A Chief Justice of the Supreme Court mustn’t speak out of turn

Was the dispatch from Baguio City accurate? Apparently it was. I was, to put it plainly, both astonished – and shocked.

How could Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban have asserted that he supports the abolition of the death penalty because the death penalty law is (he alleged) "unconstitutional"? Pardon me for being dense, but it was always my impression that the Supreme Court en banc, after due deliberation, should vote to declare anything "unconstitutional" or "constitutional" – and the Chief Justice, on his own, ought to refrain from making any comment beforehand based on his personal assessment or views.

I’ve known and admired Art Panganiban for many years. Many people recall that this writer was among the first to endorse and support his appointment to the Supreme Court, indeed, he himself tells everybody that. The same is true of his well deserved elevation to Chief Justice after the retirement of former Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr.

But his latest statement leaves me with mouth agape.

I’m sure Chief Justice Panganiban, who retires this December, knows best of all that his position, the highest in the judiciary, precludes him from making any personal or private assertions which have a bearing on the law.

But who am I to preach to a Chief Justice on such a matter? I just have to say it. I believe, to my disappointment, that he spoke out of turn.

* * *

In its second landmark decision this month, the Supreme Court en banc (now you see what I mean) yesterday voted unanimously to declare null and void the government’s Calibrated Preemptive Response (CPR).

In the decision penned by Justice Adolf Azcuna, the Court stated that the policy confuses the people and is being used by the police to commit abuses. The Court described the CPR policy as a "darkness that shrouds freedom."

That was strong language.

High Court rulings against Malacañang are not unusual. As early as the pre-Commonwealth days, during the colonial era of American Governors-General, on down to the regimes of Presidents Elpidio Quirino, Diosdado Macapagal, Ferdinand Marcos, Corazon C. Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos, presidential edicts and "issuances" which violated the Constitution have been struck down by the Supreme Court.

To the credit of the American overlords, very early in their colonial rule, they began giving Filipinos the opportunity to gradually take over the Justice System (there were still many "fights" between nationalistic Filipinos and the colonial Americans, but inch by inch the Governors-General permitted Filipinos to run the courts, the public school system and set up a legislature following the approval of the US President and the Congress of the United States in July 1902 of the first Philippine Organic Act).

I remember my arrival in Saigon at a time when the French were losing the war to retain their Indo-China colonies to Ho Chi Minh’s and General Vo Nguyen Giap’s Viet Minh. On my first night of disembarking from the American freighter which brought me to Vietnam, I met a French "planter" in the Cafe Givral on the Rue Catinat. When I told him I came from Manila, the Frenchman – already packing up to flee to France (a country he had not seen for decades) – exclaimed: "Yes, I went to Manila once in . . . let me see, in 1939. It was disgusting. Those Americans allowed you Filipinos to run everything, sacre bleu, even the postal system! Did you know that we French never permitted the natives to run anything – even the postman who delivered the mail had to be French!"

That backhanded tribute to the Philippine Commonwealth and the "stupid" American rulers will never be forgotten by me.

In any event, coming back to the present, what is remarkable about the Supreme Court’s two successive rulings in the 464 and CPR cases is that they were unanimous, with all the members of the Court concurring with the ponentes or writers of the decisions. Indecisions that impact on several sectors of society, a unanimous verdict carries far greater weight and credibility than a split verdict.

In the US, from where our constitutional moorings were derived, two decisions that affected that nation, during different eras, were unanimous. These were the decisions invalidating segregation in public schools penned by Chief Justice Earl Warren, and that written by Chief Justice Warren Burger allowing the release of the Watergate Tapes which doomed, in effect, the Nixon Administration and led to the resignation, in disgrace of President Richard M. Nixon.

Alas, La Presidenta may have to brace herself. The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on Proclamation 1017 – yet.

* * *

Yesterday’s "The Wall Street Journal" got it right. Shai Oster, the Journal’s Beijing Correspondent, in a front page piece headlined, "China Makes Play for Oil but Tries to Do It Quietly" reported that China’s President Hu Jintao is making clear by his visits to Saudi Arabia and now Nigeria, two of the world’s biggest oil producers, that "securing his country’s energy needs is a top priority."

