Camilo Sabio: The Filipino Francis Bacon

By Jude Josue L. Sabio .

ON June 6, 2020, I received a text from Mike Navallo, an ABS-CBN reporter and a lawyer himself, asking if I am related to Camilo Sabio, to which I answered in the affirmative. I was curious why he did not say what it was that prompted him to ask about my relation to Camilo Sabio.

Wiithout asking Mike Navallo, I was told by my instinct that Camilo Sabio must have been arrested. About more than two months ago, the Sandiganbayan issued a warrant of arrest against him, which prompted me to call up Camilo and his wife Marlene.

I came to know from Marlene about the legalities: the Sandiganbayan deemed its decision as final on account of Camilo’s failure to appeal within 15 days from the date of promulgation, which is the day that the decision was read in his presence.

Camilo’s lawyer, one Atty. Saavedra, is of the view instead that the reglementary period of 15 days to appeal to the Supreme Court should be counted from the date of actual receipt of the decision through the post office, which came only after the promulgation of the decision.

In reaction to Mike Navallo’s text, I immediately made a Google search about current news on Camilo Sabio. What popped up was a video news clip of a breaking news of SMNI TV channel on Sept. 12, 2019 about the Supreme Court’s adverse decision against Camilo Sabio in a corruption case stemming from his stint as PCGG chairman.

What shocked me is that in the news report of Jun Samson, several photos of me, including the much familiar ICC photo, were being shown while the report was in progress. The anomaly was evident: the report was about Camilo Sabio and his corruption case, but all the photos belonged to me, which gave the impression that I was Camilo Sabio.

Right away, I contacted MJ Mondejar who as a reporter of SMNI earlier made a report after that Nangka media forum where I appeared regarding my letter-affidavit of ICC withdrawal. After confirming the anomalous news report, the SMNI took down on June 8, 2020, the video clip from Youtube and Facebook. On June 9, 2020, SMNI aired its apology to me through its TV channel posting it on its Facebook page.

While the news incident is unfair both to me and Camilo Sabio, it does not detract from the fact that, as I told Mike Navallo and MJ Mondejar, I owe my being a lawyer to Camilo Sabio.

Our age gap is wide which is about 30 years. In fact, I would not be able to actually know and meet him until the year 2017 when he was already a 50-year-old lawyer while I was a 20-year-old fresh college graduate. Camilo Sabio is now 83, while I am 53.

In 1987, my late father Filomeno A. Sabio Jr., who is a scion of the Sabio clan from Tagoloan and Villanueva, Misamis Oriental, asked a personal favor from the then Rep. Coring Acosta of Bukidnon, to accommodate me in her congressional office so that I could study law in Manila.

Aside from the fact that her son Nereus Acosta was my close elementary classmate in Olles, Camp Phillips, Bukidnon, my parents have been actual residents of Crossing, Libona, Bukidnon, they being public school teachers at the Libona National High School. It was a request for favor from a constituent.

After I came to Manila in 1987, then-congresswoman Acosta brought me to Camilo Sabio in the House of Representatives. Unknown to me, he was appointed by Speaker Mitra as deputy secretary general for operations of the House. He took me in his office as a staff member.

After my father suddenly died of heart attack on Dec. 24, 1987 at the age of 47, Camilo Sabio personally talked to me, telling me that he would downgrade my position so that I would not attract attention, and I could have much-needed time to focus on my law studies. He was correct.

In June 1988, I entered the UP College of Law where I excelled by becoming a consistent member for four years of the elite honor society of the Order of the Purple Feather, and became a champion debater within the UP campus as well as in the international arena.

In my last year in law, I transferred to the Office of then Court of Appeals Justice Santiago Kapunan. As a legal researcher, I prepared about 13 decisions for the Justice before I resigned due to the bar exams. After I became a lawyer, I worked at the Accra law office for one year, and later went on my own in the practice of law in Metro Manila for many years.

Camilo Sabio and I did not have contact for long. After he finished his long tenure as secretary-general of the House, Camilo Sabio summoned me, requesting me to act as a lawyer for two cases he was handling then: one in Naga City and one in Quezon City.

