Press Release
September 10, 2009

Transcript of Sen. Santiago's interview

On Larrañaga's petition to transfer under the RP-Spain Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement Treaty

There is a pending case before the Supreme Court, and there is danger that the action of the Department of Justice might be temporarily restrained by the SC. So in order to avoid that possible embarrassment, I humbly think that the DOJ should just issue their implementing rules and regulations, which should normally include--like in an extradition hearing--a public hearing where the adverse party is also notified. There is no automatic extradition; there is always a hearing before a court of justice so that the persons who might be affected by the extradition proceedings and who are interested in keeping the alien here would raise their objections properly, and be heard at least by the judge. There is nothing wrong with extraditing, or in this case transferring, the foreign citizen, provided that the other party has been notified. I think that is all they are asking for; they just want to be heard on why he should be kept here rather than sent to Spain.

I understand there are also good and valid reasons for transferring him. Number one, he seems to have qualified along all the requirements that are specified in the treaty. Number two, this is going to be a mutually beneficial arrangement because in lieu of this Spanish national, we will be able to get two Filipinos who are in prison in Spain, and they would be able to serve their jail terms here. So it is not a one-sided event. and in addition, this is a proliferating phenomenon all over the world. There are several exchange of prisoners treaties, and there is even a move have the Philippines enter to as many as these transfer arrangements as possible, considering he have some eight million Filipinos abroad. If any of them get sentenced, it doesn't mean that under a transfer treaty they can come to the Philippines and no longer serve the sentence. It simply means that they will serve their sentence here so that the Filipino families, who are very close as we know, can visit them, or if they are of senior age, then they can expect that they can, if hospitalized, can be visited by their own family. That is really the core of the exchange treaty.

On the allegations that the ratification and concurrence of the treaty was rushed

I don't know because I was never approached by anybody on behalf of Larrañaga or even Malacañang. I was just requested to prioritize the treaty in time for the President's state visit. We normally do that as a matter of courtesy to another branch of government. If we are requested to expedite a treaty that is noncontroversial, we try and do that and I explain on the floor to my colleagues it is meant to be accompanied by a visit by our president because normally in these state visits there is an exchange of favorable documents. So if we would have concurred in that treaty, we would have in effect reciprocated whatever treaty the Spanish government would have ratified that would favor Filipinos.

So the treaty is not tailor-made for Larrañaga?

At least not that I know of. There were questions about him on the floor. But as I've said as I was defending the transfer treaties in general, the danger of keeping a foreign national in jail even if there is a transfer treaty is that he might file in an international tribunal a complaint for violation of human rights if the jail conditions in the sentencing country are below the standards of his own country.

Why do you think the DOJ pushed through with Larrañaga's petition without notifying victims' family?

We don't know if the DOJ has already issued the implementing rules and regulations. The normal procedure is after a treaty has been concurred in by the Senate, we will inform the DFA and the DFA will inform the department concerned, and the department will usually issue implementing rules and regulations. I presume that there are no such IRRs because they are not invoking any procedure that they may have followed. They just said "We looked at the treaty, and he had complied with the minimum qualifications, so we decided to grant the petition for transfer." I am saying that the procedure that was followed, since it did not include a public hearing with notice to the other party or adverse party, is in danger of being overruled by the SC and the other two branches of government always try to avoid being overruled by the SC. It would have been prudent to just conduct a hearing, and if the DOJ is still convinced it can go ahead and proceed with the transfer, then the other party can go to the SC but the SC will have virtually no choice because it would have said that the conditions of the treaty has been followed, there has been a public hearing, the adverse party has been given a full opportunity to be heard, so there is nothing to be changed there.

On the Ombudsman's strict policy in giving away copies of SALNs of public officials

I am always against bureaucratic red tape, particularly since our Constitution is unique. We are of the very few, perhaps the only constitution in the world, that has a provision that the right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized. In the decision of the SC upholding this constitutional provision, the SC said this means that if there is any doubt, the doubt should be resolved in favor of the citizen, unless of course there are valid exceptions like, for example, it might endanger national security, and so on. I don't see how anyone cannot just walk up to a public office and say "I am a Filipino as you can very well see, and I want to see a copy of this or that official document." I don't know why there has to be these bureaucratic procedures that would discourage the Filipino from acquiring documents. It is a public document, and all public documents should be made available to the public, unless it has been stamped "Restricted"; and in that case, a dissatisfied citizen can go to court and ask why it is so classified.

The reason given I think was to prevent harassment of public officials. But the question there is like this: the SALN only has certain lines and spaces for replies, so there is really no room for explaining things. What should be done is to require the public official to attach supplementary documents if the replies are long. For example, if he wants to explain why he did not list this or that property he can then attach a supplement saying these properties have been transferred to the names of certain corporations. And then it would be up to the citizen seeking information to verify whether the information actually exists and has been registered, and if the transfer has been approved by the SEC, things like those. But In its present form, the SALN does not give any space for that, so we all just list our assets without any explanation why some assets from the prior SALN is no longer there and how we acquired the new assets. It could prevent the harassment of public officials, but it could also prevent the citizen from obtaining information.

In that case, there would be a constitutional issue there: What is the meaning of the right of the people to information on matters of public concern? I don't know if the exception is made because SALNs are considered not in the realm of public concern, which sounds indefensible. So the best thing to do, I think, to comply with the constitutional provision, is to be liberal in its application. As I've said, as long as there is no prejudice to certain things like national security, and as long as the citizen is willing to bear the actual expenses of reproduction if the documents are long, then government should just grin and bear the inconvenience because that is a constitutional provision. In case of doubt, we follow the constitution. We do not add certain restriction, limitations, inhibitions, specifications, or make categories of what can or cannot be allowed because the principal rule of statutory construction is when the law does not distinguish, we should not distinguish. The Constitution says "The right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized," and it does not say "except in cases of..."

Also, the context is, let us say, unfortunate.

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