Supreme court jester(s)

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/14/2006



I almost admired this Supreme Court justice who, in public reflection on the death penalty admitted the Supreme Court’s error in condemning Echegaray to death. Then a former justice secretary exposed that the seemingly brave SC justice did not argue against the death penalty nor cast a dissenting opinion or vote in the SC deliberations. Now Artemio V. Panganiban’s anguished reflection smacks of a publicity stunt intended to earn favor with the Vatican and the Catholic Church for which GMA dramatically reversed position on the death penalty.

Maybe it was for the benefit of his fellow members of the anti-death penalty Couples for Christ group he hopes to appease now, after failing them at the height of the Echegaray controversy. Whatever the motive the whole episode strikes one as a gimmick that went seriously awry, putting the entire Supreme Court, from Davide’s time to Panganiban’s, in a very bad light. It highlights Panganiban as an unprincipled acitons: silent at the most crucial deliberations of the Echegaray death penalty and blabbering off now as the anti-death penalty position is sustained by subsequent political decisions.

Now Pangniban and the Supreme Court spokesman Ismael Kahn has to perform all sorts of juggling of words and somersault of official clarifications. It’s has become a big joke, a joke that some of those who have been following the foibles of the Davide-Panganiban Supreme Court have long seen and known. To find more of these foibles of this batch of Supreme Court jesters try to find a copy of a pamphlet entitlted “Prostituting the Judiciary”, put together by some lawyers chronicling some of the transgressions of this tandem that has become disastrous for Philippine jurisprudence of.

It’s all about Panganiban’s book “Reforming the Judiciary” where he brags about exploits with Davide during the Edsa Dos crisis where he admits that the Davide Supreme Court’s decision on the removal of President Estrada and the swearing in Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was based his and Davide’s reading of the Bible and not on the provisions of the Constitution. “Weird” Panganiban narrates in the book:

“I am still wondering up to now how I (Panganiban) summoned the courage to propose the oath-taking of Mrs. Arroyo even if she had not requested it, and even when President Estrada was still in Malacañang; and why Chief Justice Davide immediately agreed to it, even prior to consultation with other justices… when I called him up at 5:30, he was spiritually … ready for my … “weird sounding” proposal.” So the weird proposal became a Supreme Court act and twisted a nation’s fate and history up to this day.

Panganiban also narrates how now SC justice Antonio Carpio was party to the conspiracy to subvert the Constitution and the duly elected government in writing the letter Gloria purportedly sent to the Supreme Court requesting it to swear her into office.

With such dissolute, Machiavellian people in the Supreme Court, what do we expect our justice system to become? How can we entrust the fate of the entire society to a Supreme Court of such dunces, jesters – nay – knaves, wielding the power as the final arbiter of our Constitution and laws?

Pity Echegaray had to die for the foibles of politicians like Gloria and court jesters like Panganiban, but pity more the Filipino people who have been plunged into an unprecedented era of political chaos and murderous political environment created by the Davide-Panganiban tandem to allowed conspirators to consummate the Edsa Dos destruction of the Rule of Law. Davide and Panganiban pushed our Constitution down the high perch of the Law, like Humpty-Dumpty, for the big fall and now we’re all at a loss how to put it back together again.

Panganiban eventually withdrew his proud book “Reforming the Judiciary” from all the bookshelves in a vain attempt to retrieve the beans he had spilled. That’s useless, for that book is already in many shelves in original or photocopied form, and now we have this pamphlet citing the key self-incriminating admission of Panganiban’s improprieties. A jester of the Supreme Court like Panganiban is what you get for appointing a cheap travel agent and businessman (and a small time provincial politician like Davide) to head that august institution.

While Panganiban’s apparent act of public contrition over the injustice to Echegaray stirred the hornets nest, now the hornets have come to swarm over the Davide-Panganiban decisions on the Estrada case. While in Echegaray’s case a misinterpretation of the charge particulars had caused the serious miscarriage of justice, in Estrada’s case it was not even a mis-interpretation but a clear concoction of what they eventually called “constructive resignation” which exists nowhere in the Constitution. A wrong has clearly been committed here and rectification must be demanded.

No one can restore Echegaray’s life, that’s the tragedy of the death penalty; but the voice of close to eleven million voters, intimations of the voice of God, can be restored to rectify a grievous national injustice. Today we witness a specter of over 600 extra-judicial killings, and abductions of citizens by the “agents of the law”; they arise from a Rule of Terror over the Rule of Law. Panganiban can yet save society and redeem his name if he begins the rectification.

(Tune in M-W-F 6-7pm to 1098AM; T-Th 7:30-8:30am to 1242AM; text your request for “Prostituting the Judiciary” to 0920-9523393)