The Tolentino blunder / The Down syndrome

We thought we had heard the last of that irascible and intemperate woman, Amelita Tolentino, a Regional Trial Court judge whose temper in a courtroom had the choler and character of a runaway cyclone. Remember her? She was the judge in the Vizconde massacre trial, she with the screaming voice, the overblown ego that brooked no opposition, and the gavel that fell on proceedings like a thunderclap. Well, Judge Tolentino has just been appointed to the Court of Appeals at the eloquent instance of the Judicial and Bar Council, a body with the probity of a bent crowbar.

I have in my time tilted with Judge Amelita Tolentino whose rages are legend in judicial lore. I was thrilled when the case against the three criminals who stormed my residence November 1995 (with two ringleaders who have mysteriously disappeared) and threatened me and my family with death, hogtied everybody in the house, was assigned to her sala a number of years ago. This was when she was still the trial judge in the Vizconde murder case when it was in its last phase. I, of course, attended the preliminary hearing on the hostage-robbery case involving the three criminals. I had to met her face to face.

When she called out my name, among others, in her usual peremptory way without probably knowing I was in attendance, I stood bolt upright. She gave me a mincing, quavering look as I fixed her a stare which was as wicked and malevolent as I could manage at the time. I intensely disliked her. Result? Judge Amelita Tolentino dropped the case, and assigned it to another sala. I never saw her again thereafter until the day she rendered her verdict on the Vizconde massacre. It was a verdict that took more than an hour to read, littered with bones and skeletons of scrawny, self-serving legal logic, and of course I rapped her for it.

She went abroad on a long vacation and since then I have forgotten about Judge Amelita Tolentino.

Now in an open letter published just days ago in several metropolitan broadsheets, lawyer Mario E. Ongkiko, Rene A.V. Saguisag, Florente Arceo-Bautista and Jose Luis V. Agcaoili have taken aim at the Court of Appeals appointment of Judge Tolentino – and of course drawn blood. Gahd, the gall of this woman! The four lawyers aver that "unable to moderate her ambitions, evincing conduct unbecoming, she applied for a seat in the Supreme Court, directly, in her letter dated November 15, 2000 addressed to the JBC!" And then again, the press blurbs on her appointment said Tolentino passed the 1968 bar exams with a rating of 91.5 percent. The truth? She only got a grade of 77.5 percent, according to the quartet of lawyers who defended Hubert Webb.

If only for that, Judge Amelita Tolentino hardly deserves any promotion. In fact, she deserves censure. A judge who prevaricates and perjures shames the entire judiciary. But then, of course, what are we talking about? Our judicial system today has never fallen so low in the public esteem, particularly the Court of Appeals where, it seems, misfits litter the landscape. This Court has yet to recover from the ruling of one of its divisions which dropped the curtains on the Kuratong Baleleng massacre case which – unless reversed by the Supreme Court – allows Sen. Panfilo Lacson to go permanently scot-free. The supreme effrontery of this court!

This same court has remained silent – a scandalous silence I must say – on why to this day because of its interference, not a single Aquila Legis convicted felon has been imprisoned for the brutal fraternity slay in 1992 (or was that 1990?) of Ateneo law neophyte Lenny Villa.

How did Judge Amelita Tolentino get her Court of Appeals seat? According to the four aforementioned lawyers, she is a townswoman (Lubao) of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who may not have known about the "horror stories" stored mid-stream in her judicial career. It is also mentioned that Rep. Peter Cayetano "now sits in the JBC where his father, Sen. Renato Cayetano, used to." Well! Sorry, Rene, my friend, but you remain vivid in my mind as the private prosecutor during the Vizconde trial who attended prime witness Jessica Alfaro – a drug addict and a liar – with the meticulous care and extravagant punctilio normally reserved for the Princess of Wales or the Duchess of Windsor. You were such a hound for publicity, Mr. Senator, and, forgive me, you still are.

