Is it game over for Philippine democracy?

So it’s the 114th celebration of Philippine Independence… but what are we celebrating about? I gathered from most pundits crying aloud the same question, “When will we Filipinos be finally free from poverty?” Indeed for as long as the majority of the Filipino people cannot get themselves out of that vicious cycle of poverty, we can never claim to be truly independent. We are so proud to say that we are independent… but are we really?

In a democracy like ours, we are supposed to have three co-equal and independent from each other branches of the government, namely the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. But the reality today is, the three co-equal branches of the government have become a joke. The other branches can no longer claim independence from the Executive and proof of the pudding is in the eating with what happened during the Senate Impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.

I’m sure that a lot of Cebuanos bought, hook, line and sinker Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III’s slogan “Kung Walang Korupt, Walang Mahirap.” It is for this very reason why no less than PNoy engineered the removal of former CJ Corona with stunning speed in the Legislative branch, which is supposed to be a co-equal of the Executive branch. A total of 188 congressmen and women, in less than an hour and obviously without reading (because no debates were allowed on the floor) the charges slapped at CJ Corona, voted to impeach him.

While it took the Senate impeachment court five months to do their job, they still ended up in convicting CJ Corona, proof that the political mafia headed by Senate Pres. Juan Ponce Enrile (JPE) wanted to remove the Chief Justice from day one. Remember a few days before the appearance of CJ Corona before the Senate Trial court? PNoy paid his last visit to the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) Eduardo Manalo supposedly to convince him that CJ Corona must go. While we believed that PNoy went home empty handed from the INC meeting, I was quite surprised that The Philippine Star came up with an article on May 30, on page 12, which give us the idea that the INC withdrew its support for CJ Corona at the last minute.  

Well, I was in Manila yesterday and I met with a very high INC official who told me that the meeting with PNoy and Manalo did not result in the INC’s withdrawing its support for CJ Corona. The info I got was JPE and company already “sold” out to PNoy. The INC visit was just a ruse to make people believe that it was because of INC that CJ Corona was convicted by the supposedly “independent” senators. In short, the Legislative branch kowtowed to the wishes of the Executive branch. So clearly, they are no longer independent, but rather subservient to PNoy.

What about the Judiciary? First of all, let me point out that I fought to have CJ Corona acquitted not because I know him personally, but rather because I wanted the Judiciary shielded from the machinations of the Executive branch, specifically from the wiles of PNoy whom we know was getting back at CJ Corona for their family’s loss of Hacienda Luisita. But as Teddy Boy Locsin of “Teditorial” fame pointed out, “What happened to the Chief Justice was a political assassination.”

My inside information on this points to what I feared the most… that the remaining associate justices, who are scared that they might be next in line to be impeached, will most certainly kowtow to the wishes of PNoy. I already wrote here about that serious flow or defect in the Constitution about the Judicial & Bar Council (JBC), wherein it has neither Deputy Chairman nor a Vice-Chairman as only a sitting Chief Justice can convene the JBC. Will the remaining justices no longer fight for judicial independence? Perhaps this is their last card. Independence or grovel to PNoy.

Today, the Acting Chief Justice Carpio has convened the JBC, but gave way to Associate Justice Regino Hermosisima to choose the next Chief Justice from a shortlist. I’m sure that there are many eager lawyers out there who are just waiting in the wings to file a case of violation of the constitution, the moment the President would choose and sign into office the next Chief Justice. This will be the ultimate test of the independence of the Judiciary. If through some legal mambo jambo they would make an unconstitutional act constitutional, then it is game over for Philippine democracy.

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court, in an en banc session, will tackle the TRO against the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine and my inside info on this is that the SC would already do the bidding of PNoy and allow the use or should I say the reuse of the PCOS machines even with the knowledge that these machines were used for what we now call “electronic dagdag bawas.” When this happens, as the Tagalogs would say, “tapos na ang boxing.” The opposition stands no chance to win in the 2013 elections.

*  *  *

Email: [email protected]