EDITORIAL - Some candidates luckier than others

Former justice secretary Leila de Lima was sought out by a newspaper for comment on the arrest last week of former Iglesia ni Cristo worker Lowell Menorca by plainclothes policemen. De Lima was more than happy to oblige the newspaper and she bubbled with the expertise that was hers from years of heading the justice portfolio in the Cabinet, describing Menorca's arrest as "highly irregular and even probably illegal."

In all likelihood, she was correct in her description. The problem was, she was no longer the justice secretary when she was sought for comment. Somebody else was -- Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa. Or at least Caguioa was until he was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Aquino. Not that it is wrong for media to solicit the comments of former officials, only that there was somebody more in a position to talk with official authority who should have been asked to comment first but was not.

And that brings us to the propriety of soliciting the opinion of de Lima over that of Caguioa, especially in light of the fact that de Lima is now a candidate for the Senate. Was the solicitation of her comment, and the resulting free publicity it derived (her comments were bannered by the newspaper) just an honest oversight or was it a deliberate attempt to help her campaign along?

The sitting justice secretary should have been the more appropriate person to consult on current legal issues and not the former occupant of the office. Only after the appropriate authority has spoken can others be asked to comment to provide depth and variety of opinion. But never should it be an outsider prevailing over a sitting officer, to the point of completely shutting out that officer.

Be that as it may, there is an even more serious reason why de Lima is an even worse person to comment on the subject of "highly irregular and probably illegal" arrests. As everybody knows, she was the central figure behind an even more controversial and "highly irregular and probably illegal" arrest ever -- that of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

As justice secretary, de Lima had Arroyo detained as she was about to leave on a foreign trip despite the absence of charges filed or pending against her. Arroyo was constitutionally and legally free to go anywhere she wanted at the time. The only thing de Lima had against Arroyo was the fear she might flee and not come back. The arrest of Arroyo was based on nothing more than conjecture and assumption.

As a result, the Philippines became the only country in the world where one can be arrested for a crime before the fact. It was only after the arrest that a judge was found to issue a warrant, after breezing through the charge sheets in a snap. Unfortunately for Arroyo, she had become so popular that her arrest obscured the illegality with which it was carried out. As they say, the rest is history, but of something we can never be proud of.