Concludes the quartet: "There must be a better way of vetting aspirants to the bench if we are to strengthen the faith of our people in our administration of justice . . . Judge Tolentino’s appointment puts a premium on judicial incompetence and the padrino system. May God save our courts from megalomaniac misfits!"

To all that, I say: Amen.

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It’s high time I apologized to the Down Syndrome Association of the Philippines for that undeserved and unfortunate remark I made about mongoloids sometime ago. I was then raging in a column about narco-politics where I said our justice system was "supine as a wretched mongoloid baby is supine in its deformity and helplessness." Winston A. Maxino, president of Down Syndrome, wrote:

"Although children with Down Syndrome (formerly offensively referred to as mongoloids) have low muscle tones they are not deformed or wretched as would be that "stinking" and "revolting" to justify the correlation with the narco-state that we dread to have. On the contrary, they are found to be very educable, sociable, cute, affectionate, employable, mobile and definitely not a menace to society.

"If only we all have the fine qualities of these special children – that of innocence and incapability to do harm – our society would have been a lot better. It is these finer qualities of these special children that we, who are supposed to be from a superior mold, ought to be made of. Children with Down Syndrome can be as great citizens as any one of us. Just as they can come to any couple – rich or poor, black or white, young and old, Asian or western, they are, just like any of us, human beings too. They seek our every praise and encouragement. They seek our very compassion and understandings."

To make sure I didn’t miss the point, the Down Syndrome Association had a four-year-old boy, Andie Cruz, write me a letter, better still sign a letter the Down Syndrome leaders must have crafted and written in his behalf, replete with pictures of the kid having fun at a beachhouse. Okay, okay, you didn’t have to go this far, gents and mesdames, using the kid to bazooka your message. Andie, I am sure, at his age, cannot recite the alphabet, much less pen a missive in perfect English.

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There has been some hue and cry against ABS-CBN – a house ad actually – for exploiting the current hullabaloo about drugs, and utilizing a little impoverished boy to criticize media, civil society and everybody else for jumping into the fray. In effect, the little boy says: You are all wasting your time, quarreling and feuding and fault-finding. You have forgotten us, the very poor. We cannot even eat. My father has no job. It’s time you remembered us, attended to us, extricated us from crushing poverty.

I agree that house ad was hypocritical and pretentious.

If ABS-CBN really endeavored to give meat and muscle to its house ad, then it should stop all coverage of the biggest issue in town – the narco controversy. The issue of poverty is absolutely alien to the narco hullabaloo, which continues to roil society, the entire nation, all layers of society. This is understandable. Not one single issue has so frightened the citizenry, disturbed parents and soared into a mushroom cloud of agitated debate and discussion. The truth is that the nation is in fear. Not even the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Philippines for four years had stirred the heart as much or drawn this kind of doomsday scenario. And I talk from experience, having fought during the Second World War. At least then, we knew the Americans were coming back, that Douglas MacArthur would make good his word that we would be liberated. Shall the day ever come when we will be freed from the drug menace?

I hope ABS-CBN is for its own sake as a major media establishment – which has made quite a name for itself – withdraws that ad. It ain’t kosher at all.

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It seems our Fund Campaign for Justice has slowed down to a trickle. We have so far a last contribution of P5,000, a check from "a close friend of Pilar Benigno" (who is my younger sister) residing in Iloilo City. There is such a thing as donor fatigue. And that fatigue is understandable for the trial of Joseph Estrada et al. for plunder and other crimes by the Sandiganbayan has gathered dust, cobwebs, stalagtites and stalagmites.

The trial has ceded front billing to the Senate hearing on the charges of Col. Victor Corpus (head of the Intelligence Services, Armed Forces of the Philippines) against Sen. Panfilo Lacson. Plunder and perjury have given way to drugs – droga – and there’s no bigger issue in the Philippines today. You have the makings of Armaggedon.