Double jeopardy

In “DOJ fails anew to secure arrest order vs Trillanes” (9/15/18), it was reported that Judge Elmo Alameda of Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 150, which  is hearing the rebellion case against Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, “admonished” (scolded!)  his lawyer for failing to “produce the original copy of the senator’s application for amnesty.”

In the same issue, we read Solita Monsod commenting in her column (“Judges worth emulating”): “There is double jeopardy here, says the IBP (Integrated Bar of the Philippines). Secondly, how can the Makati RTCs issue a warrant when they already dismissed the cases?”

The rebellion case in RTC Branch 150 and the coup d’état case in RTC Branch 148 had been dismissed since 2011.

More than the technical rules of procedure, has anyone else in the legal profession bothered to use COMMON SENSE, like layperson Monsod has?

Indeed, how can the two RTCs entertain any motion to arrest Trillanes, and more so continue to receive any evidence pertaining to those cases against him which have already been closed, resulting in his acquittal?

Should not those cases be ordered reopened first before those  courts can receive more “evidence”?

That was, incidentally, the subject of our class recitation in remedial law, and everyone, after one hour of back and forth, agreed it was a no-brainer!

So, why are the two RTCs not denying the motions outright and “admonishing” the prosecutors instead to file the appropriate motions to resurrect those cases first?

Obviously, those prosecutors are slinking away from any discussion on double jeopardy, which might delay, derail and defeat President Duterte’s wish to jail Trillanes as fast as possible.

GABRIELLE MICHELLE M. AGUILLERA, [email protected]