In
the wake of the Supreme Court ruling granting an “immediately executory”
temporary restraining order against the Department of Justice’s watch list
barring former President Gloria Arroyo from leaving the Philippines, the Palace
was faced with two options: to comply with the ruling, or to resist it. It
chose the latter.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s decision to
order the Bureau of Immigration and airport authorities to deny the Arroyo
couple any exit pass, on the grounds, firstly, that the government had not
received a copy of the Supreme Court’s TRO, and secondly, that the ruling could
not be deemed final yet since the government intended to file a motion for
reconsideration, led inevitably to the bizarre fracas at the Ninoy Aquino
International Airport last Wednesday night, when a supposedly sick, extremely
fragile Arroyo endured a gauntlet of shoving, shouting bodies to try to board a
plane bound for Singapore. She failed, and had to be returned to a hospital bed
at St. Luke’s.
It took only a few hours, but the result of
the spectacle of the Palace and the Supreme Court getting into a mighty tussle
was to drag the country into treacherous, unfamiliar terrain, the outcome of
which could prove worse than the immediate danger of losing the Arroyos to
self-exile abroad.
The DOJ’s refusal to carry out an order from
the high court brought the two co-equal branches of the government perilously
close to an all-out constitutional clash.
Most legal experts conscripted by broadcast
networks have been of the invariable opinion that the Supreme Court, whatever
misgivings one might have about the quality or motivation of its ruling, has
the authority to issue the TRO, and that De Lima’s justifications for ignoring
it are tenuous at best and useless at worst. “Those ordered by the Court must
obey—if they recognize that we are under the rule of law,” opined
constitutionalist Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J.
The Palace could have opted for the larger
statesman-like gesture by saying it strongly disagreed with the Court’s
decision, but would nevertheless respect and enforce it. The usual carpers, of
course, would have seen that as another manifestation of the congenital
weakness of the Aquino administration or even a willingness to let the Arroyos
off the hook that easily.
But, on the radioactively political matter of
ensuring that the former first couple would be physically around to answer the
slew of charges that have been filed against them, deferring to the so-called
wisdom of the Court would have allow the Palace the opportunity to transfer
ownership of the issue to the Supreme Court.
Should the Arroyos flee their court cases, the
onus for that miscarriage of justice would now fall on the eight magistrates,
every single one of them an Arroyo appointee, who, as succinctly pointed out by
Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno in her dissenting opinion, seemed to be
in an inordinate hurry to grant the Arroyos reprieve from the DOJ watch list,
despite their “inconsistent, and probably untruthful statements” to the Court.
What looked like the Arroyo camp’s stunt of
having the sick, wheelchair-bound former president go through a full-frontal
charge at the airport appears not to have swayed public opinion to her side.
And for all the Arroyos’ loud and oft-repeated promises to return, buttressed
by their lawyer’s supremely graceless vow to have his testicles lopped off
should his clients renege on that promise, many remain disbelieving and
mistrusful—and for good reason, given the Arroyos’ track record of lying and
deceit.
What if they did fail to return? the Supreme
Court was asked. Midas Marquez, the high court’s spokesperson, very helpfully
said the Arroyos’ 2-million-peso (US$46 million) bond would be forfeited—a sum,
incidentally, that’s loose change to the couple, having been produced, in cash,
within an hour or two after the TRO was promulgated.
The Palace is now torn between standing down
and plunging the country into a constitutional crisis. Politically it would
have little to lose if it gives the Arroyos their travel papers. Should they
end up subverting the country’s justice system by evading their legal
accountabilities here, the unforgiving moral burden for that will rest on the
Supreme Court.
Editorial Desk
Philippine Daily Inquirer
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