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EDITORIAL

Damaging the Court

Philippine Daily Inquirer
November 08, 2017

New presidential spokesperson Harry Roque knows first-hand what it means for an institution to sustain substantial damage to its reputation.

As a first-term congressman, he gleefully dove into the cesspool that was the congressional inquiry into Sen. Leila de Lima’s alleged sins.

The participation of the former human rights lawyer in the demonization of President Duterte’s chief critic, especially his salacious, sexually charged questioning of Ronnie Dayan, the senator’s former driver and lover, was a disgusting display of power and prurience.

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So when Roque alleges that the impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno may damage the Supreme Court itself, we have no choice but to listen.

“I call on Chief Justice to consider resigning to spare the institution from any further damage,” Roque said on Monday.

He was responding to Sereno’s speech earlier in the day, where she spoke, in passing, of the “resurgence of political forces threatening and harassing the independence of the judiciary.”

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Now, as spokesperson of the President, he no longer enjoys that capacity; instead, when he speaks for the President (and that is the only reason the reporters and the cameras are there to record his statements), he speaks for the Executive — the same executive branch of government that earlier said, as it was duty-bound to say and to do, that it was observing a hands-off attitude to the Sereno impeachment. Roque had yet again overstepped his bounds.

Second, reporters in the press briefing took notice, and asked him whether his call for Sereno to resign was in fact the position of the President, the principal he is merely the agent of.

He replied: “It should be because he called for the impeachment and removal of the chief justice.”

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The Constitution does not place a limit on the number of times an impeachable position can be vacated. However, this assumption is based on an even more fundamental principle: That the process of impeaching and removing a high official, even a chief justice, follows reasonable rules and meets common-sense expectations.

This brings us to the fourth and main point. The damage to the Supreme Court that Roque so piously fears can only come from a few sources: A disrespect for the rule of law, a sweeping disregard for truth, a disdain for those who are at the mercy of the powers-that-be.

It will not come from the acts of someone defending herself in the rightful way; the damage will come from politicians and lawyers who place power over law.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/

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