Thursday, July 19, 2007 Trillanes motion seeking permission to attend Senate sessions opposed
THE Department of Justice (DOJ) objected on Wednesday to the motion filed by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV to attend Senate sessions and hearings when the 14th Congress opens next week.
In a rejoinder, State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera said Trillanes must remain jail while the coup detat charges filed by the DOJ against him in connection with his role in the Oakwood mutiny in July 27, 2003 are pending.
Navera said Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 148 Judge Oscar Pimentel earlier denied the motion to post bail filed by Trillanes and he has not been released on cognizance.
As a matter of law, when a person indicted for an offense is arrested, he is deemed placed under the custody of the law. He is placed in actual restraint of liberty in jail so that he may be bound to answer the commission of the offense. He must be detained in jail during the pendency of the case, unless he is authorized by the court to be released on bail or on recognizance, Navera said quoting a recent ruling of the Supreme Court (SC).
Navera said prisoners facing non-bailable offense like Trillanes do not deserve a special furlough. This is a necessary consequence of arrest and detention, he added.
He said the lack of objection to Trillanes motion to attend Senate sessions expressed by the commander of the Marine Brigade where the senator is detained is not enough for Trillanes to be allowed by the court to do so.
Navera also said Trillanes cannot invoke the case of former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm) governor Nur Misuari and former President Joseph Estrada to argue that he should be given special treatment and preferential privilege to attend all Senate sessions, hold office at the Marine Brigade, to be furnished with working furniture and telephone communications and for easy access of staff inside the said detention facility.
He said Trillanes is not also an accused in Misuari and Estradas cases and therefore he has no personal knowledge of the facts and circumstances surround that case.
Navera said Trillaness claims that his case and that of former congressman Romeo Jalosjos are the same is like comparing apples to potatoes.
He said Trillanes is wrong in claiming that Jalosjos case is inapplicable in his situation because Jalosjos filed his motion to be allowed to discharge his functions as a congressman at a time when he was already convicted.
Aside from the request to attend Senate sessions and hearings, Trillanes had asked the courts approval for authorities to provide him with an office equipped with communications tools and computers inside his cell at the Marine Brig.
Both motion have yet to be resolved by Pimentel, who during Tuesdays hearing of the coup detat case against the Magdalo soldiers, said he was already halfway done with the resolution along with the demurrer to evidence filed by the accused soldiers seeking the dismissal of the case but that he had to consider the supplemental motion filed by the defense before he could come up with a resolution. (AH/Sunnex)
