Ducky Paredes

Malaya (12.22.05)
“After the Gloria swearing in, the Court came to its senses that what it had done was an awful thing. The Supreme Court, then, twisted itself out of shape to finally explain that Estrada . . . had resigned.”

No Surprises

by Ducky Paredes

The choice of Artemio Panganiban as Chief Justice is, of course, not a surprise. Politics, rather than governance, dominated the decision.
Remember that Panganiban confessed in print that he was the one who convinced then Chief Justice Davide (based on allegedly cutting the bible to the page that told him a regime change was best) to swear in Gloria Arroyo even as President Joseph Estrada was the sitting President. Gloria had earlier told the Court a total lie, that Estrada could no longer perform his duties as President. This was the constitutional basis for the swearing in:
“In case of death, permanent disability, removal from office, orresignation of the President, the Vice-President shall become the President to serve the unexpired term”
The trouble with that is that, in the event of disability, the Constitution also requires that the President himself informs, not the Court, but Congress, about the disability. Or, a majority of the Cabinet, not the Vice President, is supposed to inform, not the Court, but Congress, about the condition.
The problem with using disability as the reason is that the Constitution then says:

“Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall reassume the powers and duties of his office. Meanwhile, should a majority of all the Members of the Cabinet transmit within five days to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Congress shall decide the issue.”
After the Gloria swearing in, the Court came to its senses that what it had done was an awful thing. The Supreme Court, then, twisted itself out of shape to finally explain that Estrada was, in fact, not disabled. Instead, the Court then ruled that Estrada had, in fact, resigned even if he had not signed a resignation letter or told anyone that he had resigned. How had Estrada resigned?
According to totally new dogma that Court now preached, Estrada had acted in a way that the Supreme Court now interpreted as “constructive resignation.” The Court used a newspaper clipping (ordinarily unusable in any sort of court case from being merely double hearsay evidence) to show that Estrada may have uttered words he was unahpy being President from all the problems that had come up. This was whay the SC used to decide that Erap, by that, had resigned (constructively).
Thus, did Artemio Panganiban whose greater experience is not the Law but the management of a travel agency prior to being appointed by President Ramos to the bench, become the sole heir-apparent to Davide.
What a glorious Supreme Court we have!
* * *
Another non-surprise is the decision of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) to scrap the stock distribution option earlier agreed upon by the tenants and the owners of Hacienda Luisita, Inc. and previously approved by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)

Now, the 4,915-hectare land of the Jose Cojuangco family in Tarlac will be distributed to its more than 5,000 tenants.
Even just looking at those two numbers, one already knows that this was the reason why going another way than physically distributing the land was the wiser thing to do.
Members of the family (even to the grandchildren) that owns the land are allowed to retain land for themselves. This will take away even more from the land that will be distributed to the more than 5,000 registered tenants.
Is this really the best thing for these farmer-tenants?
Expect the Cojunagcos to appeal the decision. How many years will that appeal take? The Cojuangcos can always hope that, in that distant future when the decision is finally handed down by the Supreme Court, the virago who took their lands from them would have been long gone and a more friendly face would then be in Malacanang. In the meantime, the hacienda will remain with the landowner.
Besides, as usually happens in cases like these, eventually, the tenant-beneficiaries will be left with nothing, anyway, not even what they consider as worthless shares of stock in Hacienda Luisita, Inc. Their land areas (less than a hectare) are too small to produce enough crop to live on. In addition, they will not have the sums of money that landowner used to invest in the land to make it productive. Sugar land is nutrient-depleted land that needs massive inputs to make them productive.
Land ownership of farm lands is, to my mind, overvalued. Production is actually the more important aspect. Our real problem is that our farms do not produce enough to afford more reasonable wages or shares of the income for our farm workers. Having them work the land themselves without the inputs that would make these lands productive is really not the way to go.
However, Gloria Arroyo would have proven to one and all that no one — not even Cory Aquino, former hero of Edsa Uno and icon of the Filipino people and of Democracy itself — can tell Gloria to give up her presidency and get away with it.
* * *

Of television advertising currently running, the ones I like best are those of Unilever’s that promote their hair products using our SEAG female athletes running, jumping and gracefully executing martial arts movements while showing off their long, luxurious hair.
This is infinitely better than those ads that show models who do nothing but show off their hair. Such ads are narcissistic and do nothing for women’s causes. They seem to say that woman’s work is only to be pretty. That is not the right message.
Having the women in their ads doing great things (and for the country, too) is the right way to go.
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Readers who missed a column can go to http://ducky.paredes-ohana.org. Your reactions are welcome at duckyparedes@gmail.com.

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hvp (12.21.05)

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