Getting back at P-Noy

Amando Doronila, in his Dec. 5 front-page article, accused President Aquino of two things—one, of “bullying” the Supreme Court justices appointed by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo; and, two, of “intervening” in judicial processes.

Doronila said that the President converted the Makati Business Club’s 30th anniversary celebration into a “bully pulpit” to defend himself “from criticism over his heavy-handed handling of the cases involving Arroyo, and to carry out a running battle with the tribunal since his inauguration into the presidency in July last year.”

In his MBC speech, P-Noy vented his disgust over what he considered the apparent bias of the  Court in issuing a temporary restraining order, in effect allowing Arroyo to travel abroad purportedly for medical treatment.

“When our lawyers all know that it takes the Supreme Court 10 days normally to attend to motions, and it decides to issue a TRO for Mrs. Arroyo in three, who can avoid wondering what she did, to merit such speedy relief,” said the President during that MBC affair.

Is that bullying? It is fair comment on the actuations of a tribunal long perceived as the “Arroyo Court.”

Is the Supreme Court so almighty, powerful and omnipotent that it is beyond criticism, even from a President elected on a pledge of good government?

P-Noy has been carrying out his anti-corruption program, focused on top officials of the unlamented Arroyo administration, the former president included. That was why he proposed the creation of a Truth Commission. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court trashed his petition.

Doronila claimed that P-Noy’s MBC speech was in retaliation against the tribunal for its Hacienda Luisita ruling. On the contrary, the Court should be the one to be accused of taking revenge against P-Noy because its issuance of the Luisita ruling came soon after the unsuccessful bid of Arroyo to leave the country, despite the Court’s TRO on Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s watch-list order against Arroyo.

Many observers questioned the timing of the Court’s decision ordering the distribution of Hacienda Luisita to its farm workers, which reversed its earlier decision giving them the option of retaining their stocks of shares under the stock distribution option.

The Court had not touched the land dispute issue since its July ruling on the case, but suddenly  took it up and issued a second and different ruling on the case—this, at the height of a perceived rift between the tribunal and the executive branch over Arroyo’s failure to leave the country.

Doronila claimed that the President’s criticisms against the Court was “a pleading in the arena of public opinion, in his case against Arroyo and the Supreme Court.”

“Intervention” by the President? We should free ourselves of the notion that the high tribunal is untouchable.

—ROBDINE ESPIRITU,

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