Bird flew

The ex-President seems to be a liar. At least, that’s the conclusion we get after reading Justice Sereno’s dissent in the on-going high drama surrounding Gloria Arroyo’s bid to fly out the country, although Justice Sereno is too polite to come right out and say it.

 Gloria’s main premise for her petition is that she is facing a dire medical condition that is serious and life-threatening. Hence, she needs to get out of this backward country to receive treatment from foreign medical experts. But Justice Sereno takes a close look at the medical certificates Arroyo has attached to her pleadings, and finds that the doctors don’t say Gloria will die. In fact, they’re less optimistic than that, and says in all probability, barring any future complications, she’s going to survive and recover in a few months. (Did I just say ‘optimistic’? Darn. Must have come from reading all that Oscar Wilde.)

 So which is it? Is her life really in danger if she doesn’t meet her hunky doctor of choice, or is she well on her way to recovery? Justice Sereno points out that Arroyo’s itinerary includes attendance in some international conferences, as she earlier indicated in her request for permission from the Philippine Congress. If Arroyo is able to tart herself up to attend these conferences and hobnob with other politicians who have nothing better to do than spend government time travelling to international conferences and hobnobbing, then she’s not exactly dying, right? 

 So there is something not exactly truthful in her petition, says Sereno. So why did the majority of the high court allow her to leave? Given these inconsistencies, it is hard to fathom the Supreme Court majority who voted to allow Gloria to fly. Did they take cognizance of these, and think them insignificant? Did they believe that there were other factors that overrode the untruths, such that she must be allowed to fly out no matter what? But what could those have been?

 As petitioner, Arroyo had the burden of proof to prove her allegations. If she comes forward and pleads that she has a medical condition so severe as to necessitate her travelling, then she needed to provide enough proof to convince the justices. But this, she wasn’t able to do. Her medical certificates proved the reverse: that she wasn’t dying, but recovering. So where was the factual basis underlying the Supreme Court’s decision to grant her petition?

 It probably boiled down to her constitutional right to travel, which is as yet a largely unexplored terrain in our courts. (If Gloria really wanted to champion this right, then she should start by questioning the P1,620 travel tax that’s charged fliers every time they leave. Now that’s an unconstitutional restriction of my right to travel. And I’m not being fatuous here.) But not all liberties are absolute, and it would have been good for the court to chomp on this issue and spit out (after due mastication) a nice, ground-breaking decision that would rewrite the Constitutional map.

 Unfortunately, Gloria got overtaken by events. In the midst of her attempts to fly the coop, a warrant of arrest was issued by a criminal court, and so there’s another basis for putting her on the Hold Departure list of the Bureau of Immigration (and not just the fact she’s only under investigation for this and that). 

 Will Gloria ever get to leave our shores? This is just the first case, and it’s being prosecuted by a very pissed Senator, who got cheated out of about four years of his 6-year term. As a non-bailable offense, she won’t even be able to post bail and smell roses pending the prosecution of the case. As of now, hospital arrest is the only option given to her, so now she has two options: get well enough to become a jailbird, or not get better, so she can justify her prolonged stay in a hospital with Starbucks and pancakes in the ground floor.

Meanwhile, there are other cases cooking, and if those get filed, then she’ll have a more difficult time landing in a country where the Philippines has no extradition treaty. (It does seem strange her destinations of choice won’t cooperate with us if we want her back. It might be better to clip her wings in the meantime.)