Standing above the law

BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
1/21-22/2012



Most of us believe Chief Justice Renato Corona is being tried principally for his alleged failure to disclose his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN). Although that now appears moot for the fact that Supreme Court clerk of court Enriqueta Vidal was compelled to surrender those documents under pain of contempt, to the more discerning, that opened the Pandora’s Box on the wealth of those secretive justices. Her submission to the majesty of the Senate impeachment court, viz. to disregard the high court’s resolution, is not so much that the public now knows the value of Corona’s property. Rather, it is that the institution we know as our final refuge to redress the wrongs inflicted on us stand as violators of the law with those dour-faced men in robe claiming to be above the law.

To recall, the origin of why the yearly submission of SALN was made compulsory was by virtue of the passage of Republic Act 6717, otherwise known as the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees. The author and leading exponent of that bill was then-Senator Rene Saguisag, no doubt, was goaded to enact it, for like the rest of us, he was intoxicated by the euphoria of the Edsa People Power and wanted to impose moral regeneration in our society.

The ousted Marcos regime was banefully classified as a government of “kleptocracy”, and all that his family owned, like those properties they inherited, acquired before marriage, including those that were acquired before Ferdinand entered public service were given their generic classification as “ill-gotten.”

All wanted to scrub-clean the government and its employees, and the novel idea of Saguisag fit into their self-righteous crusade. The hypocrites thought they could monitor the progressive accumulation of wealth of all public servants. It was laudable because Cory Aquino thought that Sasuisag’s bill would serve to plug the loophole of corruption in public service. So, every lowly public servant was made to comply under pain of being dismissed from the service or accused of unexplained wealth.

But unknown to most of us, the Supreme Court that we look upon with reverential awe for its enlightening interpretation of our laws, silently passed a resolution in 1989, or right after Saguisag’s pet bill was enacted, ordering its personnel that all SALN submitted by the justices are off-limits to public scrutiny. The justices were unmindful their resolution carried an implication of exempting their SALN as public document that could be demanded by any taxpayer as a matter of right.

So, beginning with the late Chief Justice Marcelo Fernan, that self-serving resolution was successively reiterated by Andres Narvasa, Hilario Davide, Jr., Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno. Embattled Chief Justice Corona could no longer reaffirm that for that could be used as added point against him.

We are not saying the Supreme Court does not have any inherent power to pass resolutions to enjoin its personnel to obey its rules and observe confidentiality on the status of pending cases before it. However, ordinary observers interpret that power as mainly intended for internal consumption, but not for it to carry out judicial legislation that would negate laws of general application. To agree to that supposition is to extend to the high court a questionable power to judicially legislate matters designed to deflect laws inimical to their interest.

Of course, the resolution stands as immoral and questionable, but not unconstitutional or illegal. Who will judge that now? Rather, it brought embarrassment to our system that openly adheres to transparency and to the principle of equality before the law. Surely, nobody from among our taxpayers would like the idea of seeing the interpreters of our laws seeking to exempt themselves, not for the flimsy reason they are “honorable”, for on the contrary they should be the ones to set the moral guidance to our people.

The implication goes beyond that bedeviling view of seeing them standing above the law, but on how the public could objectively judge them on the basis of what they declared. For that they forfeited whatever moral ascendancy they had to punish any man facing litigation before it for unexplained wealth. That also placed the Bureau of Internal Revenue in a dilemma. While justices may unavoidably pay their income tax, the BIR cannot make a disclosure on how much they paid by virtue of that questionable judicial limitation.

The issue of SALN reminds us of that pathetic Supreme Court decision that instead of convicting the accused, who stood as owner of an alleged ill-gotten wealth, it proceeded to convict his money. I am referring to the $687 million escrow deposit made by the Swiss government at the Philippine National Bank, a condition set by the Swiss court that said amount could only be released upon declaration of guilt by our local court in a criminal case against the Marcoses. The Supreme Court managed to garnish said deposit on July 15, 2003 in favor of the Arroyo government without declaring the Marcoses guilty of any criminal offense.

The unusual thing about that out-of-this-world decision, the magistrates proceeded to hear the case by summary judgment. For that they managed to do away with the tedious process of summoning the witnesses, and possibly prevent anybody from contesting the proceedings. In addition, the presidential good-for-nothing commission came out with a simpleton’s formula that since the amount was way beyond the income of the late President, presto, said deposit was ill-gotten, and all that was required was a summary proceedings to come out with an ex party judgment.

They likewise thought it as “logical” that a dead man has no right to defend himself, or can he testify and confront the witnesses against him. So, instead of dismissing the case, they went ahead to convict his money. It was on that basis why the political hijacker, or the government that appointed Corona to his thrown was able to garnish the deposit. Rep. Imelda Marcos believes part of the “convicted money” was used in the now celebrated “Joc Joc Bolante Fertilizer Scam.”

The decision steered much confusion with many thinking whether those magistrates were some kind of nuts. We are saying this because by any stretch of one’s imagination, one can never convict a thing, but that is exactly what they did. One can charge, try and convict a living person, which reason why courts automatically dismiss criminal cases upon being informed the accused has died. Dismissal is peremptory because there is no use convicting a dead man. Cadavers can never be sent to jail! For that, we now stand as the only country in the world that managed to convict an inanimate object, something that could never be matched by any civilized court even by ions of centuries to come.

Right now we are seeing the reality of a badly deteriorated ethical conduct of most justices and judges, and maybe the self-serving prohibition to keep confidential their SALN is one reason that caused the erosion of faith by our people in our judicial system.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)