Back home at Christmas, a foretaste of freedom

The hugging, cheering and sighs of relief muffled the deep sense of injustice they had endured, from their post-midnight arrest in November 2019 through the following three years of detention by the police.

Nonetheless, smiles wreathed the faces of the activists Reina Mae Nacino, Alma Moran and Ram Carlo Bautista – human rights defenders dubbed in mainstream and social media as the “Tondo 3” – as they were welcomed by their families and friends. They were temporarily released on bail late afternoon Thursday: Nacino and Moran from Manila City Jail and Bautista from Camp Bagong Diwa Metro Manila District Jail in Bicutan, Taguig.

It was while in detention that Nacino realized she was pregnant. The baby boy, whom she named River, was born on July 1, 2020. She petitioned the court to either grant her provisional release to nurse him, or to allow her to do so inside her detention cell. The court didn’t act on either request. Instead, he was taken away from her to be cared for by her relatives.

But the infant soon fell sick, deprived of his mother’s care and attention. Brought for treatment at the Philippine General Hospital, he died weeks after, that October. Although Nacino was allowed to see him at the funeral service, she remained handcuffed and under heavy guard all throughout. Worse, the police attempted to bar her from being present at the baby’s interment, angering her sympathizers and provoking denunciations of their cruel insensitivity.

The three activists were charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives, as were all their other comrades who were arrested in simultaneous pre-dawn raids in Bacolod City in late October to early November 2019. After more than two years of hearings on their petitions for bail, wherein the prosecution presented their material and testimonial evidence, the court has reset the next hearing to Feb. 14, 2023.

Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 47 Judge Paulino Gallegos signed the release orders for the three after their lawyers paid a surety cash bond of P282,000. The bond was raised by the human rights alliance Karapatan and Kapatid, the association of relatives and friends of political detainees, mainly from donations through a social-media fundraising campaign. The last donation that completed the fund came hours before they were ordered released.

The surety bond approximated 20 percent of the combined P1,140,000 cash bail set by the RTC court (P420,000 each for Nacino and Moran, and P570,000 for Bautista). When the court finally rules on their cases, expectedly a dismissal of the charges (no logical basis to say “If” considering the court’s findings on the bail petition), the surety bond will remain with the court.

“We decided to pay a premium as it was impossible to raise the entire amount of P1.14 million before Christmas Day,” said Karapatan and Kapatid. “What’s important is to bring the three detainees home before then.”

Explaining that it was impossible for their clients’ “low-income, working-class families” to raise such a huge amount (huge for them, that is), members of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) earlier filed an urgent motion urging the court to reduce by half the cash bail it had set.

But more importantly, the lawyers pointed to Judge Gallegos’ own factual basis for granting provisional liberty to the three detainees: The prosecution, he said, had failed to prove that the evidence of guilt against all accused was strong. (Prevailing jurisprudence does not allow bail if evidence is strong in a case of illegal possession of explosives.)

Moreover, the Court of Appeals 12th Division already ruled on Aug. 31 that the search warrants that led to the “Tondo 3” arrest failed to “meet the standards of a valid search warrant,” and that “all evidence procured by virtue thereof are deemed inadmissible.” The CA ruling added a strong basis for the RTC court’s decision to grant bail.

Some details:

• The RTC court said the prosecution witnesses “failed to show that the circumstances they testified to are such that the inference of guilt naturally drawn therein is strong, clear and convincing;”

• The essential elements of the offenses, the surrounding circumstances, the subject of the offenses (corpus delicti) and the identity and participation of each of the accused “were not shown to be strong” and

• The police officer and the barangay chair who were supposed to have documented the evidence against the accused could not identify them nor the firearms and explosives purportedly seized from them.

On the part of the Court of Appeals, the justices noted that the police applicant and his witnesses failed to clarify the disparity in the three different addresses cited in the applications to issue the search warrants.

The logical conclusion, according to the CA, is that they did not really have personal knowledge of the surrounding facts, which would have justified the issuance of the search warrants.

That means, after the formal hearing of the cases against the three starting Feb. 14, the RTC court is bound to render a ruling dismissing the charges, which require proof of guilt “beyond reasonable doubt” and granting full freedom.

Surprisingly however, the Office of the Solicitor General, now headed by former justice secretary Menardo Guevarra, filed a motion for reconsideration on the CA ruling, which remains pending action.

The charges against her client and her two co-accused, said Nacino’s lawyer, Kathy Panguban of the NUPL, “showed how our legal system is being used and abused to curb or to silence legitimate forms of dissent.”

She added: “It is a weaponization of the law, and these events expose how much state forces are hellbent on reducing the legitimacy of the advocacies espoused by activists and human rights defenders who only call for a better society for all, not just for the few.”

And so, with this sobering thought, allow me to still hope for better times, and extend heartfelt Christmas greetings to one and all!

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