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As the Judicial and Bar Council prepares to interview
aspirants for the position of associate justice in the Supreme Court
and presiding justice in the Court of Appeals, thoughtful Filipinos
have begun to ponder its future—should the government reform the
council or abolish it?
CA Presiding Justice Ruben Reyes
was appointed to the Supreme Court on August 2, creating the vacancy
in the lower court. Supreme Court Associate Justice Cancio Garcia
will retire on October 20.
The 1987 Constitutional
Commission created the council partly in response to the excesses of
the Marcos government and partly to insulate the judiciary from
politics. Its principal function is to recommend appointments to the
judiciary to the President. In the earlier system, the Chief
Executive nominated members of the Supreme Court and the Court of
Appeals to the congressional Commission on Appointments.
In the years that it has been in
business, the council has been accused of behaving like an exclusive
club, guarding and promoting the careers of the old-boy network.
Worse, the council has nominated
candidates with questionable backgrounds, nominees with civil or
criminal record or who had pending cases in court. The President
appointed a number of the nominees.
Another criticism is that the
seven-member council is beholden to the Palace and has become a
rubber stamp of the President. The three ex-officio members are the
Chief Justice, the Secretary of Justice and a representative of
Congress. The regular members are appointed by the President for a
term of four years with the consent of the Commission on
Appointments.
Confirmation of the four regulars
means they are subject to political pressure, observers said. The
pressure continues when the same members seek reappointment.
Lobbying and politics are known
to characterize work at the council. The council initially considers
a roster of aspirants, votes on them, and prepares a short list,
usually three, for every vacancy. The appointments do not require
confirmation.
Critics calling for abolition
have been reminded, however, that under the chairmanship of Chief
Justice Reynato Puno, the council resisted pressures to nominate two
controversial aspirants, a woman senator and the government
corporate counsel.
To reform work at the council,
former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban has suggested that the names
of the members voting for candidates who make it to the short list
be made public, in the same manner that the votes of the justices
are publicized. He said the regular members should comply with the
code of ethics for judges. Finally, he suggested that the same
members should perform their work along “the standard of proven
competence, integrity, probity and independence.”
The option to abolition or reform
is to return to the old system of confirming judges and justices by
the Commission on Appointments. But with the reputation of the
commission in tatters, the independence of the judiciary remains in
peril.
The trafficking continues
It turns out that the illegal
trafficking of Filipinos into warstruck Iraq by a Kuwait-based
construction firms has remained unabated.
Special Ambassador to the Middle
East Roy Cimatu has confirmed that the First Kuwait International,
the subject of a previous complaint by a Filipino senator, continued
to recruit Filipinos despite a deployment ban in Iraq since 2004.
In July, Sen. Mar Roxas exposed
the hiring program of the company which recruited 11 Filipinos who
thought they were going to work in Kuwait. They were brought
to Baghdad and worked in the US-controlled Green Zone, a huge
compound that houses several embassies, subcontractor firms,
military units and a small number of Iraqi families.
The Filipinos worked long hours
under extremely stressful conditions, Ambassador Cimatu said.
Cimatu and Foreign Undersecretary
Rafael Seguis recently briefed Senator Roxas on the recruitment and
placement of Filipinos in Iraq and other countries in the Middle
East. They reported that the number of Filipinos in Baghdad had gone
down from 7.600 in 2004 to 6,547 in 2007.
Roxas, who filed a resolution on
July 31 asking the foreign office to investigate the hiring by First
Kuwaiti International, renewed his call to the Department of Labor
and Employment to tighten its watch on foreign recruiters and the
deployment of Filipinos.
As tight as the domestic job
market may be and as attractive as foreign pay may sound, Filipino
jobseekers should shun Iraq and neighboring countries because of the
mounting violence in that country.
Daily life in Iraq is
characterized by mass murders, many perpetrated by human bombers who
have no qualms about exploding their bombs and bodies in crowded
public places. Iraqis are killing fellow Iraqis, including women and
children.
The Iraqi terrorists are keeping
an eye on foreigners, especially those working for the US civil and
military offices and those employed by Allied troops or
international organizations. Several Filipinos have been kidnapped
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their release came at a price to the
Philippine government.
Stay out of Iraq until the war
ends—which is not expected in the next five years. The admonition
applies to foreign businesses recruiting Filipinos for Baghdad, like
the First Kuwaiti International.
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