Justices who issued TRO incorruptible

The police board of inquiry (BOI) on the Mamasapano fiasco did the unexpected: It blamed President Noy for violating the chain of command.

That would have been unimaginable in other circumstances given that the President is the Commander in Chief of both the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police.

In uniformed armed services, command decisions of superior officers cannot be questioned.

The President made a command decision in sending the elite police commando unit to a rebel camp in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao province that led to the deaths of 44 of its members.

Other presidents after BS Aquino are expected to respect the chain of command, a time-honored tradition of uniformed armed services.

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What’s a chain of command?

It’s a principle that respects hierarchy within the totem pole: The order from the Big Chief will have to pass through the various small chiefs before it reaches the little Indians.

P-Noy violated the PNP chain of command when he didn’t course his order to take down a high value terrorist codenamed “Marwan” through Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina, the acting PNP chief.

Instead, the President went directly to Director Getulio Napeñas, then chief of the Special Action Force (SAF), and suspended PNP chief Alan Purisima.

The equivalent of the chain of command in law is “due process” where a criminal case has to go through the scrutiny of the prosecutor, then the judge, the Court of Appeals and even the Supreme Court for an accused to be finally convicted.

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The Court of Appeals issued Monday a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the implementation of an order from the Office of the Ombudsman suspending Makati Mayor Junjun Binay for six months on account of a graft case against him.

Like most citizens who saw something fishy in the issuance of the TRO, I too would have jumped to the same conclusion.

But my sources at the Court of Appeals (CA) told me that the Sixth Division, to which Binay’s petition for a TRO was raffled off, is composed of incorruptible members of the appellate court.

Associate Justices Jose Reyes Jr. and Eduardo Peralta Jr. can never be bribed, according to my CA sources.

The public will have to wait for the oral arguments from the Binay camp on why the suspension order on him is unjust.

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The suspicion on the issuance of a TRO on Mayor Junjun Binay is not without basis.

You see, when Vice President Jojo Binay, the mayor’s father, was Makati mayor, money allegedly changed hands when the CA issued a TRO on his suspension for a graft case involving City Hall “ghost employees.”

My sources on money changing hands in the previous TRO by the appellate court were the ones who negotiated with those in the division where the petition landed.

The TRO became a permanent injunction, meaning, the case should be shelved.

Big money reportedly changed hands for the TRO and permanent injunction, said my sources.

This time, however, the justices who handled Junjun Binay’s petition for a TRO, have a clean and honest record, according to my unimpeachable sources at the appellate court.