Many bad trees indicate a decadent forest

When my father was still around to egg me to search for my own identity, he always told me not to take a tree for the forest. While the caveat continued to hold its meaning, there were times that it was worth examining each tree so that we would be able to understand the nature of the entire forest.

Tree number 1. Con-com. Her Excellency, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo constituted the Consultative Commission. The men and women who composed the body were mostly learned and were steeped in the love of country. Buried by the avalanche of individual proposal on how to write amendments to our constitution to make it more dynamic (wow!) were two facts: First - the so-called consultation for which the body was constituted was a farce of a cover. It was without any foundation in the constitution itself which was one way of saying that the president did something in violation of constitutional precepts. Second - the money spent for the effort was public fund diverted from its legitimate obligation. In short, it was a presidential misappropriation of funds.

Tree number 2. Con-ass. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jose de Venecia, announced (arrogantly, if I may add) that he would have 195 congressmen affixing their signatures to a document convening congress into a Constitutional Assembly. He even set a timetable for accomplishing the effort! What he did not tell us was that he made his own interpretation of the requirement of ¾ votes enshrined in our fundamental law. In a style, uniquely his own, de Venecia implied that the ¾ votes would be taken from the combined numbers of the lower house and the senate and not ¾ of each chamber.

Tree number 3. EO 464. Pres. Arroyo knew that the investigations particularly conducted by the Senate was in the direction of uncovering many anomalous directives. High in the list of the Senate was the fertilizer scam where public funds of close to one billion pesos were, as per initial findings, were distributed few days before the 2004 presidential elections, to favored political allies. While the cover was for such money to be used to purchase agricultural fertilizers, it was, as the investigations progressed, perceived to have been used for election purposes. The only way to stop such inquiries was to disallow certain personalities from answering the summons of the senate. The EO 464 was born. Lately, the Supreme Court said such an edict was unconstitutional.

Tree number 4. CPR. There were the "Hello, Garci" tapes which rocked our serene people. Believed to record the conversation between the high and the mighty and a crooked election official on the ways to cheat the polls, the tapes were somehow validated by the apology issued by Malacañang for "lapse of judgment". Then, we became an angered race and started storming the streets, in a manner which saw its precursor in EDSA I. To prevent a repetition of "people power", the administration formulated the Calibrated Pre-emptive Response, which, Supreme Court just declared to be unconstitutional.

Tree Number 5. PP 1017. Our escalating indignation for the half truths and lies (my own perception) peddled by our leaders seemed to stoke the embers social unrest. Its perceptible end could be a change of administration. To stupefy the increasing restiveness of our people, Pres. Arroyo, not quite unlike the martial law of Pres. Marcos, penned Proclamation 1017. The difference between the Marcos and Arroyo edicts was in the confusing way the latter was formulated. Of course, both derogated against the normal processes of governance. I have reason to believe, though, that in few days, the Supreme Court shall rule Pres. Arroyo's Proclamation 1017 to have violated many constitutional precepts.

In a span of less than a year, these were the flawed acts of our leaders. If each act were equivalent to a tree, then the forest of our administration is not filled with vibrant flora. Rather, it is full of diseased and rotting trees our country be better free of.