BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
7/7-8/2012
Looking back at that blot on our judicial history, the decision to remove the sitting chief justice of the Supreme Court indeed highlighted the country as a pariah in the international legal circle. As we Filipinos would often consider ourselves, the impeachment of Renato Corona put truism in us as "only in the Philippines."
We must bear in mind that the law used to impeach the chief justice was legislated consequent to our lunatic pretension of wanting to be known all over the world as democratically honest. We recall that ignominious event to question the idiotic philosophy that goaded the authors to make it compulsory to all public officials to declare their bank deposits in their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
My lawyer-friend who is more philosophical than legalistic in his perspective began by putting forward that individuals are supposed to be punished if what has been proven constitutes a crime, meaning that even if there is no law declaring such act as offensive or injurious to society, mankind, by its desire to have an orderly and peaceful society, would nonetheless declare the commission of the act punishable.
In that infamous case, the chief justice was punished using a garbage law that in substance would not constitute an offense or a crime. It was the legislative fiat declaring such act malum prohibitum that made the act punishable, viz. that what Corona did was a diligent act a person in his right mind would normally do. His act was not mala in se that he could be punished even without a law declaring it a crime as the act is inherently injurious and contrary to civilized conduct of man.
So, by any legal extrapolation, my friend said, no amount of legislation could transform an act of any public official not to include in his SALN his bank account to a crime. It is for this that the framers of the Constitution specifically enumerated the high crimes that could be made a ground to impeach some high officials. Yet, we kicked out a chief justice not for a crime, but for violation of the capricious law, and worse, for one that does not even fall into the category of a high crime.
Since to make a deposit is accepted and a normal thing to do, that act must logically be reinforced by laws guaranteeing the secrecy of one's bank deposits, but giving room to some exception. The exception is few because that follows the same logical presumption of innocence to one who might stand as accused, and that is for the accuser to prove.
The same has been raised by my good friend-lawyer in asking why our mentally deranged lawmakers opted to pass a law declaring as a form of violence against women should a husband refuse to give financial support to his wife. Up to now many wonder about that silly conclusion of equating failure or refusal to give support as equivalent to violence. In fact, by any stretch of one's imagination, violence is the act of inflicting harm or physical pain to another, in this case to a wife. In fact, the act is already punished by existing laws.
There is no question that support is an acknowledged legal obligation. That becomes mandatory if there has been a judgment of divorce or legal separation of which the guilty party is ordered by the court to give alimony or support to the innocent spouse. But instead of fine tuning those laws to re-enforce and increase the grounds for financial support, our mentally deranged solons proceeded to interpret that as an act of violence, when the guilty party could simply be punished for contempt or defiance to a lawful order.
It is for this reason why many have been calling the laws recently passed by our lawmakers as garbage. They stand as exposition of their insanity. One could easily detect they were enacted just to boost the ego of the author, for want of anything to do, or to appease fanatical pressure groups wanting to highlight their misguided role in our society. Some of them may even be funded by foreign non-governmental organizations out to weaken our democratic institution by injecting outlandish rights that could trigger enmity among our people.
Yes, there are rights which our society should accord to women, but certainly they do not include rights that would result in the diminution on the rights of men for that could mean discrimination, and in contravention to what society has declared as co-equal. The same can be said of other pressure groups. Each has its own peculiar interest to elevate as a right. The problem is nobody has come to think that those interests could only become viable as a right for as long as they would not transgress on the rights of others.
It is for this reason why many have become apprehensive in that decision to remove Corona. Even if we take it that Corona was convicted after he waived his right, his waiver did not result in him violating the law because they remained legal. His waiver was not an act of legislation to enact a new law to single himself out. But sadly, our lawmakers failed to see that point.
We must bear in mind that the law used to impeach the chief justice was legislated consequent to our lunatic pretension of wanting to be known all over the world as democratically honest. We recall that ignominious event to question the idiotic philosophy that goaded the authors to make it compulsory to all public officials to declare their bank deposits in their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
My lawyer-friend who is more philosophical than legalistic in his perspective began by putting forward that individuals are supposed to be punished if what has been proven constitutes a crime, meaning that even if there is no law declaring such act as offensive or injurious to society, mankind, by its desire to have an orderly and peaceful society, would nonetheless declare the commission of the act punishable.
In that infamous case, the chief justice was punished using a garbage law that in substance would not constitute an offense or a crime. It was the legislative fiat declaring such act malum prohibitum that made the act punishable, viz. that what Corona did was a diligent act a person in his right mind would normally do. His act was not mala in se that he could be punished even without a law declaring it a crime as the act is inherently injurious and contrary to civilized conduct of man.
So, by any legal extrapolation, my friend said, no amount of legislation could transform an act of any public official not to include in his SALN his bank account to a crime. It is for this that the framers of the Constitution specifically enumerated the high crimes that could be made a ground to impeach some high officials. Yet, we kicked out a chief justice not for a crime, but for violation of the capricious law, and worse, for one that does not even fall into the category of a high crime.
Since to make a deposit is accepted and a normal thing to do, that act must logically be reinforced by laws guaranteeing the secrecy of one's bank deposits, but giving room to some exception. The exception is few because that follows the same logical presumption of innocence to one who might stand as accused, and that is for the accuser to prove.
The same has been raised by my good friend-lawyer in asking why our mentally deranged lawmakers opted to pass a law declaring as a form of violence against women should a husband refuse to give financial support to his wife. Up to now many wonder about that silly conclusion of equating failure or refusal to give support as equivalent to violence. In fact, by any stretch of one's imagination, violence is the act of inflicting harm or physical pain to another, in this case to a wife. In fact, the act is already punished by existing laws.
There is no question that support is an acknowledged legal obligation. That becomes mandatory if there has been a judgment of divorce or legal separation of which the guilty party is ordered by the court to give alimony or support to the innocent spouse. But instead of fine tuning those laws to re-enforce and increase the grounds for financial support, our mentally deranged solons proceeded to interpret that as an act of violence, when the guilty party could simply be punished for contempt or defiance to a lawful order.
It is for this reason why many have been calling the laws recently passed by our lawmakers as garbage. They stand as exposition of their insanity. One could easily detect they were enacted just to boost the ego of the author, for want of anything to do, or to appease fanatical pressure groups wanting to highlight their misguided role in our society. Some of them may even be funded by foreign non-governmental organizations out to weaken our democratic institution by injecting outlandish rights that could trigger enmity among our people.
Yes, there are rights which our society should accord to women, but certainly they do not include rights that would result in the diminution on the rights of men for that could mean discrimination, and in contravention to what society has declared as co-equal. The same can be said of other pressure groups. Each has its own peculiar interest to elevate as a right. The problem is nobody has come to think that those interests could only become viable as a right for as long as they would not transgress on the rights of others.
It is for this reason why many have become apprehensive in that decision to remove Corona. Even if we take it that Corona was convicted after he waived his right, his waiver did not result in him violating the law because they remained legal. His waiver was not an act of legislation to enact a new law to single himself out. But sadly, our lawmakers failed to see that point.
