08/01/2011
\"The Supreme Court (SC) has
made itself an instrument to suppress or prevent the discovery of the
truth… The timing of its promulgation — barely 20 hours after the
President delivered his State of the Nation Address where he solemnly
declared that the fight against graft and corruption is a personal one
for himself and for all the Filipinos who are its victims, and announced
the appointment of newly-retired SC Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales as
Ombudsman — clearly proves beyond doubt that the court has become a
protector of some people… But the Supreme Court will not succeed. For
the truth will triumph and prevail despite and in spite of the Supreme
Court… I only pray to God, the Supreme Judge, that He will help the
Supreme Court redeem its honor and integrity,” thus declared former
Chief Justice Hilario Davide in reaction to the high court’s decision
junking his beloved “Truth Commission” with finality.
Davide
accuses the SC of dishonor and corruption, and of having no integrity.
At the same time, he takes umbrage at its suppressing the truth by
looking at the issue with a jaundiced eye as opposed to a blind and just
court. Such fiery words immediately bring to mind some other critics of
the SC whose words were definitely not as harsh but who still faced the
full brunt of the magistrates’ ire in the form of excessive penalties.
This time, though, the SC is faced with an affront from one of its
former leaders, directly indicting it for no less than a gross violation
of ethical and moral standards.
We recall that after the SC’s
exoneration of Hubert Webb, et al., its spokesman Midas Marquez said
that “if (Dante) Jimenez’s (expletives against the high court) will
offend the magistrates, then he may be cited for contempt.” True enough,
Jimenez was slapped with a P30,000-fine for utterances made in the heat
of the moment, which normally can be brushed off as just an emotional
outburst. Yet, even as the court took offense to it, it doesn’t seem to
treat Davide’s accusations with a greater sense of urgency given that
these were issued to media — and in written form at that — making the
intention to cast it in a bad light much more evident and deliberate.
Won’t
the SC penalize Davide, the same way it pounced on Jimenez or the way
it fined Malaya publisher Jake Macasaet P20,000 for indirect contempt
when the writer alleged certain anomalies in the SC which the court
deemed as “innuendoes that tend, directly or indirectly, to impede,
obstruct or degrade the administration of justice”? Doesn’t Davide’s
accusations — especially coming from a former Chief Justice— effectively
do the same, if not worse?
Perhaps Davide is held by a different
standard. He is, after all, a former CJ (who also happened to be a
favorite of the Yellow crowd for being a co-conspirator in the
orchestrated Edsa II coup d’etat). But, as a lawyer and member of the
Bar, doesn’t his casting doubt on the integrity and motivations of the
court itself hurt the highest judicial body of the land, and be
considered “conduct unbecoming a lawyer and officer of the court,”
worthy of indefinite suspension — not unlike what Davide’s SC in 2003
did to eminent constitutionalist Alan Paguia?
Just to remind
everyone, Alan Paguia was suspended indefinitely from the practice as
well as the teaching of law for questioning the SC magistrates’
attendance in a blatantly partisan political activity that was the
unconstitutional swearing in of Gloria Arroyo in January 2001 at the
Edsa Shrine. For that alone, the Davide Court stated that Paguia was
guilty of “issuing statements questioning its integrity, impartiality
and authority,” and thus suspended him indefinitely for what it coined,
“conduct unbecoming a lawyer and an officer of the court.”
Paguia
has since been suspended for seven long years. And while the ground for
his suspension is still highly questionable, it definitely pales in
comparison to far more serious graft and corruption charges against
judges or justices that only carry a “maximum suspension of… three but
not exceeding six months” (according to Paragraph 2, Section 11, Rule
140 of the Rules of Court).
In 2010, retired Sen. Aquilino
Pimentel’s appeal for the SC to reinstate Paguia, stressing that “(the
penalty of being) barred from practicing… for more than six years… is
too much,” went unheeded.
Earlier, Paguia himself petitioned the
SC in January 2008 to lift the suspension, telling it that the purpose
of the sanction had already been achieved and “there was no more useful
purpose to continue it.” But the SC, on March 10, 2008, even resolved to
hold his petition in abeyance pending proof that the Integrated Bar of
the Philippines (IBP) and the civic and religious sectors were favorably
endorsing his reinstatement, knowing full well that Paguia is not one
to go around beseeching parties that have nothing to do with his case in
the first place (another reason I am personally working with a group of
concerned citizens to petition his reinstatement).
Meanwhile, we
are watching with bated breath how the SC will act on this clear assault
by its former chief. Let’s see if the magistrates’ sauce for the goose
is also their sauce for the gander. If so, are we likely to witness a
Davide suspension anytime soon? Tick-tock, tick-tock…
(Tune in to
Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino,
Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with
HTL, Saturday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny
Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and
http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio
archives)
(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel).
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110801com5.html
