Warrantless invitations and disappearing elections

I thought that invitations for tete-a-tetes at Camps Crame or Aguinaldo became obsolete with the end of martial law. However, invitations to visit with the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group were precisely what former Defense Secretary Fortunato Abat, former Budget Secretary Salvador Enriquez, former Ambassador Roy Seneres and lawyer Carlos Serapio were handed at the Club Filipino "seat" of the "transition government" the other day.

Ambassador Seneres, who is also a former chairman of the National Labor Relations Council, had the presence-of-mind (or gall, depending on how you look at it) to respectfully decline his invitation because, as all could plainly see, he was otherwise occupied with helping run a government.

The head of the PNP group serving the invitation replied that the big boss, the Chief of all the PNP, was eagerly anticipating the arrival of Abat, Seneres and company. The Chief would be extremely disappointed if his guests were to fail to show up. His annoyance would be such that the PNP group leader’s prospects for career advancement would be put in serious jeopardy if he returned to headquarters empty-handed.

The good Ambassador then retorted, with eminently faultless logic, that the invitation was in fact an arrest order. Thus, he demanded that a copy of the warrant of arrest be exhibited by the PNP team after which, Seneres said, he would go without complaint. The policemen admitted that they had no such warrant.

However, they blurted out, in what appeared to be a flash of unaccustomed genius, that they were making a "citizens’ arrest." Noting that the policemen were in civilian garb, Seneres seemed bemused. Given the stress of the moment, that was understandable. He and retired Army General Abat sensibly figured out that argument with a Senior Inspector, whether in or out of uniform would be futile, especially if he was merely carrying out the order of the PNP Director-General.

As it turned out, Abat, Seneres and Serapio were charged with inciting to sedition within hours of their invitation. Government lawyers clarified that the policemen had actually carried out a warrantless arrest pursuant to the Rules of Court which permit such arrest when, among others, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or attempting to commit an offense in the presence of the peace officer.

The quite plausible argument was that the offense, inciting to sedition, was a continuing crime and was being perpetrated even as they spoke. This did not prevent the arrested leaders of the transition government from vowing they would nevertheless file cases against the cops for illegal arrest and grave coercion.

It didn’t help that the host at Camp Crame himself, evidently not aware of the impromptu script conjured up by his arresting force in situ, was quoted in media as saying Abat and company were "not yet under arrest" but were merely being "invited." The PNP (and the Armed Forces, naturally) should drop the charade about these invitations which are supposedly not intended to detain a person for "tactical interrogation." But, in fact, that’s exactly what usually ensues.

It is ordinary common sense that an invitation, whether or not accompanied by a Respondez S’il Vous Plait, are not summonses. They are meant to be formal or polite requests, not brusque orders or ostensibly innocent offers which one cannot refuse. So, let’s call a spade a spade. If it’s an arrest, then the cops should say so and go religiously by the book. Forget this citizen’s arrest nonsense. Cops are peace officers. Period.

"Invitations" to visit Camp Crame for the distinct privilege of shooting yourself in the foot, in an evidentiary sense, and handing indictments to prosecutors on silver platters are relics of an era everyone wants to forget. Just because the Abat caper strikes some as ludicrous, and others as deadly serious, is no reason to exhume this relic. It is better left dead and buried.

* * *

In the meantime, the Consultative Commission showed its true colors by trotting out this fatuous recommendation that the 2007 elections be cancelled. They uncritically served up the garbage that the economy needs the respite that a postponement of elections would bring.

The truth is that elective officials have been lobbying that in exchange for their support of charter change, an extension of their terms of office would be appreciated. Imagine the manna that would fall from heaven if they didn’t have to spend the money that would be needed in such a silly thing as re-election.

I’m convinced that the principal reason for this atrocity is that chacha advocates in Congress and Malacanang now realize the Senate is a lost cause. If chacha is to have any chance of success, it will have to be through an initiative and referendum provided for in Section 2, Article XVII of the Constitution. But in this exercise, the support of local officials will be vital. Nothing like more butter on one’s bread to persuade one to be sympathetic to an initiative.

An initiative would, of course, not be immune to legal challenge. But it won’t be the first time that some convenient way is found around legal obstacles to achieve a result which is later touted to be "indisputably" in the national interest.

The opportunism in allowing all incumbent officials to hold on to their posts for an extra three years is manifest, and the thing smells worse than a rotten egg. The Constitutional Commission, in those unseemly shouting matches the other night which melted instantly into community singing of Silent Night, Holy Night, gave irrefutable evidence of their irrelevance and inutility. Congressmen and local government officials, giddy with a new lease of political life which was given them absolutely free, reportedly broke out in more appropriate song, Joy to the World. Joy, indeed.

The Con-Com may have sealed the doom of chacha with this sell-out. To assume that people will swallow their outlandish "recommendations" is presumptuousness of historical proportions. Sayang.