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Friday, November 18, 2005
Justice chief to lawyer: Prove coddling charge
MANILA -- An irate Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez Sr. offered Thursday to resign if lawyer Katrina Legarda could prove he ordered the release of six US servicemen from the custody of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) last November 2.
Legarda, private counsel of the 22-year-old Filipino woman allegedly gang-raped by the six US Marine officers, earlier accused Gonzalez of talking to a US Embassy official who reportedly requested custody of the six accused, who were then held at the Subic Bay Freeport.
"She doesn't know what she's talking about," he told reporters in a briefing. "If she could prove that I talked to the Americans last November 2, I'm willing to resign. But she should also return her license to practice law if she could not do it."
Gonzalez said Legarda was inconsistent with her own accusations saying at first that he was trying to coddle the accused soldiers but later changed her tune saying he told prosecutors to go slow on the case.
He said he never talked to any American since the case started and that the only officials he talked to regarding the case were President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who had ordered him to monitor the case, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, and SBMA deputy administrator Jose Calimlim.
He said he was at the Department of Justice (DOJ) on November 2 as he had an appointment with a UN ambassador for human rights.
He also denied reports he gave instructions to any fiscal to go slow on the case. "My instructions were explicit, if they (accused) do not appear on the preliminary hearings on November 23, the case should be submitted for resolution," he said.
"She's trying to publicize herself at my expense and at the expense of everybody. That will not make her popular," he added.
In saying there was no cover-up, Gonzalez said on November 2, or a day after the supposed rape took place, he received a call from the President informing him about the incident in Olongapo and to get in touch with Calimlim.
Calimlim told him that he had custody of the American soldiers but the commander of the vessel wanted to take hold of the soldiers because the vessel was leaving Subic already and he said he refused to turn over the soldiers to the ship captain.
"I told Calimlim, 'Hold these people for inquest.' So I called up the city prosecutor of Olongapo to conduct inquest. Unfortunately when I called the prosecutor, he cannot leave immediately because he was in court attending a trial," he explained.
That same day, when the city prosecutor went to SBMA to conduct an inquest on the soldiers, they learned that the military attaché of the US Embassy went there to demand custody of the accused under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).
"So na release niya sa military (So Calimlim released them to the military) attaché. So where is Legarda getting her wild story that I prevented the inquest, that I disallowed the inquest when I was the one who ordered the inquest? Their pronouncements are detrimental to the victim because they should keep the confidentiality of this thing for the victim," he said
"I did not know that she is a liar. She is lying because she accused me of something, which I never did. I'm proud of being suspended by the Supreme Court not for telling a lie. I fought the Supreme Court on principle but not because I'm lying, not because I'm hallucinating," he said on the challenge of Legarda to have him disbarred.
He said any lapse in the case may have been when Calimlim released the soldiers without even the benefit of a written request from the US Embassy although this was not necessary since under the VFA, the US has primary custody of the accused.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Wednesday wrote to the US Embassy asking that the custody of the accused be returned to the Philippines "because it is a case of particular importance."
"In effect we waive our jurisdiction unless it is a case of particular importance. There is no definition of terms here. Maybe General Calimlim, in good faith, did not see the nuance of the treaty because it does not say that primary jurisdiction must be in writing also," he said. (ECV/Sunnex)
(November 18, 2005 issue)
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