Friday, January 09, 2009 Malilong: Patrick Osorio’s death By Frank Malilong The Other Side
JUSTICE Secretary Raul Gonzalez chided Marine Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino for being emotional. The battle-scarred veteran of the Basilan campaign has every reason to be.
When you see your work, especially one that you risked your life in, being torn to pieces either by the dishonesty or incompetence of those who, you thought, were in your team, you have every right to be upset.
Marcelino stands out among the main characters in the “Alabang Boys” drama because he is the only one whose motive for going public is not tainted. He doesn’t have to clear his name, unlike, say, his own boss Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director Dionisio Santiago, who admitted blowing his top only after he received a text message that falsely accused him of having been already bought.
What Santiago did was not necessarily wrong not only because getting angry over being falsely accused of a wrongdoing is consistent with human nature but also because there is no showing that he in fact was not already upset when he learned that the case against Brodett, et al has been dismissed. But Marcelino’s heart is purer.
Which is why it upset me to see him being snarled at not to talk to the justice secretary “like that.” The PDEA official has every reason and right to talk to anyone by any tone or manner about his frustration with the justice system that, to him, had been sabotaged.
I wish we had more people like Marcelino. I also hope that he and his fellow idealist military officers, most of whom are from “Magdalo,” will not lose their faith in the system but will continue to work within it without abandoning their ideals.
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Patrick Osorio did not fit the layman’s concept of the archetypal lawyer. He was not showy and did not speak more than what was necessary. His courtroom demeanor reflected his personality. He was deferential to colleagues and, as Regional Trial Court Judge Olegario Sarmiento Jr. said, “did not badger” witnesses.
I briefly spoke to Patrick about five months ago when I accompanied a friend who was filing a complaint with the city prosecutor’s office against his former girlfriend. When I thanked him for administering the oath to my friend, Patrick simply smiled. I never imagined that that would be the last time I’d ever see him alive.
Whoever it was that killed Patrick or had him killed should be made to pay for the murder. It does not matter whether the killing was work-related or not. It is not even important that the victim was a brother in the profession. Violence is reprehensible especially when the victim never had the chance to defend himself.
Patrick’s death comes at a time when the legal profession is under close scrutiny because of the “Alabang Boys” case every highlight of which has a lawyer in it. Note:
--The investigating prosecutor who dismissed the PDEA complaint for lack of probable cause and, without waiting for the automatic review by the justice secretary, released his resolution to the respondents is, of course, a lawyer.
--It was the lawyer of the respondents who prepared, on an authentic DOJ stationary, the order of release from detention of the respondents for the signature of the justice secretary.
--It was a Justice undersecretary, also a lawyer, who instructed his secretary to hand carry the order of release to the justice secretary.
--And then, of course, the justice secretary is also a lawyer.
As my grandson asked when he was eight years old, aren’t there too many of us?
