Would-be laughingstock

Whether former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should be allowed to go abroad to seek medical treatment despite several high-profile plunder and election cheating charges she’s facing is a question that obviously involves constitutional and legal issues that in the end may have to be resolved by the Supreme Court. While most of her supporters and defenders invoke the freedom of travel and abode that is enshrined in the Constitution, the powers and prerogatives of the state to ensure that the justice system operates credibly and firmly should also be given thoughtful consideration. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima defended the government’s position thus: “To have [our legal system] depend on faith and on the goodwill of the defendant/respondent is to make our criminal justice system the laughingstock of the entire world.”

The Department of Justice has thus denied Arroyo’s request for an allow-departure order so she can seek medical care abroad. The DOJ has put the former president, now a representative of Pampanga, in its watch-list order (WLO) based on DOJ Administrative Circular 41 which limits a person’s right to travel “in the interest of national security, public safety or public health.” The rules say that an allow-departure order must be based on “some exceptional reason.” De Lima said Arroyo’s medical condition is not the life-and-death case that qualifies as an “exceptional reason.”

Besides, Arroyo has given disparate versions of her condition. Initially, her doctor certified that she had “metabolic bone disease.” But another doctor recommended later a bone biopsy first to determine whether or not she had the disease. Days later, another doctor’s medical abstract didn’t mention it at all. And a little later, her doctors were talking of another problem, hypoparathyroidism.

Moreover, for someone who purports to be sick, Arroyo has presented an itinerary abroad that would daunt even Superman. She has scheduled non-medical meetings in New York for the Clinton Global Initiative, and in Geneva for the International Commission against the Death Penalty. How can someone so sick have the energy to attend those meetings? In addition, for someone seeking medical treatment, Arroyo seems to be going on an intercontinental tour as she lists a wide variety of countries—Italy, Austria, Singapore, Germany and Spain—all of which do not have an extradition treaty with the Philippines. Her itinerary is a tourist’s itinerary, not a medical patient’s.

The government has therefore serious reasons to doubt Arroyo’s real reasons for traveling abroad.

But the Bill of Rights says, “Neither shall the right to travel be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety or public health, as may be provided by law.” However, as former UP Law dean and Inquirer columnist Raul Pangalangan pointed out, in the past the high court upheld the power of the Presidential Commission on Good Government to issue hold-departure orders against “persons [who are] known or suspected to be involved” as Marcos cronies. In addition, the Court, citing “public safety,” also upheld the power of the labor secretary to issue a deployment ban or to regulate the deployment of migrant Filipino workers.

But of course, in upholding the powers of the executive agencies in regulating the right to travel, the Court cited their charters on which those powers are said to be incumbent or suggested. In Arroyo’s case, the bone of contention appears to be the legal and constitutional validity of the WLO system itself. The WLO was issued by the DOJ purportedly pursuant to its Administrative Circular 41 (which the Arroyo administration itself issued). The circular is meant to implement the second clause of the Constitution limiting a person’s right to travel “in the interest of national security, public safety or public health.” But some legal pundits question whether the DOJ can issue a WLO based only on an administrative circular because the Constitution itself uses the phrase “as may be provided by law.” The word “law” definitely means an enactment of Congress and not an administrative circular.

Arroyo has the right to seek medical treatment anywhere, but this should be balanced by the state’s right and duty to ensure that the justice system works credibly and effectively. If she is allowed to leave the country and then refuses to return to face the charges against her, then the justice system will be left holding wretched stalks of embarrassment—and could indeed end up the laughingstock of the entire world.