THE PLEA bargain of retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia, former comptroller of the Armed Forces, reminds us once again of a perennial Philippine problem, namely, our weak institutions of public accountability. Time and again, we have relied on foreign investigators to do our work for us, and the moment they pass the ball to us, we drop it.
Look at the historical record. Today, 24 years after Edsa 1, the Marcoses have not been held liable for any human rights violation by any Philippine court. So where instead did the victims file their class action suit? Before a Honolulu federal court which, in 1995, awarded $2 billion in damages to the victims of torture, summary executions and disappearances under the Marcos regime.
And when the victims, now called Claimants 1081 (after Proclamation 1081 under which Marcos seized emergency powers in September 1972), tried to collect these damages against the Marcos assets in the Philippines, guess who stood in their way? The Philippine government, because the Supreme Court meanwhile had forfeited Marcos? ill-gotten wealth in favor of the government in 2003. So the victims had to sue before Philippine courts. Again, what impediment stood in their way? The extravagant filing fees required by the court. So the victims went to the United Nations, sought justice from its Human Rights Committee, which ruled in their (the victims?) favor. Accordingly, the Philippine courts recomputed the filing fees and reduced them to a negligible amount.
In all these, notice that only two institutions delivered: the US federal court in Honolulu and the UN human rights body. All the institutions that repeatedly frustrated the Filipino human rights victims were Philippine governmental institutions funded and in some cases elected by the Filipino people to protect their rights.
Remember the case against Arroyo?s first justice secretary, Hernando Perez, who was accused of receiving a $2 million bribe in connection with a $470-million hydroelectric project? The Estrada administration had refused to approve the project of the Argentine firm Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima (Impsa), and yet within four days after Edsa 2, Perez approved the controversial project.
Again, Filipino investigators would have archived the case had it not been for a communiqué in April 2003 from the Swiss Embassy on their own money laundering investigations into the case. Perez and his cohorts admitted to having opened Swiss bank accounts, which received massive deposits corresponding to the $2 million bribe, and which amounts were subsequently transferred to Hong Kong bank accounts just at the same time that Perez et al. were visiting Hong Kong. Despite all these, the Swiss report was kept away from the Senate investigation, which nonetheless got wind of it later. Sen. Sergio Osmeña III hailed it as ?manna from heaven ? the smoking gun.?
So did Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez use the smoking gun? Yes, but only in 2008 and under threat of impeachment. And did her charges stick? Absolutely not! The Sandiganbayan dismissed the charges outright, without even a trial on the merits, because Gutierrez had taken so long?seven years from the start of the investigation?that she had violated Perez?s right to speedy justice!
Again, Filipino authorities had to be prodded into action by the Swiss, and handed the smoking gun on a silver platter, hemmed and hawed and, by their delay, created the very grounds for dismissal.
That story persists. Remember the ?euro generals?? In 2008, the comptroller of the Philippine National Police Eliseo de la Paz and his wife were caught by, believe it or not, Moscow customs authorities (Russian bureaucrats are no paragons of transparency and honesty) for carrying an undeclared euros 105,000 in cash (equivalent then to some P6.9 million).
For any Filipino not born yesterday, it comes as no surprise that the PNP generals and their wives got past our own airport authorities without disclosing the cash. Again, the euro generals? defense sounds eerily similar to General Garcia?s and that of his wife Clarita?s. The amount came from ?private funds,? contributed voluntarily by well-meaning citizens so that the generals and their wives can travel in style. Remember the written declaration by Clarita Garcia: ?During these travels, my husband always brings me along and we are each given travel allowances by the proponents/host country. ... As a wife I am also given an envelope as they called ?shopping money? that I can use for my own discretion, no receipt of how we use the stipends are ever required. Business class airfare/first class hotel accommodations and transportation are provided by the host/proponents and this happens [sic] on every trip since 1993 to present. ?.?
In 2010, the Office of the Ombudsman indeed filed criminal charges against 12 of these PNP officials, but I wonder whether they would have acted at all had it not been for the Moscow airport watchdogs.
It took American, Swiss and Russian governmental authorities to help us enforce the big words in our Constitution about honesty in government. Left to ourselves, the instinct of our police, investigators and judges is to look the other way when powerful men are involved.
What we restored at Edsa 1 was not the rule of law, but the rule of legalistic thinking. Far from being a guarantee of fair and evenhanded governance, legal formalism has merely provided excuses for evasion of duty by the weak, inept or dishonest. We must criticize the Garcia plea bargain not just on legal technicalities about the strength of the evidence, but on the fundamental point that the Office of the Ombudsman was created precisely to run after people like Garcia. For the Ombudsman to evade its duty to prosecute Garcia is to lose sight of its raison d?etre.
(Comments to passionforreason@gmail.com)
