Analysis

Hijacked!
How a legitimate issue became a political spectacle

The high court cannot claim to be untainted with corruption or upholding the principle of “cold neutrality” in performing its juridical functions. There have been enough exposes’ in the past that could have warranted an impeachment – even before this constitutional remedy became expedient in the case of Estrada.

By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com

Pro-Davide mass-rally at Supreme Court led by former President Cory Aquino and ex-Sen. Raul Roco (photo above) while Estrada and Cojuangco loyalists mass up on Ayala Avenue, Makati City (right).

Early this year, a group of Supreme Court (SC) employees raised what they believed is a valid issue: the misuse of the Judicial Development Fund (JDF) with millions allotted for the building of the justices’ new cottages in Baguio City, the purchase of luxury cars and others. The SC had the gall to divert the funds, the employees cried, despite the fact that it was illegal and, besides, thousands of court personnel – the supposed major beneficiary of the fund - remained underpaid and benefits had been taking long to be released.

They also denounced nepotism when the chief justice appointed his own son to the bids and awards committee that oversees the processing of contracts for the SC’s infrastructure projects under the JDF.

The alleged scam came to the knowledge of Courage, a federation of government workers and, realizing its legitimacy, the party-list Bayan Muna (BM) in turn took it up on the floor of the House. In May, BM Rep. Crispin Beltran filed two resolutions, HR1162 and HR1318 urging his colleagues to investigate the employees’ charges and calling on SC Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr., as JDF administrator, to explain.

In filing the two resolutions, BM apparently only sought an investigation on behalf of the court employees and never entertained the idea of instituting an impeachment against the high court’s chief magistrate. But, like many other measures filed on behalf of the people in the elitist Congress, Beltran’s resolutions were buried in the heap of the House’s own priorities – or non-priorities.

But somebody from the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) must have had this bright idea of plucking the BM resolutions out of the freezer and using them as a political gambit - this time to mount an impeachment against Davide. Davide is nemesis of billionaire Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco, patriarch of NPC which also happens to be part of the People Power Coalition (PPC) of incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and also of ousted President Joseph Estrada.

Impeachment proceedings

Under the Philippine Constitution, impeachment proceedings are initiated in the House (Congress’ lower chamber), which also acts as the prosecutor, and must be signed by a third of its members. The Articles of Impeachment are then submitted to the Senate that shall convene itself as an Impeachment Court. Aside from the SC justices, impeachable are the Philippines’ president, vice-president, the Ombudsman, members of the Commission on Elections and other constitutional bodies.

As of this writing, the impeachment move against Davide has mustered more than the required number of votes (one-third or 76) and, assuming the House would have a quorum when it convenes Nov. 10, it may yet have the chance of being transmitted to the Senate.

Whether it will prosper in the Senate is another matter. What is feared rather is that if the impeachment is taken up in the Senate, a constitutional crisis would have ripened that may even invite destabilization moves by coup plotters.

Davide, meanwhile, wants to show he can be a boxer (“sacrificial lamb,” Sen. Joker Arroyo says rather) who stings when cornered and has vowed not to resign in the face of what he called politically-motivated charges. For his defense, he insists on the separation of powers between Congress and the judiciary and, with regards the charges, that the SC had been cleared on this by the Commission on Audit (CoA). In the first place, he said, no impeachment can be initiated twice in a year. (This particular impeachment was begun on the heels of the defeat at the House committee on justice of the first impeachment case filed against the SC chief justice by supporters of Estrada.)

That the impeachment move is initiated by the NPC and that it coincided with a ruling by the SandiganBayan (anti-graft court) early October lifting the sequestration orders on 20 percent of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) shares claimed by Cojuangco is hardly surprising. It is widely believed that Macapagal-Arroyo had a hand in the anti-graft court’s ruling in exchange for Cojuangco’s giving up his presidential plans and support for the incumbent president.

Pending in the Davide SC, however, is a plea by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) seeking to end the 17-year-old case of ownership of 65 percent of SMC and declare it state-owned. It was alleged that Cojuangco and co-defendants acquired interests in SMC by the illegal use of the Coconut Consumers Stabilization Fund and the Coconut Industry Investment Fund – or the “coconut-levy funds.”

Cojuangco had earlier vowed to fight tooth and nail to retain his monopoly of the food and beverage giant. His friends regard Davide as an obstacle to this claim.

