BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
10/15-16/2011
There is that proverbial saying among lawyers who cannot “think outside the box” that when the Supreme Court comes out with a wrong decision that becomes a law. The problem however is when lower courts render a wrong decision, the aggrieved litigant can appeal the case until it reaches the High Tribunal. If the magistrates are not in a good mood, the poor judge may even end up losing his job and his retirement benefits. For that we are all enjoined to abide by that shoddy decision because it is necessary for the preservation of an orderly society.
Incidentally, the case of the Flight Attendants and Stewardess Association of PAL vs. Philippine Airlines has been pending for more than 13 long years now. Interestingly, in October 2008, a Division in the Court of Appeals decided a case which should have been decided by another Division. For that, Justice Vicente Roxas lost his job, Justice Jose Sabio suspended for two months without pay, Presiding Justice Conrado Vasquez severely reprimanded, and Justice Myrna Dimaranan admonished. We are not saying the justices of the Second Division of the Supreme Court are guilty, but the question people ask is - what if it turns out they rendered a right decision but is reversed? Would it not create uproar?
Such is asked because the present case pierces directly into the jugular vein of the High Court’s integrity, not to say of its failure to discipline its own ranks. The public cannot go on swallowing that nonsense; that if it commits a mistake it becomes a law, while those mortals in the lower court are severely punished for committing the same mistake of “ignorance of the law.” As said, it is not much about the validity or invalidity of the September 7, 2011 Resolution, but of the fact that the House Rules, with a threat of punishing a lawyer, was violated no less by those men in black robes.
The ridiculous reasoning made by Chief Justice Renato Corona, that before one should start saying something against the institution he should first study the case, is debauched of logic. Everybody knows that it is for the justices to explain why they violated their own rule. There is in that statement the usual braggadocio that they know what they are doing; and it is for the people to digest their erroneous inanities. As one lawyer puts it, between that Resolution and the rights of the members of FASAP, it needs no elaboration that substantive and vested rights have already accrued to the members, and their rights cannot now be set aside by such flimsy technicality that it should have been decided by the Third Division.
The lawyer pointed out that there is nothing in the original decision up to the denial of the second motion for reconsideration stating or even hinting that petitioners won their case against PAL on the basis of technicality. Rather, they won on the merit of what is due them, which on a number of cases has ruled that technicality should not be allowed to supersede the substantive rights of the accused and what the law provides. Hence, it now becomes highly questionable for the Supreme Court to reverse itself without impugning its own integrity. In fact, its only way out from the mess is to go after those who took it to themselves to arbitrarily recall the second motion for reconsideration on the basis of an informal third motion for reconsideration. The lawyer is most adamant because the second motion stated that it was with finality, with a stern warning it will no longer entertain any further pleading or motion.
Alas, to get away with it, PAL’s chief counsel Estelito Mendoza crafted another of his legal hubris by writing instead a “letter” to the Supreme Court. Maybe he anticipated that should he be questioned, he would have his escape latch by claiming he merely sent a “letter,” which is an informal inquiry on the case the High Court just litigated, but which the court ridiculously failed to censure for being violative of the Rules of Court. The lawyer explained, the Resolution dated October 4, 2011 is invalid as it is repugnant to the Constitution for it failed to state the facts and the law why the Resolution dated September 7, 2011 had to be recalled. Under Section 14, Article VIII of the Constitution, it states that, “no decision shall be rendered by any court without expressing therein clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based.”
Senator Santiago, who is an authority on the Rules of Court, pointed out that even if a second motion is occasionally allowed, such is given due course only under “exceptionally meritorious cases.” The petitioner must first, with leave of court, file a motion with the court pleading that it be allowed to file a second motion for reconsideration. Only when the petition to file a second motion for reconsideration is granted can it proceed to file the formal second motion for reconsideration. Even that, what was actually filed with the court was a third motion for reconsideration which now betrays the court’s confused line of thinking. Their decision to recall the second motion for reconsideration was a resolution based on that “letter” that in their language is nothing but a scrap of paper. Had the lawyer of PAL been an ordinary practicing lawyer, he could have promptly merited contempt, disbarment or both from those dour-faced justices who have lost their way on what to do.
With that questionable attempt to stretch the life of an otherwise concluded case, the Supreme Court committed an act of self-immolation. It was those magistrates who ignited the fire now consuming them. This is clear because those rules are principally intended to put to an end to their Jurassic complaint that somehow there has to be an end to a case. Just like the hypocritical government we have, it was the justices who vandalized their own rules, and in so doing they only added fuel to an already raging inferno. Punishing those who are now pointing out just how they have become ridiculous could only hasten their isolation that it might even galvanize a movement for their impeachment for their insolent subservience to those big corporations.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
