‘A Nation of losers’

In “Arroyo survives multimillion-peso scandals” (News, 7/26/18), former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is said to have hurdled so many mega-corruption charges that went nowhere due to technicalities. The most scandalous of exonerations was due to the Supreme Court’s brazen junking of its own Rules of Court to hand over to her an early acquittal on a silver platter.

To refresh everyone’s memory about that particular plunder case involving P366 million of the people’s money gone forever, Arroyo’s “demurrer” was denied by the Sandiganbayan, which found strong evidence that she committed the crime. She hired the country’s most influential lawyer, who then filed a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court to review that denial, a big no-no as far as ordinary law practitioners know.

My stepmom, who has practiced law for years, showed me Rule 119, Section 23 of the Rules on Criminal Procedure promulgated by the Supreme Court: “The order denying the motion for
leave of court to file demurrer to evidence or the demurrer itself SHALL NOT be reviewable by appeal or by
certiorari before judgment.” No law
degree is required to understand what that rule prohibits.

The Supreme Court bent over backwards to accommodate that lawyer—and his VIP client who had put up a show of being in great distress (picture her with that ubiquitous neck brace while under hospital arrest) and who, upon being acquitted, was no longer choked in the neck by any brace! And now on her third and last term as a congresswoman, she is the “honorable speaker” of the House of Representatives! OMG!

With a President who says things nobody understands (thus the need for “interpreters,” mostly to say things he did not say), a Supreme Court that decides cases on mere whims, a Congress run by a comedian (in the Senate) and Arroyo (in the House), and a population of more than a hundred million but dominated by just 16 million registered voters—are we really now a nation of losers?

CARMELA N. NOBLEJAS, [email protected]