A very sacred cow

EDITORIAL

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05/01/2008

Malacañang’s “proof” that former Justice Secretary Nani Perez, despite his being a close Arroyo ally, is no “sacred cow” was the authorities’ bid to serve him and his wife, Rosario, their arrest warrants.

That’s evidence of Perez not being a sacred cow for Malacañang? What a laugh.

The whole bit on Perez is definitely a grand zarzuela and it shows, with its cast of characters led by Malacañang occupants, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and Perez himself. And in supporting roles, there were the Sandiganbayan courts, along with their sheriff, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police.

If Perez were not one of Gloria Arroyo’s sacred cows, he would have been charged by the Ombudsman long before Gutierrez assumed the office, after Simeon Marcelo’s resignation.

Marcelo certainly had more than enough evidence to have Perez convicted while he was in office. He was supplied the documents early on.

Gutierrez also took an inordinately long time to charge Perez and his cohorts, and when she finally did, it was not plunder, which is a non-bailable offense, given the strong evidence against Perez, but a simple case of graft and an extortion-robbery charge, which meant that Perez and the rest of the accused would easily get their temporary liberty through bail.

If Gutierrez does not take orders from Malacañang, there would have been no reason for her not to have Perez charged with plunder, and she certainly had enough evidence, from the Ernest Escaler account in Coutts Bank Hong Kong, to slap him with plunder charges, because there was certainly more than one transaction made.

All Gutierrez had to do was check out the many witnesses of the government in the plunder case against former President Joseph Estrada, who had privately admitted to having been threatened by Perez with a plunder rap as Estrada’s co-accused and where they also admitted privately that they had to pay off Perez not to be included in the charges, as they feared a long detention time.

But Gutierrez wanted to spare Gloria and Mike Arroyo, her patrons, which is why it was only the $2 million extortion case that was filed against Perez.

That way, no one need to go into the Impsa bribe of $14 million, of which the $2 million of Perez was part.

There is enough evidence that Gloria and Perez had approved the Impsa sovereign guarantee just two days after taking official residence, and a case could have been built around this, but as Gutierrez was protecting the presidential spouses, along with Perez, that was not the path to take.

But on the arrest warrant, Perez, being both a lawyer and a Justice secretary, certainly knew that all he had to do was to post bail even before the arrest warrant was issued by the court, through the expediency of a voluntary surrender and payment of bail.

This was what Ernest Escaler, one of the accused, did, shortly after the Ombudsman announced that charges have been filed against the group, and almost immediately after the cases were distributed among several Sandiganbayan divisions.

If Escaler could do this and spare himself the problem of having law enforcers going to his residence and arresting him, why didn’t Perez do the same?

But that was all done for stage purposes, to show that he, an ally of Gloria, was not being spared from the law and was not being protected by her.

What was even more telling was the fact that days before the arrest warrants were issued by the Sandiganbayan divisions, this was leaked out to the media, which is really very strange, given the fact that the courts usually do not telegraph their punches, precisely because announcing the issuance of the arrest warrant would give the accused time to hide, or flee. So why was this issuance arrest warrant given on a Friday, where no arrest can be effected, following a week-end, announced? Another theatrical act again?

The Sandiganbayan sheriff and the police certainly knew they wouldn’t find Perez in his Quezon City home but they still made a big show of it. It doesn’t take brains to check whether he was in Batangas, where he also resides, and whether he had already posted bail in that Batangas court.

Perez wouldn’t humiliate himself by having himself arrested by the cops in Manila. It was a cinch that he would have posted bail, but the show must go on.

Is Perez going to be convicted by the Sandiganbayan? Hardly that. For Gloria to allow that would mean Perez spilling the many many beans that could destroy Gloria, that’s for sure.

Malacañang really should stop this zarzuela just to claim that Perez is no sacred cow.

He is, and well do the Filipinos know it.

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