The devil is in the technicalities
“Why do defendants in a case sometimes win because of technicalities,” I asked my attorney-friend. When technicalities of the law make a guilty person get away scot-free, has justice been served to the complainants?
Take the case of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (my baccalaureate degree was AB-English Literature — hence my reference):
The rich merchant of Venice, Antonio, guaranteed a loan of his friend Bassanio from Shylock, who was notorious, as Jews were, for his usurious money lending rates. Bassanio’s urgency for 3,000 ducats was for expenses in his courtship of the rich heiress Portia, who had set up a final selection of a husband from among her suitors. Shylock was the last recourse for the need because the often-delinquent borrower Bassanio’s trading ships had sunk, and his over-extended creditor-suppliers were crying out for his blood. Indeed, blood was the remaining collateral acceptable to Shylock from Antonio, who determinedly pitched for no interest for usance, but agreed to Shylock’s exacting “a pound of flesh” if he, Antonio, would not give back to Shylock at a certain date, the money Shylock lent to Bassanio. Antonio’s own money was tied as his ships and merchandise were at sea to Tripolis, the Indies, Mexico and England.
N.B.: The Merchant of Venice is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598, at the height of Venice’s 16th century maritime trade, where merchants acted as crucial middlemen between Europe and the Middle East, importing goods like spices and silk, and facilitating finance, including early forms of banking and credit. A new aristocracy was rising from the capitalist merchants who financed shipments and contracted with buyers in foreign lands. The Jews were ostracized and discriminated against, although they were rich and financially influential.
Alas, Antonio’s own trading ships were reported lost at sea. Now give me your “pound of flesh,” Shylock demanded of Antonio.
By this time, Bassanio was suddenly rich — by his marriage to the heiress Portia. He sent word to Shylock that he will pay 6,000 ducats for his 3,000 ducats debt guaranteed by Antonio. But Shylock turns the offer down, and insists on the “pound of flesh” from Antonio. Enter Portia, disguised as Balthazar, a young male “doctor of the law,” bearing a letter of recommendation to the Duke who was mediating the stalemate between Shylock and Antonio/Bassanio.
“As the court grants Shylock his bond and Antonio prepares for Shylock’s knife, Portia deftly appropriates Shylock’s argument for ‘specific performance.’ She says that the contract allows Shylock to remove only the flesh, not the blood, of Antonio. Thus, if Shylock were to shed any drop of Antonio’s blood, his ‘lands and goods’ would be forfeited under Venetian laws. She tells him that he must cut precisely one pound of flesh, no more, no less; she advises him that ‘if the scale do turn / But in the estimation of a hair, / Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate’.” (The Merchant of Venice 4.1/344–346, Folger Shakespeare Library).
In a deconstruction analysis “Shakespeare and the Law” by the Trinity College Law Review, the basic statement was “that the rule of law facilitates certain fairness values… meant to benefit all of society.” However, “Shakespeare draws out the nuanced characteristic of law as almost a double-edged sword that the characters each try to manipulate for their own ends.” Bassanio’s appeal to the Duke “To do a great right, do a little wrong” clearly suggests compromise.
That Shylock wanted “a pound of flesh” from Antonio (Bassanio’s loan guarantor) was “gruesome and seems unjust,” but “under the ‘parole evidence rule,’ it would appear that the parties had intended (and expected) that blood might be spilled if the flesh was to be extracted.” That was the mutually agreed and understood contract. Shylock was no villain for claiming upon the contract.
The foregoing deconstruction analysis remands forthwith such intuitive misgivings about the reliability of true justice being served upon the common good. That the rights of the victim versus the rights of the accused may teeter from one to the other, based on the clever invocation of legal technicalities by lawgivers and lawyers can cause apprehension and anxiety — way into these “modern” times, in the individualistic struggle for self-preservation and survival in the most competitive environment ever — with pessimistically more insecurities to come in the future.
Such insecurities about “blind justice” meting out moral, ethical, and legal resolutions to conflicts, upholding only what is right, are toxically fed by the factional, inter- and intra-political fights in our country now, that seem to be like Shylock and Antonio’s symbolic and literal fight to the death to “win.”
On July 25, the Supreme Court of the Philippines declared: “In a 13-0-2 Decision, with the Justices present voting unanimously, and Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa inhibiting and Associate Justice Maria Filomena D. Singh on leave, the Supreme Court En Banc on July 25, 2025, declared the Articles of Impeachment against Vice-President Sara Z. Duterte unconstitutional, noting that it is barred by the one-year rule under Article XI, Section 3(5) of the Constitution and that it violates the right to due process enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Therefore, the Senate could not acquire jurisdiction over the impeachment proceedings.”
