Doctor, doctor, I am sick

With a blood pressure of 100/70, how sick are you? Quite sick apparently, if you happen to be charged with plunder and have been ordered arrested and thrown in jail. I must admit that, if I found myself in that situation, I too would call on every illness in the book – not just Bell’s palsy or chest and back pains – and even some not listed in any medical book. Panic attack? Hysteria? Trouble breathing? Radiation from MRIs and other tests? Tummy ache? Hang nail? Allergies? All of the above please, and then some.

But that’s the right of every defendant, I suppose – to endlessly file motions, to do anything and everything possible (hey, even the impossible) to stay out of jail – any jail, whether the dingiest cell that holds five times more inmates than intended, or a facility for high-risk and high-value detainees, or a newly built “custodial center” where you can even hold parties with family and friends well past visiting hours, complete with lechon on the buffet spread.

On the other hand, it is the duty of the prosecutors to block all those moves and maneuvers, first of all by filing a strong and solid case. I don’t mean to denigrate our government lawyers, but with so many cases to attend to, the resources of the government’s prosecutorial forces are spread so thin. However sincere, eager, noble-intentioned they may be, government lawyers are up against tried and tested, wily, shrewd and devious hot-shot, high-priced defense lawyers who know and will use every trick in the book on behalf of their clients.

An actual conviction in these plunder and graft cases is, no matter what anyone may claim, unfortunately a long, long, long way off. In the meantime, just seeing to it that those charged are treated as they should be – put in jail for non-bailable offenses – should, hopefully, put some fear and respect for the law in the twisted minds of these scoundrels.

But so far, what we have been seeing makes a good case for the dictum that if you steal enough and are in powerful enough positions and have enough unfrozen liquid assets you can buy yourself quite a bit of wiggle room, like a hospital bed instead of a cot in a jail cell, at least until the doctors put an end to your (bad) acting and throw you out of the hospital.

Having visited jail facilities in different parts of the country in connection with some good governance initiatives that I have been involved with, I can only say that much needs to be done to upgrade our jails even just to the level of decency. Severe overcrowding, lack of even the most basic facilities for sanitation, poor ventilation, below subsistence food budgets... these are the rule rather than the exception. People in jail have not been convicted yet (the convicted go to the National Penitentiary), but are undergoing or awaiting arraignment or trial, and cannot afford bail. Now shed the “special treatment” and let the plunderers and grafters get a taste of life in a regular jail.