Category: Rules of Court

Rules of Court

Legend Falling

dekada.jpg

Jose “Pinggot” Zulueta. Dekada. Published with express permission from the artist (thanks much!). Asinta images. Right-clicked from www.asinta.netfirms.com

 

      The folkloric Joker Arroyo invoked his own legend as human rights lawyer during the Marcos era, trumpeted his  vaunted courage during that resistance, and proceeded to browbeat the witness, Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada, who was equipped with nothing but his traumatic experience  a week ago in the hands of agents of the state, and his retelling, coming out of it alive and reliving it again, was enough; his remembering came cascading again and it was enough  to shatter the myth that was Joker Arroyo, and the moral of Joker’s  story was: Wait for the historians to tell your legend instead of announcing it time and again else drop with a thud which was the sound of Joker falling, yesterday.                 

       Joker said “Do not trifle with the great writs of liberty…do not cheapen them….” Well, maybe PNP Senior Supt. Paul Mascariñas and his men, after bringing a shaken Jun Lozada at the La Salle dormitory should have stopped hovering around him  and trifling with his right to be secure in  his person; maybe they should have stopped taking him away again and  removing him from the dormitory and trifling with his liberty; maybe they should have stopped making him and his sister sign false affidavits with the use of intimidation, trifling with their free consent.               

            It was at that time when Mascariñas  and his men would not leave them alone and would not stop trifling with their rights that his wife and siblings signed and filed the petitions for the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and writ of amparo, when Jun Lozada was removed from the dormitory and still in the hands of his captors. While the petition for the writ of habeas corpus today may be moot and academic, are the petitioners  expected to just dust their shoulders and consider it  enough consolation that at least the petitioners’ husband/sibling was returned alive? When you had been violated,  and  had survived the transgression, do you just charge it to experience  and “move on”?                 

          Is this how we wrested our liberties from the previous dictatorship?               

        If they have time, maybe the lawyers and their client can think of amending their petitions to include a prayer to declare the forcible taking of Jun Lozada as illegal and unconstitutional,  without prejudice to the filing of criminal actions in better times under a professional and just Department of Justice and Ombudsman.               

     We’re glad we did not grow up to be like Joker: whenever people ask: “How were you able to do that,” we tell them: “It wasn’t us, it was our clients; it had been our privilege to represent them.”         

 

Rules of Court

the evidence

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Alfred Jacob Miller (1810-1874). Fort Laramie. Oil on canvas 1851. GM Gilcrease permanent collection. Right-clicked from www.gilcrease.org searched thru www.artcyclopedia.com

     There is evidence of his (Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada’s) personal knowledge  that  the witness refuses to detail, a first-hand account, and not just overheard phone conversations  or phone conversations told him: The dinner-meeting sometime November-December 2006 at the  Makati Shangrila where FG sat throughout, with then Comelec chair Benjamin  Abalos, Joey de Venecia, Jun Lozada, and an assistant of FG, all arranged by Ben Abalos to show FG that the parties have reconciled their differences. This evidence is first-hand and can be corroborated,; and,  if true,  shows FG’s hand  in the contract-negotiations, if true, in peddling influence, and if true, in helping broker the deal.     

        Because it’s the witness’s life that’s on the line, and because  his life continues to hang in the balance until and after his direct and cross-examination are completely finished in a court of law or in an impeachment trial, and because no guarantees of safety could be completely given to him as long as  those who ordered him seized at the airport are still running around, only the witness has the right to decide how much of his life he would stake by how much he would disclose.     

        He can either save the important details for an impeachment trial  which may or may not come or wait until after 2010 and hope for a new government.  Today, nobody knows for sure how the Senate investigation would go, although you can be sure that the politicians who want to be President in 2010 are milking the most publicity they could  from his life; how many of them would be willing to set aside their ambition and investment for an impeached and convicted President resulting in the Vice President  succeeding for the remainder of the term?     

         Not having his own army, not being a warlord, not having a trove and a bailiwick, he survived the agents of the state solely on his wits and the political pressure created by the storm of the scandal (his family’s embrace  and quick thinking, the nuns’ strength of  faith, the relentlessness of the media, and the vigilance and indignance of concerned organizations).      

           His instincts should probably be trusted should he decide to save the details in an undisclosed affidavit or for an uncertain impeachment trial or a more uncertain  new and upright government.     

          He is holding back. And he will hold back. It is his only insurance  against the dogs of the state, pit bulls. If the Senate investigation does not result in any meaningful change, those dogs will come yapping at his doorstep and drag him out like a piece of meat.     

         Contract-negotiation is an entire process that involves exchanging of drafts and notes, groundwork (one-on-one), (money changing hands in this case), revising terms. He had more of it, evidence of  personal knowledge, but he is waiting for a more certain time.