Force manure
I was at dinner the other week with close friends when one of them excused himself for a phone call. He works with a government agency while teaching at Ateneo de Manila University, so urgent calls are no surprise.
When he returned to the table, he was wide-eyed with disbelief. A student’s parent had used their contacts in government to ask for his phone number, which his colleague had not given, because the parent wanted to call my friend to beg him to give their son a passing grade so that the boy could finally graduate from college.
The student in question? Absent all semester except for the first day of class. Zero submissions. Zero interaction with my friend. The F was well deserved. Any parent should have seen that instead of coddling their child.
What disheartened us was the notion that parents would have the gall to exploit their contacts to plead for consideration where none was merited. It was a gross misinterpretation of in loco parentis (in the place of parents) to mean that a professor should be complicit in a student’s laziness, enable bad behavior, and reward BS.
It wasn’t the only legal phrase abused last week.
The other is a legal term derived from a French phrase that literally translates to superior force, to something so uncontrollable that it can only mean a greater hand is at work. In the Civil Code, it refers to an unlikely, unforeseen event independent of human will that prevents the fulfillment of a contractual obligation.
To truly invoke it, the event should not have been tied to one’s negligence. It should have been impossible to prevent. It should make fulfillment of one’s duty truly impossible and not merely inconvenient.
It is often called an Act of God, because who else would have the power to allow or cause monstrous rains or floods, a worldwide pandemic, a volcanic eruption, an earthquake, or a tornado?
This is why natural hazards, wars, and lockdowns fall under the umbrella of force majeure. Not a senator’s impending arrest by an international court, which has been a long time coming, and which arises from years of boasting about the merits of a drug war and bravado in the face of justice.
The senator could have simply followed his promise to join his boss in The Hague. He could have simply not run for a Senate seat if he was going to disappear for nearly his entire term. He could have simply not participated in the previous administration’s diatribes and drug war, which bred a culture of fear, hatred, and violence. He could have lived a righteous life. He could have upheld the law.
Everything was within his control, but he chose to ignore his principles. He could have prevented his arrest, but he chose to join a cabal that took pride in its declarations of death when people sought hope. He could have done as other senators once did when confronted by the law: surrender.
But he chose to run.
His choices have spawned a fractured Senate that cannot do its job because the majority is too busy weaving smokescreens and protecting itself from impending cases.
Never mind the flood control scandal, which requires the Senate to contribute to the long-term task of changing a broken system that perpetuates corruption. Never mind the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, which forces many of the senators to admit that they benefited from the popularity of a tyrant and his family.
The arrest warrants are out; the arrests for plunder have already begun. The rains have started, threatening floods unless we fix the infrastructure that is meant to keep people safe rather than function as bank accounts for the corrupt.
In response to these pressing issues, the Senate majority crafted new distractions. A senator misinterpreted a legal phrase, then threw a hissy fit when corrected. Another showed a sensationalist video and paraded it as the truth. Yet another casts a blanket stigma on nonlawyers, forgetting that some of his allies barely hold any credentials.
Worse, some majority members have JDs, but merely attend sessions without contributing. Just Decorating. Or they propose twisting the law to allow a fugitive senator to participate in and vote on proceedings. Just Disgusting.
No wonder the minority walked out. They knew what their job was. They had taken the necessary notes, listened to their principles, defended the law. Instead, they were greeted with pointless debates, excuses for the absent and nonfunctioning, and a mockery of the Senate.
We need to change this country’s apparent love affair with fecal matter. We need better voters to clean out corruption in a government where the powerful are protected from persecution. We need parents to stop shielding their children from discipline and rigor. We need people to take responsibility for their choices rather than expect safety nets for their sins.
Wayward children, undependable senators, and corrupt governments are not some force majeure over which we have no control. We need to stop allowing those with any measure of power to try to force manure down our throats.
—————-
