“Clint Eastwood in the movie Gauntlet” was how this blog called Senate sergeant-at-arms Jose Balajadia about a year ago when he had to arrest certain PCGG officials and he had only a handful of staff members with him.
He also had to fetch Jun Lozada at the airport against members of the police who whisked Jun Lozada away, and “Clint Eastwood” had to look for them and there was a bit of a chase.
“Gauntlet” is the old classic movie shown on tv several years ago where Clint Eastwood played the role of a sheriff of a small town and had to bring a witness to court by virtue of a subpoena. Along the way, he and the witness were gunned down, chased down, bombed, set on fire. When he was near town, all the villains lined up the street with high-powered guns, and the sheriff by authority of law commandeered a bus, he then reinforced the bus with steel. The villains peppered the bus to smithereens and tires blew up and the bus crawled like a heap of steel all the way to the stairs of city hall, and when he reached city hall with the witness, after defying a hail of bullets and bombs, his line was, “i am hereby…. (breathless) returning the service… of the writ… as served on the witness,” or something like that.
The Gauntlet role or similar to it was reprised by Bruce Willis in a movie about two years ago.
Thirty minutes ago, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, on the spot, was ordered by the Senate committee on finance to arrest retired Philippine National Police comptroller Eliseo de la Paz and wife, for failure to appear at this morning’s Senate investigation on the “euro generals”; that’s the investigation of the retired PNP comptroller (then, not retired) being caught red-handed by Moscow police with euros the equivalent of 9 million pesos which he did not declare.
Here was the line of Senator Miriam: “Mr. Balajadia, on behalf of the Senate Committee on Finance… I COMMAND YOU (in an emphatic manner), ARREST HIM! NOW!….”
A judge can issue what is normally called a bench warrant (an on-the-spot open-court arrest order) against the following: 1)any person present in court, during open court, for any reason as long as he/ she is in court (i think this can extend to any person within the court house, during open court, for any reason); 2) any accused on bail who jumped bail; 3) any person subpoenaed who failed to appear for no cause.
The Senate has inherent power to cite for contempt any witness who refuses or fails to comply with a subpoena for a Senate investigation; so, yes, a person who fails to appear without cause when subpoenaed by the Senate, may be ordered arrested except that I just don’t have a copy of the Senate rules on procedure so i cannot state here what the Senate had approved as the procedure for the issuance of such a warrant.
The person to follow now is “Clint Eastwood”, or Senate sergeant-at-arms Jose Balajadia, that’s where the story is now, will he arrest or not? Will he wait for the arrest order to be put to writing or not? Will he find the retired police officer? Will hundreds of men line up the street with their high-powered firearms to…..welcome him, of course.
marichulambino.com 