Two Caviteños’ incarcerations a century apart

The country was once again polarized with the recent news of the acquittal of Juanito Jose Remulla III, son of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, last January 6, 2023. According to Las Piñas Regional Trial Court Branch 197, which granted Remulla's acquittal, the prosecution failed to show that Remulla knew he was receiving a package of illegal drugs, and anti-drug agents made mistakes in the chain of custody of the high-grade marijuana. He was detained on October 11 last year after the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Inter-Agency Drug Interdiction Task Group and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency arrested him after he was found to be in possession of close to 900 grams of marijuana known as "kush," valued at ?1.3 million.

The Remullas are one of Cavite’s major political families today, although prior to the ‘60’s they had much rather humbler beginnings. Like most political dynasties in Cavite in the past, most played second fiddle to the Aguinaldo family, although the province’s political landscape has drastically changed in recent years. Juanito Jose Remulla’s grandfather and namesake, Juanito Reyes Remulla, was the first major political figure in the family, who was the longest-serving governor of Cavite. Coming from a family of tenant farmers, he rose to prominence when he was appointed as acting governor in 1964.

During the 1971 Constitutional Convention, he was elected delegate and received the highest number of votes and even surpassed the votes of more senior colleagues, his three more senior and experienced colleagues. He later served as a member of the Provincial Board, became vice governor, and finally succeeded as governor in 1979 upon the sudden death of the sitting governor. American author and professor John T. Sidel in “Capital, Coercion, and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines” calls Juanito Remulla as Cavite’s industrial warlord who, while helping improve the province economically, nevertheless supposedly committed many acts that were common to provincial warlords.

The recent brouhaha over the younger Remulla’s release has reminders of another Caviteño who was also incarcerated, albeit more than a hundred years ago and receiving an altogether different kind of justice than Remulla.

In 1886, another Juan, an indio aptly named Juan de la Cruz, was implicated in a double murder. He was a coxswain of a steam launch in the merchant marines and it was this same shipping company he worked for that ordered his arrest and he was soon brought to Cavite and promptly handed over to the local judicial authorities. Immediately upon his arrival, a string of bad luck awaited de la Cruz. The judge refused to hear his case and take him to custody as he was simply a temporary judge, and even the military governor of the province also refused to accept responsibility for De la Cruz. He was finally incarcerated in a Cavite jail and what was expected to take just as few months for his trial led to several years. Twelve years, in fact. Because his accusers had left town and there was a constant movement of judges, his case remained unheard and he languished in jail until the end of Spanish rule when the natives or the invading American forces decided to set him and the other prisoners free.

Juan de la Cruz’s long incarceration without proper legal representation and without any movement in his case is a constant reminder that there is still a lot that we need to fix in our justice system. Even more than a hundred years after the improper incarceration of Juan de la Cruz, many poor and powerless Filipinos continue to be jailed without the benefit of a good lawyer or a speedy trial. History continues to prove that for now, justice still belongs to the rich, well-connected, and powerful.