Stronger cases

Just how strong is the charge of electoral sabotage against former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo? It’s the only legal, defensible constraint at this point against any move on her part to hightail it out of the country once again—and is there any question by this time that she and her husband would lunge at any new opportunity to take the next available flight—on three or more airlines even, to hoard all possible exit points—if they could? The filing by the Commission on Elections of the case against Arroyo, Bedol et al. expediently nipped in the bud any constitutional clash between a Supreme Court intent—and rather in a rush, it seems—on letting the Arroyos go, and an executive branch just as intent to keep them in the country, even if that involved an unprecedented defiance of the Court’s wishes. The controversial TRO now rendered moot, the issue of Arroyo’s capacity to personally answer for her administration’s sins now hangs by the slender thread of the non-bailable offense the Comelec has lodged against her at the Pasay regional trial court.

That case, unfortunately, might not be enough to hold the Arroyos for long in the country. Much about it appears problematic, from the tenuous legality of the joint Comelec-Department of Justice body that greenlighted the filing of the charges to the timetable of the proceedings that smacks of corners being cut, rules bent and decisions hustled through in pursuit of a sudden deadline—haste that might only come around to haunt the case’s validity on technical grounds, and, most alarmingly, to the meager nature of the accusation against Arroyo itself, that she was allegedly overheard directing the Ampatuans in Maguindanao to rig the 2007 elections in favor of her senatorial candidates. That massive cheating did occur has been backed by strong corroborative evidence, enough to have compelled Miguel Zubiri to give up his senatorial seat in favor of Aquilino Pimentel III as soon as first-hand testimony about the dagdag-bawas operation became available. But as to Arroyo’s direct hand in it? The evidence looks like mere hearsay at this point.

Any of those flimsy points in the electoral sabotage case could end up a fresh target of scrutiny and eventual rebuke by the Supreme Court, as Arroyo’s skilled lawyers would no doubt hammer home in their defense of GMA. It’s a consummation devoutly to be dreaded. The country having practically gone through the wringer in, first, enduring nine years of Arroyo’s blighted, scandal-plagued presidency, and, second, bringing her one step closer to her date with accountability, it would be a crushing, most bitter pill to swallow should the government forfeit its case against her on a clumsy, needless technicality, and thereby lose her to exile for good.

Which is why it’s imperative for the Aquino administration to lay off on the triumphalist rhetoric for the moment (“We promised the Filipino people her day in court, and now she’s getting it,” Secretary Ricky Carandang crowed on the day of Arroyo’s arrest, conveniently forgetting how ad hoc, reactive and improvisational the government’s response had been to the Supreme Court’s TRO), and get down instead to the nitty-gritty of constructing more solid, legally unassailable cases against Arroyo. They should be, at the very least, free of shortcuts, infirmities and photo-finish touches, and filed in court expeditiously, to backstop the initial indictment against Arroyo.

As of last count, six complaints of plunder and one of graft are arrayed against GMA. The most promising of these include the case filed by former Solicitor General Frank Chavez for the release of nearly P1.6 billion in fertilizer funds to congressmen, governors and mayors “for [Arroyo’s] political exercise in 2004”—a release that has Arroyo’s imprint on it; the case filed by Bayan Muna Representatives Teddy Casiño and Neri Colmenares in connection with the alleged misuse of some P325 million in intelligence funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, again with documents attesting to Arroyo’s knowledge and approval of the transactions; and the graft case filed by Casiño and Colmenares in connection with the aborted NBN-ZTE deal, of which testimony implicating Arroyo and cohorts such as Benjamin Abalos are plentiful.

The Office of the Ombudsman, or the Department of Justice as the case may be, needs to resolve these cases at once, and file the necessary charges. The one non-negotiable they should all have: they should stick—and do the job of bringing the former president to justice.