Pushing the envelope

The spectacle at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Tuesday night took the impasse between the Aquino administration and the Arroyos to a startling level. Picture it. A temporary restraining order having been issued by the Supreme Court on their inclusion in the immigration watch list, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband Mike, accompanied by their eldest child and assorted aides, arrived in an ambulance that was instantly surrounded by a shoving crowd of reporters and photographers. A wheelchair was produced for the former president, who emerged wearing a neck brace and a surgical mask and who, amid the melee, was wheeled into the airport looking like an emergency patient (and not someone who avowedly intended to attend conferences in Geneva and New York in between seeking medical treatment).

By then, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima had ordered airport and immigration officials to stop the former first couple from leaving. That the Arroyos were duly barred and had to turn back, as though contra mundum, added to what President Aquino’s spokesperson earlier termed, correctly, as “high drama.” Still, dramatic or not, the episode that moved the mighty Mike Arroyo to cry cruelty and his wife’s spokesperson to claim abuse and degradation showed a crack in the body politic that threatens to develop into a major crisis involving two coequal branches of government.

The usual talking heads have been calling down fire and brimstone on De Lima’s feisty head. But it does not help that the Supreme Court, or at least its current configuration, hardly carries the weight of unassailability. It is this less than solid reputation that leads the attentive observer to conclude that the 8-5 vote that produced the TRO merely proved the wisdom of packing the high court with one’s appointees—for that foreseeable future when one is forced to call in favors. Indeed, Mike Arroyo is said to have had the inside track on how the vote would go, and had purportedly told reporters that he and his wife would take the first plane out once the decision was issued. And what were those multiple bookings for the couple’s passage in various airlines but affirmations that the decision was officially made known to the Arroyos even before anyone thought of informing the justice department? (We’re not even beginning to talk about the duffel bag containing the required P2-million cash bond that made its appearance at the high court as early as 4 p.m., or only some three hours after news on the TRO broke.)

It likewise does not help that Gloria Arroyo, who, until plunder and electoral sabotage complaints were filed against her, was seen looking extremely well—thanks, the woman herself said on TV, to diet, exercise and simple cosmetic procedures. To be sure, she has had three operations in connection with her ailment, and one of her lawyers, the redoubtable Estelito Mendoza, has distributed for public consumption photographs of her wearing what seemed like a primitive neck brace and presenting a sorry sight to the world. But the true state of her health remains questionable, courtesy of her own circle. (Is it a bone ailment? A mineral disorder? Now her camp is saying that she has a glandular disease.) Her legal spokesperson, Raul Lambino, once warned of the possibility of her being paralyzed—a fate that her doctors subsequently discounted. An ally once described her as having “shrunk” because of her condition, but her own half-sister, Cielo Macapagal-Salgado, later said the ex-president looked well during a visit that had them sharing lunch and praying together.

The overweening issue is credibility, or lack thereof, and it’s too bad that the Supreme Court has come up squarely against it in issuing the TRO favoring the Arroyos. A functioning government requires an unassailable arbiter. Certain legal eagles contend that the high court’s action should have estopped De Lima from keeping the couple on the watch list. But the justice secretary, herself no slouch in law, appears bent on pushing the envelope in order to protect the justice department’s power to prosecute crime.

The dissenters from the majority decision wanted to hear oral arguments before making a decision. The high court has actually set Nov. 22 for that purpose. Questions thus arise: Was a week too long a wait? Why make a legalistic decision when a political one was what was clearly needed?