Rebellion?
Saturday, December 1st, 2007Rebellion?
Suppose Group X is a small number of Makati hotel. Let us grant that this was exactly what happened at Manila Peninsula
military officers and enlisted personnel whose cases in a civilian court have
to be heard by the cognizant regional trial court on a scheduled day. In the middle of the hearing, the
respondents, walk out of the court room and proceeded to a nearby hotel. Before such walk out, the third-party who
took custody of them did not shoot at the judge, the fiscal or any enforcement
authority there present much less issued what may constitute as grave threats. In other words, the court has not done any
action whatsoever that could have reasonably pre-empted their act that made it
easy for them to proceed from the court to a nearby
Hotel when news broke that there was a lightning ‘coup d etat’.
Soon after AFP and
PNP to conduct assault Camp Crame , whatever. As this is happening, PGMA has to appear on
the incident, Malacanang sent troops in V-150s, armored personnel carriers
(APCs), and more special forces than necessary from the
operations if after the deadline set by government, the personages who holed
themselves up will not voluntarily surrender to the authorities. As it did in fact happened, the government
troops cordoned the whole hotel complex and the V-150 has to break in the
hotel’s lobby and troops have to give a volley of fire to clear the lobby
area. Then, troops have to lob a lot of
‘tear gas explosions’ to compel the suspected group to come out. To cut a long story short, those holed up in
the hotel offered no resistance and were forced to surrender themselves to the
apprehending police or military. Thus,
they were taken out, handcuffed, or tied and ferried to a bus for tactical
interrogation at
nationwide TV threatening to punish them to the fullest extent of the law.
And thus, AFP and
PNP have to arrest everybody to even get at that person or persons who may have no Dr. Francisco Nemenzo , other civil-rights Dean Nemenzo to get himself arrested
the inquest proceedings have all been built under the trumped-up charges of
rebellion and inciting to rebellion against those who are alleged to have
participated even merely present in the premises when the event occurred. Ironically, not few media people were
arrested likewise. The reason officially given is that of intelligence reports
saying that the Magdalo soldiers pass themselves off as media people so as to
elude arrest. Thus, the
participation, in any way, to what they conveniently automatically label as a
coup d etat, or in this case, rebellion. Thus, a bishop, a political scientist in the person of
lawyers were not spared the whip. It
should be the first time for
although whenever a coup is hoisted, he is always at the scene of the crime, matter-of-factly.
The State Prosecutor from the Atty. Velasco who does not seem to know where his left hand is from his right. In fact, had every word, voice or sound in VCD . Certainly, every student of law knows that Atty. Velasco pales in comparison. The result was
Department of Justice presided over the inquest proceedings. The lawyers of the accused, some of them
lawyers themselves, and their collaborating counsels who made their appearances
as respondents were called one by one. A lot of things can be said of how the proceedings came about. It was baroque, grotesque, bizarre, absurd –
even a total shame – on the part of that DOJ panel headed by
the entire proceedings been captured in the later transcript or journal, it
should make for an interesting reading. I would have wanted to have a copy of the minutes of the proceedings or
a copy of its
the inquest or mock trial has miserably failed to show any sign of proof of
probable cause largely because the charge cited in the complaint is totally
bereft of any degree of truth in it or so because the private counsels of the
respondents were the top-caliber lawyers that they are who would know
everything about law. And sadly,
clear – it weakened the government position against those they arrested and charged
for such offense.
Since the whole inquest proceedings midnight and that their (DOJ) resolution will
have everything complete – the accused and their accusers – and considering
further the fact that it is televised nationwide, it simply behooves upon the
DOJ Panel to have successfully brought the matter to a close except that it
failed. Thus, the last thing a viewing
universe understands is that – it was suspended at about past
be forthcoming – “as soon as possible” – and not even before seven (7) a.m. the
day after, which runs counter to Atty. Velasco’s earlier pronouncement. I have great reservations on the manner the
whole affair has been conducted. Here we
find a State Prosecutor unable to communicate in the official language which in
this case, is the English language. Here
we find a State Prosecutor, caught with his pants down, on what should have
been basic and elementary knowledge of law but he was clearly ignorant
about. This was on the matter of having
to detain the persons accused beyond the 36-hour reglamentary period. Here we find a State Prosecutor who keeps on
uttering the phrase – “thank you very much, panero” – countless times in the
process and who always begs for the understanding of the defense counsels of
the accused, individually and collectively. In short, in a scale of 1 to 10, the government and taxpayers paid for
the services of a State Prosecutor who may be better off shooting mock-up
targets in a shooting range. He probably
best qualifies as a range officer in a shooting range. All told, it was a faux pas, a comedy of
errors.
