The committee on suffrage and electoral reforms of the House of Representatives recently approved a bill prohibiting political dynasties. Titled “Anti-Political Dynasty Act,” the bill seeks to enforce Art. II, Sec. 28 of the Constitution: “The State shall guarantee equal opportunities for public service and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.”
Almost universal acclaim greeted the Supreme Court’s decision slaying the Priority Development Assistance Fund or PDAF. Although the reasons used were quite technical and legalistic, the Court nonetheless calmed the seething anger against the scams associated with the PDAF, but heightened the clamor for the prosecution of the scammers.
The Supreme Court decision banishing the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and directing “within the bounds of reasonable dispatch” the prosecution of the scammers is a major milestone in nation-building. Penned by Justice Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe, the ruling champions good governance and abhors corruption.
The Disbursement Acceleration Program or DAP has many faces that can be viewed from different angles: economic, legal and political. I will take them up sequentially.
The Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) is detested because the law creating it is unconstitutional; it authorizes lawmakers to implement laws in violation of the doctrine of separation of powers. Worse, the PDAF fosters corruption and has, in fact, been used as a scam to siphon public funds to fake nongovernment organizations to undertake ghost projects. Hence, it must be banished, and the scammers punished.
If the Supreme Court declares the pork barrel law unconstitutional, is there still a need for Congress to act? Likewise, if Congress should repeal that law, is there still a need for the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional? The short answer to both questions is “Yes.” Let me explain.
Under the doctrine of separation of powers, Congress shall enact laws, the president shall execute them, and the Supreme Court shall interpret them. This delineation of authority is exclusive and absolute and the three great branches of government cannot intrude into each other’s exclusive domain.
Interesting, challenging and at times intriguing were the readers’ replies to the query I posed last Sunday on whether our present justice system reflects the Filipino concept of justice articulated by Dean Jose Manuel I. Diokno. These replies were posted on this paper’s website (www.inquirer.net). More numerous and many from abroad were those e-mailed directly to me. They could fill up several columns. For all these, I am grateful.
As one of the 10 holders of the “Chief Justice Panganiban Professorial Chairs on Liberty and Prosperity,” Dean Jose Manuel I. Diokno began his lecture with two questions: Is justice an imported Western concept? Do we have a native Filipino concept of justice?
“When guns speak, laws are silent,” so it has been said. This is true in wars among sovereign nations. It is also true with civil strife within states, like in France, the United States, China, Vietnam and Serbia. Or more recently, in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. Human casualties, injuries, hunger, atrocities and deprivations have been the sad consequences of these bloody conflicts.
The least our enraged people expect from the different government entities and officials authorized by law to solve the pork barrel scam is cooperation, not collision; coordination, not unbridled competition.
With the filing of the complaints for plunder, graft, bribery and malversation against 38 persons, including three senators and five former congressmen, before the Office of the Ombudsman (Omb), the pork barrel scandal has moved from fact-finding to preliminary investigation (PI).
