Overreaction

It looks like 80 year old retired General Fortunato Abat has finally lured the administration into giving him the needed importance and attention he has been longing for. It is quite obvious in his previous actuations and moves that he was trying very hard to bait the government into filing charges against him for purposes of gaining public sympathy and of being taken more seriously in his quixotic mission. Now he got what he asks for and he seems to be reaping the fruits of all his previously ignored, futile and sometimes amusing capers. He begins to look more and more like a martyr for a cause.

In a statement last Wednesday, Abat declared "the existence of a revolutionary transition government and the formation of a transition government council to administer the affairs of government. The old soldier who refused to fade away further said that, "This is a peaceful takeover of power by people motivated by nothing else but a sense of patriotism", as he urged the military and the police "to protect the people’s sovereign will". For such statements, he was invited to Camp Crame and immediately thereafter Government Prosecutors of the Department of Justice got hold of the law book and threw it at Abat and his cohorts Enriquez, Seneres, Serapio and several other John and Jane Does. According to the Prosecutor, the statements from Abat’s group "tended to overthrow or undermine the security of the government or to weaken the confidence of the people in the government" The Prosecutor believes that their statements are "conducive to the destruction of the government itself". So they should be indicted for the crime of inciting to sedition. Is the government correct in charging Abat and company with such crime?

Article 142 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) as amended punishes the following acts as inciting to sedition: (1) rousing others by means of speeches, proclamations, writings and other representations to prevent the promulgation or execution of any law or administrative order or the holding of any popular election, prevent the national or local government or public officer from freely exercising their functions, inflict any act of hatred or revenge on any public officer or property, commit any act of hatred or revenge against any private person or social class for political or social end, and despoil any person, local or national government of all its property or any part thereof for social or political end; (2) uttering seditious words or speeches; (3) writing, publishing or circulating scurrilous libels against the Philippine Government or any of its duly constituted authorities; (4) uttering words which tend to disturb or obstruct any lawful officer in executing the functions of his office, or which tend to instigate others to cabal and meet together for unlawful purposes, or which suggest or incite rebellious conspiracies or riots, or which lead or tend to stir up the people against the lawful authorities or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and order of the government; or (5) knowingly concealing such evil practices.

The prosecutor in this case of Abat actually anchors his indictment on and in fact merely quotes the ruling of the Supreme Court (SC) in the case of Espuelas v. People (90 Phil. 524) where a certain Oscar Espuelas was found guilty of incitement to sedition for the scurrilous libel it has committed against the Government. However, a cursory reading of said case readily shows that its facts are entirely different. In Espuelas, the accused had his picture taken in a position as if he were hanging lifeless at the end of a rope suspended from the limb of a tree when in truth he was merely standing on a barrel. Then he sent that picture to several newspapers together with his suicide letter where he characterized the government of then President Manuel A. Roxas as infested with crooks and dishonest persons, Nazis and fascists, while proclaiming to his readers that he committed suicide because he had no "power to put under Juez de Cuchillo all the Roxas people now in power" and asking them to "teach our children to burn the pictures of Roxas if and when they come across one". The SC issued a guilty verdict because the accused knew that the expression Juez de Cuchillo means to the ordinary layman the Law of the Knife, a "summary execution by the knife" so the idea he intended to convey was no other than bloody, violent and un-peaceful methods to free the government from the administration of Roxas and his men. Furthermore, the SC said that "the infuriating language is not a sincere effort to persuade, what with the writer’s simulated suicide note and what with its failure to particularize. When the use of irritating language centers not on persuading the readers but on creating disturbance, the rationale of free speech cannot apply and the speaker or writer is removed from the protection of the constitutional guarantee", concluded the SC.

The prosecutor apparently misapplied the Espuelas case in indicting Abat. Interpreting the Abat statement along the same vein as the Espuelas letter unnecessarily curtails the citizen’s freedom of expression to agitate for institutional changes. To be sure, in Espuelas, three justices dissented. They believed that the letter even "evinced intense feeling of devotion to the welfare of the country and its institutions". Such observation is more applicable to the Abat statement. I believe that many readers consider his declarations harmless as far as the safety of the Government and its officials are concerned. Taking into consideration the age and personality of Abat and what he has done so far, it is hard to conclude that his statements were "conducive to the destruction of the government itself". Abat should realize however that with all his noblest motives, the over all public reaction to his capers, so far, is one of ridicule and curiosity for somewhat absurd moves. The government prosecutors once more overreacted. At a time when the President has repeatedly sounded the call for unity, they just further sow the seeds of division.