Malaya (03.27.08)
“Should this be the concern of the Supreme Court or is this – what foreign investors and foreign lenders think of us — something that the Department of Foreign Affairs should be worrying about?”
by Ducky Paredes
In what has to have been the worst decision ever done by any Supreme Court, the justices voted 9-6 to allow a Cabinet official not to tell Senate investigating committees anything “relating to the impact of the bribery scandal involving high government officials and the possible loss of confidence of foreign investors and lenders in the country.”
This has to be the first time that any High Court of any country has decided that avoiding the impressions that the truth will give investors and foreign lenders is more important to that country than their finding out whether or not high crimes have been committed by the highest officials of the land.
While the Court is right to wonder at what a great embarrassment it might be for the world to know that crooks are in charge of our country, one would think that the other impression – that all Filipinos are crooks and that the Philippines is a thoroughly crooked country (which is proven by the fact that the Supreme Court takes great pains to hide aspects of that crookery from everyone, including the Senate) – is actually a worse judgment on our country by those same investors and lenders.
Should this be the concern of the Supreme Court or is this – what foreign investors and foreign lenders think of us — something that the Department of Foreign Affairs should be worrying about? Shouldn’t the SC be more concerned about punishing crimes, criminals, crookedness and crooks?
The Court argues: “This privilege is said to be necessary to guarantee the candor of presidential advisors and to provide ‘the President and those who assist him… with freedom to explore alternatives in the process of shaping policies and making decisions and to do so in a way many would be unwilling to express except privately.’”
While that seems reasonable, did not the Court realize that nothing of what was discussed by Romulo Neri and Gloria Arroyo would have become public knowledge if the same Romulo Neri had not – immediately after their conversation – tell a gaggle of his bosom buddies what they discussed? If that was what he did, after speaking with Gloria, how can this same rumor-monger now claim that “executive privilege” prevents him from telling our Senators what transpired between the President and her cabinet man when he has already told the whole world what she said to the bribe offer that he reported to her?
Any possible loss of confidence from investors and lenders has already happened anyway because Neri has been retailing his tattle-tales to every one who was willing to listen,
The ruling on the Neri case is a dangerous precedent since the lower courts may also begin deciding cases not strictly on the merits; instead, will they decide, for instance, that ruling that someone cheated in an election may embarrass the country before the world and that, thus, it is best not to rule on that one?
Dissenting were Chief Justice Reynato Puno and Associate Justices Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, Ma. Alicia Austria-Martinez, Conchita Carpio-Morales, Adolfo Azcuna and Antonio Carpio.
If only the present justices of the Court were of the same mold as previous justices, at least two of those who voted with the majority should not have participated in the decision out of a sense of delicadeza. But, that may have flown out the window under the new morality that the current government practices.
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Forgive me for being overly suspicious, especially because of rumors that the courts – specially the Court of Appeals – can be bought; but, isn’t there something terribly wrong when a congressman convicted by a lower court of the murder of the two sons of his political opponent after several years of hearings, is acquitted by the Court of Appeals of the crime? What makes this even more suspicious is that it only took the CA two years to reach its verdict.
What does this make of the original judge who convicted the congressman?
What change took place between conviction and acquittal? The congressman was constantly in Malacanang and was especially helpful to the palace in its various battles within the congress. What gave this away was a well-publicized visit by a Presidential satrap to the congressman’s sick bed in a hospital.
Is Malacanang really that powerful that it can now get everyone – congressmen, judges and justices to do as Malacanang pleases?
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Perhaps, what convinced the SC to turn against the Senate in the Neri case was the fact that the present crop of Senators act like bunch of thugs beating up on the witnesses that they summon to appear before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee. That may be so but the Senate still does have the authority – and the duty to go after things that go wrong and our laws that need fixing. The SC should not place hurdles that only help the evil ones to continue with their skullduggery.
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Valley Golf and Country Club will be 50 years old this year. To mark the occasion, the already largest member-guest golf tournament in the Philippines will even be bigger when the Don Celso Tuazon Cup begins on Thursday, April 17.
Teams will play either on mornings or afternoons on Thursday and Saturday or Friday and Sunday, when the awarding ceremonies will take place. This is usually a long-drawn out affair and the Monday after the tournament is usually a non-working day for most Valley golfers.
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hvp 03.26.08)
One Comment
i think recently-appointed justice brion should not have participated in the voting for the Neri case. It is suspicious that he was appointed less than a month after the retirement of Justice Angelina Sandoval Gutierrez, when usually, it takes the President more than a month to appoint another justice to fill in a vacancy (the law requires the position of a Supreme court justice to be filled up within 90 days). As expected, he voted to grant the petition. Neither was I surprised by the votes of Justices de Castro, Velasco and Corona, known Arroyo allies.
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