OPINION: HANDS OFF; LOYALTY TO PARTY AND ITS HEAD
MANILA, FEBRUARY 3, 2010 (STAR) SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan - At the recent presidential forum organized by ANC at De La Salle University, the one who gave the wrong answer to the students, it seemed, was the La Salle alumnus, administration candidate Gilbert Teodoro.While his rivals (excluding Joseph Estrada, who skipped the forum) vowed to either make Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo account for wrongdoing in her administration or at least not lift a finger to help her if she is prosecuted for corruption, Teodoro said he would leave this to the judiciary, which should be independent of influence from the executive.
Teodoro in fact has been asked the question many times since announcing his intention last year to vie for the presidency. His answer has not changed, and neither has his loyalty to his party and its head, President Arroyo.
His position does make sense, if we want our democratic institutions to become stronger; the executive has to stop interfering in purely judicial affairs.
Corazon Aquino tried to keep a healthy distance from judicial matters. Possibly as a consequence, her six years in office failed to unmask the brains behind the assassination of her husband, Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., and the man tagged by the Marcos regime as a communist hit man, Rolando Galman.
Teodoro’s misfortune is that as soon as he gives his position on judicial independence, the image that immediately comes to mind is that of his chief endorser. His hands-off stance is seen by critics as a sin of omission, of tacitly protecting GMA from efforts to make her account for wrongdoing in her administration.
The next president will need to lead by example in respecting the independence of the judiciary, but GMA is Teodoro’s albatross, even when he has a valid message. Critics have accused President Arroyo of influencing every step of the judicial process, and putting pressure even on constitutional bodies. Her insistence on appointing the next chief justice, even when a new president is already known and just waiting to be sworn in, has not helped Teodoro’s presidential bid.
If recent surveys are accurate and trends in voter preferences continue, the next president isn’t going to be Gilbert Teodoro. But give the guy credit for forging ahead with his campaign.
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At this point, the next president is also looking less likely to be Joseph Estrada. The deposed president is slipping in surveys, despite his party mate Juan Ponce Enrile’s determined effort to pull down Sen. Manuel Villar through the C-5 controversy.
Villar’s ratings even went up in the period shortly after Congress returned from its Christmas break and senators revived the effort to officially censure him over C-5. Yesterday there was no quorum for voting on the censure.
In the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey commissioned by BusinessWorld, the gap between Villar and frontrunner Sen. Noynoy Aquino narrowed further to just 7 percent. Teodoro’s rating fell to 4 percent.
Aquino gave the correct reaction to the survey, which was to promise to work harder to regain his commanding lead. Erap, on the other hand, sounded like Aquino the first time Villar narrowed the gap, sniffing that the SWS is unreliable and had made glaring mistakes in the past.
Malacañang, commenting on the latest SWS poll, crowed that it showed that people did not like the “politics of hate” and vengeance against GMA as a campaign platform.
The Palace, expectedly, was not amused by the vow of the presidential contenders at the ANC forum to go after GMA once she steps down. But the candidates were merely promising accountability, which the country has not seen since Ferdinand Marcos was thrown out of power.
The only presidential contender with a reason to be vindictive wasn’t even at the forum. The buzz from the Erap camp is that he wants GMA to spend two years behind bars for every year that he spent in detention without bail for plunder.
Erap’s prosecution is still fresh enough in the minds of Filipinos, who expect the next president to lead the way in bringing to justice those who lied, stole and failed to moderate their greed in this administration.
Prosecution for corruption will be up to the Office of the Ombudsman, a constitutional body whose independence has come under fire in recent years. So Teodoro in fact was the one who gave the correct answer at the forum: he would keep his hands off any effort to prosecute officials of the Arroyo administration for corruption.
But will the judiciary ever be rid of executive intervention? Only if members of the judiciary can say no to executive requests or outright pressure. Like corruption, executive interference in judicial matters is a two-way affair.
Malacañang can whisper all it wants, and promise judges and justices promotion or post-retirement appointment to the foreign service or other cushy posts. But the final say will come from the judge or justice. All that members of the judiciary have to do is say no to indecent proposals from the executive.
Saying no is easier said than done. Some judges and justices even lobby actively at Malacañang and among members of the Judicial and Bar Council or seek political patrons for promotions or assignments. Successful lobbying can have a steep price tag.
Though investors and other sectors have criticized the weakness of the country’s judicial system, it will take more than a new president to create a truly independent judiciary.
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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