Unintended consequences of Rappler and Carandang

Unintended consequences are effects or results of deliberate actions which we did not anticipate, wanted or expect. Most of the time it is against our desired outcome but in some instances, it reinforces our expectations and then it becomes a desirable unintended consequence.

Two recent political events are good examples. The first one is the withdrawal by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Certificate of Registration of Rappler, the online news organization, at the insistence of the solicitor general. The violation is for the foreign holders of the Philippine Depository Receipts having veto power over certain acts of the corporation. The perception is that this is a correctable violation and the severity of the punishment is disproportionate to the violation, if not for the fact that Rappler has been in the crosshairs of the Duterte government for being critical of the administration. The intended consequence is to affect the closure of Rappler, but it cannot be done without creating more controversy and showing a drift towards authoritarianism. Meantime it created so much noise and news that Rappler readership increased and foreign media and other liberal organizations criticized the government. While there are only muted domestic reactions due to the continuing operation of Rappler, there will certainly be a backlash socially and economically if the closure is forced without due process. The difficulty of enforcement and the impossibility of silencing all critics, as they will just go to social media, made the negative unintended consequences of this action overwhelm the intended effects.

The second example is the suspension of Deputy Ombudsman Carandang. He was suspended for 90 days for improper conduct in releasing information about the bank transactions of then candidate Duterte and his daughter. The debatable issue is if the president has the power to suspend the deputy ombudsman, since there is an existing Supreme Court decision in 2014 that rules that the ombudsman and the deputies cannot be disciplined by the Executive Branch even if it is the appointing authority, since it would impair its independence. Ombudsman Morales, a feisty ex-Supreme Court justice made this assertion and refused to suspend Carandang. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines supported this stand. The presidential legal counsel acknowledged this ruling but wants the suspension implemented and then for the Ombudsman to go to the Supreme Court which he feels will overturn the previous ruling. (This is strange, as it should be the one questioning the ruling who should go to court to reverse the decision, instead of the other party asking the court to affirm the decision.) Again, there is a difficulty in enforcement because if the Office of the President insists and even with a reversal of the Supreme Court, it will be inviting more criticism and backlash domestically and internationally. It smacks too much of strong-arm tactics. In the meantime, the issue of the president's unexplained wealth is revived when it was much better forgotten. It is again all over the news unnecessarily.

I wonder who are strategizing for the Duterte administration and if they coordinate with each other since there have been a lot of errors. The effort and energy doing all these damaging initiatives would have been better expended on more important matters. It is a wasteful use of political capital which just creates more opposition. I have heard Duterte say he does want to go after political opponents since he has more important things to do, but this has not filtered down the line. As ex-senator Pimentel said: "No one stays in power forever." So time is of the essence.