EDITORIAL - Welcome party

If you arrive at the NAIA from abroad and are prevented from going to the arrival area where your wife and friends await you, and you are then escorted by government agents to a vehicle and taken on a ride to nowhere for several hours by armed strangers until your hysterical wife goes on radio and TV demanding your return, what do you call that experience? A welcome party.

That is the message sent to Rodolfo Lozada Jr. as the Court of Appeals threw out a petition for a writ of amparo, saying no “substantial evidence” was presented by his wife and brother to prove that he had been kidnapped by government agents, one of whom was believed to be a member of the Presidential Security Group.

Perhaps a new word will have to be invented for what Lozada went through as he grappled with his demons — with armed men and a lawyer he did not want helping him make up his mind — on whether or not he should disclose what he knew about the $329-million national broadband network deal between the government and ZTE Corp.

Perhaps the petition was flawed, and the CA, which has announced an internal campaign for “moral recovery” amid a continuing bribery scandal, was truly justified in its ruling. The three justices who handled the petition — Celia Librea-Leagogo, Regalado Maambong and Sixto C. Marella Jr. – are surely strong contenders for the six seats that will become vacant in the Supreme Court next year.

Perhaps the public should just be glad that despite the security risks, Lozada eventually decided to bare what he knew about the ZTE deal. The CA ruling weakens the criminal case for kidnapping that he filed against members of his “welcoming party.” But there is still his petition for a writ of amparo, which he can elevate to the Supreme Court. The SC took the unprecedented step of introducing the writ into the legal system amid the spate of unexplained killings and disappearances. The writ can be invoked for both actual and threatened violations of the right to life, liberty and security.

Lozada played along with his welcoming party and did not disappear. Perhaps only his actual disappearance will constitute substantial evidence to warrant a writ of amparo. It’s a sobering thought as the nation marks the 36th anniversary today of the declaration of martial law. How some people must miss those days.