Fr. Reyes goes to jail

He couldn’t wait any longer for the police to serve him the arrest warrant for libel. So yesterday noon, Fr. Robert Reyes turned himself in to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).

Last Thursday, Quezon City regional trial court Branch 100 judge Normandy Pizarro issued the warrant after the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office recommended that the priest be prosecuted for allegedly libeling former Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile and his son, Cagayan Rep. Jackie Enrile.

"The court people told me the warrant is in the mail," said the priest moments before a policeman in blue uniform handcuffed him and walked him to the gray BJMP prisoners’ bus that would take him to the Quezon City jail from the detention pen at the city’s Hall of Justice.

He wore a tight-fit maroon shirt, slacks and a pair of sandals. On his back, he carried a pack that contained what he would need for a few days of stay in jail. A gaggle of television crew, photojournalists and reporters swarmed around him as he made for the bus with an escort of policemen.

For Reyes, known as the "running priest" for his unique brand of advocacy, the case is more than a mere matter of libel. The Enriles sued him after what he said in an interview with the TV program "Extra, Extra" about the yet unresolved case of his nephew, Ernest Robert Lucas, who was shot dead Sept. 21, 1975 while attending a party at San Lorenzo Village in Makati City organized by Ateneo and St. Scholastica students. Jackie Enrile, an Atenean, had been linked to the shooting of Lucas, a student from Letran. At that time, Reyes was a 20-year old first year seminary student.

Reyes was taken to the office of Superintendent Emilio Culang Jr., the city jail warden. "He’ll be safe here," said the warden. "We’ll take good care of him. But Fr. Reyes is really no stranger in these quarters, having been a volunteer chaplain for the inmates for some years now."

He had already received pointers from a prominent jail "graduate", UP fraternity man Raymund Narag, who was recently acquitted by the Quezon City regional trial court of murder for the fraternity-related death of Sigma Rhoan Dennis Venturina. "I now call you my kosa," Narag told the priest Thursday.

Narag had spent almost seven years in jail before his acquittal. While in jail, he helped organize the prisoners, and became himself, a mini-mayor, or a leader among leaders of inmates. The young man, who belonged to the Scintilla Juris fraternity, is now a staunch anti-fraternity violence advocate. And he keeps old ties with the Quezon City Jail, which has close to 2,000 inmates.

He had prepared a warm welcome for the priest at the city jail. "I’ve already asked my friends there to get Reyes the best bunk available," he said.

Yesterday, Reyes became the 21st inmate at the Barangay Roxas detention cell. He did not have the honor of being the first priest to be detained at the jail because for sometime now, another priest, Fr. Macario Apuya, has been staying in the same detention cell.

Fr. Apuya, a member of the Society of the Divine Word, is accused of raping a 15-year old minor in his parish convent in the North.

Apuya gave Reyes a welcome hug as the UP Parish priest stepped inside the cell, which is also home to five members of the UP Scintilla Juris fraternity members convicted of murder in the Venturina case. "They are my parishioners," said Reyes, who was assigned an upper bunk.

He said he would be spending a few days in jail before posting a P10,000 bail. "I’m here as a sign of protest against our unjust justice system," he said, adding that he would spend his time in jail fasting.

He will have to bail himself out – his parishioners have already raised the money – because he has a dissertation to defend this coming Friday for a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the state university. But even his dissertation could get him into more legal trouble.

The academic work, which has now grown into a 300-page tome, minus the attachments, is his own ethnography of his activist work as the priest who runs miles to get his message across. He starts his dissertation by looking back to that night when his nephew was shot as the fateful event that opened his eyes to the reality of injustice.

"Twenty seven years later, my memory of that event continues to haunt me," he said. "This is about justice you see." The dissertation, written in Filipino, is really a study on running as a process of discovering one’s self and as a discourse of advocacy.