“I (PREFER) the company of my colleagues in the Senate, any day, any year to the company of those idiots in the Supreme Court” (“Santiago slams JBC, SC after being dropped from shortlist,” Inquirer.net, 12/4/06). When our favorite senator, Miriam D. Santiago, blurted out that line about our Supreme Court after it scoffed at the prospect of having her as its next chief justice, come to think of it, she probably knew something we didn’t—that at some point our most revered magistrates were acting less rationally and were not seeing things in the best light.
Indeed, how could those “brilliant minds” have come up with such a ridiculous doctrine as “condonation” of past misdeeds of a public official simply because of reelection? That ruling came about in 1959, has been applied through the decades and is now well-entrenched as “part of the law of the land.” The legal community did not seem bothered at all that such insidious doctrine has taken root so deeply. Lawyers do seem to just swallow anything the Supreme Court dishes out, whether sublime or ridiculous!
The rationale of that doctrine goes like this, according to the Supreme Court: If the people reelect him, it follows they have forgiven any sin he may have committed during his previous term. No court should override that sovereign will.
What a load of non sequiturs! That ratiocination is obviously riddled with false assumptions. Firstly, it assumes that the voters were aware of his previous shenanigans and voted for him again anyway. As happens in most
cases, it takes quite some time for whistle-blowers to decide to come out and expose scumbags!
Secondly, it assumes that the public official concerned won reelection fair and square, and not by stealing it! It is totally naïve to think that a public official who has no problem stealing public funds will hesitate for a moment to use his loot to buy reelection. Given the immunity that the “condonation doctrine” generously provides, the biggest crooks will always make sure they get reelected!
We laymen became aware of this “crazy” doctrine only recently. It took the genius of the Binay dynasty to rub it in and jar us into a realization that we, the people, had been had all these years! And it took a God-fearing Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno to tell us boldly what an evil decision it was and how long our so-called guardians of morality have fallen asleep!
Any way we look at it now, that doctrine makes no sense and, worse, it is absolutely pernicious. It does nothing but further incentivizes corrupt acts and practices! Most importantly, it is repugnant to the time-honored fundamental principle that public office is a public trust, which carries with it the immutable rule that all public officials must always be accountable!
—RIMALDO PACIFICO,
pacific.rim.aldo@gmail.com