EDITORIAL - Cure worse than the disease

It is easy to see why people jumped with joy at the news that Delfin Lee, president of Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corporation, had been arrested and detained in Pampanga. One look at the things Lee is being accused of and the glee becomes instantly understandable.

According to the charges Lee is facing, he is allegedly behind a P7 billion housing loan fraud that has victimized mainly the government's Home Development Mutual Fund or Pag-ibig. He has been hiding from a warrant issued by the Regional Trial Court in Pampanga until his unexpected arrest in Manila.

What is less obvious to most people is the legal question that arose from his arrest. At the time of his arrest, Lee was actually a free man, which is probably the reason why he was moving around openly in Manila like a man who is not in fear for his freedom.

Lee was a free man at the time of his arrest because he won a case at the Court of Appeals that sought to quash the warrant issued by the RTC. The CA, in ruling in favor of Lee, issued an order quashing the RTC warrant.

But the authorities who arrested Lee refused to heed the CA order. Their reason? They have a pending motion before the Supreme Court asking it to issue a temporary restraining order against the CA order. Whether a pending motion is the same as an actual ruling on the motion is clear to everyone but the police.

At the time police arrested Lee, the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the motion for a TRO. In effect, it is the existing CA order quashing the RTC warrant that should have prevailed. But things have all gone askew in this country.

The prevailing mood is that it is now perfectly all right to take legal shortcuts with people's rights so long as those involved are perceived to be crooks whom people want to lynch. Due process and presumption of innocence have become passe in a government desperate to show something for its efforts at reform.

But the problem is that there can be no true reform if the showcased victories had been achieved by means far worse than those sought to be reformed. We may loathe stealing and other forms of corruption. But railroading justice and depriving people of their rights is far worse.

In stealing and corruption we lose only material things like money and taxes. But when even government takes liberties with people's rights and takes shortcuts with the justice system, that is an assault on the very fabric of democracy which keeps this nation together in civilized order. And Lee is just one example.