Can a presidential pardon really be revoked?

Can a Presidential pardon be revoked? Apparently this is what Acting Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera said when she warned the recently pardoned plunderer former Pres. Joseph “Erap” Estrada not to contest the forfeiture proceedings being done by the Sandiganbayan. How quickly people change tunes these days. Just a few days prior to his getting that Presidential Clemency, the Acting Secretary was vehement in her defense as to why the convicted former President should be pardoned. Now the same Acting Justice Secretary is spewing warnings of revoking that pardon.

So this really brings us to the legal question if really there was something in the fine print of that Presidential clemency that we missed… that the President can really revoke that Presidential Pardon? If so, I would like to read that fine print… if there was any? Surely Erap’s super smart lawyers would have spotted this fine print or was the Acting Secretary merely bluffing? I’m asking this question because my understanding about this is that Presidential Pardons can no longer be revoked.

Is this really the reason why Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) was so confident in giving Erap that pardon he demanded from her, that she can also take it back from him? At this point, Erap continues to insist on his innocence. Which is why he is resisting the forfeiture proceedings of the Sandiganbayan. But for the rest of us Filipinos, we know better that once we had a popularly elected President named Erap who made a damn fool out of himself, was arrested and thrown into a special house arrest. Regardless of his effort to cleanse his name, Erap will always be a convicted plunderer to many of us. The only difference was, he got pardoned!

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Now it can be told that Basilan Rep. Wahab Akbar was the principal target of the bombing that destroyed the Batasan Pambansa killing three others with him. It wasn’t a terror bomb in the strict sense that was placed anywhere to destroy portions of the Legislative Building. This bomb was apparently placed inside a Honda underbone motorcycle and was triggered by a cellphone. The blast blew the whole motorcycle into smithereens and killed the Congressman and three others, mostly drivers or staff of many members of Congress. In short, now it is clear that this act was not really a terror bomb, but an assassination using a bomb.

As police investigators revealed, Akbar’s killing could be the handiwork of the Abu Sayyaf in retaliation for the Congressman’s support of the government’s fight against this Muslim Extremist group. However, while the police are pointing at the Abu Sayyaf for doing this dastardly act, it only tells us that the Abu Sayyaf now has the capability to conduct a long distance assassination using sophisticated time bombs. As the investigators say, the trigger device was a cellphone and therefore the person who rang that cellphone to activate the bomb was within sight of Rep. Akbar which is why he bore the brunt of that explosion.

Now the police must work harder to hunt the assassin of Rep. Akbar because if they don’t catch whoever he was, he can easily do the same thing again in order to fight or take vengeance against the enemies of the Abu Sayyaf. This gives us an idea that in this country, no one is safe anymore. What scares me is, when the bloodthirsty killers of the New People’s Army (NPA) start learning from the tactics of the Abu Sayyaf. Then the PNP would really have a huge problem in their hands.

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Tomorrow Nov.17, is a big day for the Escaño Family as it is the formal blessing and inauguration of “Casa Escaño. It is an 11-room bed and breakfast hotel with the Don Merto’s restaurant that was once their family residence along Juaña Osmeña St. When we in our teens, we used drop by this house every now as the children of Tita Gloria Escaño were our barkadas and Tita Gloria always treated us like close relatives. Also it is because Tita Gloria loved to be around young people then and even now in her aging years.

The Escaño house has been totally refurbished yet it has retained its homey character. Now it is a place where people and their friends can drop by to have lunch or dinner. It is a unique restaurant in the sense that they feature the recipes of Dona Mena, the wife of Don Mamerto Escaño, which are basically homemade noodles, fresh lumpia and Kimke, a stewing chicken and sumptuous steaks. Congratulations to the Escaño family, most especially to Tita Gloria, Pette and Chito Misa, Jimmy and Tommy for preserving their family heritage with this new venture that truly brings a true Cebuano character to the Hotel and Restaurant industry.