The Blunder of an Arroyo Lawyer, Hitler Fan

by Rodel Rodis
January 16, 2011
Ignoring a constitutional ban against making “midnight” appointments in the last three months of her term, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) went ahead and appointed her personal manicurist, Nitz Carpon, as director of a government housing agency and her personal gardener, Armando Macapagal, as Deputy Director of the Luneta Park Administration. For good measure and insurance, she also appointed her former legal counsel, Associate Justice Renato Corona, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
GMA was extremely generous to Corona who has served her faithfully ever since she was elected vice-president in 1998 and he was her chief of staff. GMA paid for his hospital bills when he had back surgery while already on the Supreme Court. GMA even appointed Corona’s wife, Cristina, as Chair and CEO of the John Hay Management Corporation (JHMC), after firing all the other members of the JHMC Board who opposed Mrs. Corona’s appointment. According to a recent government audit of her JHMC income, Mrs. Corona received a total of 972,148.30 pesos ($23,146) for the last six months of 2010, and P1.915 million pesos ($45,595) for the year before.
Corona has reciprocated GMA’s generosity by voting 19-0 in her favor in all the cases that have appeared before him in the Supreme Court.
GMA’s choices before or after midnight were always controversial. The most recent example involves her personal attorney, Ferdinand Topacio, who was featured in an ABS-CBN TV newscast on January 2, 2012 expressing his great admiration for Adolf Hitler. 
ABS-CBN news correspondent Chiarra Zambrano reported that Topacio “remains convinced that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was a good leader” and that “Germany became a modern nation under the Nazi strongman.” The telecast included an interview of Topacio standing in front of a large painting of Hitler that was prominently displayed in his law office.
In the interview, Topacio denied that Hitler was behind the mass murders of more than six million Jews during the Holocaust. He expressed his belief that Hitler just wanted to “segregate” and “exile” the Jews, not exterminate them. He added that “Hitler enjoyed the support of his people with regard to the treatment of Jews.”
It was a no-brainer for GMA to pick a litigator who was willing to zealously defend Hitler against world public opinion. If Topacio could defend Hitler, he could certainly defend GMA.
 Topacio’s legal skills were quickly put to the test. When GMA learned from reliable sources that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was poised to file electoral sabotage charges against her on or by November 18, she made plans to travel abroad for “a medical emergency”. When Secretary of Justice Leila De Lima issued a Hold Departure Order (HDO) barring her from leaving the country, GMA directed Topacio to obtain a temporary restraining order (TRO) from the Supreme Court to void De Lima’s HDO.
 Since GMA had appointed 12 of the 15 members of the SC, it was a foregone conclusion that a majority of the SC justices would grant the TRO and allow GMA and her husband to leave Manila on November 15, before the non-bailable criminal charges could be filed against her.
Topacio moved quickly to have his motion for a TRO heard by the Supreme Court “ex parte” – a legal proceeding brought by one party without notifying the other party, in this case, the government. As expected, the TRO was approved.
Even before the ink was dry on the Arroyo Court’s TRO, Topacio already had the 2 million pesos in cash ready to hand over to the SC as a condition for the TRO. At that point, GMA was already racing to the airport in an ambulance, with her face mask and neck brace firmly in place, eager to leave Manila on the first available flight.
But GMA’s departure was thwarted by De Lima who ignored the SC’s TRO believing that GMA would never return once she left. De Lima was not persuaded by Topacio’s personal assurance that he would remove one of his testicles if GMA did not return as promised. De Lima was also not deterred by the threat of the SC to cite her for contempt.
After GMA’s departure was foiled, the Arroyo Court justices angrily summoned De Lima to appear before them to explain why she willfully disobeyed their order to allow GMA to leave the country. As it turned out, however, De Lima had a perfect defense – the SC’s TRO was not in effect on November 15 because the second condition required by the SC’s TRO had not been met.
It appears that in his rush to get GMA to leave immediately, Topacio mistakenly prepared a Special Power of Attorney where GMA authorized him to “produce” rather than to “receive” processes and subpoenas on her behalf which was a condition required for the issuance of the TRO. If Topacio has used the proper word, GMA could have left the country on either the 16th or 17th of November. 
When the SC met en banc on November 18, after a fierce debate, a majority of the justices led by Justices Lourdes Sereno and Antonio Carpio ruled in a 7-6 decision over CJ Corona’s side that since GMA had not complied with the second condition, the TRO was suspended until the condition was met.
Unfortunately for Topacio’s client, before Topacio’s error could be corrected to satisfy the second condition, Pasay Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Jesus Mupas had already issued an arrest warrant against GMA charging her with electoral sabotage, a non-bailable offense.
In a press conference in Malacañang later that day, De Lima said that with the issuance of the arrest warrant, the issue of the Supreme Court’s TRO allowing GMA to leave the country “has become moot and academic.”
 GMA was then served with the arrest warrant and placed under hospital arrest at St. Luke’s Hospital. The next time Topacio appeared in the news was when he announced that GMA would be having breakfast at St. Luke’s while waiting for the Philippine National Police (PNP) to transfer her to the Veterans Memorial Hospital. “They [PNP] run the show here. They make the conditions,” Topacio told the press.
But before the PNP was making the conditions, it was the Supreme Court that set two conditions for the TRO and Topacio blundered by failing to comply with the second condition which, Justice Roberto Abad noted, as quoted by Justice Sereno, ”will take only 10 minutes for the amended Special Power of Attorney to be submitted by Atty. Topacio.”
GMA may spend 10 years behind bars because of the 10 minutes her lawyer missed. A one word boo-boo.
I wonder what Hitler would have done if his lawyer had committed such an egregious error.
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