DOJ Sec. De Lima is not Chief Justice material

Remember how we used to joke about the Marcos Dictatorship? When then Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos would call on his most loyal soldier, AFP’s Gen. Fabian Ver to jump out of the window, his response would be, “From what floor sir?” Of course, Gen. Ver didn’t jump out of the window. That joke was only to show how loyal he was to the Marcoses. Now this joke has been repeated recently, but only the names have changed. From Pres. Marcos to Pres. Aquino and from Gen. Ver to DoJ Sec. Leila de Lima.

When news came out that the DoJ Secretary accepted the nomination as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, you can say that I saw a “Silent Scream” by angry people in the social media networks, from people who are sick and tired of that zarzuela that began with the impeachment of then Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona and ended with his conviction by the 20 Senators, which looked more like a kangaroo court to me.

When Sec. De Lima’s name appeared, I thought that the Aquino regime would exercise a high ethical standard… and not include anyone remotely involved in the Senate impeachment trial of CJ Corona. This is why we cried foul when the name of BIR Commissioner Kim Henares was first brought to the Judicial & Bar Council (JBC). I even expressed my dismay when the name of Presidential cousin, former Defense Sec. Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro Jr.’s name was being pushed. But true to form…before I could even write a comment… Gibo already announced his “No thank you!”

But Sec. De Lima is obviously a different character… and one who is undoubtedly below the standard of what I believe should be the next Chief Justice. But rather than avoid controversy and not embarrass P-Noy, she sent a statement saying, “What the judiciary needs is an effective and trusted leader. That, to me, is the call of the times.” Mind you, I do not disagree with her statement. I just don’t believe that she is Chief Justice material. She’s too much of a loyal dog to P-Noy to be effective.

I also made my point clear… that anyone who testified against CJ Corona should never try to be his replacement. This is what we call delicadeza, but apparently… delicadeza was only used by those who were not yet in power. But when they won Malacañang, suddenly the word delicadeza is nowhere to be found in their dictionary.

What is even more embarrassing for the DoJ Secretary is that she has been turned down so many times by the Commission on Appointments (CA) I already forgot to keep count. Furthermore… she has a disbarment case pending before the Supreme Court on her disobeying a direct SC order. Is this her way of getting back at the SC? She made a huge drama in trying to stop former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from leaving the country even if there was no pending case against her… yet when the fugitive Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson suddenly returned to the country sans any documents, no DoJ investigation was conducted… because he is a known ally of the President?

There is no doubt that the loyal beagles of Pres. PNoy are lining up to get to the top of the Judiciary. If indeed there is still some delicadeza left in the Aquino regime… let them show it now before it’s too late. It’s bad enough that they impeached CJ Corona on mere suspicion of being loyal to the former President… but if the next Chief Justice is chosen from the loyal dogs of Pres. PNoy… then one can truly say that democracy Filipino style is no longer three separate and independent branches of the government, but a one-man rule! Should we call it a Democratic Dictatorship then? But what’s democratic about having one man rule our country? Isn’t it a dictatorship?

Our fellow Star columnist Atty. Jose C. Sison of “A Law Each Day” wrote a great column last Saturday entitled, “What is wrong with our government?” and let me reprint a portion of his article, “There is really nothing wrong here except that, instead of being loyal to the people that they are sworn to serve, the appointees are usually constrained by human nature and weaknesses to be more loyal to the appointing power or to their political patrons and vice-versa.

In the present regime this nefarious practice is best exemplified by the President’s Kabarkada, Kaibigan at Kabarilan now occupying important government positions. In this kind of appointments, public office is no longer a public trust. It has become a personal trust between the appointee and the appointing power. Public service is the biggest casualty here.” I texted Atty. Sison congratulating him on that great column.

Anyway Atty. Sison speaks volumes on why I do not trust Comelec Chairman Sixto Brilliantes as we wrote last Saturday, which by the way was the 80th Anniversary of the Rotary Club of Cebu (Mother) and in my table were our guests from the Rotary Club of Manila who told me that they totally agreed with what I wrote against the Comelec and the PCOS machines.

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