DOJ chief: Echegaray kin entitled to P20,000 compensation

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said yesterday the family of convicted rapist Leo Echegaray can claim a maximum of P20,000 in compensation from the government, if the Supreme Court indeed committed a judicial error in affirming Echegaray’s death sentence in 1999, as Chief Justice Artermio Panganiban had claimed in a recent speech.

However, Gonzalez said Echegaray’s family could not sue the justices who voted to execute Echegaray by lethal injection because the state cannot be sued without its consent. The justices, in ruling on Echegeray’s case, represented the Supreme Court, one of the three branches of government.

Speaking at the weekly Newsmakers Breakfast Forum at the Manila Pavilion in Manila, Gonzalez said the family of Echegaray can file a petition for claims of compensation before the Board of Claims, and get a maximum of P20,000 in compensation as provided by law.

"Just go to the Board of Claims," he said.

"Even before the decision of Echegaray’s case, we already had a law on that. That is why we have the Board of Claims. Persons who are victims of injustice, like those who are unjustly detained, can claim compensation amounting to a maximum of P20,000."

Gonzalez said although he does not see Panganiban’s statement as "unethical," he does not understand why he would claim the Supreme Court committed a judicial error in Echegaray’s case.

"We should appreciate it," he said.

"The Chief Justice is always against the death penalty law. The only thing there is why did he still have to say it and open the wound felt by the victims and Echegaray’s family.

"It is not binding to the Supreme Court. I don’t see anything there, but to underscore that the Chief Justice admits that there was a mistake," Gonzalez said.

He said the compensation of P10 million for the Echegaray family that was proposed by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. is a big amount that would require congressional action.

"It has to pass Congress," he said.

In a recent speech at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, Panganiban said the Supreme Court erred in affirming the death penalty against Echegaray because it was not proven in court that Echegaray was the father of the rape victim.

It was not proven during the trial that Echegaray was the victim’s father, stepfather or grandfather, he added.

Panganiban said Echegaray should not have been executed, but instead given life imprisonment because Republic Act 7659 or the Death Penalty Law prescribes capital punishment for rape perpetrated by the common-law spouse of the parent of the victim, a qualifying circumstance that was not alleged in the complaint.

"Echegaray’s penalty should have been reduced to reclusion perpetua," he said.

"In (the case of) People of the Philippines vs Gallo, the court belatedly reduced the penalty to reclusion perpetua even though the decision meting out death had already become final," he said.

Panganiban said since Echegaray is now "in the Great Beyond, a correction of the judicial error can no longer resurrect him.

"I believe that the surreal outcome of this case reinforces the strongest reason why the death penalty has no place in our statute books," he said.

"After the execution of the appellant, errors in its imposition become nightmarishly irreversible."

Gonzalez said considering that Panganiban’s statement was merely his opinion, it is not binding on the Supreme Court.

"It shows that, as the Chief Justice said, he feels he is the minority in the court, so that will show that the court is not a one-man rule," he said.

Panganiban had dissented on the SC ruling against Echegaray.

Gonzalez said he does not believe that Panganiban’s statement has damaged the integrity of the High Tribunal as an institution.

"I don’t think so," he said. "In the first place, the members of the court now are not those who affirmed the Echegaray case.