President Aquino (P-Noy) can name Justice Roberto Abad as chief justice, assuming the Judicial and Bar Council nominates him. He is retiring in 2014, when matters would have cooled down. Justice Antonio Carpio may then be considered, along with others, to replace Justice Abad. Bringing down the temperature would be compensated by an increase in light.
Naming Justice Carpio as chief justice now may not be in the best interest of the country, which needs healing at this time.
Naming an outsider as chief justice is not unconstitutional but may generate needless friction within the Supreme Court itself.
If Justice Mariano del Castillo is compelled to resign due to health reasons, there will be another vacancy. Rodolfo Robles, No. 1 in the 1967 bar, who attended Harvard Law and served in the Constitutional Convention may fill up one vacancy during the cooling off period of a year or so. Shortlisted last time, he was not picked.
P-Noy can also help unite and heal by announcing that the distribution of Hacienda Luisita may go full-blast per rulings during Chief Justice Renato Corona’s watch, though personally I have reservations about giving up the economies of scale in sugar production. P-Noy should not be seen as exploiting the ouster of the chief justice as a circumventive development. But if Luisita becomes the sites of more malls, what agrarian reform are we talking about? But it would be useful to punctuate and assure our people that Luisita is not the reason why Corona is now jobless.
The bottom line is, the times call for sacrifice, and P-Noy and Justice Carpio can show the way—for credibility, acceptability and legitimacy.
—RENE A.V. SAGUISAG,
ravslaw@gmail.com