What’s done at the top, so it is below

The Inquirer’s March 13 editorial, “Bail now, acquit later?” was dead-on. The decision of judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes to grant bail to Sajid Islam Ampatuan in the Ampatuan massacre multiple murder case was truly jaw-dropping. Here was an accused who huddled with plotters to commit murder and mayhem, and who, as provincial governor, let them use the provincial police and provincial equipment (backhoe) to carry out what was being discussed in those meetings—and the judge ruled that was not enough to chip away at the presumption of innocence in his favor? No one heard him say anything; that reticence could not be construed as assent to the evil deeds, the judge opined. The saying “Action speaks louder than words” was obviously lost on her!

The Inquirer put it truthfully and bluntly: That “reasoning is stupid”! But come to think of it, that common sense-defying “reasoning” is not much different from the Supreme Court’s own ratiocination in reverse: Finding guilt beyond reasonable doubt and sending a young man to jail for life on the sole testimony of a flip-flopping witness in People of the Philippines vs Feliciano et al. (GR No. 196735, 5/5/14). Allow us to simplify what the high court said in that case: The testimonies of witnesses who heard the victim say he did not know who hit him just moments  after the attack are less believable than the victim’s own testimony months later—never mind if the flip-flop came after confabulating with his lawyers—that he knew who hit him! The opportunity for fabricating a different story, coupled with the opportunity for “coaching” from his lawyers, was as clear as daylight.

The most ludicrous part was what the Court further said: The statement given by the victim to the National Bureau of Investigation four days after the incident was more believable because it was done during an official inquiry before “skilled investigators” compared to those who merely heard his utterances moments after the attack! Where in the vast sea of jurisprudence on the matter does it say that to be more credible, a witness to what a victim says immediately after the incident must be a “skilled investigator”? Was the “child” mentioned in People vs Ner (28 SCRA 1151) such a “skilled investigator” or keen observer?

This flies in the teeth of what well-settled jurisprudence, not to say common sense, tells us: “(The spontaneity of such utterances) is regarded, with a great deal of reason, as a guarantee of (their) truth” … “After everything is said and done, it is clear to us that SERIOUS DOUBTS surround the questioned statement of xxx, especially when viewed in the light of the probability of concoction …” (People vs Sanchez, 210 SCRA 70)

Back to judge Reyes: “Kung ano ang ginagawa sa itaas, ganun din ang gagawin sa ibaba (What’s done at the top, so it is below)î? If the “supreme gods of Padre Faura” can be so imperiously impervious to the dictates of the ordinary man’s common sense, what can the people expect from the “lesser gods” below them? God save this country!

—DINO M. CAPISTRANO,
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