Plunder unbailable case

Justice Secretary Hernando Perez is right. The decision whether to grant former President Joseph Estrada’s petition to leave for the United States to undergo medical treatment should be left to the Sandiganbayan. On this score, the senators who signed the agreement are in full accord. They are more than ready for the Sandiganbayan’s possible rejection of their petition.

It is patent that all the signatories believe that Estrada will come back because the signatories can be held liable in the event that Erap decides to go into exile rather than go through with his case in the Sandiganbayan.

The thing is that: first, the operation that Estrada will undergo is not a serious operation; second, there are competent doctors here who can perform the operation. But most important of all, he is being charged with plunder. There was enough evidence against him to justify his impeachment and plunder is not a bailable offense. If he cannot be bailed out in the Philippines, how can he be allowed to travel abroad?

A senator said that granting Estrada the right or privilege to travel abroad has a past precedent because President Marcos allowed Ninoy Aquino to fly to the US for medical treatment after he had already been convicted to die by firing squad as a rebel. You cannot compare the two. The only crime that Ninoy committed was to oppose Marcos’s dictatorial regime. He was convicted in a mock trial. The reason Marcos allowed him to go abroad was that he was afraid to carry out Ninoy’s sentence of death by firing squad. Why let a man who is going to be executed by musketry undergo a heart operation to extend his life? The truth is that Marcos knew that Ninoy had a very wide following. Ninoy won the election while he was serving in jail running against Imelda’s group in the Lakas ng Bayan polls that culminated with the noise barrage that was People’s Power in embryo. So Marcos used Ninoy’s need for heart surgery abroad to send him to exile. The best proof that he wanted Ninoy to remain abroad was that Ninoy was assassinated when he decided to come home.

We are not for or against Erap. All we want is for the rule of law to prevail. Laws only bind when they conform with reason and the eternal laws of God. We agree with Justice Secretary Perez and the senators who say that the question on ousted President Estrada should be left to the Sandiganbayan. And all we ask the Sandiganbayan is to properly implement the laws of the land both in deciding whether a person charged with plunder can be permitted to go abroad on medical grounds and also on the guilt and innocence of the plunder charges against the former president. As Joseph Addison said, "To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities is the glory of man."

All virtues are contained in justice. It should be the main interest of man in this world. All progress will ultimately end on the state of justice in the country. Force can protect us from violence. Only justice can establish meaningful peace.