Like Robert Frost’s mystery man in his poem “ Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”, who, Frost wrote, had more miles to go before he slept, Justice Secretary Boying Remulla is faced with the same hard challenge. Both have promises or oaths, as it were, to keep. And they are not easy ones, time being the ultimate hurdle.
Remulla is now at the center of a moral universe of his own. Maybe it’s a choice, maybe it’s destiny, both not necessarily in contradictions as theologians would elucidate on sovereignty and free will.
When the former Cavite lawmaker was handpicked to be the top justice man in President Bongbong Marcos Cabinet, it was viewed as a hohum in the Philippines’ unique system. First off, he toed the official line of the previous administration that the crime against humanity committed during the Duterte Administration was pure fiction. Duterte, of course, was his man.
When the International Criminal Court recently signaled that it was resuming the probe on the alleged crime that was paused for a while, Remulla countered that it was unwarranted because the country was and is willing and able through its system of justice to look into it.
Request rejected. Proofs presented were token gestures, more to influence perception than to show reality.
PBBM’s team of legal luminaries, with the inclusion of the non-biodegradable Juan Ponce Enrile of the infamous martial law Cabinet of Marcos, Sr. sang like a choir. Still does. No way can the ICC impose itself on a sovereign nation against its will. The argument becomes inane when the fact of agreeing for ICC to do its job is invoked. When the ship sinks, so oftentimes quipped former Clark ruler Rufo Colayco, not a lawyer and no love lost for a distinct tribe, you go to the fine print.
The Rome Statute has set forth two things in its articles: 1) the ICC can still run after the culprit after it had withdrawn provided his hand was found in the cookie jar before the withdrawal. 2) the state party must also cooperate to the ICC to conduct its probe.
Remulla thought otherwise. The Philippines would do so only out of courtesy and respect for the international body. Did anybody say amen? So, arguably, the choir delivered a viva voce or sotto voce.
Kapampangan lawyer Eligio Mallari, top man at the Vanguard of Philippine Constitution, has a simple solution to the ICC looming probe: show them proof of competence and integrity. The ICC has ruled nada. So the show must go on.
Like his boss, Remulla is mandated to do justice to everyone, friend and foe alike, and in one specific case, to former Senator Leila de Lima who has been detained for nearly six years, and nearly died in the hands of a co-inmate at a police camp in Camp Crame. It was a near death experience, she confessed. Injustice must feel the same way for anyone. Otherwise, the slogan justice delayed is justice denied is pure crap.
After the De Lima hostage- taking incident, Remulla’s boss said he would not interfere in her case but only to offer a safer place. The offer was politely turned down. Apparently, it was thought of as a “silong malambot, matalik a igut”, as my late mother would call it. Soft rope, tight noose. It was an anecdotal joke, probably apocryphal, then that when the late dictator would ask a loyal general to jump from a building, the latter would reply‘ from what floor,sir’?
Remulla understands loyalty, too. De Lima, or justice, can wait, even as government witnesses against her have walked out one by one. Remulla can quote Leo Tolstoy for justification: God sees the truth but waits. So does Bongbong. So does the alter ego.
The hour of truth may have begun sooner though. Not that some American senators are urging Marcos to free De Lima. That’s old news. The new news is the shocking news that Remulla’s eldest son was arrested for allegedly importing a type of marijuana in a package valued at P1 million from someone who sent it by mail from California.
Does acceptance mean approval? Not guilty, innocent until proven, the caged De Lima shouted, reflecting her own legal position on her case. Remulla must have heard that, too, and, for once could only see , eye to eye with a panera.
Remulla is obviously , personally pained but officially firm: he will not lift a finger to influence his son’s case even if every part of a parent’s body aches from head to foot. In a scene in American TV drama, a father wondered where he had gone wrong as a father after a son was caught in a crime. As a decent man, a sympathetic comment from a fellow Caviteno, Sen. Bong Revilla, Remula must be wondering where he had gone wrong,too.
He cannot ignore a bigger canvas. How he handles himself in the face of a family predicament vis-à-vis his position as the primer messenger of justice for his people, will confirm or belie his earlier statement about the ICC probe that the Philippine government is willing and able – competence and intregrity as Mallari put it– to conduct the case against the Duterte Administration.
So far, it seems he means business, although there are some who notice a few ‘niceties’ — what are we in power for, so boasted a Senate president of long ago– given to his beleaguered son. He is also not resigning out of delikadeza. In this country, that’s a lost tradition, especially among politicians. Granted, maybe it’s not fair, too, that a son’ sin is imputed against the father.
Other voices are raising the issue of Remulla’s true place– or rank– in the scheme of things under the Marcos administration. It’s too early to judge. Critics are approaching this case with a Stephen Covey mindset: begin with the end in view. This is a smell test for Remulla.