Our leaders, whether the Defenders of GMA or the Oust GMA gang, are sadly not doing the same thing. They’re engaged in their petty domestic war while the prospect of our fuel supply drying up is a clear and present danger. Instead of looking for urgent energy resources, they’re wasting their energy trying to tear each other apart. Is nobody thinking of the nation’s welfare? Sanamagan.

The Journal article, by the way, goes on to remark: "Yet, energy analysts say China is working hard to send signals that Mr. Hu has a broader agenda. Hard on the heels of his first Washington visit as president, he wants to avoid arousing US suspicions by seeming to make a grab for oil…"

How can he accomplish this? Oster recalls that politicians in Washington accuse Beijing of trying to lock up energy resources by courting governments "shunned by the West, including Iran and Sudan."

Mr. Hu is zipping from Saudi to Africa, where he will spend today and tomorrow in Nigeria, Africa’s largest producer. The Journal reveals that his next stops are Morocco and Kenya, where China is also exploring for oil.

Saudi Arabia, at the conclusion of his three-day visit there, announced that the state oil company, Saudi Aramco (a partner of our own PETRON), will be delivering one million barrels a day to China by the year 2010. In Nigeria, the Chinese president is expected to discuss energy cooperation, "including Chinese investment in onshore and inland oil blocks and in one of Nigeria’s chronically unprofitable refineries."

It must be recalled that in the early 1990s, China was a net oil exporter – after all, it was a nation on bicycles. Today, it is the world’s second biggest oil consumer after the USA. Its oil demand today, it was reported, is expected to grow by 5.5 percent, or to just under seven million barrels per day. This may be only eight percent of the world’s total oil requirement, but China’s consumption is expanding by leaps and bounds. The Chinese are buying more and more cars, and analysts predict oil consumption could grow to 12 million barrels a day – three times more than China produces domestically.

Where will this leave us? Gasping for fuel, and dry at the corner gas pump.

It’s time we woke up and gave priority to our energy needs, not just agonize over trying to tamper with VAT as a means to cope with the inevitable rising cost of fossil fuel.

Wind power? Geothermal power? Fuel from sugarcane? More aggressive measures in Malampaya Sound?

Some are already whispering about the unthinkable: "activating" t hat mothballed, useless nuclear plant in Bataan. By golly, we must think twice. Remember Chernobyl. This is a land, sad to say, where Murphy’s Law (who passed it, some solons might ask:) operates in spades: "It anything can possibly go wrong, it will go wrong, and at the worst possible time."

As we endlessly debate and spew hatred at each other – time is running out.

* * *

Former Executive Secretary Ramon "Eki" Cardenas’ front page article the other day on the coming 90th birthday of Father James Reuter, S.J. – by golly, still energetic and full of beans at age 90 – drew tremendous response.

Father Jim was a friend of our family since he was a handsome young Jesuit Scholastic (seminarian). In fact, when a flood threatened to inundate our home on Herran street – now named Pedro Gil street – he and a group of Jesuit scholastics rushed over from the Ateneo to help "evacuate" the family and our belongings to the second floor. This was just before the Japanese army grabbed him and all the American Jesuits and clapped them to the concentration camp in Los Baños.

When my mother died, Father Jim rushed over to say daily Mass, and arrange, along with my nephew Father Luis S. David, S.J., her wake in the Loyola House of Studies. I’ll have more to say, in a future column, about Father Jim. But let me use this space for an announcement requested by the Reuter Boys, including Eki Cardenas.

"To celebrate another milestone in the life of Fr. James Reuter, S.J. – his 90th birthday on May 21, 2006 friends are launching a book they have put together showcasing selected plays and other writings of the legendary priest, playwright, and, media specialist.

Due to the increasing demand for the book, friends and other interested parties are urged to place their orders early enough (like NOW) so that the organizers can arrange to have Fr. Reuter write a personal dedication on their copies.

Orders may be placed at the following points:

1. [email protected] c/o Jeng

2. St. Paul University of Manila

680 Pedro Gil, Malate, Manila

Tel. 524-5687 to 89

c/o Sis. Mary Aurelle Cortes

3. St. Paul University of Quezon City

Aurora Blvd., Corner Gilmore St.,Q.C.

Tel. 726-7986 loc. 143

Payment may be made to: 2B3C Foundation, Inc."