Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 01:46:00 10/09/2008
Government officials defending President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s unexpected pardon of double murderer Claudio Teehankee Jr. apparently subscribe to the belief that the best defense is a good offense. Consider the attacks they have launched against critics of Teehankee’s midnight release.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez took square aim at the naysayers. “Why are they attacking this one? Did they object to Estrada’s release?” Gonzalez was referring to President Arroyo’s most famous—or infamous—exercise of executive clemency: last year’s pardon of ex-President Joseph Estrada, a convicted plunderer.
He is half-right. Members of the opposition may have kept quiet when Estrada was pardoned, but this newspaper, together with parts of civil society, did not. Estrada’s pardon was sheer political opportunism, and only emphasized the politicization of the administration of justice under the Arroyo administration.
We view Teehankee’s pardon with the same suspicion: It was a political favor (for the President’s protégé, Ambassador Manuel Teehankee, a former undersecretary of justice). If everything were truly above-board, the convict’s release would not have been scheduled for midnight, on the last working day of the week.
Now what does that make of Gonzalez’s unnerving opinion, that criticism of the Teehankee pardon is only politically motivated? Many who oppose Estrada’s pardon oppose Teehankee’s release, too.
Gonzalez’s kindred spirit, Press Secretary Jesus Dureza, took direct issue with the claim that the pardon, effected at midnight last Friday, was done in secret. “There is no such thing as secrecy. When we grant clemency it’s publicly announced although some malicious minds will probably give it that spin. Unfortunately, or fortunately for us, we should not be taken for a ride.”
And yet Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio, the prosecutor in the plunder case against Estrada and, as it turns out, the prosecutor in the Teehankee case as well, categorically stated that the Executive failed to inform the victims’ families, the general public and the lead prosecutor (that is to say, himself) about Teehankee’s latest application for clemency. (In contrast, Villa-Ignacio said, he had been informed when Rolito Go, convicted of killing Eldon Maguan in a traffic dispute, applied for clemency.)
Now, Villa-Ignacio is hardly what we can call a “malicious mind,” to use the press secretary’s less-than-happy phrase. Here is a high official in the Office of the Ombudsman, patiently detailing the Executive’s acts of omission. Fortunately for us (and unfortunately for Dureza), Villa-Ignacio’s information assures us that we will not, in fact, be taken for a ride.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the family of Maureen Hultman, the 16-year-old whom Teehankee killed in cold blood, “did not object when asked about the possibility of giving Mr. Teehankee pardon, and the Hultmans thought there was remorse on [his] part.” This lack of any objection, to the mere possibility of pardon, was in fact recorded in 1999. Ermita now wishes to present this nine-year-old piece of information as proof that the Hultmans were consulted about last week’s release.
Fortunately, there is even less reason for us to be taken for a ride, because Anders Hultman, Maureen’s adoptive father, clarified the matter the other day. “We are shocked and very angry. It was out of the blue and completely unexpected,” Hultman told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. So much for Ermita’s rationalization.
The issue, we wish to emphasize, is not about the President’s power to exercise executive clemency. Of that there is no dispute, although it may be high time for Congress to consider imposing more restraints on the use of that power. The issue is about why the President chose to exercise this power on behalf of Teehankee. As Hultman wrote in an email from Sweden, “Why this President does this, only God knows.”
Claudio Teehankee Jr. represented one of the worst failings of the immediate post-Ferdinand Marcos era: the reemergence, in the tumultuous transition from dictatorship to democracy, of a culture of impunity, of enclaves of influence, where powerful people believed themselves above the law because they were rich and they were armed. We may be tempted to think that Ms Arroyo did not realize this, or chose not to. But looking around us, seeing a landscape stained by too many killings and haunted by too many disappearances, perhaps the better answer is: Teehankee is this President’s kind of man.
Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
To
subscribe to the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper in the Philippines,
call +63 2 896-6000 for Metro Manila and Metro Cebu or email your subscription request here.
Factual errors? Contact the
Philippine Daily Inquirer's day desk.
Believe this article violates journalistic ethics?
Contact the
Inquirer's Reader's Advocate.
Or write The Readers' Advocate:
c/o
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Chino RocesAvenue corner Yague and Mascardo Streets,
Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines
Or fax nos. +63 2 8974793 to 94
![Zoom Image](javascript:popwin("http://images.inquirer.net/media/opinion/inquireropinion/editorial/images/pic-10090248340304.jpg", 640, 480))
Zoom
