Ways for Imelda to avoid prison

By availing of legal remedies Imelda Marcos can stay out of prison. That’s despite her sentencing Friday to 77 years for seven counts of graft.

One recourse is to post bail first hour today at the Sandiganbayan. She first needs to preempt arrest. Then she can plead for review of her conviction by the fifth division.

For absence at Friday’s case promulgation Imelda automatically forfeited her old bail of P15,000 per graft rap. At once lead prosecutor Ryan Rey Quilala sought issuance of an arrest warrant. Justices Rafael Lagos, Maria Theresa Mendoza-Arcega and Maryann Corpus-Mañalac can order the court sheriff to hunt down Imelda. To avert it she must post new bail double the old: P30,000 per count or P210,000-total.

Noting Imelda’s absence, the justices gave her 30 days to explain. That evening she publicly claimed that her lawyer Joseph Sison was confined in hospital. She acknowledged receipt of the verdict. Original lawyer Manuel Lazaro, her dictator-husband Ferdinand’s solicitor general, is to move for reconsideration.

That’s another recourse against imprisonment, Quilala explained last Saturday on DWIZ radio show “Sapol.” Imelda has 15 days to file her motion. Under the continuous trial rule, the fifth division would have to rule within 30 days, or in early Jan.

Still, her conviction stays: six to 11 years per count, or 42 to 77 years, Quilala said. Advancing age is no reason to escape liability for crime. More so since the seven counts of graft were committed when Imelda was in her prime, aged 40-55. She was then first lady, minister of human settlements, member of parliament, and Metro Manila governor. The hundreds of millions of dollars she hid in Swiss banks under her alias Jane Ryan were way beyond her official salaries.

Failure to justify her absence at her sentencing would mean losing her right to other remedies. Those include appealing to the humanitarian side of the law, like agedness at 89. For practical reasons, no 89-year-old can serve a 42-year term, Quilala said.

Too, Imelda can claim to be ailing or bed-ridden. But her recent filing of candidacy for Ilocos Norte governor implies physical fitness, thus negating clemency or pardon.

If Imelda can find good reason, she can also complain to the Supreme Court of grave abuse of authority by the justices. That could be a long shot. She had been given all of the past three years to present her defense. All she filed were transcripts of stenographic notes of her separate case at the Manila regional trial court. Those violations of Central Bank rules have no bearing on the graft raps.

Quilala, 46, took over the prosecution only in 2014. Other Ombudsman prosecutors on case were Sheri Zales, Christina Marallag-Batacan, and Mary Susan Guillermo. What clinched the case for them was the fifth division’s acceptance of all the documentary evidence provided by the Swiss government under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. Before that, Quilala recounted, Imelda kept questioning the authenticity of the bank papers. The prosecutors had had to have those certified under the MLAT.

Quilala’s team had taken over from a dozen earlier prosecutors. The case had been filed nearly three decades ago by then-Prosecutor Teresita Baldoz. Some were in 1991, others in 1994 and 1995, then were consolidated. Baldoz has since become Sandiganbayan justice and retired last year at age 70.

One of the prosecution witnesses was Frank Chavez, solicitor general during the Cory Aquino Presidency. He had worked on the Swiss government to cooperate with the Philippine efforts to recover the Marcoses’ stolen wealth. He has since died.

That’s how long court cases can drag in the Philippines. Imelda had been convicted earlier of ten counts of graft, involving the Light Rail Transit Authority and the Philippine General Hospital, both under the Metro Manila Commission then. The Supreme Court reversed the rulings.

Quilala recalled that he was still a law school freshman when the seven graft cases were filed against Imelda. He was in grade school when the crimes were committed. Most prosecutors were avoiding the case because of the stiff challenges, he said. Reading reams of documents alone was taxing. But because he was new at the Ombudsman then, he couldn’t refuse when assigned to the case.

Quilala took it on as a personal challenge. He knew he was up against stiff odds. More so since he hails from Ilocos Sur, part of the region where the Marcoses are highly esteemed.

Even if Imelda avoids jail, her conviction nonetheless stops her and her family’s historical revisionism. They cannot claim that their tenure was honest, said Maria Serena Diokno, former head of the National Historical Commission. That ends the myth that the Marcoses’ rule was good for the country.

Human rights lawyer Manuel Diokno also said Imelda had plundered the national coffers. She is just fortunate that there was yet no plunder law, the threshold amount of which is P50 million. Otherwise, she would have had no bail for its listing as a heinous offense in 1989, said the law school dean and chairman of the Free Legal Assistance Group.

The Dioknos are offspring of the late senator and justice secretary Jose “Pepe” Diokno, whom Ferdinand Marcos had imprisoned for opposing his martial law.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

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