Reading Inquirer’s Oscar Tan ‘backward’ and more closely

Coming back home from a prolonged walk on the beach, reminiscing Shelley’s “’twixt heaven, air, earth and sea,” we try to devour a heap of Inquirer’s back issues. Some topics catch our attention, like one screaming “Stop lawyers’ intellectual fraud, fear-mongering” (Opinion, 6/1/15) by Oscar Franklin Tan, a recent addition to a select row of columnists of this paper.

Tan rants on Romulo Macalintal, an election lawyer, who, he said, made an allegedly erroneous point in constitutional law. He rails against former Court of Appeals justice Mario Guariña III on the latter’s two commentary pieces: one on Carlos Celdran’s criminal liability under an old penal law, the other on the possibility of having an Islamic State in Mindanao should the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law, in its present form, be enacted. Tan defames Macalintal and Guariña, his senior brothers in the profession, calling them “intellectual fraud,” or accusing one and/or the other of “fear-mongering,” while castigating Inquirer editors for their failure to “filter” the articles. He adds insult to injury by alluding to Guariña’s former position as a justification for the publication of the commentary.

John Nery, his favorite colleague, disagrees with him on filtering opinions, but agrees with him on BBL issues. We ourselves share Nery’s disagreement with Tan; but like others, such as former UP law dean Pacifico Agabin, former chief justice Reynato Puno, former Supreme Court justice Vicente Mendoza, Senators Chiz Escudero and Miriam Defensor Santiago, and the Philippine Constitution Association, do not concur with them on some BBL questions.

Guariña answers Tan, giving a coup de grâce from philosopher Voltaire. And that is a crucial point. The lenses of Guariña are not only legal but also political, like his analysis in his commentary, “A prelude to secession” (Opinion, 1/4/14). Had the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front been signed in Kuala Lumpur during the time of President Gloria Arroyo, and the Bangsamoro decided to secede, the recognition by foreign governments represented at the signing would have resulted into a state of Bangsamoro.

The BBL itself is a political document. In fact, we ourselves see it, figuratively, as a “Treaty of Surrender,” and the two preceding PH-MILF agreements (the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro and the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro) as preliminaries to peace or capitulation.

Tan argues that Congress would be guided by the cardinal principle in the Constitution on the inviolable separation of Church and State, found in freshman law book, which would devolve upon the Bangsamoro parliament. But has not that principle been violated daily by officials of the government and schoolchildren with their religious prayers or incantations at the start of work and classes? Does Tan protest that serious violation of the Constitution in his column? If he does, we are sorry for missing it.

Or has Tan, a young and prolific writer, much conceit? Writer F. Sionil José asserts that writers are full of it. Tan, every now and then, drops the name of his alma mater, Harvard, and his PLJ (UP Philippine Law Journal). Is this intellectual snobbery?

But does he write anything about the occupation by China of some of our islands at Kalayaan? If he does, again we apologize. If he does not, José may have a point on Filipino-Chinese cultural integration.

—NELSON D. LAVIÑA, retired ambassador, nlavina3@fastmail.fm