The Joker’s wild

“Only bad people should fear Martial Law.” Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa was essentially saying trust us on this.

The unspoken premise of his position is that the restriction on expression and movement or, as he puts it, “diskarte,” that comes with Martial Law is something the good intentioned will not really mind.

Big asks. First, does he really want to be out on that limb with his PNP’s trust rating? Does he even know how we feel about our police forces even after the President’s own rating rebounded from its precipitous 18 percent third quarter drop? Second, is he joking when he says that only the bad should fear the curtailments of liberty that Martial Law brings?

We may be enamored by Bato’s likeable mug but does he seriously expect us to accept, sans protest, these limitations on our freedoms for nothing but a song?

We cherish our liberties. They didn’t come free. We need our civilian police forces and the rule of law to ensure that we continue to enjoy them. We can live with a measure of disturbance when our lawmen sometimes fail. But should they ask us to consent to a situation where we are to totally surrender our liberties in order to protect them?

Go ask the Mindanawons. General Bato challenges “people of Visayas and Luzon … ask the Mindanaoans, how they feel about martial law … bago kayo mag-oppose o mag-support.” Well, Sir, we asked. In the latest SWS survey, 62 percent of Mindanao opposed any extension of Martial Law, higher than even the Visayans at 55 percent.

We like you, General. But not enough to give you a blank check. Keep up the good work but do even better work. Trust us. Better work obviates the need for any added power to succeed in law enforcement.

Oppositors led by the tireless Bicolano Lion, Cong. Edcel Lagman have elevated the constitutional challenge to the High Court where the clashes will be on period, sufficiency of grounds, necessity. This will be the first true test of where the Supreme Court is at this crossroads of history. We all saw how individual members exposed grievances against the Chief Justice’s management style not just to the entire House of Representatives but to a mere committee thereof. 

Will they persevere in this sublime humility and, this time, concede their institution’s ground? A Martial Law vote is and always will be a defining moment in a Magistrate’s judicial career and on this they will surely be judged. It would be interesting to see how this broken court will perform when asked to perpetuate the extraordinary Martial Law power if the conditions therefor have clearly changed from the last time. Expect to be surprised, one way or the other.

The Jester. Harry Roque acknowledges that declaring Martial Law in perpetuity would be unconstitutional. He knows this is not the issue. Devotees of the cult of Harry used to marvel at his verve in tirelessly dissecting the confounding nuances of legal arguments he couldn’t abide. Now, speaking from a different platform (higher of lower?), verve is replaced by nerve as we watch him finesse specious government positions without missing a step.

No Joke. The Great Benjamin Diokno of the Budget Department continues to be the nation’s most wanton spendthrift. Analysts (including his own colleagues) who are not so “keyne” on his approach wring their hands over the what ifs … ( …TRAIN doesn’t generate the target revenues; … we end up mortgaging even our great grandchildren’s great grandchildren’s (ad nauseam) futures, etc.). Yet UP’s favorite son continues to cut a wide swathe with his “expansionist” fiscal policy panacea. Spend!!!

As a year-ender, Sec. Ben proudly touted the administration’s gains in breaking the chains of underspending bondage. Never in decades have we underspent so little! To be sure, the Secretary’s coveted paradigm shift has been accomplished – there is now a culture of spending.

But is it working? Well, just read the papers: growth is “surging,” “sizzling”; foreign direct investments are “booming” and construction, “expanding.” But what of other bondages? There is that other surging and sizzling and booming and expanding economic indicator known as foreign debt. And the worst, they say, is the Chinese kind with its hidden high interests. Sec. Ben downplays the scare thus: loans will finance the deficit spending and not the infrastructure program. For the latter, only 20 percent will be derived from foreign loans. Government will be prudent. Trust us. Another big ask.

Guidelines awaited. Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, Sec. Diokno and the Commission on Audit are supposed to roll out the guidelines to implement the order to treat the Bureau of Immigration (BI) express lane fees as a trust fund for Overtime payments.

How will they reconcile their conflicting positions? The two Cabinet heavyweights were at loggerheads over this continued practice last December 2016. One of the first acts of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte in his role as a participant in the budget process was to veto it. The reason in his veto message was that the law was unclear in allowing the practice.

Sec. Diokno was firm that, absent definite guidance on whether or not the law allowed it, the practice should be discontinued. He also wondered aloud why the BI was content with working understaffed when there was so many vacant positions in its plantilla. There would be no need for OT if the staffing pattern were filled and rationalized.

But the President has changed his mind. This decision is actually more in keeping with what predecessors in office have allowed for 30 years now. There is esoterica in the interpretation of statutes. When the agencies tasked with implementing the law has interpreted it a certain way for a long period, the Courts may defer to their interpretation of the same.