Camilo Sabio explained to me that he needed me to work on those cases because he might be occupying an office in government. True enough, he became the chairman of the Anti-Poverty Commission, and much later chairman of the PCGG for which he would later be embroiled in an ongoing criminal process. I came to know that his backer was then-National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales.

I did my utmost best in handling the two cases. In the Naga case, the client case had already lost in the Supreme Court when he engaged Camilo Sabio as lawyer. The client was then to be evicted from a prime property in Naga City. I was able to hold the execution for two years, even while a final court decision is impossible to prevent. I defended so zealously the client that I was cited for contempt for describing the judge as “corrupt” in a pleading. I was sanctioned with a fine of P2,000, the first in my professional career.

In the Quezon City case, despite my personal marital troubles, I never abandoned the client. I painstakingly presented all the witnesses and documents up to the finish. After I left the case to my former law office, I came to know that I won that case.

After so many years or in December 2016, I paid a personal visit to Camilo Sabio in his Quezon City house, which is very rare. I was accompanied by my new wife Jo ann A. Fortich whom I introduced to him and Marlene. At that time, I was already the lawyer for Edgar Matobato.

It was then that I came to know that President Duterte had personally met Camilo Sabio to seek for his support for his presidential run. It was Girlie Balaba, now a council woman in CDO, who arranged the meeting, because then candidate Duterte idolized Camilo Sabio who became a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1972 representing Davao.

I was informed by Marlene that Girlie Balaba and her family consider Camilo Sabio as part of their family. Girlie’s father, the late Atty. Balaba, was Camilo’s classmate at the Ateneo law school. After Atty. Balaba came back to Cagayan de Oro City, Camilo brought him back to Manila to work at the GSIS through the help of their law school classmate Alejandro Melchor, then a key Marcos official in Malacanang. The Balaba family treated this as a deep personal debt of gratitude.

In that visit, I observed that “Nong Mil,” as Camilo is fondly called by people around him, was already weak due to a previous stroke. But even in those times when he was still robust, Camilo Sabio was more of a listener than a talker. He listened intently, uttering only very few words.

In that visit to him, the few words that he uttered to me were: “You should be a congressman.” This was a repeat of what he had told me years earlier, which keeps on playing in my mind.

Even if Camilo Sabio has been close to President Duterte and a trusted and loyal official of President Gloria Arroyo and her husband Mike Arroyo, he never questioned my decision to lawyer for Edgar Matobato. He knows that I am an independent lawyer with my own personal conviction.

After I visited him, we never talked to or saw each other except in a brief chance meeting and exchange of pleasantries with his family at a Manila mall where he was in a wheelchair. In late January this year, he called me up, which is the first time that he ever did.

His message to me was short and crisp. He said “I support you,” then he turned over the phone to Marlene. His message was in reaction to my reported personal decision to withdraw my communication from the ICC.

I could not have been a lawyer without Camilo’s support to me like a father. For me, he is the Filipino counterpart of Francis Bacon. A prominent and powerful English lawyer during the time of King James I, Francis Bacon held powerful positions, including Lord Chancellor.

The vagaries of politics made him a victim. He was charged and impeached in Parliament for corruption. He was forced to confess by King James I, was fined a large sum and imprisoned in the Tower of London, although his imprisonment was just brief and his fine discarded due to the King’s leniency.

Francis Bacon went on to become known to history not only for his work as a lawyer but also for his works in philosophy, learning and scientific thought that became instrumental to the age of enlightenment.

On Friday, June 5, 2020, Nong Mil was arrested by the NBI at his residence where I visited last December 2016. He had been convicted in a case just for calling his late brother, the late Court of Appeals Justice Jose Sabio in relation to a case at the request of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo.

Like Francis Bacon, Nong Mil has been a quarry of the enemies of the GMA administration. The previous Aquino administration pursued him like prey. But his only sin is his honesty which is a hallmark of the Sabio.

Justice Sabio told the truth when he said that his elder brother called him up which Nong Mil honestly confirmed. I told the truth about the Bikoy scandal against the LP-led opposition.

His conviction is for nothing, for after all, he is not like the senator who stole P125 million from PDAF and yet was acquitted.