Pardon Me.....

Posted by: Alecks P. Pabico | October 28, 2007 at 12:35 am
Filed under: Human Rights, Governance, In the News

THE recent grant of pardon to former President Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada, as emphasized by the order read by Press Secretary and Acting Executive Secretary Ignacio Bunye, was in keeping with the Arroyo government’s policy of releasing convicted prisoners once they reach the age of 70. It was also noted that the convicted former leader’s close to seven years in detention was already punishment enough (never mind if he spent a lot of that time in an air-conditioned hospital suite and the last three years in his sprawling Tanay resthouse).

Moreover, despite the restoration of his civil and political rights, Estrada has committed not to seek any elective post or office. Besides, what could be a more humanitarian gesture than freeing Estrada to allow him to be by his ailing mother’s bedside?

Still, the pardon came just six weeks after the Sandiganbayan found Estrada guilty on two counts of plunder and sentenced him to reclusion perpetua, or a maximum prison term of 40 years.

There is, of course, no disputing the presidential prerogative to bestow executive clemency to deserving convicts. But it is a sad testament to the kind of justice that reigns in this country that the government will move heaven and earth — including bringing the release order by helicopter — to pardon a convicted former highest official of the land who swore to defend and preserve our laws, but would not extend the same to similarly situated, albeit ordinary, offenders.

Teresita Carabeo, for example, is serving a life term for large-scale illegal recruitment. Like him, she is now 70 years old. But unlike the disgraced president, Lola Teresita has already served her sentence longer than Estrada did: 13 years and five months at the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW).

Lola Teresita is not the only septuagenarian inmate at the Correctional. There are four others, some of whom are much older than she is:

Anita Goriona, 79, serving a life sentence for violation of Republic Act 9165, the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002
Pilar Ruiz, 76, serving 40 years also for drug offenses
Adang Adjsani, 70, meted life imprisonment also for drug offenses
Rosita Barba, 77, meted life imprisonment for illegal recruitment and estafa
Most of these elderly women are suffering from hypertension. The oldest, Lola Anita, who hails from Iloilo, is even blind in one eye.

Back in 2000, I wrote about how harsh jail terms were being meted out to low-level, first-time drug offenders, most of them women. By then, the number of females incarcerated for drug offenses had grown by 37 percent since 1997, and included seven women 60 years old and above, the CIW’s category of old age.

This figure included a 74-year-old laundrywoman suffering from cataract, diabetes, and arthritis who was convicted to life imprisonment for selling some 360 grams of marijuana. There was also a 73-year-old who had been sentenced to reclusion perpetua for marijuana possession. At the time, she had already served 14 and a half years — and was suffering from gout and had undergone cataract extraction.

In 1999, two months after she was transferred to the Correctional, 78-year-old Marcelina Biswek died of cancer while serving double life terms for selling 88 kilos of marijuana.

Unfortunately for them, a directive issued by then President Fidel Ramos suspended the processing for commutation of sentences of all cases involving convictions for violations of laws on prohibited drugs. Back then, there was also no Memorandum Circular No. 155, which would be issued by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2004.

The CIW says it has released some 20 septuagenarian inmates out of compassion and for humanitarian grounds, as the Arroyo-issued memo stipulates. Yet there are still women who are already in the twilight of their years at the CIW today. A CIW official explains that most of them still have pending cases, which make them ineligible for pardon, according to a penitentiary policy. “Even if they have to die tomorrow, that’s the policy,” says the official.

Then again, there is no explanation why Lola Adang, who has no pending case, has yet to be recommended for pardon. A native of Jolo, Sulu, Lola Adang has spent the last year and four months in jail.

And in spite of the 2004 memo circular, some elderly inmates have also died while in incarceration at the women’s penitentiary.

Interestingly, there are fewer male convicts over the age of 70 at the minimum-security facility of the National Bilibid Prison. They are:

Antonio Amigo, 74, serving a sentence of 12 to 16 years for two counts of rape and sexual assault
Fermin Abalos, 73, sentenced to six to 14 years for homicide
Isidro Casin, 73, sentenced to 14 to 17 years for acts of lasciviousness
According to an NBP staff, convicted maximum- and medium-security prisoners who reach the age of 65 are automatically transferred to the minimum-security facility. Both Abalos and Casin have been with the minimum-security facility for over a year now, while Amigo has logged some three years already.

Had Arroyo not granted Estrada executive clemency last Thursday, October 25, Estrada may have gotten to know Abalos, Casin, and Amigo quite well. But he has been spared that experience; instead of their company in prison, Estrada is now enjoying that of his family and friends, in the comfort of his Polk Street mansion in Greenhills.