Renewed hope for Mary Jane

“Fears have been raised she could be executed if the trial is overly delayed.”

It looks like there is now a small light at the end of the tunnel in the sensational “Inekon extortion” case which cost one of the most influential officials of the Aquino administration his job.

But, more significantly, the case delayed the modernization of the rickety Metro Rail Transit 3 which inconvenienced millions of commuters due to the breakdowns that plagued it.

In a landmark ruling, since this is the first time in Philippine jurisprudence that such a procedure has been greenlighted, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan is permitting prosecution witnesses to give their sworn testimonies from abroad.

What this means is that former Czech ambassador to the Philippines Josef Rychtar and businessman Josef Husek will testify – without coming back to the country and personally showing up in court – in the sputtering graft trial of ex-MRT-3 general manager Al Vitangcol III and his associate Wilson de Vera.

In their pleading, state lawyers asked the Sadiganbayan to allow such long-distance testimonies of Rychtar and Husek as these are vital to the successful prosecution of the case owing to their intimate knowledge of the details of the alleged extortion try by the accused.

Rychtar is scheduled to testify in the Philippine Embassy in Santiago, Chile and Husek will proceed to the embassy in Prague, Czech Republic.

The Sandiganbayan ruled to allow the two to speak via video conferencing due to their inability to return to the Philippines to testify in the cases against Vitangcol and co-accused De Vera.

State lawyers informed the Sandiganbayan that Rychtar could not personally appear due to his work as Czech envoy to Chile while Husek, chairman of the Inekon Group, claimed to be quite sickly and could not physically cope with long travel.

Vitangcol and De Vera are presently on trial on the alleged $30-million (later scaled down to $2.5 million) extortion attempt in July 2012 on Inekon in exchange for the contract to supply coaches as part of the P3.8-billion MRT-3 expansion project overseen by past Department of Transportation and Communications Secretary Mar Roxas.

The squeeze, which supposedly occurred in Rychtar’s Makati residence, was exposed to the media not long after by the diplomat, who alleged Vitangcol had sent over his emissary De Vera of PH Trams to relay the outrageous demand to Inekon.

When Inekon rejected the demand, the supply contract was awarded to Dalian Locomotive of China while PH Trams bagged the maintenance contract. And everyone knows where the Dalian trainsets are right now – nowhere.

This should be terrific news for Mary Jane Veloso and her camp. Veloso, recall, is the hapless Filipina OFW who is now languishing in death row in an Indonesian jail after being found guilty of drug trafficking in trying to smuggle 2.6 kilos of heroin in her suitcase at Yogyakarta Airport in 2010.

Veloso, who gained widespread sympathy saying she merely had been duped, was granted a shock temporary reprieve by Indonesian President Joko Widodo hours before her scheduled execution in April 2015.

“Sandiganbayan is permitting prosecution witnesses to give their sworn testimonies from abroad.”

The initial outburst of joy and relief morphed into a lengthy human trafficking trial here and no guarantees Veloso will be exonerated even if she proves she was tricked by her alleged recruiters, Ma. Kristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao.

Under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations mutual legal assistance treaty, Indonesia is obliged to keep Veloso alive as a witness in the human trafficking case against Sergio and Lacanilao, but fears have been raised she could be executed if the trial is overly delayed.

Veloso’s only hope right now is for a speedy conviction in the Philippines, as this would show she was a pawn and might persuade Indonesia to spare her life.

Unfortunately, there is a formidable stumbling block standing in Veloso’s way to life. Ironically, it is the Court of Appeals (CA).

In a ruling seen as a threat to Veloso’s very existence, CA magistrates have denied her appeal through a written interrogatory in the illegal recruitment and trafficking case she had filed against Sergio and Lacanilao. Her lawyers said they are taking this to the Supreme Court (SC).

The CA stressed that in doing so, they were merely upholding the judiciary’s role as the ultimate guardian of the Constitution.

The accused, the CA said, are given the constitutional right to a face-to-face confrontation with their accuser Veloso, as contained in Art. III of the Constitution.

However, the Sandiganbayan’s recent ruling in the Inekon case should prove to be manna in heaven for Veloso because their approval of the testimony through video conference of Rychtar and Husek may actually breathe some life into her appeal which, in turn, could convince the SC to overturn the CA.

Well, as President Trump is so fond of saying: “We’ll see what happens.”