EDITORIAL- Creeping lawlessness

There is a creeping lawlessness practiced at the highest levels that, if left unchecked, will tear this country apart piece by piece. The danger is very real of waking up one day to find our only real enemy is ourselves.

Last week, Congress announced it was no longer participating in deliberations at the Judicial and Bar Council meant to come up with a short list of nominees for chief justice from which the president can choose his appointee.

The congressional move stems from a Supreme Court ruling that, as clearly provided in the Constitution, Congress is to have only one representative in the JBC. If Congress could have its way, the Senate should have one representative, and the House of Representatives, another.

The Constitution is very clear on this, even enumerating who makes up the JBC — the chief justice, the secretary of justice, “a representative of Congress,” a representative of the Integrated Bar, a law professor, a retired SC member, and a private sector representative.

But even as the Supreme Court has ruled, Congress would still want to have its way, which is to have two representatives, and that if it cannot have its way, it will no longer participate in the deliberations, thus sabotaging the process and breaking down the institution.

This travesty follows closely similar acts of lawlessness glossed over only by the fact that the “crimes” committed were against highly unpopular personalities whom the people would want to punish anyway.

This seems to have given rise to the dangerous notion that just because people want these personalities punishes, it is perfectly all right if laws are broken and institutions are undermined in the course of dishing out the punishment.

And so we have seen the rights of Gloria Arroyo and Renato Corona violated, with no one seeming to pay any mind because they still would rather have Arroyo and Corona punished anyway. Emboldened by successes in these undertakings, the lawlessness now moves to find other victims.

This time, however, the victim is no longer someone people love to hate. This time the victim is the Constitution itself. Having gotten away with excesses in the case of Arroyo and Corona, they now want to have their way with the Constitution without benefit of an amendment.