Tit for tat

In the tit-for-tat world that Philippine politics has become, the recent vote by 40 members of the House of Representatives finding the impeachment complaint filed against Supreme Court Justice Mariano del Castillo  “sufficient in substance” appears to be but the latest volley in the cycle of retribution that has flared up between the Supreme Court and Malacañang. The Aquino administration, though it has publicly distanced itself from the impeachment case, is suspected by many to be behind the sudden revival of the Del Castillo case, since the congressmen who voted for it all count themselves as administration allies. Those who said nay, meanwhile, are identified with the camp of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, virtually confirming the partisan nature of the exercise.

Before this, Malacañang and the high court had engaged in a very public tussle over whether to let the Arroyos fly out of the country, ostensibly so that the former president could get medical treatment. The Department of Justice eventually gained the upper hand with the blitzkrieg filing of an electoral sabotage case against GMA that effectively invalidated the high court’s temporary restraining order against the Arroyos’ inclusion in the DOJ watch list.

No sooner had that anxious moment of constitutional brinksmanship passed than the Court seemed to fire its own shot across the bow by striking President Aquino where it hurts  most: his family’s decades-old ties to Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, which must now be distributed among its farmworkers, according to the Court.

Blowback? Nothing of the sort, according to the Supreme Court spokesman. The case had been under consideration for a long time, and far be it for the eminent members of the Court to engage in any behavior that smacked of petty political reprisal. A denial, of course, that, in a country where what is not said is routinely more telling and interesting than what is, only the most naive were willing to believe. Who knows—perhaps the Court saw its Hacienda Luisita ruling as a way to win back public favor by striking a historic blow for long-delayed social justice, after what many saw as its overeagerness to bend over backwards to accommodate Arroyo’s wishes, only to be stymied by an executive department bold—or, depending on one’s side of the fence, reckless—enough to defy its authority. Whatever its motivation for coming out with the decision when it did—so soon after its scuffle with Malacañang—the  Court appeared to be willing not only to defend its ground, but to up the ante.

Mr. Aquino came out swinging again at the Court soon after, this time in the very presence of Chief Justice Renato Corona—an unprecedented frontal assault that raised a hue and cry from various quarters, strangely all fixating on Mr. Aquino’s supposed breach of etiquette and the ruffled sensibilities of a co-equal branch of government, but hardly touching on the substance of his argument: that the Supreme Court, whose one indispensable capital is impeccable moral standing, had some hard explaining to do concerning very specific matters that have lately sullied its name. One of those matters is the serious charge of plagiarism that led to the impeachment case against Del Castillo.

It is unfortunate, the Supreme Court said, that members of the House of Representatives seemed not to have taken cognizance of the Court’s wisdom in clearing Del Castillo of the charges. “He had done an honest work” in writing the decision denying the civil suit filed by a group of Filipino “comfort women,” and the parts that lifted extensively from three international publications (some 31 cases were noted) inadvertently lacked attributions simply because of computer error. When the women asked for reconsideration, the high court said they were “nitpicking.” And when 37 law professors from the University of the Philippines called for Del Castillo’s resignation, the Court threatened them with sanctions—a move that was “nothing but an abrasive flexing of judicial muscle,” Associate Justice Conchita Carpio Morales warned in a dissenting opinion. The Court went on to admonish the professors to “observe full candor and honesty” in dealing with the Del Castillo dispute.

Perhaps the House vote on the impeachment complaint against Del Castillo is an administration move to exact revenge on an Arroyo appointee. But the Supreme Court hasn’t helped itself by refusing to deal with the case with the same “full candor and honesty” it asks of others.