The House should study Republic Act 3019, which is about family expenses and taxes paid the previous year.
It must have been a Tolentino-Recto-Tañada-Marcos Senate that passed this anti-graft law in 1960. Will any court dare declare unconstitutional what the Civil Service Commission should have started enforcing decades ago?
Of course, stranger things are happening as the unelected Judiciary kick around the elected President and elected lawmakers.
Unlike elected officials who have to submit to the electorate every three years, those on the bench have security of tenure, breeding insouciance, if not arrogance.
Imagine the few unelected issuing a ruling that the elected who are much, much more in numbers have gravely abused their discretion? This was never the intent of the framers of the Constitution—unless one looks at it in a martial law context.
—RENE SAGUISAG,
ravslaw@gmail.com