‘Pa-cute manner’ turns out idiotic; what next?

Supreme Court Associate Justices Jose Mendoza, Presbitero Velasco, Mariano del Castillo, Teresita de Castro and Estela Bernabe—all five of them—agreed that the late Ferdinand Marcos “was not, and will never be” a hero. So, why are they being pilloried along with the four justices (Diosdado Peralta, Arturo Brion, Jose Perez and Lucas Bersamin) who showed no shame in their adulation of Marcos?

Simple. Those five justices voted in a totally “pa-cute” manner. They chose to think strictly within the box that allowed them to say it was a “political question,” not one for the Supreme Court to decide. They evidently extolled the letter, not the spirit, of the law. Even so, they could not see the literal absurdity of a torturer/tormentor of his own people being interred side by side with heroes in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. As Rene Saguisag might put it, it was a “breath-taking legal jujitsu” (“To inconvenience is the “raison d’etre of rallies,” Opinion, 12/10/16).

Here is how the chips fell: By going the “political question” route, the disingenuous five actually cast their votes along with the notorious four who torpedoed all petitions to stop Du30 from honoring Marcos with a “hero’s burial.” It was simple math. Now they say that was by no means their intention, given their admission that the “atrocities (Marcos) committed during his authoritarian rule” were unforgivable. To laymen like us who are without any license to twist the law, that double-faced stance was by no means Solomonic—it was just plainly idiotic.

How dare those justices pretend to have the right to dispense justice in individual cases in the face of the unbelievably gross injustice they have just inflicted on the entire nation. We agree with another letter-writer (“Wanted: voice in the wilderness,” Opinion, 12/9/16): Impeach them—before they brazen it out again and proclaim Bongbong Marcos winner in the vice presidential contest.

RIMALDO PACIFICO, [email protected]