LET’S MOVE — ON, NOT BACK

“YOU should not allow compassion and whatever to taint your judgment,” says Prez Digong. But, the Preamble of the Philippine Constitution speaks of a “humane society.” Compassion should inform judgment. FVR says Digong needs to learn more. I may have to agree. The Philippines is not Davao City writ large.

The resignation of a Diokno ( here, Maris) matters. Ka Pepe Diokno was jailed for two years without being charged! Uncle Jovy Salonga, with whom Ka Pepe tied for first in the bar exams of 1944, was inscribed the other afternoon in the Bantayog ng Mga Bayani Wall of Remembrance at EDSA Quezon City. I put in a cameo appearance before proceeding to EDSA-Ortigas. In both places, I seem to have seen why Digong can feel safe: we spend/ waste too much time on selfies, ha, ha.

I saw Veep Leni at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani and Nikki Coseteng at the People Power Monument. But, Au Pijuan, another vision of loveliness, a joy forever, I failed to find at EDSA. Too many people in black.

Seriously, do we inconvenience people by rallying? Of course we do, on purpose, to make people think of what they’d rather not think about. And the intolerant fascistic head of the cops in our modern Police State prayed for rain, instead of listening to our grievances. We are people too who deserve to be heard but are not, in our emerging Police State as a Martial Misrule facsimile. No rain, belat.

Good, the few pro- MacoyDigong marchers did not get

pulmonya either. His widely admired Mother marched with us against t““eave of the Supreme Court to submit a supplemental-constancia, on fairness, sentiments and common sense, inspired by Lon L. Fuller’s mythopoetic The Case of the Speluncean Explorers.

In Fuller’s fictional case, a group of spelunkers or cave explorers, trapped in a cave, ran out of food, drew lots on who among them should be eaten, ate one of them ( anthropophagy or cannibalism) and, rescued31 days later, were prosecuted for murder. Convicted. On appeal, the fictional Supreme Court of Newgarth in the year 4300 was sharply divided, but, may we submit excerpts from the opinion of Justice Handy below, after noting that countless mourners now line up and openly grieve over the passage of Fidel Castro? What was inflicted here on the sly reflects a correct appreciation of public sentiment and common sense, which we submit may not be simply ignored.

Law is social engineering, not there to rip society. Fuller’s view is that law is an enterprise for the governance of men and nations ( Morality of Law 1964). He knew scholastic philosophy and bought the definition of Aquinas that law is an ordinance of reason promulgated by competent authority for the common good. Said J. Handy in Fuller’s case: “I have never been able to make my brothers see that government is a human affair, and that men are ruled, not by words on paper or by abstract theories, but by other men. They are ruled well when their rulers understand the feelings and conceptions of the masses. They are ruled badly when that understanding is lacking. Of all branches of the government, the judiciary is the most likely to lose its contact with the common man.

“More governments have been wrecked, and more human misery caused, by the lack of this accord between ruler and ruled than by any other factor that can be discerned in history. Once drive a sufficient wedge between the mass of people and those who direct their legal, political, and economic life, and our society is ruined.

“This case has aroused an enormous public interest, here and abroad. Almost every newspaper and magazine has carried articles about it; columnists have shared with their readers confidential information as to the next governmental move; hundreds of letters- to- theeditor have been printed. One of the great newspaper chains made a poll of public opinion on the question, ` What do you think the Supreme Court should do with the Speluncean explorers?’ About 90 percent expressed a belief that the defendants should be pardoned or let off with a kind of token punishment. It is perfectly clear, then, how the public feels about the case. We could have known this without the poll, of course, on the basis of common sense, or even by observing that on this Court there are apparently four- and- a- half men, or 90 percent, who share the common opinion.

“Now I know that my brothers will be horrified by my suggestion that this Court should take account of public opinion. They will tell you that public opinion is emotional and capricious, that it is based on half- truths and listens to witnesses who are not subject to cross- examination. They will tell you that the law surrounds the trial of a case like this with elaborate safeguards, designed to insure that the truth will be known and that every rational consideration bearing on the issues of the case has been taken into account. They will warn you that all of these safeguards go for naught if a mass opinion formed outside this framework is allowed to have any influence on our decision.

