These thoughts are really not about winning the three digits Lotto, in any order. The results can end up five-three-one or three-five-one. It’s the three highest odd numbers in Philippines officialdom. Which number comes first and which comes last or gets defeated in a few days or months matters not to many people but matters more only to the significant elite who holds sway in Philippines politics. They largely determine what happens to the wealth and the pestering poverty in our country. In the ultimate analysis there will only be one winner or loser: Filipino Culture. It’s either culture continuity or a drastic game change.
On the three odd numbers, I am of course referring to President Noynoy Aquino, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Chief Justice Renato Corona as 1, 3, 5 respectively. These three highest odd numbers of Philippines top ten are now blatantly fighting in the three cornered impeachment arena. Even though Senate President Ponce Enrile had claimed, his impeachment court acts only as the referee.
This fight which started with a midnight appointment of a Chief Justice much later had assumed the proportions of a clash of Titans. To the sidewalk vendor, the push cart dwellers, to the toothless unwashed unemployed living in squatter areas, it indeed have become a war of the “Gods” of politics. Probably more than half of 100 million people do not have a fairly good idea how wealth and power of the “Gods” can be mustered and squandered. It’s ironical even tragic to think that serious commentators may be right when they claimed it’s the people’s sovereignty or peoples’s power that’s usurped and wealth (taxes paid) wisely wasted which 1,3,5 are using as weapons of war. And while the “Gods” sit and ponder on strategies and tactics of winning the war, it’s their “dogs of war” in reality the beneficiaries fighting by their side who consume the peoples’ hard earned resources.
Five, three, one as rulers of our society have their reasons and justification in the manner they live and rule the multitudes. President Noynoy has a mandate in the same manner that Senate President Ponce Enrile was given too a people’s mandate. Chief Justice Corona was a mere political appointee compared to Nos. 1 and 3. The President being the number one politician who by all his acts and by all means a politician is a creature who NEVER can make an appointment that is not political in nature. The political act expects in no small way gratitude if not loyal obeisance in return.
Politics says David Easton is the “authoritative allocation of values in society.” Because he is the No. 1 politician and at the same time the highest authority and allocator, almost every single even small act of the President allocates favor or wealth to anyone or any institution, even religious sects. Even his going to church or his manner of worship in secret or in public by virtue or by the nature of his role is POLITICAL. He is Caesar . He may not be God’s equal but must be rendered for what he is, for what the people may grant him. May be that’s the Achilles heel of our Constitution. The theoretical equality of the three branches can never be attained or approach reality because the head of one branch is appointed by one of the other two elected ones. Worst as was proven by recent history, one branch can swallow the other two branches without choking under a political culture of impunity.
Will it not be right to think that honesty—no such thing as more or greater honesty—and truth in the gospel of democracy that dictates sovereignty or ultimate power to rule must belong to the people if and most probably if only the people ELECT at large, by secret ballot the heads of the three branches namely, No. 1, the President, No. 3 the President of the Senate and No. 5, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The three co-equal branches do not, repeat do not need within its rule power structure No. 2, the Vice President (spare tire or excess baggage) and No. 4 the Speaker of the House of Representatives. But this paragraph is preposterous as it will only a generate ideas in hundred multiples. This portion begs the real issues; side steps the real questions the impeachment is trying to answer; and stay the blinders apparently perverting the rule of law. It requires the longish stretch of Noynoy’s straight path to connect the dots on how fitness to office of a Chief Justice can really lead to a momentum that will change the existing culture of impunity.
May be it is time to rethink; to remove her blindfold in the statue, so that Lady Justice can look at the unevenness and the inequalities of the scale in her hand. How else can Lady Justice see the weight disparity between innocence and guilt if she is blindfolded by the rule of law?
Mr. Alejandro B. Ibay is former faculty member of the National College of Public Administration, University of the Philippines.