Amen! (3)

By now you all know that former President Joseph Estrada was found guilty of plunder. I was going to comment on the events that happened since the verdict, particularly on what's been said in many quarters. However, my thoughts were exactly captured by the Inquirer's editiorial today. Usually I just give the link when I make one of my Amen! posts, but this editorial merits a full paste.
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Legal Insanity
Philippine Daily Inquirer Editorial, 17 September 2007

MANILA, Philippines - Those who choose to view the Estrada verdict as a half-empty glass of dubious water are not doing the country any favors. Yes, other plunderers continue to roam the land. Yes, Mr. ex-Marcos justice minister Estelito Mendoza, other public officials continue to rake in enormous amounts of commissions from jueteng, and plunder cases can be filed against them. (Would you like to start the ball rolling?) And yes, certain scandals since Joseph Estrada fled Malacañang call for the most severe legal accounting.

But do these extraneous facts diminish Estrada’s guilt one whit?

Lawyers who think so are indulging a form of legal insanity. They taint the legal process with innuendo or outright contempt, unmindful of or uncaring about their impact on the rule of law itself. What do they want to do, run themselves out of a job?

As we have said time and again, both the Arroyo administration and the Estrada camp have sought to politicize the plunder trial. But the conduct of the Sandiganbayan justices themselves and their measured decision prove that the anti-graft court’s Special Division confined itself to the facts and the law of the case at hand.

To be sure, the stature of the principal defendant was not lost on the justices; the decision unfailingly refers to him as “FPres. Estrada,” apparently a new honorific. And as we saw on live television, the division’s three justices were ready to allow Estrada’s continued detention, pending final conviction, in his Tanay, Rizal rest house even before his defense counsel raised the possibility (or even after Estrada lawyer Rene Saguisag pandered to the off-site gallery by declaring, airily, that his client did not want special treatment). But we do not believe the rule of law suffered when the former president was accorded these minor courtesies.

It needs to be stressed: the court’s independence, as evidenced in its decision, is triumph enough. Its well-tempered decision on the plunder case, however, is a true legal landmark.

Those who insist that Estrada’s guilt is contingent on the sins, perceived or real, of the Arroyo administration are preaching a false and cynical faith. Not because these sins do not exist; they do, and the administration’s continuing refusal to testify in Congress about various scandals is the surest proof that it has something to hide. But because those who insist are attacking the very rule of law they claim to defend.

To use an unsavory but necessary analogy: Do we stop ourselves from pursuing a case against a rapist, because other rapists have gone scot-free or because other rapes have not been reported? This is not legal realism, or even the realpolitik of law; this is “weather-weather” defeatism, a cynic’s formula for anarchy.

Other plunderers roam the land? Then let’s throw the book at them too. The good thing is, now we can apply the vital lessons learned from the Estrada plunder trial.
Perhaps first on the list: Involve private lawyers in the preparation and the prosecution. Private law firms can bring otherwise unavailable financial resources and litigation expertise to bear on the case, complementing the work of government prosecutors.

Support government lawyers to the hilt, not least in the matter of which state witnesses to use (necessarily a decision with political considerations). Over-prove the charges, not only through the use of incontrovertible documentary evidence but also through redundant corroborative testimony. And while landing a Chavit Singson is both distasteful but necessary, build the real case with the help of a Clarissa Ocampo—upstanding witnesses with unimpeachable credibility.

It’s tough work—and therefore all the more reason to praise the government prosecutors led by Dennis Villa-Ignacio (and spearheaded once upon a time by then-Solicitor General Simeon Marcelo). Tough and—if you listen to the snide Saguisag—fundamentally thankless. Estrada’s lawyers believe they had a monopoly not only on the truth of the case but even on sincerity of conviction. It is our duty to disabuse them of their final illusion.