MANILA, Philippines - Government lawyers asked the Supreme Court yesterday to lift its temporary restraining order (TRO) on the travel ban on Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband Jose Miguel even as the justice department remained firm in barring the former first couple from leaving the country.
On Tuesday, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, saying she had not received the TRO, directed immigration authorities at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to stop Arroyo and her entourage from boarding a plane bound for Singapore.
De Lima wanted to keep the Arroyos in the country to make them stand trial for electoral fraud and plunder. She said on Tuesday she could not implement the TRO without an official copy of the SC order.
“My directive stays,” she told reporters yesterday in an ambush interview after being given an official copy of the TRO at 8:30 am.
Chief Justice Renato Corona, meanwhile, called for a special full court session tomorrow at 11 a.m. to resolve a motion of the Arroyo camp for the rescheduling of oral arguments on a petition contesting the constitutionality of the watchlist order.
The Arroyos had petitioned for a TRO on their inclusion in the DOJ watchlist, citing their constitutional right to travel in the absence of formal charges against them in court.
“It is our view that the TRO clearly has rendered moot and academic the main petition. It’s basic principle that you are not supposed to enjoin something if it renders moot the main petition. The TRO, in effect, bars the WLO (watchlist order) and effectively declares it unconstitutional,” she stressed.
“The issuance of the TRO would allow the travel of petitioners abroad, thus effectively putting them beyond the jurisdiction of the Philippine justice system to which they are subjected as respondents in the non-bailable offenses of plunder and electoral sabotage,” she said.
“With the travel of petitioners abroad, the Philippine state is rendered powerless from compelling them to answer to the criminal complaints and charges against them, and which are already pending disposition at the preliminary investigation stage,” she added. “The great and irreparable injury to the Philippine state of allowing petitioners to evade Philippine criminal jurisdiction over their persons cannot be understated.”
SC warning
The SC, meanwhile, reiterated its warning of legal sanction against D Lima.
“If there’s intentional violation of or non-obedience of a lawful order from the court, that is considered indirect contempt of court,” SC spokesman Midas Marquez told reporters.
He explained that the high court may issue an order requiring the DOJ to explain its defiance motu propio or in response to a motion from the Arroyos.
“We will ask Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and the department officials why they did not comply with the order,” Marquez said.
Citing sections 3, 7 and 8 of Rule 71 of the Rules of Court, the SC official also warned that De Lima and Bureau of Immigration officials may face imprisonment of up to six months and a fine of P30,000 or both.
“I don’t want to preempt what the court will do, but definitely due process will be observed,” he said.
Marquez reiterated that the TRO would be in effect for an indefinite period or until lifted by the court.
He rebuffed De Lima’s argument that the TRO should not be enforced until a decision on the motion for reconsideration is issued.
“Where did she get that? Can you show me jurisprudence on that? Mere filing of MR will not stay execution of TRO. How can the effectivity or enforcement of the decision of the court depend on the. action or inaction of a party? It cannot. Otherwise we will be at the mercy of these parties. That cannot be,” the SC official pointed out. He stressed that the magistrates had already debunked such argument.
“The majority opinion should prevail, and that’s always the case. A dissenting opinion is a minority opinion,” he said.
At Malacañang, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the “premature” issuance of a TRO has denied them due process. “Our position is that the motion for reconsideration is part of the process and the process requires us the opportunity to be heard. It does not make the TRO immediately executory,” Lacierda said in an ambush interview.
Earlier oral argument
With their chances of getting reprieve from the DOJ slim, Rep. Arroyo asked the high court to set the oral arguments on her petition on Nov.18, 19, or 21 instead of the original Nov. 22 schedule.
Through lawyer Estelito Mendoza, Mrs. Arroyo said she needed to immediately seek treatment abroad.
She cited the incident Tuesday night where she was barred from leaving the country despite the SC issuance of a TRO. Mendoza also asked the SC to invite De Lima to attend the oral argument.
“.Petitioner reserves any appropriate remedy which she might have in light of the incident of November 15, 2011, at which respondent Secretary Justice prohibited her from leaving the court,” Mendoza said.
