De Lima's contempt of court has a stronger chance of being prosecuted than Arroyo's 'electoral sabotage'

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It is a time of great confusion in our sad Republic! On one hand, Inquirer.net "columnist" Neal Cruz in his 21st November piece All rights are limited by the rights of others makes a pathetic grasp at straws in continuing to bandy around the tired notions of the "Arroyo Court" (in referring to the Philippines' Supreme Court (SC)) to shore up sympathy for what was essentially inexcusable behaviour on the part of "Justice" Secretary Leila De Lima when she defied an SC order to suspend a travel ban on former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

On the other hand, his Editor highlights in Checkmate, published on the same day, highlights the "Aquino COMELEC"; i.e. that...
[...] it is also true that the Comelec, an independent body stacked with Aquino appointees, has left itself open to charges of itself being politicized when it joined the DOJ in the task force to investigate alleged electoral rigging by the previous administration.

See, that's the trouble when we extend the National "debate" into speculative territory. Nobody wins. And the simple truth about our sad society that I've for so long exposed becomes even more pronounced:

Filipinos deserve one another.

Compare all this ocho-ocho politics to the elegant simplicity of a sensible guiding principle coming from an elder of the legal profession and former head of the best institution of learning in the country...
The first glaring question is whether an executive officer, no matter how highly placed, may defy the clear order of no less than the Supreme Court. This is now scheduled for deliberation by the Court. It will have to decide whether indeed there was defiance by the justice secretary and what to do with the defiant. In the past those proved to have defied the order of a court, even of a lower court, have been penalized for contempt. Will this happen here?

[...]

The judiciary, of course, is not perfect or omniscient. It can make, and it has made, mistakes. But mistaken or not, the court must be obeyed. But the judiciary has no guns to implement its orders. Thus, if every person is free to obey only what he or she considers a correct decision or order of the court, we can have chaos. We had the beginnings of that at the airport last Tuesday.

Between (1) the charges of "electoral sabotage" on Arroyo and (2) the potential of slapping charges on the Justice Secretary for contempt of court, the stronger case, it seems, is clearly the latter.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 22, 2011 at 12:05 AM

    Indeed. The supposed sins of Arroyo is less compared to the total disregard of the Constitution, the bible of the society.

    ReplyDelete

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