Interesting times

After expending colossal amounts of the people’s time and money on 16 committee hearings over a six- month period to impeach Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes P.A. Sereno, the House of Representatives is suddenly the most judicious of the three branches.

The House had the ball and they were on a fast break. Damn the separation! Six Associate Justices even showed up to play. But when forces on and off the Court suddenly decided to carpe diem and purloin the initiative to remove the Chief Justice, the House, already on a break away, stopped cold and tossed the ball into the stands.

Ex abundante cautela. Now, the House is the only one left invoking deference to the principle of separation of powers. Statements by House leaders reveal that they consider the impeachment moot or are withholding action until the Court’s next move. This volte-face of a once angry house contributes to the enduring conspiracy theory that the Sereno ouster was orchestrated.

Its really quite a muddle we’re in. Of the hindsight questions spawned, one that continues to confound is the majority’s decision to cross the rubicon with what they surely knew to be a novel, tortured, finessed reading of the Quo Warranto remedy applied to impeachable officials. Why, when the Chief Justice was already en route to her Senate trial?

Enigma. One of the most significant purposes of law which it behooves the holders of all three branches to respect is to fix categorical norms to guide official conduct. An 8 to 6 divide on a question as enormous as the removal of the Chief Justice might have put the Justices on notice that the only direction it would guide us to is toward the downward spiral of confusion. Did the “hydraulic pressures” of this hard case, per Justice Holmes, contribute to a distortion of judgment and, hence, bad law?

The only silver lining is that the exchange that follows among the branches and the public would contribute to a better understanding of the values that underline our Constitution. As Professor Bickel would describe it, a process where constitutional principles evolve conversationally and are not perfected unilaterally. Already we are seeing Senate President Nene Pimentel, senior member of the President’s consultative committee on constitutional change, vowing to include the clarification in their recommendations that Quo Warranto has no place in the removal of impeachable officials.

Guardian of public funds. The rap against the President’s house cleaning efforts has always been that certain personalities were glaringly exempt from it. Hence, the law applied to none at all. We saw this before and we were disappointed before with P-Noy’s tuwid na daan drive and the favored class of kaklase and kabarilan. But we are finding ourselves less disappointed in PRRD with the developments of recent weeks.

The administration’s anti-illegal drugs campaign is now sharing space with its anti-corruption campaign on the top shelf. Erstwhile sacred cows have been shown the door and the drive has shifted to high gear with sub-cabinet appointees now in their sights. The public acknowledges the efforts and applauds them.

Menace. The battle against this cancer of corruption is always timely. Saudi Arabia and Malaysia have embarked on their own parallel efforts. It was a major plank in PRRD’s campaign platform. With our place in the world corruption index falling to its lowest in six years (from 101 in 2016 down 10 places to 111 in 2017), PRRD’s resign or be shamed campaign signals our seriousness to the world.

The Commission on Audit (COA), at a time when independence has become a dangerous word, has led in the scouring efforts. It was the COA that raised the flags in the recent Department of Tourism ad placement controversy. This determined face has been applied also in its latest ruling, against the positions taken by the administrations of Presidents Arroyo, Aquino and even Duterte, that the Malampaya Consortium owes the government P146.791 billion in underpayments. 

Higher education tidbits. Ateneo de Manila came out strongly against the Supreme Court’s action on the Petition for Quo Warranto, long beforeRepublic vs Sereno came down. University president Jose T. Villarin signed the Ateneo expression of Eagle solidarity.

The University of the Philippines released the long awaited UPCAT results. With a murderous 17 percent passing rate, this most competitive of University entrance examinations mirrors the annual mortality rate of the Philippine Bar Exams which hovers in the low 20s. Congratulations to the survivors.

De La Salle scored a three-peat in women’s collegiate volleyball. The Lady Spikers are the closest thing we have to a sports dynasty that has captured popular imagination. DLSU has won 11 of the last 20 college championships. This sustained tradition of dominance and unmatched poise on the volleyball court beats all the trophies their teams have won through the years. DLSU auxiliary visitor Bro. Jose Mari Jimenez, FSC also issued a pastoral letter to the La Sallian community denouncing the Quo Warranto decision.

Passages. We join the nation in remembering the life of Senate President Edgardo J. Angara. My enduring recollection of him is not drawn from the historic moments in the Senate or the countless contributions to the country in the Cabinets of Corazon C. Aquino and Joseph E. Estrada nor borrowed from his sublime record in the legal profession and the Academe. For me, it was the chance sighting of the man, then my University President, during an unguarded moment. At one return visit to my alma mater, Xavier School, I caught a glimpse of him at the grade school department dutifully attending a parent teacher conference with his elegant wife and lovely daughter. They were there for young Juan Edgardo M. Angara. The lens of that memory has colored my estimation of the late Senate President – whenever I think of him, the virtues of duty, humility and devotion are never far from mind. To Senator Sonny, Mrs. Gloria M. Angara and family, our condolences.