Fastlanes
By BenCyrus G. Ellorin
MindaNews
(Part 1)
President PNoy’s war-footing and dogged-determination of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to a supposed co-equal Supreme Court in taking to account a former President for her alleged crimes should be easy to understand.
Gloria should now lament for being where she should not have been: The Presidency.
Facing the case of election sabotage and maybe later on several plunder and other corruption cases are important to put closure on the allegations of high crimes and presidential illegitimacy from 2001 to 2010.
In the words of then Congressman and now Sen. Chiz Escudero in sponsoring the Impeachment cases against her in 2005 and 2006, she betrayed public trust and committed culpable violation of the constitution for stealing, cheating, lying and killing.
Most of the evidences for the cases against her would not be new, but have been lying there only because she aborted several attempts to hold her accountable for her actions while in Malacanang.
Monkey-wrenching the process of holding her accountable for alleged high crimes with procedural matters and bad romanticism of political law could be fatal to our democratic aspirations.
A good dose of history and lots of good sense may help a lot.
We had two bloodless people’s power revolutions, first in 1986 where a brilliant politician but with bad tempers and surrounded by thieves was replaced by an inexperienced widow of a political martyr. Second in 2001, when a womanizing drunk and gambler was replaced by a Harvard economics doctor but turned out to challenge the bloody ways of the dictator that replaced her father and made a convicted plunderer look cute in national television.
25 years hence, our journey has denigrated from dancing the cha-cha into a drunk’s walkathon, one step forward, two steps backward.
For lack of any sane explanation, I would even blame our democracy journey on Jose Rizal who championed the virtues of the turtle over the rabbit. It should not have been turtles and rabbits. It should have been the carabao: humble, strong, slow but determined.
Looking at our neighbours Indonesia which democratized 15-years later than us, and Myanmar some 24 years later is not discouraging, it looks like the Philippines.
To underscore where we are now, wasn’t it was pure pain and insult on salted injury seeing Vice Pres. Jejomar Binay announcing last Friday via Skype the execution by China of a convicted Filipino drug mule from Bali, Indonesia where he was attending the Bali Democracy Forum whose organizers prides as a forum for rolling out democracy’s architecture to the changing world. They did not discuss case studies from the Philippines I was told but studied the Arab Spring and of course Indonesia’s swift process of democratization.
As I have said here and in other discussions, I thought that the politicized Supreme Court: with a midnight appointed Chief Justice who is a former Chief of Staff of Vice President Gloria and with majority of justices appointed by Gloria, with a tract record of deciding in favour of Gloria deserves a dose of its own medicine, the political faculties of the Presidency and Congress.
It is wrong to reduce the Supreme Court as an institution doomed to blind obedience to procedural law.
The Corona Supreme Court, to my mind, had it not detached itself from social reality and cut its umbilical cord to Gloria could have decided otherwise in the travel hold order cases and would get away with it with more integrity and a strengthened faith of the people to the courts.
Although the poisonous tree does not bear mango, the situation of the Corona Supreme Court is not at all hopeless. Penance of good deeds, a pledge of fidelity to Lady Justice (and no more gallivanting with Gloria), and yes some slapping in the chest from the President may bode well for our democracy.
PNoy’s dressing down of Chief Justice Renato Corona in front of the latter’s subordinates in the judiciary may have just been part of the process of injecting some purifying potion to the judiciary.
Co-equality, separation of powers and checks and balances should work to fix the loose nuts in our dysfunctional democracy, not affirm medical diagnosis made by lawyers.
(Part 2)
Impunity is defined as exception from punishment. In the context of international law and human rights, impunity refers to the failure to hold to account human rights violators and the denial of the victims’ right to justice and redress.
As I have written in the first part of this series, Gloria is being held to account for alleged cheating, stealing, killing and lying during her term. These were the basis of the two Impeachment cases that were stifled by the tyranny of numbers in the House of Representatives and the subject of many Senate Investigations which she stifled with so called Executive Privilege.
I wonder with never ending wonderment about insinuations that PNoy is just getting even and plain vindictive to Gloria with his hands-on participation in prosecuting the former president.
Pitting PNoy and Gloria is an over simplification of the issue that insults even the analytics of Elena Bautista-Horn. If you compare the tale of the tape, it would be very lopsided to Gloria.
Gloria is a Harvard-educated technocrat, who was in the league of Bill and Hillary Clinton; a former senator; a former cabinet secretary; a former vice president, a former president; and now a congresswoman.
PNoy, although born with heroic parents was not necessarily the goat in his class in Ateneo de Manila; is a former congressman; a former senator; and has a celebrity sister to boot.
Their rise to political power may however differ and would explain where they are now.
PNoy won the Presidency not because he was brilliant but because his parents, Cory and Ninoy were. Gloria became the president by succession because Erap was bad and incompetent. She got “elected” to the Presidency in 2004 not because Fernando Poe Jr. is unpopular but because Garci is good.
With PNoy’s sudden brilliance now, Cory and Ninoy should be happily singing in heaven with hundreds of angels harping. I don’t know with former Pres. Diosdado Macapagal: maybe perhaps entertaining the idea that they switch tombs with Marcos. At least the mausoleum in Ilocos Norte is air conditioned and the Libingan ng mga Bayani is a cemetery.
Just because Gloria has in her employ expensive and expensive-looking lawyers, we should be debating now about the legality of her arrest, about her rights.
When the masses rallied to support Erap when he was arrested, it was the mob, when it is Gloria’s turn now, it is about the Constitution.
But then again, we go back to the issue of the politicized Supreme Court, which this time should not be allowed off the hook and Gloria’s lucky streak should be rightfully ended.
When called upon to make decision in major milestones in history is to be the yardstick, this Supreme Court is queer, obviously beholden to something else and perhaps suffering from poverty of reason.
The post Martial Law Supreme Court affirmed people’s power and ruled Cory Aquino as the de jure president citing residual powers of the state.
The post Erap Supreme Court legitimized Gloria’s succession as legitimate, citing that despite formal resignation, Erap was constructively resigned.
It is just right that President PNoy and his administration see to it that the legal remedy reserved by our laws to hold to account former officials who enjoyed vast political powers and immunity is pursued now. It was pursued against Erap. This time, it should be like going through the normal motions.
Putting to order a supposed co-equal who is a pain in the ass is simply incidental in the process of ending impunity and that chronic government dysfunction.
Comments can be sent to bency.ellorin@gmail.com
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