Seeing the start of judiciary activism - GOTCHA by Jarius Bondoc

A swallow does not a summer make. But does a solitary Supreme Court decision signal a coming wave of reform? Lawyers concerned about a deteriorating judiciary are hopeful it does – in the dismissal of Court of Appeals Justice Demetrio Demetria for case meddling.

The decision came as a whiff of fresh air in the stench of judiciary corruption and incompetence. Far too long have militant lawyers cried for crackdown on hoodlums in robes. Their clients have gotten so used to justice for sale to highest bidders. Judges and justices cover for each other’s wrongdoings in an old schoolboy network. State prosecutors either leave the public service demoralized or learn to live with – and play – the dirty game. Others in the justice system – police, jail and prison officers – have lost faith in it and thus take the law into their own hands. But then came the unprecedented. For cajoling a state prosecutor to twist a case two years ago, Demetria was set as an example by the Supreme Court. The Tribunal sacked Demetria this week in the belief that a justice must comport himself within the strictest rules of the Code of Judicial Conduct.

The example sends shivers down the spine of lower justices and judges. If the Supreme Court could do it to an appellate justice, how much more to them who have yet to enter the inner core of the schoolboy club? Yet it’s not as if a judiciary clean-up is a new thing. Ever since he rose to Chief Justice in 1998, Hilario Davide has set a wave of disciplinary moves against extortionate and inadequate members of the bench. Aided by Court Administrator Alfredo Benipayo, now Comelec chief, Davide has fired or suspended close to two dozen regional and metropolitan court judges. Three of them were caught red-handed taking bribes from an Angeles City litigant whom they already had mulcted before.

Demetria, however, is the highest ever to get the axe. His example, although merely administrative, will thus be farther-reaching. Even the Ombudsman, who had earlier dismissed the accompanying criminal case against Demetria, has been put on notice. He knows it. Reacting to news of Demetria’s sacking, he said he will welcome any new criminal suit from the Department of Justice based on the Supreme Court’s findings.

Demetria’s case will have direct bearing, too, on judges. The Tribunal found that he tried to influence a state prosecutor to withdraw a petititon to inhibit a Manila court judge. The judge, and another Manila colleague, had a record among court employees and narcotics agents of freeing drug lords on the slighest technicality. The prosecutor was afraid the same would happen to the biggest female drug lord ever arrested; thus, the petition to inhibit. Enter Demetria, a former boss and acting justice secretary. But the prosecutor was adamant. Later that day, Demetria called the prosecutor’s chief with specific instructions to tear up the petition. Judges who think they can get away with favoring drug lords will now have to think twice. Their protectors in higher office are no longer exempt from the long arm of the law.

Militant lawyers are jubilant that the Tribunal’s decision came in the heels of an equally sensational case. Quezon City Judge Lucas Bersamin a week earlier had sentenced to death a police colonel and nine subordinates for releasing two Taiwanese drug lords upon payment of bribe. The ruling stemmed from a new amendment to the Death Penalty Law: It is now a heinous crime for a policeman to commit qualified bribery; worse, if found guilty, the policeman is to suffer the penalty for the crime of the briber – in this case, death for drug-trafficking.

The colonel is the highest PNP officer in recent history to face swift justice. Judges have a reputation for freeing officers either out of sympathy for their plight in the difficult job of fighting crime, or for future favors. But not for Bersamin, and equally stern Quezon City Judge Diosdado Peralta, who have a reputation for upholding the law, no matter how harsh, and with no fear or favor.

The Bersamin and Supreme Court rulings had lawyers’ circles and law schools talking excitedly about a rise in judiciary activism. The cry of People Power-II was for justice. Millions marched to EDSA-II not so much to bring down a President than to put an end to a system of justice that members of both bench and bar themselves had eroded into a system of injustice. Filipinos witnessed its worst in Joseph Estrada’s impeachment trial. Defense lawyers twisted the rules of procedure any which way to suit their purposes. Lawyer-congressmen from Estrada’s party, too, twisted congressional proceedings to quash the impeachment, though in vain. Lawyer-senators from Estrada’s party also displayed bias as impeachment judges against prosecution witnesses. A public long abused by injustice witnessed its peak when 11 senator-judges loyal to Estrada defied common sense – and the law is common sense – to trash evidence of his P3.2-billion secret bank account.

When the throngs at EDSA and elsewhere sent Estrada abdicating, the cry for justice did not subside. It merely changed its objective, but not its intensity, from his impeachment to his jailing and trial for plunder. Corollarily, it widened in scope, not only for justice against Estrada but against the Marcoses as well. Also against all cronies, grafters high and low, incompetent officials, and executioner-policemen. And, of course, against hoodlums in robes.

As lawyers rejoice the signs of judiciary activism, they also sadly recall the plight of Cebu Judge Martin Ocampo. Forlorn in his quest for upright conduct in the judiciary, the judge took his own life as if to dramatize the seeming futility of his cause. But the lawyers also draw lessons from the US experience, when Chief Justice Earl Warren, though never to be confirmed by Congress to his exalted position, had also led judiciary activism during his time. It was he who boldly declared, and set state supreme courts following his example, of fighting racial segregation.

Yet there are those who are not convinced that judiciary activism has arrived to trigger a wave of reforms. Still fresh in the minds of pessimists are the "Dear Raul" letters of Supreme Court justices 12 years back. Then-Tanodbayan Raul Gonzalez had exposed several justices who twisted his arm on corruption cases against high officials, for which they punished him with disbarment. Also still fresh in memory is how a chief justice of 16 years back would carry the umbrella and luggage of a travelling first lady. And the messy bar exam conducted by a justice who retired recently brought to recollection a similar case 18 years back. Long past as the sad experiences may be, lawyers who are jaded in the bad workings of the courts can’t see change coming fast. More so if they argue that five of the 15 Supreme Court justices are Estrada appointees. Still others accuse the Tribunal of grievous error in sentencing the venerable Bienvenido Tan to prison for a decision he made as BIR chief in 1989. (Others maintain that Tan’s oly mistake was to lawyer for himself, a no-no in legal tradition.)

Yet the Supreme Court had redeemed itself recently when it voted 13-0, with two justices inhibiting, that Estrada is no longer President. Estrada may have appealed his case for reconsideration, and the justices may have given him another chance to argue it. But lawyers feel the final judgment will come soon, and to the nation’s satisfaction.

Still, any cry for justice is also for immediacy. Pessimists suspect that something’s amiss in the indefinite period justices gave themselves to rule on the matter of grave national interest. Thus, they’re watching the Supreme Court closely.

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