Lower court decisions are rarely final

When Judge Andres Soriano of the Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 148 junked a petition of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to have Sen. Antonio Trillanes  arrested after President Duterte voided last August the amnesty granted him in 2011, Trillanes went to the court of public opinion declaring his legal victory. Trillanes issued a statement saying that this legal battle was “a victory for justice, rule of law and democracy for the country.” The whole problem with Trillanes is he has violated the law so much and yet he is demanding justice as if he were a truly law abiding citizen more entitled to justice which has been denied many people these many years. No sir, while the lower court gave you a legal victory, better remember that the owners of Oakwood Hotel and the Manila Peninsula had to spend lots of money to repair their damaged facilities. 

I have always said and believed that justice in this country is still sadly lacking 31 years after the 1986 EDSA Revolution and the mutiny done by Trillanes pissed off so many right minded people who even got more hurt that politicos like the once famous Aquino political family used such mindless soldiers to do the dirty work for them.

However, while Trillanes won this particular battle, his problem with the Duterte administration is far from over. We just learned that Presidential spokesman and chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo questioned the local court’s claim that it could not issue an arrest warrant and its decision to accept secondary evidence. Then there is Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra who said that the DOJ would first seek a partial reconsideration of the RTC ruling to contest Trillanes’ claim he had sufficiently shown that he filed a certificate of amnesty.

Lest he may have forgotten, decisions by the lower court in this country are rarely final or executory. So when Salvador Panelo makes an appeal to the higher court… what if the higher court decides in his favor, would Trillanes still say that this was “a victory for justice, rule of law and democracy for the country?” I have a hunch that Secretary Panelo might fare better in the Court of Appeals on his quest to pin down Sen. Trillanes. As far as many people are concerned, the Oakwood mutiny was a real nasty incident and someone should pay handsomely for that kind of brutal behavior.

It is just unfortunate that justice in this country is still so far and distant from the people. Worse, political leaders who steal government funds are often re-elected into powerful positions instead of cases filed against them. 

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Allow me to congratulate a dear friend (and co-author of our book “War in Cebu”) Dr. Resil B. Mojares, founding director of the Cebuano Studies Center and alumnus emeritus professor of Humanities of the University of San Carlos (USC) for being honored by Pres. Rodrigo Duterte and named as National Artist  for Literature.

Call it timely that the Cebuano that I knew who was a National Artist was the late Napoleon Abueva who passed away January this year. He was a friend of my mother and the Segura family.

Now we have another Bisaya National Artist in Resil B. Mojares who has authored so many books on Philippine history, literature, and politics, including studies on three eminent Filipino intellectuals Pedro Paterno, Pardo de Tavera and Isabelo Reyes. Resil has been a recipient of six Philippine National Book Awards. His books include The War Against the Americans: Resistance and Collaboration in Cebu Province; Aboitiz: Family & Firm in the Philippines; House of Memory: Essays; and Vicente Sotto, The Maverick Senator (Cebuano Studies Center, 1992).  Resil Mojares has been a visiting professor at Kyoto University, the National University of Singapore, and the University of California at Los Angeles where he lectures on “The Philippine Novel” and “Topics in Philippine Cultural History.”

My favorite book by Resil Mojares is entitled “Theater in Society” which talks about society in theater. It is a social history of a Cebuano Village in the town of Carcar 40 km south of Cebu where the Avilas originated. This is where the original Cebuano language can be found and yes this is where the zarzuelas or local stage plays were played in the public. Congratulations Dr. Resil B. Mojares, you truly deserve to be a National Artist!

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