SC wants govt to explain clemency for Teehankee

(Update) MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court has ordered the government to explain the controversial release of convicted killer Claudio Teehankee Jr last October 2. In a minute resolution, the high court directed respondents Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, in his concurrent capacity as chairman of the Board of Pardons and Parole; Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita; officials from the BPP and Bureau of Corrections; and Teehankee himself to file their comments within 10 days from notice. This was in response to the petition filed last week by lawyer Ernesto Francisco, who represented the families of Teehankee’s victims – Maureen Hultman, Roland John Chapman and Jussi Olavi Leino – during the trial. In his petition, Francisco questioned the legality of Teehankee’s release, saying the government committed “grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction" in recommending his pardon and subsequent release from jail. “President Macapagal-Arroyo and public respondent Executive Secretary Ermita committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction when they granted executive clemency to private respondent Claudio J. Teehankee, Jr. despite all of the foregoing which they were supposed to have reviewed and have known prior to the exercise of the presidential prerogative to grant executive clemency," he said. Francisco also said that the Department of Justice and the BPP violated their own rules by failing to comply with their own Amended Guidelines for Recommending Executive Clemency when they recommended executive clemency to Teehankee. Teehankee is the son of the late former Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee Sr and brother of former Justice Undersecretary Manuel Teehankee. He was released midnight of October 2 following the letter of President Arroyo to the NBP stating the grant of clemency. Francisco said Teehankee did not deserve clemency since he failed to settle the civil aspect of his sentence with respect to Chapman, who was killed along with Hultman, Leino, who was wounded in the incident. The high court also ordered Teehankee to give his comment on the petition. The Supreme Court convicted Teehankee in 1995 for the 1991 murders of Hultman and Chapman, and for the frustrated murder of Leino, who served as the principal witness in the case. - with Aie Balagtas See, GMANews.TV