Real threats to democracy

Our democracy is supposed to work because of the principle of separation of powers where the three main branches of our government, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial, are co-equal, independent and separate. In actuality however, this principle is not being observed. It is good only in theory but not in practice especially under the present administration.

The violation now is more glaring between the Executive and Legislative branches. The Executive branch through the President or the Chief Executive virtually controls the Legislative branch with the use of vast resources at his command. He can tell them to do what he wants them to do or not to do in a very subtle way or even openly through the media.

The most concrete example here is the use of the pork barrel or the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) now already declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (SC) in “convincing” members of Congress to enact the RH bill and to impeach officials appointed by his predecessor particularly the Ombudsman and the Supreme Court Chief Justice, so he can fill up the positions they vacated with his own appointees.

And as exposed only last year, the violation of this principle by Executive Department not only consists of intervening with but also of assuming the functions of the legislature. Under the Constitution (Section 25 (5), Article VI), the President, the heads of the Houses of Congress, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the heads of Constitutional Commissions may, “by law, be authorized to augment any item in the General Appropriations Act (budget) for their respective offices from the savings in other items of their respective appropriations” (Section 25 (5) Article VI, Constitution).

But as admitted by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), as early as 2011, the President himself authorized the augmentation of the items in some offices under the Executive Department from the savings in other items of the budget of other offices. In some cases the augmentation even comes from the unutilized budget of the other offices under the Executive Department. This step was taken allegedly to stimulate the country’s economy under the so called and now notorious “Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) that was also used to influence, or, in the blunt words of Senator Miriam Santiago, to “bribe” members of Congress. Obviously this is also unconstitutional because he can do so only “by law” and not merely by his own Executive Order.

The more crucial issue now however is whether the Executive Department can also undermine the independence of the Judicial Branch especially the SC. This issue came up because the constitutionality of both the DAP and one of its by-products, the RH law, is now being questioned in the SC. Talks are rife that PNoy and his lackeys in Congress are working behind the scenes for the SC to uphold the constitutionality of the DAP and the RH law.

No less than the President of the Senate, a loyal party mate of PNoy, recently pressured the SC to immediately rule on the constitutionality of the RH bill allegedly because it is urgently needed now to protect and promote the maternal and reproductive health of women and of children. Undoubtedly, such public statement constitutes undue intrusion into the independence of co-equal branch of the government by the head of the Upper House of Congress. It is uncalled for.

Because of such public statement coming from the head of another branch of government, people are now concluding that the SC must really have been pressured as shown by its deferment of the resolution in this case. This deferment is seen as a move to gain more time in convincing some justices to change their minds, since, as it now stands, more justices believe that the RH bill is really unconstitutional. Obviously, up to this time, the justices who voted for the TRO have not change their stand and in fact would like the TRO to become permanent.

The more serious and blatant violation of this principle, however, comes from PNoy’s own Department of Health Secretary himself. He recently came out with some kind of a threat that the validity of the RH law should be upheld by the SC already because said law is necessary to arrest the rising incidents of abortion in the country. Such arrogant ploy shows little respect for the SC’s independence by a Cabinet member especially because it is even based on conflicting and inaccurate data about the number of abortions happening in our country.

Worse here is that such threat is based on erroneous conclusions of fact. The DOH Secretary is in effect telling the SC that with the use of contraceptives, abortion incidents will be reduced. As already proven in other countries, there are contraceptives that are really abortifacients as they prevent the implantation of a live foetus into the mother’s uterus. And as also shown in other countries, the other contraceptives are not really fail safe as they nevertheless result in unwanted pregnancies which invariably ends up in abortion also, or in terminating pregnancies. Furthermore, the rampant use of condoms has only increased the incidents of HIV/AIDS cases as proven by what is happening now in Thailand.

The more arrogant disregard of the SC’s authority in this case was that displayed by a Regional Director of the DOH. He said that they can implement the contents of the RH law even without said law taking effect. This is not only a direct assault on the SC’s power. More importantly it is an admission of the oft repeated argument advanced by those opposing the RH bill that said law is not really necessary. Indeed the maternal and reproductive health of women can be promoted by just improving medical services and facilities instead of introducing contraceptives that would benefit only the foreign pharmaceutical companies.

So for the sake of our democracy, the SC should not give in to these pressures. It should uphold the constitution by declaring the RH law null and void.

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