Passport to hell and back (pardon the language)

 Vincent Balandra, “Untitled”, Oil on Canvas, 91 x 60 cms., 2002 Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art. Rightclicked and downloaded with express permission (thanks much!) from the webmaster at www.kulay-diwa.com         

       Lawyer-client conference: “Nasa  ‘yo ba  ‘yung passport ni Jun Lozada?” (“Is Jun Lozada’s passport with you?”), and the rest is now  attorney-client privilege, for that must have been how the lawyer came into possession  of  the passport he returned:  Yesterday morning,  SPO4 Rodolfo  Valeroso’s lawyer returned  Jun Lozada’s passport  to him in court  [was it in open court? If it wasn’t marked in evidence: marking it (with the important sub-markings of course; sometimes it’s the submarkings that tell the story) would have been a high point of the proceeding.]           

         As i understand it, the lawyer  returned it  and people were grateful or felt vindicated.  Maybe it wasn’t necessary to squeeze  or shake down the other party’s (Valeroso)  possession as, i think, it is a res ipsa loquitor (the thing speaks for itself), his client’s possession  of the passport by itself without explanation is incriminating enough. It is also corroborative and i’ll leave the other lawyers to illustrate the  corroboration; by this blog’s count, it is the third  batch of corroborating evidence coming from government officials, this blog has a series on  it (corroborating) in this case and we haven’t  even gone into  a  “hypothetical discussion”  of the alleged wiretapped conversation posted in youtube; maybe tomorrow.           

          Some other lawyer who’s ruthless and not content with  writing it in the pleading,  would want the judge  to literally see with his/her own eyes the argument unravel or spelled out,  even if technically it doesn’t become part of the evidence, he’d/she’d make the lawyer invoke privilege, the ruthless will ask three or four questions on the manner of taking to make opposing counsel invoke privilege.           

           I know that would be rude to pañero who did the lawyerly  honourable thing by returning the passport. But i like to illustrate how ridiculous the defenses are. (the morning proceding is over,  so i guess it’s alright to write about it, it’s been more than 12 hours .)      

        Pañero could say, (if he doesn’t want  to invoke  privilege) “your honor, his   client gave it to my client and my client didn’t know how to return it” or something to that effect. Privilege and right against  self-incrimination  may shield Valeroso and lawyer from being forced to answer questions but it is  a PR disaster and politically makes the person “look guilty” (i know.  A refusal to answer does not get into evidence but let them invoke it). Do you know why President Gloria never expressly invoked any of these even at the height of the Hello Garci controversy? I’ll explain it in person, i don’t like to blog about that detail.        

          (for chrissake sake, sila naman ang ipitin.)              

        An explanation on the other hand (“his client gave it to my client… etc.”) opens up the other side  to more questions, once they open a door, opposing counsel and the court are entitled to ask more questions on a topic they had opened.   (Anyway it’s over, i can write about it.) 

         I’ll be darned if somebody walked away with “murder”.