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Adjudications of the SC and all inferior courts must be anchored on real facts and legal verities not on imagined fears and partisan speculations

Press Statements
  • Office of the Minority Leader
  • Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
  • 17 November 2011
  • 0916-6406737 / 0918-9201277

 

             Adjudications of the Supreme Court and all inferior courts must be anchored on real facts and legal verities, and not on imagined fears and partisan speculations.

 

            In the case of the right to travel of the former First Couple, the real facts are: (a) there are no pending cases filed against them in any court of law; (b) there is no hold departure order (HDO) issued against them by any competent court; and (c) former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is suffering from a rare ailment necessitating her treatment abroad.

 

             The legal verities are:  (a) the liberty to travel is guaranteed under the Bill of Rights; (b) the right to travel cannot be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety or public health as provided by law, not one of which obtains relative to the projected travel of the Arroyos; (c) the watchlist orders issued by Justice Secretary Leila De Lima are not equivalent to an HDO; (d) the Supreme Court has issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) upholding the Arroyos’ right to travel and restraining the enforcement of the DOJ Circular No. 41 and the WLOs issued by Secretary De Lima.

 

             These factual and legal realities cannot be overlooked or supplanted by the Aquino administration’s mere imagined fears and baseless speculations that the Arroyos are flight risks and would seek political asylum abroad.

 

           Even if the Joint DOJ-COMELEC panel would rush the filing of an information for poll sabotage against the former First Couple, such filing will not automatically result in barring the Arroyos’ departure because:

 

           (1) The Supreme Court has still to decide on the petition challenging the validity of the formation of the said panel;

 

           (2) The resolution finding probable cause is subject to a motion for reconsideration and subsequent appeal before the higher courts;

 

           (3) A hold departure order (HDO) has to be issued by the proper court after due notice and hearing, which issuance is likewise subject to a motion for reconsideration and appeal; and

 

          (4) An HDO can only be issued based on the three grounds prescribed by the Constitution justifying the impairment of the right to travel.

 

           Secretary De Lima cannot justify her open defiance of the Supreme Court’s TRO on the pendency of the government’s motion for reconsideration because entrenched in our jurisprudence is the rule that a motion for reconsideration or an appeal cannot stay the execution of a TRO.