Weaponizing the SolGen

By  accommodating  Solicitor General Jose Calida’s  quo warranto petition, the Supreme Court has greatly damaged our democratic process.

The visible damage of that infamous, historic decision penned by eight justices is on the system of checks and balances among  the three coequal branches of government as enshrined in the 1987 Constitution.

Arguably as important is the collateral damage  made on the faith of the Filipino people on the very freedoms they hold dear such as the right to liberty of expression and the right to due process.

Because with a solicitor general weaponized by a powerful president, no one is safe from the heavy hands of single-minded, arbitrary  power.

In fact not even the highest officials in the land such as the vice president and even the president himself (under a future solicitor general) can escape the quo warranto sword now that it has been brazenly unsheathed.

If the chief magistrate has violated the Constitution, let us by all means remove that unfit person from office. But it must be  done within the clearly prescribed constitutional remedy of the Senate presiding as an impeachment court, not through an untried shortcut that is a travesty of justice.

As the Free Legal Assistance Group warned, by preempting — indeed usurping — that congressional right and power of impeachment over impeachable officials, with the aid of a  majority of the Supreme Court, “the Solicitor General

may now go after other impeachable officials who in the eyes of the President, do not support his administration.”

Indeed, Calida’s blitzkrieg  has  elevated his office’s importance, surpassing that of the entire Congress on  matters of disciplinary and removal power of high government officials.

Overnight, he has become some kind of a fourth branch of government, an inquisitorial type, wielding dangerous, virtually unaccountable power. Unchecked there is no telling how many more heads would roll under Calida’s sharp blade.

Clothing that misguided majority decision in  elegant legalese may deodorize it — but no amount of rationalization could  justify its unjust and self-damaging intent.

In due time, as the dust settles, the true extent and depth of that judicial blunder will be much clearer. But one thing is certain: The institutional damage inflicted on our society by that petition, a sin of great folly, would be very  difficult to repair. It may even be irreversible.

NARCISO REYES JR., West Avenue, Quezon City