The President is a political animal. So is every Cabinet member, as his alter ego. Therefore, a justice secretary takes into account not only the strictly legal aspects of an issue but also relevant policy considerations. Decisions should not lightly erode confidence in the presidency, on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number.
Any disbarment case filed against Justice Secretary Leila de Lima will go nowhere because she is being attacked not for dishonesty, immorality, criminality, etc., but for a quasi-policy decision not within the disbarment milieu.
The Sunday of the Pacquiao-Marquez bout, I was in a huge gathering for lunch-cum-ballroom dancing. I had asked why high noon? I was told no other venue in Metro Manila was available. Business seemed OK then. So at least 200 guests were not watching the fight.
Somebody called boxing the “manly art of modified murder,” where one is cheered on while he kills another softly, as money rides on it. It would be as if one were among those watching gladiators in the Roman coliseum in the days of yore, or seeing a knight in the medieval era, unhorse, maim or kill another. I was bloodthirsty myself. Not anymore, in the last quarter, last two minutes, or pre-departure area phase of my borrowed life.
Many are so blinded by Manny Pacquiao’s billions that we tolerate a “non-performing liability” (NPL) in the House, an institution now being disgraced by one who trivializes chamber work as only a sideline or a hobby, who gambles and loses millions of dollars in casinos, womanizes, hosts a TV show (“Manny Many Prizes”), threatens to sue because of canceled singing concerts, humors his mother in an ostentatious birthday fiesta with a Hermes bag and imported DIs at a time of great want for many. Some were surprised he did not do better last Sunday.
But, he lacked focus in preparing against a helluva fighter. He should resign as absentee congressman to do better as a modified murderer.
The issue then is, absent a resignation, should he not be expelled from the House of the Salongas, Sumulongs, Roxases, Osmeñas, Villareals, Pelaezes and Lims? The expulsion issue is moot of course. You don’t cross billionaires. You are rich, you are respectable; money brings prestige and power. Pacquiao will remain in the House where his colleagues will not see an NPL as a disgrace to it. What “Manny Many Prizes” can do. He may even run for president in 2022.
So also talk among our experts who had predicted an early KO win, and caused betting losses among the gullible who had relied on the cognoscenti’s crystal ball. No one has apologized for misleading those who bet—which is illegal—and lost. Leila has done nothing illegal. She should stay. Manny should resign. His colleagues should worry about institutional prestige, instead of who won between Manny and El Dinamita and what happened to their bets. They can also talk about the false prophets who led them to bet wrongly and now continue to regale us that they know it all.
—RENE SAGUISAG, ravslaw@gmail.com