‘People, wake up!’

If Vice President Jejomar Binay captures Malacañang next year, he will have the opportunity and the power to appoint a great majority of 11 justices to the Supreme Court to replace those retiring between 2016 and 2022. That will make the four P-Noy-appointed justices a pitiful minority, foremost of whom is Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

It goes without saying that Binay will be appointing lawyers beholden to him and/or their dummies. If he goes for the younger ones in their 40s, they will control the Supreme Court for more than 20 years despite Chief Justice Sereno (who is already seen as helplessly tiptoeing around the present slim majority of justices appointed by former president Gloria Arroyo).

The 11 new justices will most likely outlive Binay, who is past 70 years of age, and the plunder charges against him. But the Binay dynasty will, as surely as the sun sets in the west, continue to rule the roost—if their boast about and grip on Makati are anything to go by: Ganito kami sa Makati, ganyan din ang gagawin namin sa buong bansa!

And the worst part is, we have seen what kind of lawyers Binay has in his stable. They seem to be the type many commentators liken to prostitutes: Doing and saying anything, however bizarre or idiotic, in defense of their client if the price is right! I shudder to think that with them at the helm, the Supreme Court may be transformed into the biggest whorehouse this country will have the misfortune of enduring! People, wake up!

Heaven will not help us if we do nothing!

—MARCELO “JR” GARCIS, hello.garci.jr@gmail.com