Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Senate Juan Ponce Enrile. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS
For bending court rules and even bail provisions under the Constitution, the Supreme Court decision to release Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile while on trial for the no-bail offense of plunder has set the state of the Philippine justice system back to that of a “banana republic,” Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said on Friday.
READ: 4 SC justices hit Enrile bail
The Macmillan English Dictionary defines “banana republic” as an insulting term for a tropical country with a weak economy, a dishonest or cruel government and public services that do not work.
De Lima said the majority decision “gives the impression that the court is capable of being partial to the so-called elite, and that its decisions can be grounded not on what the law is, but on who the party is.”
Supreme Court spokesperson Theodore Te declined to comment on De Lima’s statement.
Enrile left the Philippine National Police General Hospital on Thursday night after the Supreme Court issued the release order, enforcing a ruling that granted the senator’s bail petition on humanitarian grounds.
Enrile posted bail for P1.4-million at the Sandiganbayan and was released.
Enrile won temporary liberty through an 8-4 vote of the Supreme Court, with majority of the magistrates invoking humanitarian considerations in releasing the 91-year-old lawmaker.
Frail health?
Enrile said he planned to immediately go back to work in the Senate, although he invoked the poor state of his health in asking to be detained at the PNP General Hospital in July last year.
The Supreme Court ruling, written for the majority by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin, cited Enrile’s frail health, his “solid reputation,” and decades of public service in granting him bail.
Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, in his dissenting vote supported by three other magistrates—Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Associate Justices Antonio Carpio and Estela Perlas-Bernabe—called the decision a “special accommodation” that reeks of the court’s undue favor for one petitioner.
Leonen pointed out that Enrile did not even invoke humanitarian considerations in his bail petition, and that such a ground for granting an exemption from bail does not exist.
READ: Enrile bail a ‘special accommodation,’ says SC Justice
Enrile is on trial at the Sandiganbayan on charges that he, through his former chief of staff Gigi Reyes, pocketed P173 million in kickbacks from projects financed with his allocations from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), a pork barrel that the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional in 2013.
Besides plunder, Enrile is also charged with 15 counts of graft brought by the Office of the Ombudsman.
Also on trial on plunder and graft charges over the P10-billion pork barrel scam allegedly orchestrated by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles are Senators Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada.
Court rules
De Lima agreed with Leonen’s view, saying: “The decision is not in accord with settled jurisprudence, which interprets the constitutional and rules of court provisions on nonbailable offenses.”
Article 3, Section 13 of the 1987 Constitution set conditions for granting bail: “All persons, except those charged with offenses punishable by reclusion perpetua when evidence of guilt is strong, shall, before conviction, be bailable by sufficient sureties or be released on recognizance as may be provided by law.”
“The only exception to the rule on the denial of bail for those charged with capital offenses or offenses punishable with reclusion perpetua is if the evidence is not strong,” De Lima said.
She said the Supreme Court did not even rule on the strength of the prosecution’s evidence against Enrile.
In Leonen’s words, the decision “set an unstated if not ambiguous standard for the special grant of bail on the ground of medical conditions.”
“In Enrile’s case, the majority of the court did not even take up the evidence against Enrile, but based their decision on so-called humanitarian grounds. And the court did this for a powerful political person,” De Lima said.
Nothing new
But Eleazar Reyes, a lawyer for Enrile, said the Supreme Court ruling was nothing new.
Reyes said the Supreme Court had approved similar petitions for bail by individuals standing trial for no-bail offenses since 1953.
“It’s always been there. It’s a matter of showing the facts to the court that he is not really a flight risk. That’s the basic issue here,” Reyes said. “There are many (cases cited in) jurisprudence on that.”
Reyes insisted that all respondents have the right to bring motions for bail “before conviction,” but the court may deny the legal remedy.
“But remember that the word is ‘denied’ and not ‘prohibited.’ The (bail) petition may be denied if it’s a capital punishment and the evidence of guilt is strong,” he said.
“Even if [the case involves] a capital offense but it is shown that [the accused] is not a flight risk, he may be [allowed] bail,” he said.
He said there was no point in contesting Leonen’s dissenting opinion because it had been rejected by the majority.
“The majority based their reasoning on a legal ground. I don’t have to discuss it (because) it will be a futile attempt. It has been discussed and voted upon (by the justices),” he said.
As for Leonen’s opinion that the resolution was tailored for Enrile, Reyes said: “That’s the way he looks at it. But that’s not the way the majority looks at it so there is no point discussing it.”
In separate plunder cases, Revilla is accused of pocketing P224 million in kickbacks from PDAF-funded projects and Estrada, P184 million.
Both are detained at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City.
More than 30 former and current members of the House of Representatives and former heads of government agencies have been implicated in the racket and are on trial on graft charges at the Sandiganbayan.
Reflex action
The shock ruling in favor of Enrile has drawn reflex action from the legal community, with the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), a group of human rights lawyers, planning to test the new jurisprudence and equal application of the law on behalf of other poor, old and sick detainees.
“If only to test the purity of this ruling, we are mulling [over the idea of filing] a habeas corpus class suit to seek bail for all political prisoners and poor detainees similarly situated and based on the same grounds and reasoning used to make a suddenly spritely and energized rich, influential and ex-future sick old man free,” NUPL secretary general Edre Olalia said on Friday.
“The point is selective justice, uneven application of the law, compartmentalization of mercy, and hypocrisy amid stark reality,” he said.
Olalia described the majority ruling as a contravention of the usual interpretation of the law.
“It disturbs and rearranges the legal cosmos we have been taught in law school and taken for granted for the longest time,” he said.
Former Commission on Elections Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, now a private lawyer, challenged the judiciary to give as much leeway to other old and frail detainees who are languishing in detention.
Humanitarian ground for poor
“If the Supreme Court ordered the release of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile based on humanitarian grounds, the same should equally apply to the aged, ailing and underprivileged detainees and prisoners all over the country,” Sarmiento said in a text message on Friday.
He said so many of these detainees are “falling ill and dying in detention.”
Sarmiento, one of the drafters of the 1987 Constitution, also cited provisions under Article VIII, the Judicial Department, of the Charter, which allow legal aid to the less fortunate and require respect for their constitutional rights.
“The phrases ‘enforcement of constitutional rights’ and ‘legal assistance to the underprivileged’ in Article VIII, Judicial Department, of the Constitution will vibrate with life if the unknown and poor, ailing and dying detainees and prisoners will also be given the privilege of humanitarian release now,” he said.
RELATED STORIES
Senators back house arrest for Enrile