Speedy trial

In a landmark move last Jan. 19, the Supreme Court granted the petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by lawyer Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, chief of staff of Juan Ponce Enrile when he was a senator. Reyes had been denied bail by the Sandiganbayan in the plunder case filed against her over P172.8 million in alleged kickbacks from Enrile’s Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel.

Plunder is a non-bailable offense, but the SC said Reyes’ continued detention for nearly nine years in the Taguig City Jail violated her right to speedy trial. Enrile, who turned 99 last Feb. 14, was granted bail in August 2015 on humanitarian grounds. Stressing that the order does not clear Reyes in the plunder case, the SC explained that she was granted provisional liberty “due to vexatious, capricious and oppressive delays in trial.”

On Feb. 8, the SC published a ruling promulgated on Jan. 16, which also cited undue delay in adjudication. The ruling dismissed a graft complaint filed against Enrile himself and four others related to the alleged siphoning of P840 million from the Coconut Industry Development Fund to the Agricultural Investors Inc. owned by the late businessman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. during the first Marcos administration.

The complaint was filed by the Office of the Solicitor General before the Presidential Commission on Good Government

in February 1990. The PCGG referred the complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman, which dismissed the case in 1998. The OSG elevated the case to the SC, which in 2001 reversed the ombudsman’s dismissal and ordered it to proceed with the preliminary investigation. But in 2004, the SC set aside its own ruling, saying the case “was not yet ripe for decision.”

In the promulgation of the latest decision, the SC noted that the case had dragged on for over 30 years and “the inordinate delay in this case may have made the situation worse for respondents.” It said the ombudsman’s eight-year preliminary investigation, from Feb. 12, 1990 to Oct. 9, 1998 violated the respondents’ right to speedy trial.

Republic Act 8493 or the Speedy Trial Act was signed into law on Feb. 12, 1998. The SC has also released rules for speedy trial. Yet even lower courts have thrown out plunder and graft cases due to “inordinate delay” in adjudication.

Being the administrator of the judiciary, the SC should make a stronger push for the “speedy disposition of… cases before all judicial, quasi-judicial or administrative bodies.” Not only because this is a right guaranteed under Article III of the Constitution, but also because it can allow crime to go unpunished while penalizing the innocent who cannot afford bail or high-caliber lawyers who can seek a writ of habeas corpus for their clients.