Outclassed

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Amateurish. That was how a news report described the performance of government prosecutors during the initial presentation of evidence in the bail hearings for Senator Bong Revilla, a member of his legislative staff Richard Cambe and businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles who are accused of embezzling billions of pesos in public funds.

This is the country's biggest corruption case and yet the state's prosecutors were not only outclassed by the seasoned defense lawyers, they also tested the patience of the three justices of the Sandiganbayan First Division who were trying the case.

Division chair Efren dela Cruz and Associate Justice Rodolfo Ponferrada questioned the prosecutors' choice and sequencing of witnesses as well as their performance in extracting testimony from their witnesses. Before the defendant's lawyers argued her testimony as hearsay, Ponferrada questioned the decision to put Commission on Audit Assistant Commissioner Susan Garcia on the witness stand first when they should have started with the main protagonists of the case: whistleblowers Benhur Luy, Merlina Suñas and Marina Sula.

The manner in which the prosecutors tried to make Garcia state the amounts covered by the special allotment release orders that were allegedly used to facilitate the release of Revilla's pork barrel funds to fake nongovernment organizations controlled by Napoles annoyed Justice Dela Cruz and there were several instances when Poferrrada had to correct the prosecutors when they got their numbers wrong in the SAROs being presented by the witness.

Aside from this dismal performance, government prosecutors also failed to amend the charges against Revilla and Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile making them the central figures in the plunder of the Priority Development Assistance Fund, instead of Napoles. The amendments were rejected: by the First Division handling Revilla's case and the Fifth Division hearing Estrada's case. Those failures prompted the prosecutors to withdraw their motion to amend the plunder charges against Enrile in the Third Division.

Because we have allowed government lawyers to be grossly underpaid compared to those in the private sector, we are now paying the price. Money, whether acquired legally or illegally, can buy the best lawyers and if our government cannot afford to keep the best and brightest people, the mediocre ones left behind will always be outclassed and outgunned.

We will need excellent lawyers on our team if we are going to rid this country of corruption. Will we have to watch in horror as government prosecutors bungle the biggest corruption cases our country has seen before something is done to improve the quality of the prosecution, or is it really mediocre by design?*