In allowing the Arroyos to travel aboard to seek treatment of the former president’s rare bone disorder, the high court has required them to post a cash bond of P2 million and to appoint a lawyer who will receive subpoenas and other legal documents related to the ongoing investigation into allegations against them.
SC threat shrugged off
BI Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. said he is unfazed by SC’s threat of legal sanction and claimed he is even willing to join his men in jail if cited in contempt.
“I would join them (BI employees) because this is an order of the justice secretary that was given to me, which I only gave to the supervisor and immigration officers. So we are all in the same boat. If there would be an order that we would be imprisoned for a few months, I will join them. I sympathize with the IOs because they were just doing their job,” David said.
He said the Arroyo lawyers should have presented a copy of the TRO to the DOJ directly and not to the immigration people at the NAIA.
“We are just doing our job. This is the instruction of our superiors, which we believe is a lawful order.”
Yesterday, he issued a memorandum informing all immigration officers and personnel at the NAIA that the DOJ directive remains in effect.
In compliance with the DOJ order, David said the BI will “continue preserving the status quo by exhausting all actions to implement the watchlist orders against the Arroyo spouses and to report any attempt by the Arroyo couple to board any commercial or chartered flight to whatever destination outside of the Philippines. Needless to say, they are to be denied boarding in such flights, citing the WLO and this memorandum as bases for such refusal.”
He also discouraged the Arroyos from making another attempt to board an airplane at the NAIA. He said the airlines wouldn’t allow them anyway to board their aircraft.
“If the former president is sick, it would be very strenuous for her to go to the airport only to find out that she would not be allowed because the IO would not place its stamp of approval on her passport. She should not tire herself,” said the BI chief.
The immigration officers took Rep. Arroyo’s passport and turned it over to a superior. “I told them (BI personnel) that they should respect the former president and to treat her with utmost courtesy but not to stamp her passport,” David said. There were four people in the Arroyo entourage.
BI spokesperson Ma. Antonette Bucasas-Mangrobang said the former President and her husband should have followed the example of their eldest son Ang Galing party-list Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo who was granted an allowed departure order or ADO by a Quezon City court hearing his tax evasion case.
It was the DOJ, after receiving the Quezon City court order, that instructed the BI to allow the younger Arroyo to travel to the US.
“This is good because in this case the procedure was followed unlike last Tuesday, they were trying to serve it directly to the Immigration which is not the procedure and our personnel is not authorized or to even look at any court order,” said Mangrobang.
OFWs slam SC
An alliance of Filipino workers, for its part, slammed the SC for allowing the Arroyos to travel abroad.
John Leonard Monterona, Migrante Middle East regional coordinator, said the former president should also be “offloaded” and be barred from leaving the country.
“If some our fellow OFWs and would-be OFWs whose only purpose in going abroad is to earn a living were ‘offloaded’ on their flight by virtue of an immigration anti-trafficking policy, why then the Arroyos who will be facing cases of plunder and election sabotage, among others, are allowed to leave the country?” Monterona said.
Monterona said airport regulations should apply even to former leaders facing possible criminal charges.
He, however, criticized the Aquino government for failing to immediate file criminal charges against the Arroyos.
Militant labor groups, on the one hand, staged protest action outside the SC building yesterday to dramatize their displeasure over the TRO issuance.
“The Pinoy Bonnie and Clyde should not be allowed to escape from facing cases of stealing, cheating and lying. They will not get any sympathy from oppressed workers in their attempt to fly out of the country and out of reach of justice,” members of the Partido ng Manggagawa said in a statement.
But in Davao City, Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte voiced opposition to De Lima’s barring the Arroyos from traveling abroad. He said it’s the Arroyos’ right to travel and seek medical treatment abroad for her ailment.
Meanwhile, Spain’s top diplomat in the Philippines neither confirmed nor denied accepting visa application from the Arroyos.
“We are not allowed to publicize or use any information of the applicant under Spanish law,” ambassador Jorge Domecq said. “Under Spanish law, I’m not entitled to comment on it and the status of an application or whether visa was issued. That is not allowed,” Domecq said. with Pia Lee-Brago, Alexis Romero, Rudy Santos, Edith Regalado, Mayen Jaymalin, and Evelyn Macairan