“As we all know, our Chief Executive is a man now well advanced in years, of very stiff notions. Public clamor usually operates on him with the reverse of the effect intended. As I have told my brothers, it happens that my wife’s niece is an intimate friend of his secretary. I have learned in this indirect, but, I think, wholly reliable way, that he is firmly determined not to commute the sentence if these men are found to have violated the law.

“I must confess that as I grow older I become more and more perplexed at men’s refusal to apply their common sense to problems of law and government, and this truly tragic case has deepened my sense of discouragement and dismay. I only wish that I could convince my brothers of the wisdom of the principles I have applied to the judicial office since I first assumed it. As a matter of fact, by a kind of sad rounding of the circle, I encountered issues like those involved here in the very first case I tried as Judge of the Court of General Instance in Fanleigh County.

“As I studied the case I became more and more involved in its legal intricacies and I began to get into a state approaching that of my brother Tatting in this case. Suddenly, however, it dawned on me that all these perplexing issues really had nothing to do with the case, and I began examining it in the light of common sense. The case at once gained a new perspective, and I saw that the only thing for me to do was to direct a verdict for the defendants for lack of evidence.”

Fuller suggested that “law be viewed as a purposeful enterprise, dependent for its success on those who conduct it. . . In opposition to this view it is insisted that law must be viewed as a manifested fact of social authority or power, to be studied for what it is and does, and not for what it is trying to become.” Not a Catholic, he appreciated St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of law as an ordinance of reason, promulgated by one in charge of the community, for the common good, and admired the natural law philosophy.

I have problems with the subject furtive, clandestine, surreptitious, shameful and scandalous burial without the usual public wake and funeral march. Digong and the Marcoses correctly appreciated how the people would have reacted in Metro Manila. We joshed in Ninoy’s historic passage that more people would line up and attend Macoy’s, to make sure he was gone. Rulers may not ignore sentiments.

That is why a burial in the Ilocos where Macoy is cherished, is much better than in divided Metro Manila. Look atwhat is going on in Cuba as Cubans honor Fidel Castro. Nothing secretive as multitudes of people line up in respect ( no unanimity of course).

On Operation Tokhang, I advise those who ask that we should not cooperate in making our country, after Martial Misrule, a Police State. “Stay at home,” Digs says to druggies, but home is where some of them were killed. Unlike Digong, most of us have only one home to come home to. Uncomplicated.

Complicated is you may “resist” kuno in your own home and you are dispatched to the Promised Land, for grabbing the gun. The police may not “invite” anyone, per the Bobby Tanada law we passed in our time ( RA 7438). The right to remain silent, not to speak, to be let and left alone, remains in our Bill of Rights.

But, we have a talkative Prez who keeps trying and convicting by publicity. Secretary Vit Aguirre and I found it hard to fight such, and our client, Hubert Webb, had to spend/ waste more than 15 years in jail, baselessly. Nixon publicly condemned Charles Manson et al. and the White House quickly retracted. Digong does it routinely and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines is quiet. Deafeningly. A cruel lie may be told in silence as it were.

Digong may suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas in Lanao to go after terrorists, but in the entire country? Are we really in his bizarre “state of lawlessness?” I prefer the constitutional language of “lawless violence.” No anarchy yet when we can ballroom dance, laugh and sing, take selfies, and stop and smell the flowers.

He may have led us far—in the wrong direction. He should try to reflect more why his widely admired Mother marched with us against the Marcoses— and change course.

My only sis, with two U-- not for Useless People— engineering degrees, not as Jurassic as I in hi- tech, called my attention to a message that had reportedly gone viral, where I supposedly bashed Digong. Fine, but I, torpe, shy and harmless, tell my comrades- in- arms I fantasize that I can arrange my own seductions, ha, ha.