An apologist for former Senator Bong Revilla I am not. In fact, I am on record, on my television/radio program, Yes Yes Yo! Topacio, which airs over Aliw TV 23 and DWIZ 882, as being critical of him again and again, even during the last elections, thereby resulting in a great financial sacrifice on my part as his team pulled out all his campaign ads from my time slot. But then, there’s no price for journalistic independence.
But this time, I have to agree with him — and his lawyers — when they cry to high heavens that this administration is persecuting him. Because I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend why, when the so-called “Floodgate” hearings were beginning to focus on former speaker Martin Romualdez and were leading to the very gates of Malacañang itself (following the testimonies of several witnesses before the Blue Ribbon Committee), Bong Revilla should suddenly be investigated for malversation — and just as suddenly arrested.
I mean, where the heck did that come from? All the Department of Justice had on him was the testimony of former Department of Public Works and Highways Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo, who would say anything, point to anyone, to get off the hook and avoid possible capital offenses.
Totally disregarding the Supreme Court doctrine of res inter alios acta — which provides that the rights of a party cannot be prejudiced by the acts of a third party and that the extrajudicial admissions of a confessant cannot be considered against his co-accused and considered hearsay as to them — the DoJ inexplicably found probable cause against Revilla and filed an information against him.
More strangely, the Sandiganbayan division to which the case was raffled found probable cause to issue a warrant in less than an hour. This notwithstanding that the Rules of Court require judges to make a personal determination of judicial probable cause and not rely on the determination thereof by the prosecution, while the copiousness of the evidence attached to the information makes reading the same in an hour impossible. In fact, my sources tell me, it would take half a day (at least) to evaluate the documents.
Also raising alarm bells was the manner by which Revilla was included in the DoJ probe. Records show that initially, the Complaint Affidavit did not include him, but then — voila! — Revilla was mentioned from out of the blue in a “Motion to Include Additional Respondent.”
Now, seasoned practitioners know that this is a no-no on due process grounds. Any person under criminal investigation must, the Constitution states, be informed of the nature of the charges and shown the evidence against him. In this case, neither was done with Revilla. A legal shortcut or, as is current with the present administration, “bending the law,” was committed against him.
Now the guy is in jail, with another case, this time for plunder, in the works. Poor Bong Revilla — just like Kiko Barzaga, Lean Leviste, Cassie Li Ong, Atong Ang, and the “West Philippine Sea — has become just another diversionary tactic in the government’s desperate attempt to draw attention away from the real Floodgate masterminds.
Which inspires a paraphrase of a line from that great novel, Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (that originally referred to Immanuel Kant): “This government did things, not because they were true, but because it is the government.”