Former President Ferdinand E.

Marcos: from a flawed

but functioning judicial system before martial law, he
held entire branch captive with just one Letter of
Instruction.

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The online news portal of TV5
MANILA - When Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG)
chairman and De La Salle University College of Law
dean Atty. Jose Manuel Diokno began his talk at the
conference “Never Again, Never Forget: Martial Law, the
Academe, and the Public”, he asked his audience: “Do
you believe in justice in the Philippines?”

He was met with nervous laughter.

The son of Martial Law prisoner and former Senator

Jose W. Diokno, replied that he too had lost faith in
justice in the country.

“I am a dean of the College of Law, so I’m supposed to

pay homage to the law. But I must speak the truth before
I can pay such homage to the law. The numbers do not
lie. The facts are there in front of us. The state of our
legal system at present is in near collapse,” Atty. Diokno
said at the second day of the conference at the
University of the Philippines Diliman on Friday.

He rattled off the statistics one by one. The Department

of Justice had a mere 20 percent conviction rate, while
the Office of the Ombudsman had an 18 percent
conviction rate.

Only 10 percent of those convicted of graft and

corruption served their sentence. The courts and the
DOJ had a 25 percent national vacancy rate, with few
lawyers wanting to become part of the judiciary and
prosecution service.
Court cases could take anywhere from six to 10 years to
be resolved, “if you’re lucky,” Diokno said. But more
often, they lasted longer than a decade.

There was also widespread perception that graft and

corruption permeated all offices and corners of the legal
system, he said.

What happened?

But how did it come to this? Why did this happen?

Diokno acknowledged that the legal system was far from

perfect before the declaration of Martial Law, but it
nevertheless worked. For the most part, it served its
purpose, to dispense justice based on the merits of a
case.

There was corruption, yes, but it was not as prevalent.

And most importantly, members of the judiciary enjoyed
the independence that the Constitution guaranteed
them.

But a few days after declaring Martial Law, then

President Ferdinand Marcos issued Letter of Instruction
No. 11, commanding all officials of the national
government whose appointments were vested in the
president – including judges and justices – to submit
their resignation from office by October 15, 1972.

LOI 11 exempted the chief justice and members of the

Supreme Court, but within a few months, the 1973
Constitution was passed, which included provisions
saying Marcos could remove even members of the
Supreme Court at any time.

“Kung kelan niya gusto, pwede (He can do it whenever

he wants to),” Diokno told the audience, composed
mostly of college students.

Thus, all the members of the judicial branch of

government worked under the threat of dismissal at any
time. Any time Marcos felt like it, he could replace them.

According to Diokno, veteran judges were dismissed

through court notices bearing their acceptance of
compulsory resignations. Their names and careers were
ruined and their futures shattered even without their side
being heard, and without knowing what the charges
against them were.

From the moment he signed LOI 11, Marcos stripped

the judges of their independence. Thus, justice no
longer depended on the merits of case, but the
closeness of the lawyers to the Marcoses, Diokno said.

Judiciary captured
Judiciary captured

“He owned every single judge in the country because

he could accept the resignation any time he so desired,”
he said. “The Marcoses captured the entire judiciary,
and held it in their pocket for the next 14 years.”

Describing Marcos as “an astute lawyer”, Diokno said

the dictator knew he needed to capture the judiciary so
that after his time in power, he and his family could
never be prosecuted and punished.

“And Marcos succeeded, perhaps beyond his wildest

dreams,” Diokno said.

Marcos also succeeded in producing a new breed of

lawyers.

While they used to be measured based on their

professional skills and integrity, after Martial Law, they
were measured by how close they were to Marcoses.
These new lawyers built connections with judges,
prosecutors, court personnel, police officers, military
officials, and others.

These connections have outlasted the Marcos regime,

and continued even after the EDSA People Power
Revolution, Diokno said.

Referring to the dictator’s abolition of Congress, Diokno

said, “What Marcos did to our judiciary and legal system
was much more subtle, and also more far-reaching.”

Diokno explained that the government of former

President Corazon Aquino tried to go after some of
these lawyers, but in at least one instance, the Supreme
Court came to their rescue, illustrating just how close
their ties had become.

Mrs. Aquino also purged the judiciary, but within a few

years, some of the dismissed judges found a way to
return, Diokno said.

“The government’s efforts never succeeded in

dismantling the networks that were established during
the dictatorship,” he lamented, pointing out that these
continued to operate with impunity.

After the 1987 Constitution, appointments in the judiciary

were supposedly no longer politicized, because these
had to go through the Judicial and Bar Council.
Unfortunately, the very same people responsible for
establishing the networks of Marcos during Martial Law
found a way to capture that agency, Diokno added. The
Philippines continued to suffer from a highly politicized
appointment system for judges.

These lawyers and members of the judiciary should be

identified and held accountable for their acts more than
30 years ago.

“I believe it is high time we bring this out into the open,

into the light of day,” Diokno stressed. “If we do not
know where we came from, how can we know where
we’re going?”

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