Under Article XI, Section 3(5) of the Constitution, “no impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.” According to the Decision, the one-year bar is reckoned “from the time an impeachment complaint is dismissed or no longer viable.”
In its decision, the Court “differentiated” the first three complaints filed last December from the fourth complaint, which formed the Articles of Impeachment transmitted to the Senate on Feb. 5. It said that the first three were filed under Article XI, Section 3(2) of the Constitution which allows any citizen to file a verified complaint and endorsed by any House member. The fourth complaint was filed under Section 3 (4) of the Constitution through a resolution by at least one-third of the House.
But the court said the first three complaints were deemed terminated and archived on Feb. 5, the same day that the fourth complaint was passed by the House. That was the reckoning day for the one-year bar, according to the court.
“Therefore,” the court said, “no new impeachment complaint, if any, may be commenced earlier than Feb. 6, 2026.”
Three former Supreme Court Justices — Adolfo Azcuna, Artemio Panganiban, and Antonio Carpio — offered their comments on the implications, fairness, and timing of the decision in an article in the Inquirer reported on July 28:
“In a shift from its 2003 ruling in Francisco v. House of Representatives, which stemmed from the impeachment proceedings against then-Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr., the Supreme Court departed from its earlier interpretation of when an impeachment complaint is considered ‘initiated.’
“In Francisco, the Court held that initiation occurs only when a complaint is included in the Order of Business and referred to the proper committee. But in its ruling on the Duterte case, the Court clarified that complaints may be considered initiated once filed, even if they are later archived without committee referral.”
Procedural legal technicalities were changed. Retired Chief Justice Azcuna warned that the Court had changed the rules after the fact, penalizing actors who had relied on the old definition of “initiated.”
Retired Chief Justice Panganiban lamented that the Court could have opted for a “Status Quo Ante” order — freezing the process while giving both the justices and the public a fuller picture of the issues at stake.
Former Senior Associate Justice Carpio insisted that the 4th complaint was valid and submitted on time; one-third support in the House of Representatives was reached, and the resolution should be considered the articles of impeachment and transmitted forthwith to the Senate. He warned that the Supreme Court’s intervention in the matter risked encroaching on a process that is fundamentally political, not judicial.
The legal technicalities invoked are distressingly difficult to understand and accept for the non-lawyer ordinary citizen, who has empirically witnessed the recorded and published bases for the charges in the impeachment complaint: “Culpable Violation of the Constitution, Betrayal of Public Trust, Graft and Corruption, and Other High Crimes.”
The hungry, angry crowd wants its “pound of flesh.” Elected government officials know what they are getting into, when in position — there is no compromise in the strictly honest and dedicated service to the Filipino people and the Constitution.
“Our fundamental law is clear: the end does not justify the means,” said Justice Marvic Leonen, ponente for the Supreme Court judgment on the impeachment complaint vs VP Sara Duterte. Ambiguous. Sounds like Portia in The Merchant of Venice, who warned that no drop of blood must be shed to carve that pound of flesh from the guilty, but socially and politically prominent defendant.
And the villain becomes the victim, the victim the villain. That is hard to accept, in a small country where the people are the “underdogs” and victims, amidst the pervasive graft and corruption and brazen impunity of high officials in government.
The Transparency International 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranked the Philippines as 114th most corrupt out of 180 countries (with 180 as the most corrupt), with a score of 33 out of 100, up a spot from 115th last year. Manila’s score of 33 is below the global average of 43, and the Asia-Pacific region’s average of 44. A score of 0-9 means “highly corrupt,” while a score of 90-100 means “very clean.” (pids.gov.ph, Feb. 12, 2025).
In July, reports revealed a P142.7 billion ($2.9 billion) insertion in the 2025 national budget, allegedly added during a conference led by Senate President Francis Escudero. Senator Panfilo Lacson claimed in a public statement in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Aug. 22 that as much as half of the P2 trillion ($40.61 billion) allocated for flood control over 15 years may have been lost to corruption, with only 40% of project funds translating into actual construction.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. revealed that 15 out of 2,409 accredited contractors were awarded P100 billion, or 18% of the entire P545.6-billion ($11.08 billion) flood mitigation budget allocated by his administration from July 2022 to May 2025 (Philippine Star, Aug. 20) The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee launched a motu proprio investigation dubbed “Philippines Under Water” into alleged irregularities in flood control projects.
Can we hope to know the truth in this investigation, and punish the criminals who have stolen the blood money for urgent flood control?
The devil is in the legal technicalities.
Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.
