Delicadeza, dead and forgotten word

BACKBENCHER

Rod. P. Kapunan

12/08/2007

It would have been a legal circus for former President Joseph Estrada to appeal his conviction to the Supreme Court. It would not only be an exercise in futility, but also downright stupid as rightly anticipated, he would be facing the same people in robes who, at one time, took turns in judicially mugging him just to make sure the power-grabber who emphasizes every now and then the Rule of Law stays at the helm.

Of course, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita would mouth the usual cliché — there was nothing wrong in the appointment of Sandiganbayan Justice Teresita de Castro to the high court inasmuch as she is qualified.

With shameless arrogance, the lady justice even snapped that her 34 years in service would speak for itself.

Again, the issue is not the rightness of the appointment or the qualifications of the appointee, but on the circumstances related to the promotion and how the justice allowed herself to be manipulated to guarantee the conviction of Estrada. If the decision of the kangaroo court was something the majority of the people hailed as a triumph of justice, surely there would have been an outpouring of joy that finally a big fish was convicted of plunder. But that was not the case. Instead, the three justices were greeted with a hail of sharp negative reactions.

It was a shoddy decision enough to cause those upright justices who earlier served the high court to publicly cry in shame. Aside from the legal errors consciously applied just to give peace of mind to this regime, the flow of the arguments absolutely defies logic. Lawyers who might cite that abominable decision as their precedent case would only be tempted to ask if those justices were not afflicted with a serious illness when they wrote that infamous decision.

The flimsy argument of Justice De Castro that she stands by her 34 years of service doesn’t fly. Justice De Castro ought to know that it is not the number of decisions penned and promulgated that counts, but on whether in each of those decisions she lived up to her role of rendering justice to every man who comes to court pleading for it. The high court on several occasions has consistently turned deaf ears to the plea of accused-judges not to fire them on account that they are about to retire and had decided a mountain of cases. One instance of graft and corruption, gross ignorance of the law or immorality is sufficient to stain the punctilio of honesty required of them.

In that infamous decision, how could De Castro and her cabal of justices, acting as political sycophants, argue before the academic and legal circles why in their decision they failed to match the facts of the case with their conclusions and application of laws? They even went to the extent of ordering Sheriff Edgardo Urieta to enforce civil liability on Estrada knowing the property and the bank deposit the court wants to garnish do not belong to him, notwithstanding that at the outset they knew it was empty; and in awarding an amount grossly excessive from the amount alleged by the self-confessed gambling lord.

Not to disagree with the former president, the issue of delicadeza or sense of propriety as an ethical conduct in public service has long been forgotten from the mind of most public servants, with some not even remembering that such word exists.

There is no reason for Justice De Castro to have reservations in accepting her reward when her conviction of Estrada was in obeisance to what the usurper wanted. She can always claim Mrs. Arroyo never committed a mistake in appointing her because those Arroyo lackeys in the syndicated Judicial and Bar Council have since then placed her name on top of their short list as if to congratulate her for bravely coming out with that unjust decision.

Maybe Justice De Castro can console herself with the thought that she now joins those justices who voted to throw out the petition of Estrada questioning the legality of his removal from office with the insult of imputing to him an act he never made, that is, he had constructively resigned, and for questioning the creation of the special court and for setting aside his plea not to be tried in that kangaroo court in that the Senate impeachment court never voted to impeach him; as well as that ominous decision to overrule his demurrer to evidence that paved the way for his trial.

Somehow, the more than 11 million who voted for Estrada would have accepted a Pontius Pilate-like decision to throw out the petition questioning his ouster by coup d’etat by stating that it was a political question. The washing of their hands could have become symbolical for in that instance, the rule of the gun prevailed over that of the Rule of Law. But they preferred to come up with that convoluted constructive resignation which was lifted from an alleged diary that was not even presented to the high court but was presented by the justices themselves, and from there, they hypocritically declared that the Constitution was not vandalized, and that the usurpation of power was perfectly legal.

For that Justice De Castro now sits side by side with those justices in the Supreme Court and all are unmindful of the fact that they had utilized the very instruments of justice to inflict injustice on an innocent man just to sustain the cravings for legitimacy of the political swindler.

(E-mail: rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)

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