In July 2013, public prosecutors in General Santos City wrote to the Supreme Court asking for the transfer of the venue of a murder trial. The trial concerns two persons described as “suspected terrorists and members of the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front” (MILF), “to any venue in Metro-Manila, where the atmosphere for trial is more secured.” The detainees, Danny Mokiding and Gerald Abas Mamaluba, were accused of bombing a lottery stall in which six people, including two boys were killed and 20 others were wounded on January 10, 2007 at the public market in General Santos City.
General Santos City Jail.Photo: AHRC
The effect of the prosecutor’s request, if granted, would mean the detainees would be transferred from a detention facility in General Santos City to Manila. This is not the first time where the prosecutors requested the transfer of venue of trial and detention of the accused from Mindanao to Manila. In fact, routinely prosecutors and the courts make such requests and approve them respectively without question. Once the petition involves cases where the accused are described as ‘high risk,’ ‘high value’ prisoners and so on, neither prosecutors nor judges raise questions, not because the argument is always correct, but because they are rather always assumed to be correct.
But are these detainees, in reality, really high risk? Are they so risky that the State exhausts all means to transfer detainees on a large scale from Mindanao to crowded jails in Manila? Should the correctional facilities not be asked why jails outside Manila have become so insecure? If transferring the trial and detainees is done to protect witnesses, do witnesses have adequate protection? And if the accused are presumed to be innocent, is it not right that his own family should have also the opportunity to attend trial in Manila, to prepare for their defence and visit him in jail, and so on? However, neither the prosecutor nor the judges raise these questions.
Although this practice by the prosecution and the courts has been widespread and routine for many years to the best of our knowledge it is not until the case of these two detainees that it has become clear that it is the military, not the police, the prosecutors, and judges, who decide the matter. In the wording of the prosecutor’s petition in Danny and Gerald’s case for change of venue, he wrote “COMES NOW, petitioner Armed Forces of the Philippines, through the undersigned City Prosecutor, unto this honourable Court, respectfully alleges”, and follows the narration of facts as to why the trial has to be held in Manila. The prosecutor’s request, by acting on the military’s petition which has no role in the case at all, is remarkable.
Unlike in the past where prosecutors do act on the petitions, for example in February 2010, where the prosecutor in Sarangani province, wrote to the Supreme Court, asking for the transfer of trial and detention of the accused, both MILF and New People Army rebels, to Manila to prevent “persistent reports (by the PNP) that a rescue operation will be executed.” But here, the prosecutor was acting on the information, not even a petition, received from the police, not the military; and it was the prosecutor who made the petition, not the military.
The AHRC, however, would argue that this request to transfer the trial and detention of Danny and Gerald, merely removes the cover that it is, in practice the military establishment who uses its influence in interfering in judicial processes. Neither the police nor the prosecutors in reality decide whether the trial and the detention of detainees should be transferred or not. Of course, for many years, the military used the police to cover their acts, and that nobody raises the question. And since nobody raises the question, the military now do so themselves without any pretence.
During period of the Marcos dictatorship, the military and the police were one entity; and the prosecution and judiciary merely an extension of their power. The prosecution and the judiciary would validate, justify and afford legitimacy to all illegal acts by the police and the military subordinating itself to their power. However, systematically and institutionally, this interference by the military in the judicial process still thrives 27 years after Marcos regime had ended.
In fact, if the Supreme Court would approve the transfer of Danny and Gerald, in effect it would accept the prosecutor’s argument that the MILF, to whom the government is engaged in an ongoing peace negotiation, are indeed a “terrorist” group; and that they had planned to rescue their own combatants (supposing that the detainees are, in fact, MILF personnel) held in detention. But how would a rebel group engaged in a negotiation initiate rescue when, in the first, place, they would negotiate for the release or integration in the government? And, if indeed this group is indeed a terrorist group, why the government is negotiating for peace with them?
If we are to examine this case, the argument in the petition by the prosecutors, was deliberately not thought out at all. It was clear that they merely accepted it, without even raising any questions on the claims of the military that these detainees and those who were already transferred to Manila are ‘high risk’. Those whom they described as ‘high risk’ or ‘terrorist’ are not precisely who they are; however, the military routinely influences and interferes with impunity in the judicial process. By conditioning the public on the danger and risk the detainees brings, they had already undermined the judicial institution.
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