A Life Time and Four days

There are three reasons why our courts send criminals to prison. First: To punish the crime. Second: To rehabilitate the criminal. Third: To protect society. In criminal law, there is a corresponding penalty in each criminal liability. when the court rule a sentence, the offender should serve the full length of it. In our constitution set-up, reprieve, commutation as well pardon is achievable by the offender through the vested power of the president. in the ruling of Justice Marshall in the case of United states v. Wilson pardon and its legal effect define as:
A pardon is an act of grace proceeding from power entrusted with execution of the laws , which exempts individual on whom is bestowed, from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. It is private, though official act of the executive magistrate , delivered to the individual for whose benefit is intended, and not communicated officially to the court ....A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. it may then be rejected by the person to whom it tendered; and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in court force it on him.

because pardon is an act of grace, no legal power can compel the executive to gie it. It is an act of pure generosity of te executive and its is to give or to withdraw before it is completed. In pardon, both acceptance and delivery are essential to its implementation; there will be no delivery if there is no complete acceptance. In that case, why did the Former President Joseph Estarada was granted an absolute pardon? though there is final judgment by the Sadigang Bayan and he did not appeal it in Supreme Court. but still, In media he still claiming that he is innocent of plunder. there is no acceptance there, but still the delivery was made. may because it was an "act of grace" coming from our GREAT former President Arroyo; and that decision is not subject for any impugnity. According to bishop Teodoro Bacani:

The pardon of former President Joseph Estrada has elicited very strong contrary opinion, but it has also won approval from the many but not very vocal poor Estrada sympathizers. Though I have been a very vocal critic of many moves of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, I have publicly signified approval of her decision to pardon her predecessor. I think she was right in doing so. It was definitely her constitutional prerogative to grant pardon to Estrada. But did she abuse her presidential prerogative? Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J., a constitutional law expert, thinks it will be a walk in the park to prove that she did not. There was no grave abuse of discretion on her part sufficient to nullify her grant of pardon. If what she did in pardoning Estrada was not illegal, was it moral? Did she do the morally right thing?

The Pardon given to the former President is an absolute one. This pardon is the same kind given to the killers of Senator Benigno Aquino jr.; to Claudio Teehankee, Jr., who was convicted for the 1991 murders of 16-year-old Maureen Hultman and 21-year-old Roland John Chapman; and what the convicted child rapist Romeo Jalosjos applying for, in order to restore all his political rights. The other kind of pardon is conditional pardon. The latter is defined in the case of Cabantag v. Wolfe as:
a conditional pardon has no force until accepted by the condemned. The reason is obvious. The condition may be less acceptable to him than original punishment, and may in fact be more onerous. He has a right to choose whether to accept or to reject it on the terms tendered. In this respect it differs from a commutations, which is a mere reduction of the penalty, or from a pardon which is its total remission. It is not altogether apparent that in the exercise of his constitutional power to remit or decrease sentences by granting pardons, committed to him by the Constitution, the President of the United States is not free to act without the concurrence of the condemned.

There were times that this executive power was been abused. do you still remember the murderer/priest eater the former Congressman Norbeto Manero Jr.? who was given an absolute pardon way back December 1999, despite of the heinous crime he have done. How about the big four? " A notorious crime syndicate in the early 60's, may constitute interesting historical information, but it is not particularly relevant unless Mr. Urquico

is shown to have reverted to his former lawless ways. At the same time, the fact that his Big Four colleague and Muntinlupa co-inmate, Rep. Luis "Baby" Asistio, helped obtain the Presidential pardon is neither shocking nor offensive to the senses. Asistio himself was granted a presidential pardon almost 15 years ago and is now an elected congressman for Caloocan City. At the end of the day, the decision to grant or not grant clemency is addressed to the sole discretion of the President of the Philippines." About five years ago an an executive clemency was granted for a woman convicted of estafa named Anastacia Montes-Cauyan. She served just one year of her seven year term despite the fact that she has several other estafa cases pending against her at the San Pedro (Laguna) Regional Trial Court (one of which is filed by me).What is so special about this woman that she was able to secure an executive clemency, you might ask? She is no less, a sister-in-law of State Prosecutor Emmanuel "Manny" Velasco. Now is that quite a coincidence or what? That's the sad fact, if your just Mariano Umbrero eventhough you are qualified for pardon, it will take you a lifetime and four days waiting for it. There are three reasons why our courts send criminals to prison. First: To punish the crime. Second: To rehabilitate the criminal. Third: To protect society.