CTALK: BENDING NOY'S LINE
MANILA, DECEMBER 20, 2010 (STAR) CTALK By Cito Beltran (photo at left)- While President Noynoy Aquino is busy trying to set things right and chart the straight and narrow course of his administration, there are some people, particularly in the Office of the Solicitor General or OSG, who have no pr oblems bending the Noynoy line.
Rather than follow the spirit of "Ang matuwid na daan" (the straight and narrow road), the OSG has opted to take "Ang mabilis na daan" or the fast lane.
While everyone has been focused on the forgone case of the Vizconde massacre, no one realized that the Office of the Solicitor General had entered into a "Plea bargain agreement" with former AFP comptroller and Major General Carlos Garcia, to plead "guilty" to a lesser charge of direct bribery instead of the P300-million plunder case he was originally charged with.
As a result, Garcia was allowed to post P60,000 bail and walked out of the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame. In return, the OSG claims "the agreement will preserve the assets that are still there to recover, and will prevent the depletion of the properties that the government is going to recover".
This deal entered into by the Office of the Solicitor General is so strange that it raises a lot of questions from people who have read the news reports. Number one question being asked is "Why?"
When the government charged Garcia with plunder, it did so after weeks of publicized reports that Garcia's family members had been stopped by US Customs Agents for unlawful and undeclared possession of thousands and thousand of US dollars. It was the public statements of those detained that pinpointed to Garcia as the true source of the money.
In fact, the reason the OSG made the deal is because it wants to make sure that they get all the money back. So based on the OSG argument there is no denying that Garcia got the money, has the money and committed plunder. So why are they letting Garcia stroll through the park?
Did the OSG even bother to use the famous line: "Show me the money" before signing on the deal? Did the OSG get the cash and property titles back before they signed the plea bargain? Are they now in possession of the money or was the plea bargain another "act of good faith" that the government has to perform before they even get to smell the money?
The even more important question is: Was the plea bargain given presidential approval?
This may be the turf of Justice Secretary Leila De Lima, but considering that the accused was a Major General at the time and that he is probably the biggest fish ever to be caught under the plunder law, plus the fact that the crimes committed relative to the case occurred in the United States and the Philippines, any act of bending the rules or the law at this level should receive presidential clearance.
This is probably the reason why the former Ombudsman and former Solicitor General Simeon Marcelo publicly stated that he would bring the matter to the President. Apparently Marcelo believes that the deal never reached Malacañang.
I fully appreciate that the current bosses at the OSG are being conservative and would rather bring closure to a "sure" win that could bring back money to the government and promotions to the people at the OSG.
But a "sure" win, and having money in our hands is not equivalent to attaining justice. Winning a lesser case does not preserve the sanctity of the law, it prostitutes it.
The government went to court and charged a man with plunder. By plea-bargaining the charge to direct bribery, the government has effectively said they made a mistake or can't win the case!
The practice of plea-bargaining is something that our lawyers in the Philippines should seriously study in theory and in practice before applying them to real life cases. Plea-bargaining is supposed to be a tool for "operational relief" or to create an actual win-win situation.
In the United States the two visible applications of plea-bargaining rests on the crime or violation being of a less serious nature and the offender not being a serious threat to society. So under the right circumstance you "give the person a break".
The second reason is to relieve the Judiciary of its overload or backlog of cases that could be done by focusing on the more serious, violent, or destructive criminals with the capacity or tendency to repeat their crimes.
Finally, the plea bargain pre-supposes that the criminal or the accused would ultimately be punished sufficiently for his violation and the offended party would have received justice.
In the case of Major General and Comptroller Carlos Garcia who was charged with plunder of P300 million, you have a senior officer of the Armed Forces, given the additional trust and authority of Comptroller who violated the code of conduct of the AFP, violated the trust given as Comptroller and plundered the peoples' money.
Do 90 million Filipinos receive justice from this plea bargain made by the Office of the Solicitor General? Does the plea bargain give justice to soldiers who suffer and die in combat because they don't have enough equipment or logistical support resulting from acts of corruption in the past?
As I try to finish this article I am reminded of the Marine motto "Semper Fi" meaning "always faithful". A US Marine named Cam beck posted: "It is not negotiable, it is not relative, it is absolute".
Perhaps, our government lawyers should embrace their own code, something they live by but may not have realized: "It is not about the money, it is all about the law."
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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