The last flight I took before the World Health Organization’s declaration of the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic on March 11, 2020 was on March 9.
This was a week before President Duterte placed Metro Manila, followed by Luzon, under enhanced community quarantine or total lockdown.
On March 9, 2020, the Department of Health recorded 10 new confirmed COVID cases, bringing the total to 20. Still, the threat was there; the WHO had declared the COVID outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” as early as Jan. 30. As the gobbledygook failed to bring home the gravity of the situation, the WHO eventually went for the scarier but clearly understood “pandemic.”
For the first time while traveling, I wore a mask – an N95 surgical one – almost throughout the entire trip by air and land, even if masking was not yet required. Not because of worry over COVID, but because I had a bad cold, with runny nose and sneezing.
These days the cold would have sent me into isolation. But back then, I could not use it as an excuse to skip a court appearance for libel, for which I had an arrest warrant. The trial court was in a lovely mountain area, but it’s a drive of nearly two hours from the nearest city with an airport. The judge insisted on the physical presence of us STAR staffers who were sued, regardless of the hassle of getting there from Manila.
I’ve racked up about 35 libel suits, but only a handful went to court and led to arrest warrants. We don’t sit around with photographers and cameramen waiting for warrant servers to arrest us at the STAR office; we send our lawyers to the court to post our bail.
But plaintiffs typically want to see the defendants physically haled to court, even for the most minor procedural matters. And the ones who succeed in doing this in our country, also typically, are influential groups or persons to whom the judge owes a big favor – perhaps a promotion, or even the current assignment.
The few libel cases against me and my paper that went to court were filed by such influential groups or persons. The STAR was convicted of libeling Corazon Aquino in a case that she filed when she was president. This was over a column that said she hid under her bed at the height of a coup attempt. She rejected the explanation that it was a figure of speech; even as a joke, she didn’t like being accused of cowardice.
While I don’t think the dearly departed Tita Cory would have even considered trying to influence the judiciary, the newspaper lost the case during her presidency. But the conviction was overturned on appeal when she was no longer president.
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In our court appearance in March 2020, literally in the boondocks, I strongly suspected that the judge owed the plaintiff a debt of gratitude. At least I enjoyed sightseeing and great local coffee along the picturesque mountain road from the city to the courthouse.
Once in office, public servants are supposed to put public interest ahead of those behind their appointment of promotion. Public office is a public trust; the best repayment for an appointment is exemplary service to the nation.
Unfortunately, this is often the exception rather than the rule in our country; we have a twisted concept of repaying a debt of gratitude.
Those in a position to influence decision-making also do not hesitate to engage in brazen influence-peddling. The religious mafia, for one, has managed to exert an unholy influence on the judiciary and even law enforcement, undermining any effort to strengthen the rule of law and develop a merit-based society.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch in such endorsements for appointment or promotion; one day the endorser will collect the debt.
Our judiciary has many fine, upstanding lawyers, but also undeserving ones who bagged appointments based on sheer connections rather than qualifications. They are often the most vulnerable to the lure of a comfortable retirement. Someone should conduct a lifestyle check on magistrates who issued controversial rulings favoring accused crooks.
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I remembered this after Commissioner Rowena Guanzon of the Commission on Elections said the senator trying to intervene in the disqualification case against Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was the one who endorsed her fellow commissioner Aimee Ferolino-Ampoloquio to the Comelec post.
The senator sang praises for Ferolino following her appointment, Guanzon told us on One News’ “The Chiefs” last Friday night. Guanzon has warned she might yet name the senator before her retirement on Feb. 2, when her vote to disqualify Marcos will no longer count in the First Division, which she chairs.
Ferolino has asked the Comelec chairman to investigate Guanzon’s acts. Denying that there was an agreement to release a decision on Jan. 17, Ferolino accused Guanzon of rushing her to submit the ruling on Marcos’ DQ case. Marcos’ party also wants a probe of Guanzon and is proposing her disbarment.
Bing Guanzon, whose personality reminds me of the feisty Miriam Defensor-Santiago, has said Comelec commissioners can only be impeached and are not subject to administrative sanctions by the poll body. She has cited the Comelec’s own rules requiring the release of a decision within 10 days of submission of all pertinent materials. In the Marcos case, this should have been on Jan. 25, she says.
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For sure, political partisans have taken sides in this controversy even without scrutinizing the arguments. But there are also neutral observers who are weighing the issues.
With only a few days before retirement, Guanzon is not worried about impeachment. She also says she’s not worried about losing her retirement benefits or even being disbarred, since she can always plant tubo or sugarcane.
Ferolino and the Marcos camp are crying foul over Guanzon’s public disclosure of her vote in the DQ case, and her identification of Ferolino as the ponente or writer of the decision. Ferolino laments that this is subjecting her to pressure and exposing her to those who might try to influence her vote on the case.
Her problem is that Guanzon, whether correctly or unfairly, has planted the seeds of doubt about the impartiality of a ruling in favor of Marcos.
There is a common saying about the Philippine judicial system, which is sadly rooted in reality: it’s good to know the law, but it’s better to know the judge.
In the Comelec’s case, is it better to know the election commissioner? Let’s hope it won’t come to that.