SC justice can’t make up his mind

Must “humanitarian considerations” be a deciding factor in court decisions? It seems to me Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen cannot make up his mind on this question. Consider these diametrically contrasting circumstances.

In his dissenting opinion on the high tribunal’s landmark decision (issued in August last year) allowing Senate Minority Floor Leader Juan Ponce Enrile to be released on bail, Leonen said the ruling so smacked of inequality and special accommodation as to cast doubt on the Court’s neutrality and objectivity. One recalls that in that decision, the Court gave weight to the testimony of Dr. Jose Gonzales of the Philippine General Hospital at the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division, where the physician attested that Enrile has at least 22 life-threatening ailments. The decision added that it is within the discretion of the Court to grant bail on humanitarian considerations. But such majority decision, according to Leonen, was contrary to the rule of law and will imperil the legitimacy and stability of the entire judicial system.

Just very recently—to be exact, last Jan. 19, during the oral arguments at the Supreme Court on the disqualification issues raised against Sen. Grace Poe—Leonen sounded an entirely different tune. He said it is not Poe’s fault that her parents had abandoned her.  He even cited his own personal experience of growing up without a mother and a father, and staying with adoptive parents only. Leonen said the Court should help Poe end her difficulty in finding her biological parents by letting the people decide first on her candidacy.

Well, that is just a bit short of saying that Poe should be allowed to run even if the disqualification case against her has not yet been settled by the Court.

If Leonen’s highly passionate speech during the oral arguments is not a clear appeal for special accommodation, compassion and humanitarian considerations, I do not know what is!

—RUDY L. CORONEL, rudycoronel [email protected]