A troubling verdict

(Following is the transcript of the segment "Analysis by Winnie Monsod" which aired on News on Q on March 31 , 2010. Prof. Winnie Monsod is the resident analyst of News on Q which airs weeknights at 9:30 p.m. on Q Channel 11.) There has been a great uproar following the Supreme Court decision on midnight appointments. To understand the issue, let us first look at what our Constitution has to say about these appointments. We find it in Section 15 of Article VII of the Constitution states: "Two months immediately before the next Presidential elections and up to the end of his term, a President or Acting President shall not make appointments, except temporary appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies therein will prejudice public-service or endanger public safety." I invite the viewer to look at the Constitutional provision again. Where in that provision does it say: "except appointments to the judiciary" or "appointments to the Supreme Court." Another curiosity here is that this Supreme Court not only overturned a previous unanimous Supreme Court decision promulgated in 1998, on exactly the same issue of midnight appointments to the judiciary. That overturned decision was, by the way, an opinion shared by three justices who would become future Chief Justices (Davide, Panganiban, and Puno). But this Supreme Court pronounced that previous decision "deserves to be quickly sent to the dustbin of the unworthy and forgettable." Can you imagine that? Anyway, suffice it to say that the lone dissenter, Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio Morales, in an opinion which tore into shreds the arguments and rationalizations of the majority, concluded that such arguments had "the weight of helium," meaning to say, they were lighter than air. Why is there such an uproar about this particular Supreme Court decision? From what I can gather, there are two streams of thought on the matter. One stream of thought takes the decision to be just one piece or just one part of a deliberate, unholy conspiracy that will result in a holdover presidency. As basis for this doomsday scenario opinion, they point out to the following:

• the shuffling or reassignment last January 10 of all the PNP station commanders all over the Philippines;
• the delays in the Comelec automation plan; moreover, some of the original safety features in the machines have been removed, all of which supposedly point to a massive breakdown during elections with enough voters effectively disenfranchised that the outcome of the elections will be in doubt;
• The appointment of an AFP Chief of Staff close to President, so that the Armed Forces will either be looking the other way or encouraging the chaos, while the PNP reassignees will be taking orders from the DILG.

So where does the Supreme Court enter this complicated picture? Well they say, someone is sure to go to the Supreme Court to seek relief. At which point, it is said, the Supreme Court, having read into the Constitution something that is not there, in the midnight case will find it just as easy to declare that there was something wrong with the election of the Senate President who constitutionally must take over to oversee the next elections; and therefore declare that they had no choice but to allow a holdover presidency, because the alternative might be a military takeover. The question, of course is: why should the midnight appointment of a Chief Justice be a major factor in the conspiracy theory? The Chief Justice, after all is only one of fifteen Supreme Court Justices — all he can do is try to exercise intellectual leadership over his brethren. In other words, the midnight appointments decision cannot really be considered part of such a conspiracy. So, that's one stream of thought. The other stream of thought, while it does not hold to a conspiracy theory, has an opinion that is equally if not more chilling. What this Supreme Court decision does is highlight:

• a very dangerous tendency of the Supreme Court to read into the Constitution something that is not there, putting words as it were, into the Constitution's mouth , so that it in effect emasculates the Constitution, or exploits the Constitution for its own ends; and
• the sloppiness of its research (or its reasoning), accompanied by the misplaced, arrogant courage of their ignorance which unfortunately they consider to be intellectual superiority.

Whichever stream of thought is correct, the country is in terrible trouble.