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Heads up people—there is hope in this country and
we look to the one man who is leading the way. Justice Reynato S.
Puno, the 22nd Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was delayed a
year in his assumption to the highest judicial post in the land. As
the first among equals, he heads the Supreme Court and it is the
court of history.
The Supreme Court is touted as
the weakest among the three branches in our tripartite system of
government for a simple reason. It neither holds the power of the
purse. Neither does it wield the power of the sword. What it does
have is a pen and the words that flow from it. In this sense, it is
described as the strongest branch because it has the power to
interpret our law and that includes our supreme law, our
Constitution. Our Constitution embodies our collective will and
remains to be the bastion of democracy no matter how flawed. It is
the concrete manifestation of power to the people.
Thus, when the Supreme Court says
a certain law is invalid, that is finis. To the extent that if it
decrees black as white and white as black, there is no choice but to
obey. This is a metaphorical way of describing its power and how it
was and can be abused. The Supreme Court indeed reigns supreme in
our land for it is not called supreme for naught.
Since 1987, there is an
increasing perception of judicial intervention or judicial
legislation. Intervention happens when a court oversteps its
discretional boundaries and goes beyond the law to make policies or
arbiters cases to favor certain parties. It is gravest when
decisions are made “for monetarious considerations.”
Practitioners tell of horror stories that will make Al Pacino look
like an angel. Another glaring charge is judicial legislation when
the court actually steps in to craft missing parts or to fill in the
gaps in laws. This cannot be for it allows other factors to be
considered other than the letter of the law and the letter of the
law is no other than the Rule of Law—that everyone shall be
treated equally and that no man or woman is above the law or below
it. That is the standard we must uphold, fight for and even die for.
Chief Justice Puno, in his short,
stint has acted swiftly and boldly. Not in our history has the Chief
Justice summoned(!) all the chairpersons of the 17 divisions of the
Court of Appeals to address the sale of temporary restraining orders
(TROs). To the uninitiated, this is the practice of selling an order
to the highest bidder for a certain action to be done or to maintain
a status quo. It is a most crucial document for litigants when their
lives or properties are at stake. Sometimes, the selling justice
sells it to multiple buyers and sits on the request for a long, long
time. The best indication after all of a corrupt public official is
the undue delay to act in any official transaction. A few weeks
after the meeting, a Court of Appeals justice was dismissed.
I have said this before and will
say it again—to move our country forward, change our legal system
to make it work, to address the issue of administering justice
fairly and squarely.
The Supreme Court, it has that
chance to be for the people for “the unerring lessons of history
tell us that rightly wielded, that power can make a difference for
good.” Our Supreme Court must “espouse no ideology but
constitutionalism; to uphold no theology but the rule of law.” The
Court “represents justice, fair justice to all, unfairness to
none.” All these quotes are from Justice Puno who hopes to be an
instrument of this kind of justice.
So, fellow Filipinos, look up and
look to our Supreme Court under the leadership of our Chief Justice.
He deserves our respect and commands our support. He has placed all
his trust in God with ‘a clear awareness of the defining role of
the judiciary as our people confront turning points after turning
points in life.” Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno is the man of the
hour in charge of our one Supreme Court and it is the court of
history.
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