Cuenco's lament
BY DEFINITION, a phony is a fraudulent person or thing. Its synonyms are impostor, sham, fake, fraud and charlatan, among others. In its informal sense, it can also refer to a con artist.
Phony was what Cebu City Councilor James Cuenco used the other day to describe Romulo Torres, the lawyer who filed a case in court questioning the sale of a huge chunk of the South Road Properties (SRP) to the Ayala-SM consortium and Filinvest. James is usually mild-mannered but yesterday, during the City Council deliberations on Mayor Michael Rama's Supplemental Budget 1, he felt, according to him, betrayed, disgusted and angry.
Although those strong feelings were provoked by the BOPK bloc's successful "kill" of Team Rama's attempt to pass the supplemental budget, James reserved the strongest language for the lawyer.
I know Torres because, like the mayor, he was a member of the Young Lawyers' Association of Cebu. He was an assistant city fiscal at a time when fiscals were not yet called prosecutors. Apparently, he was separated from the prosecution service under circumstances that are hazy to me.
I will not say if the scorn that Cuenco heaped on Torres was or was not welldeserved. Team Rama thinks that the lawyer is fronting for BOPK and the case that he filed is part of a grand, insidious design to thwart any attempt to use the SRP money.
An allowance can be made for Cuenco's temper's boiling over but there is no excuse for name calling especially since there is a legal remedy against a lawyer's misbehavior. Before he is admitted to the practice of the profession, a lawyer swears to the following oath:
"I will do no falsehood or consent to the doing of any in court; I will not wittingly or willingly promote or sue any groundless, false or unlawful suit, or give aid nor consent to the same; I will delay no man for money or malice, and will conduct myself as a lawyer according to the best of my knowledge and discretion, with all fidelity as well to the courts as to my clients."
Several lawyers have been disciplined for breath of their above oath. Cuenco's father is a member of the bar and knows this. I suggest that James consults his dad.
At the same time, the Court can diffuse the tension at City Hall by resolving Torres's petition with dispatch. From what I have read, there is only one question involved and it is whether a resolution can supersede an ordinance. There is therefore no factual issue, only a legal one. Surely, the Court will not be remiss in its duties or be accused of bias if it orders the parties to submit the case for resolution on the basis of the pleadings and memoranda.
It is unfortunate that we have to burden an already overworked judiciary to settle something that reasonable minds could have easily resolved. Both Team Rama and the BOPK agree on the wisdom and desirability of fully paying the SRP loan to JICA in advance. At least, that is what they are saying. And yet, they couldn't find a common ground on how and when to release the money.
Politics, Cuenco moans. Its ugly hands are everywhere in the current mess. I couldn't agree with him more. But no one side has monopoly of the ugliness. The dirt stains both camps.
It's election time soon, that's why.
Politics, Cuenco moans. Its ugly hands are everywhere in the current mess