‘Just tiis’

Leo Tolstoy’s tale about a man sent to prison for a crime he did not commit is not just a classic story of injustice, but forgiveness as well. In God Sees the Truth but Waits, a wrongfully convicted man waited almost 30 years for vindication, which came in the form of the real culprit confessing to the felony. The protagonist, sadly, died in prison before he could taste freedom once more. But in forgiving the real criminal, he had, in effect, set himself free.

In Deniece Cornejo’s case, she only had to wait two years. Late last week, the Court of Appeals downgraded her sentence, credited her imprisonment in the meantime to time served and ordered her immediate release. By the time this column sees print, it is hoped that she would have walked out of prison a free woman.

Deniece’s ordeal is a textbook illustration of how power and influence could be used to foist an injustice. Accusing actor-comedian Vhong Navarro of rape, her imputations were ridiculed from the start. Navarro’s showbiz allies — Vice Ganda, Anne Curtis, among many others — laid on the taunting and derision thick from Day One.

All of Deniece’s mannerisms were satirized in all media, her supposed cosmetic surgeries jeered, mocking her for what they claimed to be a dubious past. Navarro’s handlers, on the other hand, sought to get the public’s sympathy for his being beaten up in the aftermath of the alleged rape.

Even the wont-to-meddle Kris Aquino (and who should have known better, having supposedly been a victim of grave injustice and official persecution during the Marcos Sr. years) entered the fray, joining the chorus of those jeering Deniece.

So it should come as no surprise that, with the entire machinery of the then-all-powerful ABS-CBN (Navarro’s studio) arrayed against Deniece, plus the then-presidential sister, Deniece’s complaint — as well as that of many other victims who claimed to have been assaulted in the same manner — was met with apathy from the Department of Justice.

It was Deniece and her friends who were instead incarcerated — for eight months. As counsel for Deniece then, working with the lawyers for the other parties, we were able to successfully petition for bail. After a few years, with Noynoy Aquino gone, there was a surprising twist: The Court of Appeals found that there was probable cause to arrest Navarro for rape and ordered his detention.

After several months, however, the Supreme Court reversed that ruling and ordered Navarro freed. The next development came when the trial court found Deniece and her co-accused guilty of serious illegal detention and sentenced them to life in prison.

That was the decision overturned recently by the Court of Appeals. And it was justice at long last. While I may have withdrawn as Deniece’s counsel shortly after her conviction to prevent friction with other counsels (Sal Panelo, particularly, was a piece of work), I have always publicly and consistently stated that I believed that Deniece was raped and that her being in jail instead of her alleged attacker was an injustice in the highest degree.

It may have taken some time, but as another saying goes, “the wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.” May those wheels continue to grind for those who have accused Navarro of wrongdoing but who have been intimidated by the vilification suffered by Deniece — instead of justice to “just tiis.”