Deliverance

The value of the Entertainment industry’s output is not measured by the physical goods or services produced. Its in the illusions and fantasies they create that make us happy or sad and the values they cultivate that leave us better or worse. The gods of this culture are the faces front and back of the camera. The enablers who, even in our darkest hours, supply us with the means to escape, however briefly, from our own individual perditions.

We all know the blockbuster film producer Harvey Weinstein; mega hit director Brett Ratner; Shakespearean actor Kevin Spacey and legendary method master  Dustin Hoffman, both Academy Award winners and leading thespic lights of their generations. These are all A-list names in this A-list industry. As people at the pinnacle, they wielded immense power. At one time or another in our ordinary lives, we wanted to be them.

Now, no one wants to be them. For the past few weeks, their clay feet became the news. Several broadsheets here and abroad carried above the headlines their sordid, predatory exploits on the vulnerable and the powerless. A fitting confirmation of the adage that the road to the top is littered with roadkill. These victims, first the women, picked themselves up, became the best of their litter, and climbed to the top of the same mountain. There they, too, found the power and used it for retribution and their redemption. It’s a modern day fairy tale come to life. Can there be a better group of A-vengers than these?

Let there be blood. Tomorrow, 7,217 law graduates troop to the University of Santo Tomas (UST) to take the annual Bar exams. There are added dimensions to this year’s test as the nation is in the eye of a storm of legal dilemmas. Among them: West Philippine Sea, human rights violations, extra judicial killings, the PDAF cases, the federalism campaign, high level whiffs of corruption and, again, the impeachment of constitutional officials. The exam venue is ground zero for the most agonizing of them: the initiation by UST Law fraternity Aegis Juris of neophyte Horacio Castillo III and his death as a consequence of the same.

Where you stand on the competing sides of these debates may compel you to revisit the reasons you wanted to join the profession. Most cite the desire to pay forward; to perform a public service. At the core of any perceived call to duty is justice, the opportunity to help those who cannot help themselves. Yet we are now witnessing a phenomenon of lawyers routinely invoking the law’s protections after ignoring the law’s restrictions.

A higher bar. For those who are still looking for a good reason, we submit that the actions of one Mark Ventura, law student and officer of the Aegis Juris fraternity, in the aftermath of the tragic incident could serve as an option. There is truly no justification for the active or passive participation he had in the hazing he so lucidly described in his affidavit. But his repentant and straightforward conduct afterwards, specially in the midst of all the contortions of his brothers’ unrepentant affidavits and over the tremendous pressure of frat loyalty and solidarity, will be the better measure of how this man will be judged by society.

Passing the buck. We can thank the card game Poker for this idiom. Changing the dealer and dealer’s choice were mechanisms to prevent cheating and the EJ-Way they tended to be resolved in the gun crazy old west. So that each player would get his turn at dealing the cards, a marker would be passed. This was often a prairie knife and, on the frontier, knives usually had buck horn handles. Passing the marker became known as passing the buck.

This is exactly what happened, for quite a while, on the RH Law implementation front. The statements of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Population Commission (PopCom) would consistently pass the blame for the non-implementation of the Law to the Supreme Court. At the last SONA, the President actually called out the Chief Justice for her Court’s delay in the law’s implementation.

Evolving directives? I don’t know how they understood the Court’s Temporary Restraining Order. Yes, aside from the explicit temporary ban on Implanon and Implanon NXT until certified as non-abortifacient, there was a clause prohibiting FDA from granting applications for all contraceptive devices. But this was only pending their certification or recertification. And until the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) were to be adopted.

Now they are finally issuing the IRR – one of the legacies of Secretary Paulyn Ubial. PopCom Executive Director J. Antonio Perez has excitedly preempted Health Secretary Francisco Duque’s own announcement next week that the FDA will be releasing its list of certified non-abortifacient contraceptives, including Implanon and Implanon NXT.

Heard this one? With Harry as spokesman, now its Digong who needs to spin his comments. This reminds me of the immortal Henry VI dialogue: “the first thing we do, lets kill all the lawyers.” Up to now there are people who think this classic line as pejorative. Killing lawyers would make the world a better place. The legal profession, of course, has a contrarian “spin”: it was an acknowledgment by the bard of the prevailing sentiment of the time – lawyers were educated and the ordinary people were not; lawyers knew the law and ordinary persons did not. Lawyers could be relied upon to uphold the law and would, accordingly, thwart any well laid plans. Hence, the loathing for lawyers.

Secretary Harry Roque has made a career out of speaking out in defense of injustice using his prodigious knowledge of the law as the source of his eloquence. So when you dislike Harry, could it be because he knows something you don’t? Though we personally appreciated the reassuring manner of Sec. Ernie Abella, we know that the controversial Sec. Roque will be a better spokesman if only because he is sure to be more faithful to the President’s real message.