There’s only one way for law enforcement agencies to redeem themselves from their epic failure last week to catch Sen. Ronald dela Rosa: reverse the failure and capture him.
Acting Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida announced yesterday that a manhunt is on for Dela Rosa, following the Supreme Court’s rejection of the senator’s petition to stop his arrest. Whether the manhunt is for real remains to be seen.
If Senator Bato hasn’t yet taken a fast yacht to Malaysia and then hopped on a flight to apply for political asylum in France, President Marcos should end his hesitation on the arrest, and bundle off Tokhang’s architect to The Hague. Forthwith. ASAP.
The days of hesitation, despite the absence of a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court, tended to validate Rodrigo Duterte’s depiction of BBM as a wishy-washy hedonist.
An arrest and surrender to the International Criminal Court will definitely be challenged by Dela Rosa’s camp before the SC. But there’s no return, no exchange for suspects turned over to the ICC through whatever means.
Whatever the SC decides on the issues raised by those challenging Duterte’s arrest and surrender to the ICC through the Interpol, it would be moot in the former president’s case.
It would also be moot if Dela Rosa has already been packed off to the ICC detention facility at the Scheveningen Prison in The Hague, where he can reaffirm his loyalty to Duterte “forever and ever,” ready to “sink or swim” with his bosing.
As is his right, Dela Rosa’s lawyers said they would exhaust all legal remedies to prevent his surrender to the ICC.
Let’s hope the wimpy Marcos administration won’t wait for all those legal remedies to be exhausted, now that the SC has issued an order rejecting Dela Rosa’s extremely urgent petition to stop his arrest by those nasties in the National Bureau of Investigation.
(Why the NBI initially and not the Philippine National Police? Well, apart from being a former PNP chief, Dela Rosa still has fellow PMAyers in leadership positions in the police service. His son Rock, who as a cadet in the PNP Academy reportedly had a squad of cops protecting him from hazing, is a police captain whose wife is also in the PNP, Major Maricar.)
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The legal remedies seem limited to motions for reconsideration. If administration officials delay any arrest while waiting for an MR to be filed each time a petition for a TRO or status quo ante order is rejected by the SC, it would reinforce suspicions that BBM has lost the will to send anyone else to The Hague.
Why he might lose the will is anybody’s guess.
BBM’s intriguing hesitation on the night that Dela Rosa was cornered in the Senate premises has been explained as a desire to accord courtesy to senators and the Supreme Court.
Why those disgraceful senators would deserve such courtesy escapes us.
As for the SC, since it didn’t act for 14 months on the original urgent petition for a TRO, its opinion on the issue should have been pretty clear. The SC, when it chooses, can also extend courtesy to co-equal branches of government and keep out of the others’ business.
The SC already suffered institutional damage when it poked its nose into impeachment proceedings at the House of Representatives. The court changed internal House rules to suit impeachable SC members, with the decision partly based on Justice Marvic Leonen’s erroneous citation of a non-existent news story.
The SC isn’t the only one that likes making self-serving rule changes.
Senators in the new majority, who have at least convened as an impeachment court without junking outright the Articles of Impeachment, are trying mightily to change the rules so MIA Senator Bato can participate remotely and cast the crucial vote, of course to acquit Vice President Sara Duterte.
At least two other senators in the new majority might be unable to participate in person at the trial, when (not if) they are arrested and held without bail for plunder or malversation through falsification.
Another senator in the majority could soon be covered by an ICC arrest warrant or Interpol diffusion notice.
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Even without the arrests, the current majority has a tenuous hold on Senate dominance. Maybe that’s why they – with the exception of Robinhood Padilla who perpetually wears a “what, me worry?” look – appear glum even as they divvy up the committees to chair.
With the Blue Ribbon now chaired by the new Senate chief’s sister the Drama Queen, we might see the panel finding solid ground to recommend the prosecution of former speaker Martin Romualdez for plunder, or malversation through falsification, or some other non-bailable offense.
But also under the Drama Queen (Ate Claire gave a hilarious cover act), all those reclamation projects described as flood control on the Taguig side (C-6) of Laguna de Bay will likely be exempted from investigation. Soon, the original lakeside of Taguig will have no lakeview. It’s enough to make environmentalists weep.
The Duterte camp’s petitions with the SC are reportedly meant to obtain judicial clarity on the surrender of Philippine citizens to the ICC.
Before the SC again intervenes in matters that should be left to the discretion of a co-equal and independent branch, the BBM administration should assert executive authority and proceed with capturing Bato dela Rosa.
With the SC rejecting Dela Rosa’s petition for a TRO, the only thing now stopping the government from carrying out the arrest is either the inability or unwillingness to find him.