Ex-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Republicanism
"Ours is a government of laws and not of men. By this principle, is meant that no man, in this country, is so high that he is above the law x x x that every man is a ruler and a freeman, possessing equal rights with every other man in the eyes of the law." These are the very words we always hear each time we talk about the merits of a republican state. No less than the Supreme Court etched these lines into our constitutional history in the old case of Villavicencio vs. Lukban.
This fundamental principle of republicanism rang quite loudly in my ears when I heard of the news that former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was set to leave the hospital where she was confined for many years. Actually, the report was some sort of a side story that I heard yesterday morning. It appeared that there was a piece of a headline news item of magnitude proportions that broke out the other day when I was rather busy completing some papers for a city. The main story was the decision of the Supreme Court ordering the dismissal of the plunder case against the former president.
Not having read yet the ruling of the highest tribunal, I am unprepared to say anything on it by way of an ordinary man's comment. But let me focus on the issue of "hospital arrest" because that will not tread, in any manner, on the decision of the Supreme Court and therefore, we do not court the disaster of being held in contempt.
To remember, shortly after former Arroyo was formally accused of plunder, she sought the sanctuary of a hospital. Under the cover of a medical certificate of her physical infirmity, she could not be brought to our jails for detention following her "arrest." Procedurally, any person who is brought to the jurisdiction of a court to answer any criminal indictment, is, unless bailed, supposed to be brought to prison. It is the arrest that places an accused in the jurisdiction of the court.
Soon after a court issues a warrant for the arrest of any person accused of a crime, police authorities are supposed to arrest that person, handcuff him, report to the court issuing the warrant that the arrest has been implemented and after some documentation, bring him to prison. In a republican state where "every man is a ruler and a freeman" at the same time, that procedure is to apply to all. It should have applied to a lowly farmer and to a former president equally.
As we know, the ex-president is not like an ordinary farmer. The republican theory espoused in Villavicencio vs. Lukban that they are equal is not quite true. Yes, she was charged plundering millions of pesos of people's money but she is a former chief executive of our country and so she should be treated differently. She is necessarily unlike a farmer who, if charged with murder, has to go to jail. Because she is a past president, she should go to the hospital. Oh my goodness, this term "hospital arrest."
But, for the longest time I have been reading our written constitution (the 1935,1973 and the 1987 charters) as well as our Rules of Criminal Procedure, I could not find any referral to this constitutional aberration called "hospital arrest." There is no literal proviso authorizing it. I think this was designed by constitutional minds to justify the difference between an ordinary person and a high-strung social animal.
We are made to understand that former president Arroyo was suffering from a kind of ailment that would put her in serious medical jeopardy if she were to be imprisoned. In order that she could live to face her accuser, she had to be hospitalized rather than imprisoned. And our courts of law considered the hospitalization as imprisonment! This was also the case of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. When he was charged with a crime where bail was not available, he sought the sanctuary of a hospital because he was sick and so he was placed under "hospital arrest." Both Arroyo and Enrile are powerful personalities in our country. They are not ordinary mortals.
Now, pray tell me, can anyone inform me that he is aware of a lowly citizen who is accused of any non-bailable offense but still enjoys the comfort of an air-conditioned hospital bed pending his trial? So, if that is the case, how can we believe that "ours is a government of laws and not of men?" What a fallacious hypothesis has this become!
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