Anthony Golez says charges that Malacañang is behind the plot to oust Reynato Puno as Chief Justice are the product of the usual suspects’ fevered imagination. “This is a classic example of the opposition throwing a lot of allegations in order to influence the perceptions of the people. The motive is attention.”

Prospero Nograles says amen. The report about Congress’ plot to oust Puno is just “pure speculation and devoid of factual basis. Whoever is behind this may unwittingly be engaged in dangerous political intrigue.”

Golez of course is the deputy presidential spokesperson who drew attention to himself some months ago by saying that the massive demonstrations in Bangkok that led to the ouster of the Thai prime minister could not happen here because Filipinos have become more politically mature. That drew the attention of the Thai ambassador who drew his attention to the real meaning of maturity, political and personal. The lesson seems to have been lost on him.

And Nograles is of course the House speaker who became so by mounting the dangerous political intrigue of ousting Jose de Venecia upon the bidding of Malacañang. If I recall right, until it happened, he and his backer Mikey Arroyo (he is the Tonto to his Lone Ranger, and though Mikey neither looks lone nor a ranger, Prospero looks every bit Tonto) were calling the plot pure speculation and devoid of factual basis.

I hope they keep up their protestations, if only to alert the public to a very real threat. You know with absolute certainty Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is going to try to keep power by Charter change by the fact that she says she won’t. You know with absolute certainty they are going to try to oust Puno as chief justice by the fact that they say they won’t.

Ms Arroyo has every reason to want to oust Puno. He is the most formidable legal obstacle to her path. Puno may be surrounded by Malacañang toadies in the Supreme Court, but he is still a force to reckon with. Quality always tops quantity. It’s not just that Puno is the chief justice, it’s also that he is the chief source of justice in this country, having turned the Supreme Court, despite the toadies, into a beacon of hope under his watch. I’ve always said that with him as chief justice, Angel Lagdameo as head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, and Alexander Yano as chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, there’s hope for this country yet.

He has been a thorn on the side of Ms Arroyo. He voted against “executive privilege,” and though most of the other justices, his inferiors in every respect, voted to uphold it, his dissent carried a lot of thunder. Especially so as he wrote about it in the Inquirer, winning his case brilliantly in the court of public opinion—a court higher than the Supreme Court in this country—if not in the court of law.

Far more importantly, he hasn’t just spoken out against the wholesale murder of political activists under Ms Arroyo, he has done something about it. He launched the landmark National Summit on the extrajudicial killings in mid-2007, which produced the even more landmark “writ of amparo.” Under the writ, the military, the usual and logical culprits in the “salvaging” [summary execution] and forced disappearances, may no longer take refuge in denial. The kin of the victims may demand that they open their records for inspection. The writ, Puno’s own brainchild, was promulgated in September 2007.

This is not a chief justice who can be counted on, or bought, to pave the way for Charter change. The one thing tyrants hate and fear is not the arms and armies of the enemy, it is the voice of an honest person. Tyrants grow stronger from the assault of the enemy, they wither from the existence of an honest person. Hence, the plot to oust Puno.

It serves two purposes. One is to try and discredit Puno by hinting that if he did not act to remove an elected local official as his colleagues ruled, then he must have been bought. You cannot destroy an honest man by killing him, you can destroy an honest man by destroying his honesty. Suspicion is the worm that spoils the apple.

Alternatively, two is to cow him to submission. Unfortunately, there is a precedent for it. The last time Congress bestirred itself to try to impeach a chief justice was during Hilario Davide’s time. It might have been hilarious, the charge against Davide being corruption while Mike Arroyo had just escaped prosecution for being Jose Pidal a few months earlier, except that the congressmen turned out to be perfectly earnest. It ended with the Supreme Court pronouncing the impeachment bid unconstitutional and Jose de Venecia making a public display of humility by bowing down to the Court. But Davide was never the same since.

He became a huge disappointment afterward, turning into another Malacañang gofer. In January 2006, Ms Arroyo appointed him senior presidential adviser for electoral reforms, clearly a reward for his swearing her in as president in Cebu in 2004 amid protests. In that capacity, he offered recommendations on how to make elections clean, none of which included asking his new patron to resign at once, the Garci scandal having broken out just months before, which act alone would have guaranteed clean elections in the past, present, and future. That was before settling for a sinecure as permanent representative of the Philippine Mission in the United Nations for helping make Ms Arroyo permanent representative of the permanent mission to become permanent president.

Thank God, Puno doesn’t look like he’s made of the same (flimsy) cloth. His record thus far at least commends that belief. He seems to be made of sterner stuff.

I’ve changed my mind, Ferdinand Marcelino for vice president na lang. Puno for president.

Though while at this, perfectly seriously, why ever not? He is the Obama of the Philippines.