Setbacks for prosecution

Pampanga REP. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo scored a major legal victory when she was allowed to post bail by the Pasay City Regional Trial Court for the vote-rigging case filed against her in connection with the 2007 senatorial elections. Pasay City Judge Jesus Mupas allowed the temporary release of the former President on bail of P1 million, saying that while electoral sabotage was a nonbailable offense, the evidence presented against her was weak; Mupas said the testimony of former Maguindanao provincial administrator Norie Unas that he had overheard Arroyo ordering the then Maguindanao governor, Andal Ampatuan Sr., to produce a 12-0 vote in the province in favor of her administration’s senatorial candidates was “tainted with doubt.” Mupas’ court also said that while the Commission on Elections and Department of Justice could file a motion for reconsideration, this would not stop the grant of bail. Arroyo’s camp lost no time in producing the bail money. She thereafter left the presidential suite at Veterans Memorial Medical Center, where she had been detained since November, and proceeded to her home in La Vista, Quezon City, with bag and baggage, as though certain of a long reprieve.

There had been signs that the prosecution was having trouble with the election sabotage case, especially after Unas, whom the prosecution had touted as its star witness, suddenly disappeared, so that Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes and the DOJ had to seek the trial’s postponement. When he resurfaced, Unas did not impress on the witness stand. It was only a matter of time for the defense to dent his testimony and make him admit that he had no personal knowledge of the poll fraud in Maguindanao.

While expressing surprise that the Pasay City court would grant Arroyo’s bail request, Sen. Francis Escudero said he was actually more surprised that only one electoral sabotage case had been formally lodged against the former President. But judging by the prosecution’s poor performance in advancing the case at hand and fighting Arroyo’s bail request, the filing of more electoral charges against her would hardly inspire public confidence. The prosecution should do its job properly and make the present case against Arroyo stick. It should do that if only because it was the filing of this charge last year that legally stopped her from leaving the country—in quite dramatic circumstances, borne by an ambulance and rolled into the airport on a wheelchair—purportedly to seek treatment abroad for her medical condition.

Is Arroyo again at risk of seeking “alternative treatment” other than in Tagaytay City? She and her camp fully know that she has been put on the hold-departure list as a result of the plunder charge filed against her at the Sandiganbayan last July 16 by the Office of the Ombudsman. This case is in connection with the alleged use of P366 million in Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office funds for “fictitious” expenses in the last two and a half years of her term.

But if Unas’ poor testimony is any indication, then the prosecution in the current and planned cases against Arroyo may be headed for more trouble. Unas’ disappearance and sudden reluctance to testify suggested not only faintheartedness in a prosecution witness but also that the former provincial administrator of Maguindanao had doubts about the efficiency of the government’s witness protection program. Indeed, the incidence of extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances remains high. In fact, in the multiple murder case involving the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, an alarming number of witnesses for the prosecution have been found murdered or have disappeared into thin air. Up to now, even with a new administration, and a new governor, in place, the long arm of the Maguindanao warlord family that enjoyed a close relationship with Arroyo appears to be superior to the reach of the law.

Considering the setbacks in the Maguindanao massacre and electoral sabotage cases, the grave question is whether the prosecution can sufficiently impress its witnesses in the matter of their safety and protection, so that they will provide convincing testimony willingly and properly—in short, deliver the legal goods against Arroyo and her coaccused, and emerge with life and limb intact. While Arroyo may remain a flight risk, the greater concern is the risks faced by the prosecution witnesses.