9 justices robbed Filipinos

John Nery wrote in his column “The unfortunate Justice Peralta” (Opinion, 11/15/16): “He still has six years to serve in the Supreme Court, but his legacy will be forever defined by his badly written, ill-thought-through, deliberately obtuse majority decision.”

Nery seemed to say that Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta alone as ponente should bear the brunt of the blame for that really stupid (check any dictionary and it says the more common synonym for “obtuse” is stupid!) decision to allow disgraced former president

Ferdinand Marcos to be buried in the cemetery clearly intended only for “heroes” and for those whose exemplary lives are deemed “worthy of emulation.”

Excuse us, but we think Nery got it all wrong. It was a collective or collegial decision of nine justices, with eight of them concurring, i.e., agreeing to everything Peralta wrote. Thus, Justices Arturo Brion, Mariano del Castillo, Presbitero Velasco, Jose Perez, Jose Mendoza, Lucas Bersamin, Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, and Estela Perlas-Bernabe should equally share the opprobrium of having jointly signed that “badly written, ill-thought-through and deliberately obtuse (stupid) decision.” There’s no going around that.

People should remember those names. Those justices (quite a number of them are due to retire soon—good riddance!) have done a great dishonor not only to this nation but to all self-respecting nations around the world that looked up to Edsa 1 as our “finest moment.” How dare they rob the Filipino people of that unique distinction!

MARCELO “JR” GARCIS, [email protected]