SC oral arguments expose feet of clay

THE SUPREME COURT should conclude quickly the ongoing oral arguments on the question of whether or not Sen. Grace Poe is constitutionally qualified to run for President in the May 9 national election.

One frightening effect of the public debate, broadcast by the pervasive electronic media, is the exposure of the mediocrity and the biases of some of the 15 legal Olympians supposedly well-equipped to dispense justice illuminated by flashes of wisdom.

Witnessing for the past three weeks the magistrates interpellating the counsel of the parties, the public could not escape noticing how some justices used precious time parading their partiality, ordinariness or their difficulty with the English language.

Thanks to the merciless media covering their live performance, we have had a preview of who among the justices are likely to vote for Poe’s qualifying as presidential candidate and who may rule against her. (My scoreboard so far has five, led by the Chief Justice, going for Poe.)

Telegraphing their inclinations may be bad for the Supreme Court and its members, but good for the public getting to peek into the cloistered world of the highest tribunal in the land.

It might be pure coincidence but most of the justices who have shown bias for senator Poe are appointees of President Noynoy Aquino.

We wonder if administration presidential candidate Mar Roxas (LP) will not read meaning into this intriguing detail and start worrying where the twists and turns of his patron’s potholed “daang matuwid” are leading him.

To protect themselves and the tribunal, the justices may want to just write their questions for the parties to answer, as they see fit, in their memoranda. This will not only speed up the process but will mercifully stop the exposure of some magistrates’ feet of clay.

Each justice has a complement approximating that of a regular trial court, including a stable of researchers and ghostwriters who can compose a ruling or an opinion – going either way depending on the premises or promises made – even without inputs from the oral arguments.

We assume that by this time, most of the 15 justices – including Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno – already have formed more or less their judicial opinion on whether or not Poe is “constitutionally qualified to run” or at least “can be allowed to run” for president.

Note the difference between Poe’s being “constitutionally qualified to run” (a legal issue) and simply being “allowed to run” (a political option). In the absence of the orals, the justices can weigh arguments that gofers may submit to them in private.

• A ‘vox populi’ scenario being set?

SEEING the tedious process of threshing out Poe’s qualifications, some of us nervous types are wont to ask (1) if time is not running out for the May 9 elections and (2) if we could manage an orderly transition to a new dispensation.

Pardon our worrying in advance, but let us point to red flags we have put on two items:

• The final SC ruling on Poe’s constitutional qualifications is slow in coming. We hope that this is just procedural, and not intentional, that it is not part of a vox populi strategy of throwing to the people what the law says is for the Commission on Elections and the court to decide.

• The announced intention of presidential candidate Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to shift to a federal parliamentary system, wipe out criminality in three to six months, lease whole islands to foreign investors, and his going home to Davao every day – among other startling ideas – strikes us as extremely disruptive until/unless he details how he will do it if he wins.

The pre-election process of preparing the voters and the voting requirements (including the printing of 55+ million ballots) is linear. Without a parallel alternative, a major block in the pipeline will hold up the flow and the desired output.

As we pointed out last Tuesday, if the Supreme Court hands down an adverse decision on Poe after the ballots are printed or, worse, after the people have voted, there could be chaos if she turns out to have garnered the highest number of votes.

Followers of Poe who fear her losing the SC disqualification cases may prefer this vox populi street-marching scenario, but is this the best option for this nation riven by too much politics? (In fairness to the senator, she has vowed to abide by the SC ruling, whatever it will be.)

If Poe, who leads in the latest surveys, loses in the election, there will be no problem. But the best way to prevent an issue from developing is for the SC to hurry up. Cut short the oral arguments and cobble quickly a majority decision.

Actually, the justices have been studying the cut-and-dried Poe case since last year. What is left for some of them to do is just to evaluate the lobbying.

As for Duterte’s iconoclastic intentions, if he wins and thereby has his campaign platform sort of ratified, he can press the shift to a federal parliamentary system. In the transition, however, people’s rights and vested interests must be protected.

But then again, even if many of us are tired and unhappy with the present state of affairs we should not embrace change and its advocates just for the sake of change. For one thing, Duterte has not outlined a feasible plan for executing his intentions.

Why are we not talking of the other presidential candidates? Because, like Mar Roxas, they are all reciting the same motherhood statements on jobs, poverty, corruption, etc., and just promising basically more of the same beneficial aspects of the status quo.

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