The warrant of arrest against Cheche Lazaro is so absurd that suddenly it is the unorthodox ruminations of Judge Jorge Emmanuel Lorredo that seems to make sense! The Honorable Lorredo is the judge hearing the defamation case against NBN-ZTE star witness Jun Lozada, and whose unjudicial and unconventional statements are driving Secretary Raul Gonzalez up the wall.
Yet place Lorredo’s utterances side by side with everything else that’s been happening. Romulo Neri says the Comelec chairman offered him a P200-million bribe—and nobody gets charged! The Supreme Court finds that the Comelec’s P1.3-billion computerization contract was in “reckless disregard of [its own] bidding rules”—and nobody gets charged! The Office of the Ombudsman drags its feet on a $2-million extortion case against former Justice Secretary Hernando “Nani” Perez—and the Sandiganbayan throws out the case. Why? Precisely because the Ombudsman had dragged its feet too long. The euro generals are found by Russian customs to have P6.9 million in euros. At the Senate they confess that they didn’t even declare the amount at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) as required by law—and nobody gets charged. And now Cheche Lazaro is charged under the Anti-Wiretapping Law—and her accuser says that “the wheels of justice are taking their usual turn”? When the whole world is mad, ’tis folly to be sane.
Cheche’s Probe Productions was doing the feature “Perwisyong Benepisyo” on public school teachers’ complaints that the Government Service Insurance System had unfairly reduced their retirement benefits by excluding the years when, through no fault of theirs, no premiums were paid by their employers. The GSIS, through its vice president for public relations, Ella Valencerina, declined in writing to give it side: “[W]e have apprehensions on granting your request for an on-camera interview … because based from experience, most of the news reports aired in Lopez-owned media entities were biased against the GSIS.” In addition, the letter also asked: “Should you decide to still pursue the topic … we hope you can show this letter as our official position on declining your request.” When “Perwisyong Benepisyo” aired, Probe honored that request and read out verbatim the sentence quoted above explaining GSIS’ “apprehensions.”
The complaint filed by Valencerina, however, springs from a cell-phone conversation between her and Lazaro soon after that letter. Lazaro explained that Probe was distinct from ABS-CBN and merely wanted “to be fair to all sides [and] would like the side of GSIS so that we have a balanced story.”
The key portion of the conversation went like this. “GSIS VP: This is not an interview po. Cheche: No, this is not an interview, but I’m telling you that we are recording this because we want this on record that we are calling, that’s the only purpose. GSIS VP: Pero hindi po lalabas? Kasi hindi po ako yung spokesperson for this ma’am.” They continued to speak for a while after this.
The Anti-Wiretapping Law punishes the recording of conversations only when the parties hadn’t consented. Valencerina claims that Lazaro had recorded their conversation and broadcast it, “all these, without my knowledge, much less my permission.” Yet the transcript shows that Lazaro had expressly advised her, “I’m telling you that we are recording this”—and Valencerina continued to talk even after that advice. Clearly the GSIS vice president knew and consented to the taping of the conversation. There couldn’t have been an “unauthorized, unlawful and secret recording.”
The excerpts of the complaint that I have seen seems to make a separate issue out of the broadcasting (as distinct from the recording) of the purportedly purloined conversation. To start with, under the Anti-Wiretapping Law, the “replaying” is banned only if the recording, to start with, is unconsented. But even the portion of the cell-phone conversation that was actually aired pertained solely to GSIS’ reasons for declining the interview. Indeed, the key line was Valencerina speaking: “It’s just that, you know, we have been burnt so many times. I hope you understand our position as well, ma’am.” In other words, that, coupled with the previous quote from Valencerina’s letter alleging bias by the Lopez media network, actually accommodated GSIS’ request that the public be told that it wasn’t merely snubbing the press but felt it had good reason to decline.
There are two broader issues that bother me about this sordid episode. The first is institutional. There was already a safeguard against this, and that fail-safe device faltered. The preliminary investigation is the threshold proceeding conducted by the prosecutor before charges are filed in court. In other words, the preliminary investigation is supposed to filter out frivolous suits designed merely to harass the respondent (not yet “the accused” at this stage). It ensures that only those against whom there is “probable cause” are dragged through the hassle of an arrest warrant, the posting of bail, the arraignment (the stuff of courtroom drama when the accused pleads “Not guilty”), and eventually a trial on the merits.
The second is normative. The Anti-Wiretapping Law was designed to protect our right to privacy and our right to choose which thoughts we share with others and which to keep in the quiet of our hearts. But recently, it has been invoked by a President of the republic who conspired in election rigging and now by the vice president of a government corporation talking about public relations. No cherished intimacies are involved here but, on the contrary, issues that are eminently public, about which we as citizens are entitled to ask frank questions and to demand truthful answers.
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