Old politics returns in ‘free Erap’ plea

The Senate and House resolution to free Joseph Estrada reeks of old politics that EDSA-II sought to wipe out. It is couched in seemingly correct language designed to appeal to emotion instead of reason. In highlighting a knee ailment whose cure supposedly exists only in the US, it disregards basic tenets of law that even laymen understand without need to consult lawyers. It ignores what is right, if only to lull legislators into believing that they’re doing good. It lures them into taking the easy way out, not to face the difficult task of laying the building blocks of justice and democracy.

Deceptive is what it is, the "Resolution expressing the sense of the Congress to appeal to the authorities concerned, through proper channels, to allow former Senator Joseph Estrada to seek medical treatment abroad on humanitarian grounds." Consider its sly wording:

Whereas, a year after Preisdent Joseph Estrada was forced out of office, and thereafter charged with plunder and other cases, he remains in detention where he has been for more than nine months now...

First, it calls him Senator to remind legislators that he’s one of them and they’re like him-which can be so, in more ways than just titles. Then, it calls him President, but inserts that he was forced out. It defies three rulings of the Supreme Court that he resigned on Jan. 20, 2001. It entraps legislators into the line that only his lawyers and die-hards claim to this day-that he is still President. As for his detention for nine months, so have tens of thousands of others charged with lesser offenses than heinous plunder, for which there’s no bail. It glosses over the fact that his lawyers are employing many maneuvers and technicalities to delay his trial.

Whereas, his trial has more than one dimension, and it is not our intent to comment on the merits of his cases but on an aspect of the same that is impressed with public interest with nothing to do with his guilt or his innocence, which incidentally is presumed...

Public interest? That word again! They must have something up their sleeve. No intention to comment on the merits of his cases? They seem to forget, there’s an Estrada plea pending in the Sandiganbayan precisely to let him fly off to the US. Legislators thus have no business commenting as they do on that plea, or showing even the slightest interest in its outcome until it’s out. Following the public furor over their signing of the resolution, Sen. Edgardo Angara tried to excuse their meddling in court matters by saying it’s only a letter to express their sentiment. Well, that’s not what the title says. A joint resolution has the force of law. That’s why Sandiganbayan Justice Francis Garchitorena, although suspended, got up and denounced it as interference.

Whereas, Mr. Estrada’s health condition has deteriorated since last year, with serious eye and knee problems, and the latter have worsened, prompting him to seek permission from the Sandiganbayan to go to the United States so he could undergo badly needed total joint replacement arthroscopic (or knee replacement) surgery, upon the advice of New York-based expert surgeons as well as his private physician, Dr. Christopher Mow, a clinical assistant professor at the Stanford University Medical Center in California, (sic) is not inclined to come to Manila due to our peace and order situation as perceived in the outside world...

Aha, the resolution admits there’s such a plea after all. At this point, the legislators should have trashed it out of respect for the constitutional separation of powers, instead of getting taken in by mumbo-jumbo. For, there’s another trap to get them to say that the national capital is gripped with terror. It was, on May 1 last year. But who made it so?

Whereas, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had shown concern for her predecessor’s health as may be seen in the attached letter of June 25, 2001, sympathetic to his getting the optimum medical treatment obtainable...

If this isn’t name-dropping, old-politics style, what is? It would seem that GMA wrote a letter or something. But the June 25 attachment came from her personal physician, Dr. Rodolfo Soto, addressed to Justice Anacleto Badoy, then-head of the court handling the plunder case. GMA, in a gesture of good will, had sent her doc to check Estrada and report the findings. If the doc consequently wrote the court, that’s his concern. Citing the letter, Estrada spokesman Crispin Remulla said Malacañang no less had worked on 19 senators and 125 congressmen, many from GMA’s Lakas party, to sign the resolution. Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco bit the bait laced with old-style political intrigue. He croaked that if, as she says, she’d rather leave everything up to the court, then GMA should tell her partymates to not interfere too. But wouldn’t that trap GMA in turn into meddling in affairs of the co-equal legislature? The legislators are old enough to know what they’re doing. If Cuenco wants any disciplining of Lakas partymen, he can go to Speaker Jose de Venecia, the party president. Or is he afraid of losing his old-style pork barrel?

Whereas, the latest update on his knee condition reinforces the need for immediate treatment...

So what?

Whereas, despite the presence in Manila of unquestionably highly competent physicians for whom Mr. Estrada has the highest regard, he can only be assured of access to the best medical attention in the United States where his private doctors are based, considering that a patient’s relationship with his chosen physician is generally reposed on trust and confidence in the latter’s confidence...

So much for back-handed compliments to Filipino doctors. Since the legislators read this far instead of trashing the resolution several sentences earlier, they could’ve quietly asked the Philippine Medical Association if knee surgery can be done in Manila by having equipment flown in. But that’s homework, which they’re not known to do.

Whereas, Mr. Estrada has presented satisfactory medical records and other documents pointing to the osteoarthritis afflicting both his knees-and he is subjected to constant injection of steroids-that require full and prompt treatment in the United States, which has state-of-the-art expertise, equipment and facilities, not now available in the Philippines...

That’s not what many doctors have said in the papers: knee surgery can be done in Manila.

Whereas, the probability of flight on the part of Mr. Estrada is nil as it will blacken his name forever in that flight would suggest guilt and jeopardize his chances in the trial that would proceed anyway in absentia, when, right after treatment, he undertakes to come back, and no judgment in his case is possible within the year...

The legislators would make it look as if their signatures guarantee Estrada’s return. There’s no attempt to make him put in the hands of the court all his real estate holdings, bank deposits and other assets as his own guarantee. Sen. John Osmeña said that in case of flight, there’s an RP-US extradition treaty to haul him back. But why let him off to begin with, then invoke the treaty, when he’s already in jail.

Whereas, the assassinated opposition leader Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., a national hero and esteemed member of this (Congress), was allowed to go to the United States for heart surgery at the height of Martial Law, despite having been convicted and sentenced to death by a military tribunal; and...

Ninoy and Erap are now alike? What’ll they think of next? Even then, Ninoy was given a reprieve after conviction, not during trial.

Whereas, before and after he was removed and forced out of the Presidency, he was offered opportunities to go on exile, which he refused, as he is on record that he is determined to seek vindication through the country’s legal processes, as one who has served as Mayor, Senator, Vice President, and President...

If he didn’t flee before he was arrested on April 25, 2001, was it because he was at that time plotting extralegal moves-like a supposed rebellion of the poor-to evade prosecution?

Now, therefore, be it resolved, as it is hereby resolved, that the Congress respectfully express its sentiment through proper channels to allow Mr. Estrada to seek medical treatment in the United States on humanitarian grounds, without prejudice to a continuous trial of the charges against him and without in any way pre-empting the court’s ultimate judgment on the merits of the said cases. Adopted.

Now let the people judge.

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Vice President and Foreign Affairs Sec. Teofisto Guingona will talk about the Balikatan 02-1 RP-US joint military exercise tonight at 11:30 on IBC-13’s Linawin Natin.

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