EDITORIAL - Prayers rather than hate

It is understandable that, for people who either hate President Arroyo or have lost all trust in her, anything that she does will always be questionable in their minds. Even matters that are thrust upon her to do as a matter of course are suspect.

Take the case of the impending seven-seat vacancy in the 15-member Supreme Court, which is the duty of the president, any president, to fill. Every Arroyo critic who has a mouth with all the time in the world to open is having a field day criticizing the inevitable.

Whether she likes it or not, whether she has grand designs behind doing so or not, it is the mandate of the law for Arroyo to fill up those vacancies the moment they occur. And they will occur within her term, not because she willed it but because they just happen to be so.

And once she fills up those vacancies, all except one shall have been her appointees. And it is this eventuality that is prompting her critics to go to town with their criticisms. Taken against the unavoidability of this happenstance, such criticisms become unfair.

If she can only yank out justices and replace them with her stooges, then criticisms would have been valid. But the terms of justices are predetermined by law. It is not her fault that the same law requires the president, who happens to be her, to fill up any vacancies.

Besides, she can only make her choices from among a short list that is to be submitted to her, again according to law, by the Judicial and Bar Council, whose duty it is to screen all nominees or applicants. The president can only choose from what she is given.

In effect, the real choices are made at the JBC. It is this body that needs to be watched, if that is really what the critics want. The fact that they are barking up the wrong tree only exposes the real agenda behind these criticisms.

There is a lot to criticize the president for. She is not the most unpopular president for nothing. But the reasons for disliking the president that are born of other causes must not be used to criticize her for other things that have nothing to do with those other causes.

Arroyo has nothing to do with Supreme Court vacancies occuring within her term. Maybe it is time for her critics to reflect that perhaps an unseen hand, a greater hand, is dictating these things to happen. Maybe prayers, not hate, are needed for her to make the right choices.