Some are more powerful than others
We knew it. It was too good and beautiful to be true.
Imelda Marcos’ conviction on several counts of graft by the Sandiganbayan, and sentencing her to imprisonment for multiple years, forfeiting her bail and ordering the issuance of a warrant of arrest, were so surreal.
In a gratuitous and utterly discriminatory remark, the Philippine National Police chief added to the cynicism felt by the public by hedging on the seemingly imminent arrest of the flamboyant dictator’s wife, lamely using her advanced age and gender as a silly excuse, which has no legal justification at all.
And so it came to pass that, by a mere motion of a convicted plunderer, the Philippine court “deferred” and bided its time in issuing an arrest warrant against the convict, who has lost all legal remedies by reason of her failure to attend the said promulgation.
It does not come as a surprise at all that Imelda was allowed by the court to post bail, pending appeal of her conviction at the Supreme Court, where it will be an entirely new ballgame, so to speak.
After 27 long, agonizing years, the Filipino people are again made to wait for the reckoning. Meanwhile, Imelda is free to go on partying the nights away, run for election together with her forgetful eldest daughter, and wait for her son, the dictator’s namesake, to become president.
Because some are more powerful than others.
EDRE U. OLALIA, president,
EPHRAIM B. CORTEZ, secretary general,
JOSALEE S. DEINLA, spokesperson, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers,
