SC's sauce for the goose - for Davide, too?

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
8/1/2011



"The Supreme Court (SC) has made itself an instrument to suppress or prevent the discovery of the truth… The timing of its promulgation — barely 20 hours after the President delivered his State of the Nation Address where he solemnly declared that the fight against graft and corruption is a personal one for himself and for all the Filipinos who are its victims, and announced the appointment of newly-retired SC Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales as Ombudsman — clearly proves beyond doubt that the court has become a protector of some people… But the Supreme Court will not succeed. For the truth will triumph and prevail despite and in spite of the Supreme Court… I only pray to God, the Supreme Judge, that He will help the Supreme Court redeem its honor and integrity,” thus declared former Chief Justice Hilario Davide in reaction to the high court’s decision junking his beloved “Truth Commission” with finality.

Davide accuses the SC of dishonor and corruption, and of having no integrity. At the same time, he takes umbrage at its suppressing the truth by looking at the issue with a jaundiced eye as opposed to a blind and just court. Such fiery words immediately bring to mind some other critics of the SC whose words were definitely not as harsh but who still faced the full brunt of the magistrates’ ire in the form of excessive penalties. This time, though, the SC is faced with an affront from one of its former leaders, directly indicting it for no less than a gross violation of ethical and moral standards.

We recall that after the SC’s exoneration of Hubert Webb, et al., its spokesman Midas Marquez said that “if (Dante) Jimenez’s (expletives against the high court) will offend the magistrates, then he may be cited for contempt.” True enough, Jimenez was slapped with a P30,000-fine for utterances made in the heat of the moment, which normally can be brushed off as just an emotional outburst. Yet, even as the court took offense to it, it doesn’t seem to treat Davide’s accusations with a greater sense of urgency given that these were issued to media — and in written form at that — making the intention to cast it in a bad light much more evident and deliberate.

Won’t the SC penalize Davide, the same way it pounced on Jimenez or the way it fined Malaya publisher Jake Macasaet P20,000 for indirect contempt when the writer alleged certain anomalies in the SC which the court deemed as “innuendoes that tend, directly or indirectly, to impede, obstruct or degrade the administration of justice”? Doesn’t Davide’s accusations — especially coming from a former Chief Justice— effectively do the same, if not worse?

Perhaps Davide is held by a different standard. He is, after all, a former CJ (who also happened to be a favorite of the Yellow crowd for being a co-conspirator in the orchestrated Edsa II coup d’etat). But, as a lawyer and member of the Bar, doesn’t his casting doubt on the integrity and motivations of the court itself hurt the highest judicial body of the land, and be considered “conduct unbecoming a lawyer and officer of the court,” worthy of indefinite suspension — not unlike what Davide’s SC in 2003 did to eminent constitutionalist Alan Paguia?

Just to remind everyone, Alan Paguia was suspended indefinitely from the practice as well as the teaching of law for questioning the SC magistrates’ attendance in a blatantly partisan political activity that was the unconstitutional swearing in of Gloria Arroyo in January 2001 at the Edsa Shrine. For that alone, the Davide Court stated that Paguia was guilty of “issuing statements questioning its integrity, impartiality and authority,” and thus suspended him indefinitely for what it coined, “conduct unbecoming a lawyer and an officer of the court.”

Paguia has since been suspended for seven long years. And while the ground for his suspension is still highly questionable, it definitely pales in comparison to far more serious graft and corruption charges against judges or justices that only carry a “maximum suspension of… three but not exceeding six months” (according to Paragraph 2, Section 11, Rule 140 of the Rules of Court).

In 2010, retired Sen. Aquilino Pimentel’s appeal for the SC to reinstate Paguia, stressing that “(the penalty of being) barred from practicing… for more than six years… is too much,” went unheeded.

Earlier, Paguia himself petitioned the SC in January 2008 to lift the suspension, telling it that the purpose of the sanction had already been achieved and “there was no more useful purpose to continue it.” But the SC, on March 10, 2008, even resolved to hold his petition in abeyance pending proof that the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and the civic and religious sectors were favorably endorsing his reinstatement, knowing full well that Paguia is not one to go around beseeching parties that have nothing to do with his case in the first place (another reason I am personally working with a group of concerned citizens to petition his reinstatement).

Meanwhile, we are watching with bated breath how the SC will act on this clear assault by its former chief. Let’s see if the magistrates’ sauce for the goose is also their sauce for the gander. If so, are we likely to witness a Davide suspension anytime soon? Tick-tock, tick-tock…

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