Undoing ‘restoring Zion’ philosophy EDITORIAL 12/10/2010

Undoing ‘restoring Zion’ philosophy

EDITORIAL

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12/10/2010

When disgraced former Chief Justice and now the appointed head of the Philippine Truth Commission (PTC) Hilario Davide Jr. justified the 2001 overthrow of former President Joseph Estrada and his swearing in of then Vice President Gloria Arroyo, together with his and his then sidekick, Associate Justice Artemio Panganiban, in convincing the Supreme Court (SC) that he headed on grounds that Estrada had “constructively resigned,” along with the act of elevating Arroyo to the presidency, which was plagued by constitutional infirmities, Davide had claimed that all this started with his “accidentally” opening the bible to a part that spoke of restoring Zion.

That was clearly an abuse of the high court’s power amd highly unconstitutional, to boot.

The decision to strike down Executive Order (EO) 1 creating the PTC was, in contrast, a return to a high court giving an objective view on questions of law.

The high court’s ruling was anchored on the equal protection clause in the Constitution that broadly requires the application of law without discrimination. The ruling noted that the PTC targeting only the administration of Gloria, in effect resulted in EO 1 violating this principle.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101210com1.html