Court moves on Gloria case illegal – Philconsa

AQUINO VOWS SWIFT PROSECUTION FOR GLORIA

Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo’s lawyers charge that the electoral sabotage case filed against the former president and several others as having been railroaded has been validated by a Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa) member.

Lawyer Mariano Tajano yesterday said that the entire court proceedings that took place Friday, from the raffling of the case to the issuance of the warrant of arrest, are all illegal.

At the weekly Kapihan sa Annabel’s, Tajano, disclosed that the Executive Judge of the Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC), along with RTC Branch 112 Judge Jesus Mupas to whom the case was raffled, erred when this Arroyo case was immediately submitted for raffling, with the judge issuing a warrant of arrest four hours later.

The same judge who will be trying Arroyo was recently found by the appellate court as having committed grave abuse of discretion in another case, and the Court of Appeals overturning Mupas’ decision was upheld by the Supreme Court (see related story).

Tajano pointed to Rule 112, Section 5 of the Rules of Court, which he said “explicitly provides that once an information is filed before the court, the Executive Judge notifies both the contending parties of the scheduling of the raffle and gives them five days to prepare,” said Tajano.

“After the case is raffled, which is done publicly, the judge to whom the case falls, is given 10 days to review and examine all the documents submitted so he can determine whether there is basis for the commission of the offense.”

“If he finds there is probable cause, then he issues a warrant of arrest,” Tajano explained.

But in the case of Mrs. Arroyo, Tajano said it was rather questionable for the Pasay city RTC Executive Judge to immediately raffle the case only minutes after the information was filed by the legal team of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

“And after the case fell on the lap of Judge Mupas, it only took him about three hours to review and examine the voluminous documents submitted to him which he used as the basis for issuing the warrant of arrest,” said Tajano.

“Those acts are illegal. Everything was done with undue haste,” said Tajano as he stressed that the Arroyos should have been given the protection the law accords them.

With charges being leveled of railroading the case against the former president, along with the Arroyo camp questioning the case on a jurisdictional issue, Malacañang clarified yesterday that public officials can be tried before regular courts if they are accused of crimes that do not specifically fall within the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan, such as plunder and violations of anti-graft laws.

Undersecretary for Political Affairs Ibarra Gutierrez said the filing of a case for electoral sabotage with a regular court against Mrs. Arroyo is consistent with Section 268 of the Omnibus Election Code, or Batas Pambansa 881, which specifically vests RTCs with jurisdiction over election offenses, including electoral sabotage.

Gutierrez made the clarification in reaction to the claim of Arroyo’s legal counsel that she should have been charged before the Sandiganbayan rather than a regular court as she is a public official.

Gutierrez said the filing of an electoral sabotage charge against Arroyo and the subsequent issuance of a warrant of arrest “is not political persecution nor political vendetta, as her camp maliciously tries to portray it, but part and parcel of the Aquino administration’s resolve to obtain justice for wrongdoing and crimes that took place under the previous administration.”

“This is justice and the rule of law at work,” Gutierrez said, adding that Arroyo “would be accorded due process.”

On Friday, one of the Arroyos’ counsels, lawyer Ferdinand Topacio charged that the electoral sabotage case against Mrs. Arroyo has been railroaded, saying it was part of a grand design of the administration to pin down the former leader.

“The judge will have to be a superman to read and analyze the voluminous documents within four hours,” said Topacio as he noted that two of the Comelec commissioner who did not participate in the voting admitted they have not even finished reading the resolution yet for them to cast a vote.

Topacio added that that Andal Ampatuan Sr. himself cleared the Arroyos of alleged poll fraud in the 2007 polls as the former Maguindanano governor belied the claims of his former subordinate, Norie Unas, who had accused the former president of ordering the rigging of the May 2007 elections.

In his affidavit, Ampatuan said Unas was too sick at that time to work for him adding there was no need for such an instruction in his province where people are supportive of the party that nurtures them and that one-man rule is not and never will be an option for his administration.

Aside from the motion to quash the arrest warrant which the Arroyo camp is reportedly set to file, Tajano said the former president may still have a legal remedy, which is for the Supreme Court (SC) to act on their petition to have the joint Comelec-DoJ panel declared unconstitutional which would render the information filed by the Comelec before the Pasay City RTC, null and void from the beginning.

“Should the SC declare the joint Comelec-DoJ panel unconstitutional, it would render all the information the Comelec filed before the court, void ab initio,” Tajano averred.

Asked if he thinks the joint panel is indeed unconstitutional, Tajano said the rules governing the Comelec provide that all investigation regarding election-related offenses should be strictly under the domain of the election body.

“I don’t know where the joint Comelec- DoJ panel got its authority,” Tajano said.

With regard to the jurisdiction over the case, Tajano said that the accused being former and incumbent government officials, the proper venue for the case should have been the Sandiganbayan and not a regular court.

The lawyer for Mrs. Arroyo Saturday challenged a court’s jurisdiction to order her arrest on vote-rigging charges as she spent a second day under police guard in hospital.

The ailing 64-year-old faces a possible life sentence if convicted by the lower court in Manila, after a tumultuous week in which the government went head-to-head with the SC to stop her leaving the country.

The lower court ordered her arrest on Friday after the government filed charges that she ordered 2007 senatorial elections rigged to ensure her allies won, alleging she conspired with a feared warlord to tamper with the vote.

The arrest was the culmination of a campaign by President Aquino to hold Arroyo to account for alleged corruption, but her lawyers said Saturday she would continue a legal battle to invalidate the charges against her.

Lawyer Raul Lambino said the lower court would hear a motion on Monday to lift the arrest warrant on the grounds that the criminal suit should have been filed elsewhere.

“We feel that there has been a violation of due process when they railroaded this case and filed the information at a wrong court,” he said during a TV interview.

The Arroyo camp earlier suggested the case should be dealt with by a special court, called Sandiganbayan, which handles cases involving public officials.

“We have already filed our corresponding motions questioning the jurisdiction of the regional trial court,” Lambino said.

“The court should not have issued a warrant of arrest.”

A second lawyer from the Arroyo camp, Topacio, said he would also ask the SC on Monday to declare illegal the work of an investigative body which gathered the evidence for the criminal charge against her.

Once that is achieved, the arrest warrant would lose its legal basis, he told reporters outside the hospital where Arroyo was under police guard.

“She was treated with respect and dignity (during the arrest), but we only wish they respected her rights under the Constitution,” Topacio said.

Both lawyers said the former president, who has undergone three unsuccessful spinal surgeries this year for a rare bone disease, was holding up relatively well after she was arrested in her hospital bed.

However, Topacio said: “The doctors said she should not yet leave the hospital. She’s under additional strain.”

A spokesman for Aquino, who is on the Indonesian island of Bali for an East Asia summit, said that he would not object to her remaining in hospital rather than going to jail if her lawyers sought a court ruling to that effect.

“If they do that, we will not object,” spokesman Ricky Carandang said. He added that Aquino had missed a summit gala dinner Friday evening because he was constantly on the phone to officials in Manila as events unfolded.

The two lawyers said police were scheduled to take Arroyo’s fingerprints and mugshot ahead of trial, and Topacio said her camp had appealed to police and the court not to release the photograph to the public. –Charlie V. Manalo with AFP