LIONS’ PRIDE, EAGLES’ CONVOCATION AND BABOONS’ CONGRESS
IS PrezDigong a Francophile? For a new form of government, he is said to look now at the French model, with a strong President. But, he is so now very strong; whateverLolo-wants-Lolo-gets. Who isn’t afraid of him? Good I have experience in playing Pretend. And who are his advisers? I’d like to know the latter, as I, qua a lawyer, have questions on the future of the Supreme Court and the rest of the judiciary.
French? The SC’s future is what should concern the current SC justices. Voulez-vouscoucheravec moicessoir? (“would you like to sleep with me tonight?”) Maybe the only French—a pick-up line –some in the Palace and its allies may really care for. Do we begin with the cour
decassation? (A term I used in my bar exams when I had run out of answers which terms seems to have positively impressed the examiner who apparently liked my earlier answers. I got a grade higher than what I had thought I deserved.)
SC gets little respect
I may have a little more familiarity with the US federal system. There even President Nixon could not defy a lowly district judge, John Sirica. Here, the SC seems to get little respect. The SolGen seemingly SC order. The RTCs may be even more belittled and disrespected. Judges natcherly want to keep their positions and get promoted. In the nature of the beast.
What about the interplay between the local and federal judicial systems? Jurisdictional turf quarrels would mean more expense and delay (and nicer homes and cars for some lawyers on time-billing). Will local judges also be elected? Will there be regional divisions or circuits? Questions, questions, such as when a case crosses state lines in the US. (John Grisham’s Client, a thriller, pointedly highlights the jurisdictional tensions.)
Our SC justices may be well advised to halt or suspend their Sereno- delenda-est! campaign to whether they would burn together, or separately, as the Prez seems to SC is more powerful than the US’ (which can only tell the elected Prez and Congress that they had acted unconstitutionally but not in grave abuse of discretion, which can blow an American lawyer’s mind).
Digong is, I fear. As an Atenean friend just emailed me: “A group of lions is called a pride of [Red?] Lions, or a herd of cattle, school of fish, a band of wolves, etc. Baboons are considered the worst of the ape family because they are will attack their own family members. You know what a group of baboons are called? A congress of baboons!” For Loyola, a convocation of Blue Eagles.
If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
But really, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? We may only slide down to being No. 4 happiest country. From No. 3, where we supposedly are now. The 1987 Charter is not perfect. Of course. No human output ever is. But, we should be leery of a supposed cure- all worse than the disease.
To have two chambers—assuming we’d remain bicameral—in one place is desirable, conducing to amity. But Cha-cha is not needed here. A site candidate is the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. I was chair of the 1986 cabinet committee and the 1987-1992 Senate ad hoc committee on it. On cost, we found the nuke plant beyond economic repair. And there is the hidden social cost. I doubt that our puede-na mentality can deal properly with any accident or nuke waste. Yes, maybe the House and Senate may want to hold sessions there(?) Or in the Muntinlupa penitentiary. One term in office, another in jail. Tipid. Mark Twain wrote that there is no distinct American criminal class except Congress.
Seriously, separation has its costs. Were senators and congressmen meeting routinely and regularly, the current tension and word war would be much less. Yup, less sabong. And in my email quoted above, I saw that to a pride of red lions, etc., we may also add a convocation of blue eagles and a congress of black baboons, which the latter may grouse unfairly disparages them.
Meantime, I take alarm at the seeming creeping militarization of the civil service and of cronyism running rampant all over the place.
The leadership may be playing with fire. I worry for those who may also go, or have gone, down in Lima, Maria Ressa, Judy Taguiwalo, Paulynn Jean Rossel-Ubial, Gina Lopez, etal., victims of malignant oppression or benign neglect. Ombudsman Chit Carpio may be safe as she will step down in a few months, which did not save Tatti, who nobly damaged culture.
The surprising supernumerary, the new Presidential Anti-Crime Commission, bloats our bureaucracy further. We have the police and the NBI. How much and how many national and regional personnel will PACC need to do gumshoe work? Only Congress can create a seemingly permanent, not an adhoc Malacañang. We should streamline and save, not quadruplicate needlessly just to marginalize Chit who will step down soon.
In the Palace’s cross-hairs
Of the women in the Palace’s cross-hairs, I know Tatti best, Most Outstanding Student in 1962, No. 1. (I was in the 1963 batch, with Atenean Archbishop Tony Ledesma, topped by Edna Zapanta of Holy
Mamaw (Holy Ghost then, nowHoly Spirit.) Tatti’s intelligence and integrity are world-class. Blessed with designer genes she is (father, Gen. Francisco Licuanan, Jr., mother, writer Virginia Benitez-Licuanan, brother, Kako3rd of Ayala, retired).