EDITORIAL - Selective compassion

In this country, justice is not only slow and malleable, it is also selective, with the well-connected getting all the breaks. Plunder, for example, is a non-bailable offense. Yet bail was granted by the Supreme Court to Juan Ponce Enrile, who faces charges related to the pork barrel scam, on humanitarian grounds ostensibly due to his age and frail health.

Enrile wasn’t too old or frail, however, to be trotted out recently by Malacañang as an expert resource person on the West Philippine Sea arbitration against China, which the Philippines won, to the great despair of the current administration.

Taking its cue from the Supreme Court, the Sandiganbayan also allowed Imelda Marcos to post bail, citing her advanced age and health, following her conviction in 2018 on seven counts of graft involving ill-gotten wealth. Yet advanced age had not stopped the other half of the conjugal dictatorship from serving as congresswoman in the past.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen had slammed the bail granted to Enrile as “political accommodation” and “selective justice.” Leonen, however, apparently has a soft spot himself for his colleagues. In January this year, Leonen penned an SC ruling that granted partial judicial clemency to Gregory Ong, who was dismissed as Sandiganbayan justice due to his ties to pork barrel scam brains Janet Lim Napoles.

Citing the need for “benevolence and compassion to those deserving,” the unanimous SC ruling restored Ong’s retirement benefits, pension and a third of his lump-sum benefits. The ban on Ong’s working for government was also lifted. After being dismissed by the SC from the judiciary in 2014 for gross misconduct, dishonesty and impropriety, Ong has a promising future in politics.

Also in January, the SC had also restored full benefits to one of its own, Renato Corona. He was ousted as chief justice by an impeachment court with Enrile as presiding officer, for betrayal of public trust in failing to declare $2.4 million in bank accounts in his official asset statement. The benefits went to Corona’s widow.

Lower ranking public servants are languishing in prison for graft cases involving merely five-figure amounts. If only the small fry rot behind bars while the big fish enjoy benevolence and compassion extended by the SC itself, there will be no end to wrongdoing in public service.