EDITORIAL - All up to the Sandiganbayan

If you are among those who cheered the filing of plunder charges against three senators - Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla - plus Janet Napoles and several others in connection with the P10 billion pork barrel scam, you could be cheering too soon.

Here is the dampener, from Senator Alan Peter Cayetano. According to the Senate majority leader, citing a World Bank study, the average case processing time in the Sandiganbayan, where the charges were filed, is from nine to 10 years.

Not only that, Cayetano said, but the Sandiganbayan has almost 2,300 cases pending. No wonder none of the three senators charged seem to be in a panic. Where the average person facing an ordinary case would lose his wits with worry, the three senators appear all too ready to face the music with aplomb.

But Cayetano is right. It is not those charged we must worry about but the taxpaying Filipino families from whom was plundered the treasure chest of the nation and for whom the day of accounting and the quest for justice needed to be swift.

The suggestion is for the creation, or at least the designation, of special criminal courts to expedite the trials of those involved. More importantly, the trials should wind up before the next election comes around in 2016.

This is because, in the Philippine setting, nobody really knows what happens with every change in administration. What makes things even more ominous is the fact that 2016 is a presidential election year and that among the potential contenders are people closely identified with the three senators.

If we go by Cayetano's figures, there is no way the plunder trial will not be overtaken by the 2016 election. Even if special courts are constituted to speed up the trial, it looks pretty certain things will not be over in the two years between now and the 2016 election.

That is, however, if we go by the usual norm. But it is all now up to the Sandiganbayan. If it feels it is in the nation's interest to truly speed things up in the name of justice for all, then there should be no limit to the speed with which it can allow itself to proceed. It is all really up to the Sandiganbayan.