Burden of blame

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling granting an “immediately executory” temporary restraining order against the Department of Justice’s watch list barring former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from leaving the country, Malacañang was faced with two options: to comply with the ruling, or to resist it. It chose the latter. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s decision to order the Bureau of Immigration and airport authorities to deny the Arroyo couple any exit pass, on the grounds, firstly, that the government had not received a copy of the Supreme Court’s TRO, and secondly, that the ruling could not be deemed final yet since the government intended to file a motion for reconsideration, led inevitably to the bizarre fracas at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last Wednesday night, when a supposedly sick, extremely fragile Arroyo endured a gauntlet of shoving, shouting bodies to try to board a plane bound for Singapore. She failed, and had to be returned to a hospital bed at St. Luke’s.

It took only a few hours, but the result of the spectacle of Malacañang and the Supreme Court getting into a mighty tussle was to drag the country into treacherous, unfamiliar terrain, the outcome of which could prove worse than the immediate danger of losing the Arroyos to self-exile abroad. The DOJ’s refusal to carry out an order from the high court brought the two co-equal branches of the government perilously close to an all-out constitutional clash. Most legal experts conscripted by broadcast networks have been of the invariable opinion that the Supreme Court, whatever misgivings one might have about the quality or motivation of its ruling, has the authority to issue the TRO, and that De Lima’s justifications for ignoring it are tenuous at best and useless at worst. “Those ordered by the Court must obey—if they recognize that we are under the rule of law,” opined constitutionalist Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J.

Malacañang could have opted for the larger statesman-like gesture by saying it strongly disagreed with the Court’s decision, but would nevertheless respect and enforce it. The usual carpers, of course, would have seen that as another manifestation of the congenital weakness of the Aquino administration or even a willingness to let the Arroyos off the hook that easily. But, on the radioactively political matter of ensuring that the former first couple would be physically around to answer the slew of charges that have been filed against them, deferring to the so-called wisdom of the Court would have allowed Malacañang the opportunity to transfer ownership of the issue to the Supreme Court. Should the Arroyos flee their court cases, the onus for that miscarriage of justice would now fall on the eight magistrates, every single one of them an Arroyo appointee, who, as succinctly pointed out by Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno in her dissenting opinion, seemed to be in an inordinate hurry to grant the Arroyos reprieve from the DOJ watch list, despite their “inconsistent, and probably untruthful statements” to the Court.

What looked like the Arroyo camp’s stunt of having the sick, wheelchair-bound former president go through a full-frontal charge at the airport appears not to have swayed public opinion to her side. And for all the Arroyos’ loud and oft-repeated promises to return, buttressed by their lawyer’s supremely graceless vow to have his testicles lopped off should his clients renege on that promise, many remain disbelieving and mistrusful—and for good reason, given the Arroyos’ track record of lying and deceit. What if they did fail to return? the Supreme Court was asked. Midas Marquez, the high court’s spokesperson, very helpfully said the Arroyos’ P2-million bond would be forfeited—a sum, incidentally, that’s loose change to the couple, having been produced, in cash, within an hour or two after the TRO was promulgated.

Malacañang is now torn between standing down and plunging the country into a constitutional crisis. Politically it would have little to lose if it gives the Arroyos their travel papers. Should they end up subverting the country’s justice system by evading their legal accountabilities here, the unforgiving moral burden for that will rest on the Supreme Court.