Time of visitation spurned?

In his 1967 essay “Tyranny of the Urgent,” Charles Hummel warned: “Our greatest danger is letting urgent things crowd out the important.”

It was urgent that she seek medical treatment abroad, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo told the Supreme Court. There were no pending court charges and she had a right to travel. Eight justices she had appointed scrambled to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO).

A hasty TRO “could frustrate the government’s right to prosecute,” cautioned Antonio Carpio, the best chief justice Filipinos never had. “This Court must hear first the government in oral argument…”

Yesterday, the Commission on Elections decided, by a 5-to-2 vote, to file poll sabotage charges against GMA. Across the road, the Supreme Court rejected by an 8-5 vote the solicitor general’s motion to scrap the Arroyos’ TRO. It ordered Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to explain why she should not be held in contempt of court for shrugging off the TRO. Paalam, Gloria and Mike?

In October, the joint Department of Justice and Commission on Elections panel recommended that GMA and 35 others be probed, and charged if warranted, with fraud in the 2007 election. GMA lawyers walked out in protest.

Others tagged included former Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. and former Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer, former Justice Secretary Alberto Agra, supervisor Lintang Bedol and detained former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr.

Beyond the TRO and charges by the GMA camp of “railroading election sabotage charges” fester long-range issues. These are tossed up by the clash between a President who seeks to hold the corrupt accountable and Supreme Court justices who say they seek the same end. Arroyo justices are hobbled by charges of subservience.

However this TRO issue plays out, the issue of GMA’s health will persist. That “crown of thorns” that Arroyo wore on her earlier aborted departure flight was not a put on. The Minerva Brace should be worn for three months, St. Luke’s Hospital doctors say.

Prognosis by her Filipino physicians state that barring complications, GMA should be fully recovered from spine surgery in six to eight months, Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno noted. The metabolic bone disease needs lifetime maintenance treatment.

Arroyo’s claims of life-threatening ailments fall short of “evidentiary requirements for a TRO,” Sereno said. “The majority is completely bereft” of any explanation for granting a premature TRO “in the face of untruthful statements,” she added.

Have TROs become a buy-one-take-one drill? The completed Senate blue ribbon committee report on the sale of overpriced helicopters to the Philippine National Police tags Mike Arroyo, among others. Yet, his separate request for a TRO has been stitched into his spouse’s petition.

“Mike became free to leave by virtue of consolidation,” Inquirer’s Raul Pangalangan pointed out. “How did Mike get to benefit from Gloria’s medical emergency?”

If one asked Hamlet, he’d have shrugged: “There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Indeed, this “TRO proved the wisdom of packing the high court with one’s appointees—for that foreseeable future when one is forced to call in favors,” an Inquirer editorial  pointed out.

“Why didn’t Chief Justice Renato Corona inhibit himself?” wondered Sun Star columnist Frank Malilong. “[This] case personally involved his former boss.”

President Arroyo skipped senior justices to hand her former chief of staff a midnight appointment. Thus former Sen. Rene Saguisag and some see a “de facto chief justice.”

Like Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico, the Department of Justice cannot “accept a referee’s decision graciously,” observes constitutionalist Joaquin Bernas. A TRO means “executive officials must allow GMA to travel effective immediately,” until the court lifts the order—“if we’re to abide by the rule of law.”

Secretary De Lima’s view is that a motion for reconsideration stops TRO dead in its tracks. That would render any TRO absolutely useless.

Martial law detainees were denied the right to travel under Proclamation 1081. Most will instinctively swear by Father Bernas’ constitutional insights. Seared by detention under the dictatorship, our minds insist that the Constitution must be upheld. But our guts rebel at all those “dragon teeth” that the Arroyo years sowed.

In Greek mythology, Jason sowed the teeth of the dragon slain at the spring of Arbes. And from them rose warriors to do battle for Jason. The phrase means systematic fomenting of disputes.

As her bids for term extension failed, GMA appointed scores to the judiciary, Pagcor and other government corporations before leaving  Malacañang. That included the Palace gardener who got a Luneta Park post. Gen. Delfin Bangit’s term as AFP chief of staff was extended by 11 months. President Aquino fired Bangit. “Dragon teeth” however still battle for her.

Arroyo had an unprecedented 10 years of serving as president. It was a window of  opportunity for greatness. That slammed shut in a decade of  sleaze when she let urgent things crowd out the important. Sad to say, she  did not “know the time of visitation.”

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Email: juanlmercado@gmail.com