San Juan affirms guilty pleading to coup charge

By Ronron
June 7, 2007

One of the leaders of the Oakwood Mutiny in July 2003, Army 1Lt. Lawrence San Juan, affirmed before a Makati City court on Thursday his change of plea to guilty to the crime of conspiracy to commit coup d’ etat.

San Juan, through his lawyer, first manifested his intention to change his plea of not guilty to coup d’ etat during a court hearing in March of this year.

“I’m guilty of an offense… I believe I committed conspiracy (to commit coup d’ etat,” San Juan said on the witness stand at the Makati City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 148 during yesterday morning’s proceedings.

Lawyers who attended the hearing said San Juan claimed he had a change of heart while in solitary confinement for three months last year after his re-arrest in February 2006.

“He said he reflected and for religious reasons (that’s why he changed his plea),” said defense lawyer Theodore Te, who once represented San Juan in said case until his services were terminated shortly after the officer’s re-arrest.

But Te and the other defense lawyers are not buying San Juan’s statements, which he voluntarily gave before Branch 148 Presiding Judge Oscar Pimentel.

“Some lawyers don’t see it that way, although we are just really speculating. It seems that he was just forced into making that decision, especially when he was placed in solitary confinement,” said Atty. Rey Robles, lawyer for San Juan’s co-accused, core leader Antonio Trillanes IV.

Robles said being placed in solitary confinement for three months could change one’s mind and break one’s spirit. San Juan was placed under said condition after he bolted from jail in January of this year, together with three other officers.

The lawyer noted that after he manifested his intention to change his plea, San Juan was transferred to a better facility.

Te also doubted if San Juan really voluntarily came up with said decision because he said it only happened after San Juan got a new lawyer provided by the Philippine National Police (PNP) Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).

“A change of plea has to be voluntary,” Te explained.
It can be remembered that in April last year, San Juan wrote Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. a personal latter, asking for forgiveness for his “mistakes” and reaffirming loyalty to the government.

Questioned by Te, San Juan said he was aware that he can go to jail with his pleading. Conspiracy to commit cout d’ etat, under the Revised Penal Code, is punishable by imprisonment from six to 12 years, while coup d’ etat carries a lifetime imprisonment penalty.

But San Juan did not name names as to whom he conspired with.

The other defense lawyers had already expressed opposition to San Juan’s change of plea, saying it is untimely since the prosecution was already finished with its presentation of evidence, and it could pin down the other accused who are maintaining innocence to the charge.

San Juan is one of 29 junior officers and two enlisted personnel charged with coup d’ etat at the Makati City RTC in relation to the take over of the Oakwood Hotel in Makati City last July 27, 2003.

The same group of junior officers is charged with violation of Articles of War 96 (conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman) before the General Court Martial for the same incident. Last Wednesday, all of them, except for Trillanes and Captain Nicanor Faeldon who are citing their principles, asked the GCM to give them one month to examine the possibility of entering into a plea-bargaining agreement with the military prosecution.

Lawyer Rene Saguisag, counsel for accused Capt. Nathaniel Rabonza, said the court should not allow San Juan to change plea because the defense has a pending demurrer to the prosecution evidence.

Saguisag said ruling in favor of San Juan’s motion is a “ruling on our demurrer by implication.”

The prosecution had rested its case late last year and the defense is supposed to follow later this year after the court decides on the formal offer of evidence of the prosecution.

Pimentel said San Juan’s motion will be considered submitted for resolution after 10 days, the time given to Te to file his supplemental opposition to it./DMS