The need for speedy justice!

I salute the column of fellow STAR columnist Jarius Bondoc last Wednesday entitled "By the time courts decide, it’s history." Indeed, it has been 20 years since the EDSA Revolt and yet not a single case against the Marcoses has been solved with finality. Yes, finally the lower court has awarded P14 million to the heirs of one of the victims of the infamous Doña Paz tragedy of Sulpicio Lines… and that means it might take another decade to elevate this issue and declare this judgment final and executory! It just makes me wonder, how many more cases are lined up in our courtrooms begging to be heard?

When he was still alive, I can still clearly remember a conversation I had with the late Chief Justice and later Senate President Marcelo "Noy Celing" Fernan and it was about the slow wheels of justice that plagued our land. I know that he made a law allowing for a non-stop hearing. But I guess the problem is just too enormous to tackle. This is why I got a good laugh when I read in the newspapers that Malacañang was thinking of freezing the assets of former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada to prevent him from further destabilizing our country.

Hence we ask… why are they thinking of this only now? If you ask me, this was an offshoot of the coup that removed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. While I agree with the idea of freezing Erap’s assets, let me just say that they should have done so a month after putting him under house arrest. If know that the Supreme Court is trying its best to solve cases with dispatch, hence in the interest of transparency, I would like to know how old is the oldest case that is still languishing in our courts. Are these cases 10 years old or even 30 years old? This is something that I’m very sure would interest the Filipino people because as Jarius said, by the time the courts decide these cases, they have already become history!

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Still on the call for justice, we read the call for justice by Veronica Tabara, widow of breakaway revolutionary leader Arturo Tabara who was killed on Sept. 26, 2004 by the New People’s Army (NPA) as pointed out by Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) chief Jose Maria Sison. Tabara founded the breakaway Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa-Pilipinas (RPM-P) after they severed their ties with the CPP/NPA.

Somehow, Joma Sison openly admitted that Tabara’s killing was done by the NPA, hence Tabara’s widow is asking the courts to fast-track the filing of charges against Joma Sison… who is, too, the Capo di tutti Capi of all that represents the communists in this country, including the NPA. So the question is, will we finally bring back Joma to face these charges? That I don’t know… but I do know that if and when Joma is brought back in chains, he will face more murder charges than he could ever imagine.

Last Sunday evening, I saw half of that famous investigative TV show Probe Team on ABS-CBN, which featured a very interesting story that happened right in the mountains of Cebu City to Herculano and Luz Laguna, labor organizers from Davao City who moved to Cebu in the early 80s. Probe Team was apparently helped by the Peace Advocates for Truth, Healing and Justice (PATH) whose members used to belong to the CPP, who were arrested and tortured during the purge in the 80s.

That story was quite emotional… when Consolacion Aniasco Niduelan, the sister of the Laguna couple, broke down when she saw the skeletons in the graves in Barangay Bonbon as identified by UP anthropologist Prof. Jerome Bailen. A huge rock was still lodged behind the skeletons. Another set of skeletal remains was that of a couple still tied together in a final embrace, brutally tortured and killed by the NPAs and buried in graves in places that the NPA never thought would be found. Yet God in his mercy allowed these graves to be revealed… for the closure of their families, and for justice? I doubt if the victims would be given justice.

This should bring us back to the skeletal remains of 60 or so people buried in mass graves found in Inopacan, Leyte… whose souls are also begging for justice. This is why I puke every time I see people waving red banners and wearing armbands demanding respect for human rights. This is why I laugh when the CPP/NPA tagged former Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan as a "butcher" for doing his job as a military man fighting the insurgents wherever they are found. If Gen. Palparan is a "butcher," I wonder what tag we should put on people like Joma Sison or Rep. Satur Ocampo… the owners of the butcher’s shop?

Again, while we’re in the midst of the all-out war first declared in Cebu by Gov. Gwen Garcia and echoed nationwide by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA), we must say that this war includes some kind of action by the Supreme Court to speed up cases… especially the ones involving mass killings or the killings of communists who got tired of their senseless cause and were killed for their act of treason by the CPP/NPA. One of the reasons why people go to the hills and fight the government is the injustice done to them… and I dare say that the time has come to right the wrongs of the past and that speedy justice be given to everyone.

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While this article deals with the grave delay of justice, we do have light at the end of the proverbial tunnel — a recently resolved case that gives fresh hope that the wheels of justice can finally move. I’m referring to the case of my good friend, Cebu City Bantay Dagat commissioner and market administrator Elpidio "Jojo" de la Victoria, who was shot in front of his house on Holy Wednesday, April 12 this year, and who expired at the Chong Hua Hospital the following day, Holy Thursday.

Five months after that dastardly killing of Jojo, Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Ireneo Gako sentenced the only suspect in this case, SP01 Marcial Ocampo, to reclusion perpetua or from 20 to 40 years in jail. However, while we laud the uncanny speed of the court in giving justice to our fallen friend, this will not bring him back to us or to his family. Justice, after all, is merely a consolation to a grieving family that the loss of their loved one was not in vain. I’m sure that the accused would file the necessary appeal to a higher court… but meanwhile, let me point out that the court sentenced the triggerman, but no one up to now knows who is the mastermind who had Jojo de la Victoria killed by a hired assassin… a police officer.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns in The Freeman can also be accessed through The Philippine STAR website (www.philstar.com). He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable. Bobit’s columns can also be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com.