Macapagal-Arroyo partymates

The alleged deal Macapagal-Arroyo has forged with Cojuangco became plausible given that, as titular head of Lakas-Muslim Christian Democrats (Lakas-MCD) which is a partner of NPC in the PPC coalition, she lifted no finger to stop some of her partymates from signing the impeachment. In effect, the president has been a behind-the-scenes co-conspirator in the plot to oust Davide that also lumps the supporters of Estrada, the Marcoses and other opposition groups.

With Davide (he incidentally backed Macapagal-Arroyo in the People Power II uprising) gone, the high court would practically be dominated by appointees of Macapagal-Arroyo and Estrada, himself a close associate of Cojuangco. Out of the 15-member high court, seven were appointed by the incumbent president since 2001. The seven are: former Lakas Rep. Dante Tinga, Antonio Carpio (law partner of the president’s own private counsel), Alicia Martinez, Renato Corona (the president’s former chief of staff), Conchita Carpio-Morales, Romeo Callejo, Sr. and Adolfo Azcuna.

With a high tribunal like this, observers say, the coco levy issue and other plunder cases would be resolved in favor of Cojuangco. The latter can always order his NPC to back Macapagal-Arroyo in the May 2004 election so long as his business empire is intact and, as a traditional powerbroker, can always get what he wants even without crowning himself president.

The trade-off between Macapagal-Arroyo and Cojuangco had in fact began as soon as the former was installed president in January 2001. It was reported then that the president, whose government has enough shares in SMC to remove Cojuangco from its chairmanship, reached an agreement so he can stay as chairman and CEO if he gives up his political ambitions. With him was Lucio Tan, another Estrada crony, who was said to be lobbying for the right to operate NAIA Terminal III, among others.

Lost in this power struggle, however, is the issue raised by thousands of court employees against the misuse of the JDF and Davide’s own accountability. Certainly, the court employees’ grievances were farthest from the minds of the congressmen who initiated the impeachment. In fact, when Congress recently gave court judges a package of salary increases and benefits, nothing was given to the country’s 26,000 court employees. But the employees had a legitimate issue and it was hijacked by NPC and Lakas-MCD representatives without the least concern over whether their move would benefit the aggrieved party at all. In this case, the employees – and not Davide – were the “sacrificial lambs.”

The employees deserve the support of the people and progressive organizations not only in their call for just salaries and benefits but also in exposing corrupt practices committed within the so-called “last bastion of democracy.”

Not untainted

The high court, for one, cannot claim to be untainted with corruption or of upholding the principle of “cold neutrality” in performing its juridical functions. There have been enough exposes’ in the past that could have warranted an impeachment – even before this constitutional remedy became expedient in the case of Estrada.

And we cannot easily forget the period when, during the country’s darkest years, it supported a dictatorship and became accessory to the suppression of truth, democratic rights and civil liberties. The legal and moral legitimacy that the SC – but for a few dissenters like Associate Justices JBL Reyes and Claudio Teehankee - gave the Marcos regime led to the imprisonment, torture and killing of thousands of Filipinos.

Today, the high court still invokes Marcos decrees and has created new ones, such as the warrantless arrest and the criminalization of political offenses. It irresponsibly legitimizes anti-people policies and attacks on the country’s sovereignty by shooting down popular petitions to invalidate, for instance, the onerous GATT – the same treaty whose ratification was authored by Macapagal-Arroyo as a senator and which has since earned worldwide condemnation – and the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that, according to the head of the VFA Commission, is actually biased in favor of the U.S. Because of that opinion, lawyer Amado Valdez, just like his predecessor, was sacked.

For the record, Davide is long on discourse and short on deeds. None of the judicial reforms he had promised to institute in 1998 has yet to materialize. Contrary to his promise, the SC under Davide stands as having the lowest rate of cases decided upon over cases filed, according to lawyer Jayson Lamchek of the Public Interest Law Center (PILC). Did he not also pledge to make the high court of “utmost competence and unassailable integrity?” Davide and the rest of the justices just sat in their bench when hundreds of rallyists were being beaten up by the police on Oct. 5 outside the SC building. Talk of “making the Judiciary to serve the people.”

As to allegations that taipan Lucio Tan lobbied for his appointment as chief justice, Davide has kept mum. Bulatlat.com

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