Institutions

There are still quite a number of Pinoys who think an institution is where you put mental cases. So I don’t know how much the recent message of the ombudsman would resonate.

With only two months left in office, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales is safe from impeachment. Although if someone gets up on the wrong side of the bed, she might be declared an enemy and hit with a quo warranto petition, so that she won’t be able to retire in peace and instead will have “ousted” in her resume. On what grounds? For sure Solicitor General Jose Calida and his principal client can think of something – if Morales keeps up with her attacks on strongmen and the weakening of democratic institutions. But with her retirement approaching, why bother?

In contrast, Maria Lourdes Sereno would have served as chief justice forever and had to be removed ASAP, with her peers eagerly undermining their own institution, and the rubberstamp House of Representatives dutifully doing the same. As for the Senate, the jury’s still out on whether its new president understands the meaning of institutions.

Sereno looked impressively serene as she faced me and TV5’s Ed Lingao last Friday for a pre-taped episode of “The Chiefs,” our talk show on One News, Cignal TV’s all-news channel that is being launched today. She looked unbowed by the tax probe launched against her that morning and was buoyed by expressions of support in her public appearances especially from the youth.

The merits of the accusations against Sereno have been eclipsed by her ouster at warp speed through a mere quo warranto petition filed by the chief government lawyer. 

Sereno’s fall has become the symbol of the collapse of an already dysfunctional justice system. Never mind the House; its craven members never fail to disappoint. But people held on to the fantasy that the country still had a functioning court of last resort.

Instead Supreme Court justices have served up their own heads to Calida, now the most powerful solicitor general since Ferdinand Marcos’ Estelito Mendoza. Perhaps solicitors general are at their most powerful under strongmen.

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In fairness to the strongman Morales is referring to, he’s been in office less than two years, while our institutions have been weak for several decades now. President Duterte is pursuing his governance agenda fully cognizant of those weaknesses – sometimes going around them, sometimes exploiting them, sometimes in the process inflicting further damage.

Institution-building should have followed the restoration of democracy in 1986. But the country just basked in the euphoria of people power, believing everything would fall into place. Maybe the coup pals distracted the country from institution-building throughout the first Aquino presidency.

The late Washington SyCip was one of several prominent individuals who openly sighed that we have too much freedom with little regard for responsibility. People power icon Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin lamented the “kanya-kanya” (to each his own) mindset that hobbled nation-building. People complained of the licentious mass media.

Duterte has resented being called a strongman. He need not protest too much. With his still immense popularity, he could make long-term structural reforms possible. A strongman, a benevolent autocrat, turned Singapore into one of the world’s advanced economies. Lee Kuan Yew focused on institution-building in his city-state. Despite the country’s unique views on press freedom and certain other civil liberties, Singapore is generally seen to be a state with strong institutions and where the rule of law prevails.

With what is happening in the Supreme Court, I don’t think I’ll ever see the rule of law prevail in our country in my lifetime.

After the 1986 revolt, it didn’t take long for people to wonder how revolutionary the changes really were. It was business as usual for patronage politics and rent-seeking. The oligarchs remained firmly entrenched, and the Marcoses and their cronies got away with everything. Wealth and power remained concentrated on a miniscule elite, with all rules and systems skewed in their favor.

Like the rest of the justice system, the Office of the Ombudsman itself suffers from institutional weakness. It’s not entirely without basis that several courts have tossed out high-profile corruption cases because of the “inordinate delay” on the part of the ombudsman in filing cases in court – although this argument is now being abused. And criticisms of selective prosecution by the ombudsman are also not entirely baseless.

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Since the Marcos regime, Filipinos have seen that with a combination of wealth and political clout, anyone in this country can get away with murder, torture, world-class plunder – you name it.

This sorry state of affairs reflects the weakness of the justice system. And this weakness has to be one of the reasons for the popularity of individuals who can promise quick fixes.

Kidnappers and carjackers are proliferating? Execute the lowlifes. Drug dealers are making the neighborhood unsafe? Kill them. If they are arrested and tried, they might simply escape, or a crooked judge might set them free. And it could take over a decade before they are convicted.

It’s often said that democracy is a difficult and an imperfect system. The excesses or exuberance of Philippine democracy and institutional weaknesses made certain Filipinos yearn for a Lee Kuan Yew who could deliver, as the Singaporeans put it, not strongman rule but strong and efficient government.

Along came Rodrigo Duterte, promising to kill criminals and be tough on crooks in government. He won by a landslide. When he began delivering on his promise against criminals, the most remarkable thing in this democratic, predominantly Catholic country was the public’s reaction: people simply looked away, and gave Dirty Rody stratospheric approval ratings.

Institutional weakness catapulted Rodrigo Duterte to the presidency. He was a strongman waiting to happen.