor, Justice (Jurado)? Ang kakapal ba ng mga psyche nila na hindi sila mata-traumatize? Pang rich lang ang trauma, di ba? Mga poor? Mamatay kayo! Suck it up,” Badoy said.
Badoy said the division’s decision reflects the “obscenely huge divide between the rich and the poor.”
“(I)n a country down on its knees and bleeding from the wholesale and widespread thievery of those in office, Justice Jurado has further widened the unforgivable crime of a yawning chasm of a divide,” she said.
She said it is not a coincidence that the court granted the request of an influential high-ranking public official
“Justice is not blind, (Jurado) is saying he took a good look at the accused in front of him and saw a senator. An obscenely rich, obscenely powerful, obscenely arrogant, unrepentant shameless f*ck of a public servant who stole over and beyond what any fertile and wild imagination could ever comprehend,” Badoy said.
“And this Justice blinked,” she said.
Badoy is the daughter of Associate Justice Anacleto Badoy Jr., who chaired the antigraft court Third Division which heard the plunder case of the two Estradas over gambling money.
Estrada was convicted in 2007 but he was later pardoned by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The senator, meanwhile, was granted bail in 2003 or after almost two years in detention, he was cleared of plunder in 2007.
In 2001, the Third Division chaired by Badoy denied both Estradas’ request for house arrest in their Greenhills Mansion, saying confining both in their own house in a posh subdivision while other detention prisoners were in congested detention facilities “will further dramatize the great divide between the rich and the poor in our society.”