If the price is right?

From a letter, “Enough of the nonsense,” 3/5/21, we got the impression that President Duterte, who often rants and rambles on without bothering to sort out his thoughts — despite being a lawyer himself — gets legal advice from so-called “legal eagles” like chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, and Solicitor General Jose Calida, who may be topnotch lawyers in their own right or personal estimation.

However, given the smorgasbord of legal nonsense dished out by Mr. Duterte whenever he is on TV, we can’t help wondering if there is any truth to the saying that lawyers are not much different from prostitutes — they say or do anything if the price is right.

Are Panelo, Roque, Guevarra, and Calida really comfortable with all the garbage their client/boss is dumping on the public, supposedly with the benefit of their “advice”? Are the sinecures they are clinging to and holding “at the pleasure of the President” (and earning them millions in salaries, perks, and privileges) really worth all that perception and appearance of their own abysmal mediocrity?

Inquirer columnist Richard Heydarian minced no words about the “sheer incompetence of the current leadership”: “One wonders how so much incompetence can secure so much power” (“A Leni presidency: Fulfilling the Edsa dream,” 3/2/21), and, one may add, secure the “services” of supposedly legal luminaries. After all this is over, would “service” to an incompetent president in their resumés or biographies carry that much prestige for them?

MARCELO “JR” GARCIS
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