EDITORIAL - Covenant of moral recovery

Amid a raging bribery scandal, several justices of the Court of Appeals signed yesterday a “covenant of moral recovery.” They were led by Presiding Justice Conrado Vasquez Jr., who was recently given a severe reprimand by the Supreme Court in connection with the CA’s handling of the management dispute between the Manila Electric Co. and the Government Service Insurance System. Some quarters have called for the resignation of all the justices implicated in the case, including Vasquez.

The nation can only hope that the commitment of the CA will go beyond the signing of a covenant in the presence of Chief Justice Reynato Puno. The CA scandal has raised questions about the independence of the judiciary and the extent of corruption in the administration of justice. Some details of the scandal remain unresolved, in particular the role played by lawyer Jesus Santos, who sits on the GSIS board and who served as spokesman for the First Gentleman.

Among all three branches of government, the judiciary has managed to retain a degree of public trust amid protracted political turbulence, though even this trust has been shaken by recent SC decisions on controversial issues. The judiciary should not lose what trust it still enjoys by allowing the rot in its system to spread.

Even investors perceive the Philippine judiciary to be tainted by corruption. A recent survey of 1,537 expatriate business executives in Asia, taken by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, ranked the Philippines sixth among 12 economies in the quality of the judicial system. Apart from the level of corruption, other factors rated in the survey were transparency, enforcement of laws, protection of intellectual property rights, freedom from political interference, and the educational qualifications and training of judges and lawyers.

PERC said its regular surveys have consistently shown a close correlation in the way business executives perceive a country’s judicial system and the openness of its economy. Not surprisingly, Hong Kong’s judicial system was rated the best in the PERC survey, followed by Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The Philippines ranked ahead of Malaysia, India, Thailand, China, Vietnam and Indonesia. The CA mess could pull down the Philippines’ rating in the next survey, unless the “covenant for moral recovery” attains its avowed objective.