The people dissent

The editorial “A conflict of interest” (6/8/18) was a good and timely argument to scrap Legal Ethics from any law school’s curriculum as it is just a waste of the law students’ time, which might be better spent studying loopholes in the law.

Lessons on what is right and wrong have become totally irrelevant in the wake of the most scandalous decisions rendered by the current Supreme Court.

What easily tops the list of such decisions is the ruling that allowed a despicable dictator who plunged this country into ignominy a “hero’s burial” in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Finding all kinds of loopholes in the rules, the Court rewrote Philippine history in shameless defiance of “people power,” the bloodless revolt that was hailed and copied around the world. The decision denigrated the Filipinos’ finest hour as nothing but an alternative narrative, or downright fake news.

The Court’s decision to jump the gun on the Senate impeachment court to deal with the issue of whether or not Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno should be dismissed from the high court was another classic example of delicadeza being thrown out the window.

The “honorable” justices had hatred coming out of their ears, embracing Solicitor General Jose Calida’s idea of fast-tracking Sereno’s departure via a quo warranto petition.

Quite predictably, they ignored the Constitution, which says only impeachment can unseat an impeachable official.

Lay people like us, not at all well versed in the law, know in our gut that this was plainly wrong. Even assuming quo warranto can be a substitute for impeachment, the justices should have had the decency to decline passing judgment on someone they had unmistakably demonstrated bias against.

They should have left the matter up to the proper tribunal ordained by the Constitution to do that job. Why were they so “atat na atat”? That was no way for honorable men or women to behave.

Your honors, in all those cases, the people dissent.

RAMON N. TORREFRANCA, [email protected]