Even during Holy Week, a litany of unholy events

The police have detained six men and ruled out "terrorism" as the motive for the terrible grenade-blast which killed eight persons and wounded 50 others last Sunday afternoon in Baclaran, Parañaque. The police version is that the six belonged to a jewellery-robbery gang and used the explosion as a cruel diversion.

As always, the innocent, the unwary, and the "poor" were the ones who got hit at that crowded intersection. There's really no defense against heartless and random violence -- or terrorist attack for that matter. Our policemen and Marines simply have to be very visible, and on the alert.

That was a bizarre accusation made by two sectoral representatives the other day. Renato Magtubo, who was appointed (not elected) to represent the radical labor group Sanlakas in the House of Representatives and Loretta Ann Rosales, also appointed to represent Akbayan, claimed in a press conference that congressmen received a "gift" in the form of P500,000 (each?) to approve the long-pending Power Industry Reform bill.

Magtubo waved five wads of P1,000 bills amounting to P500,000 as "proof" of his charge. By golly, it's amazing that any lobbyists or bribe-givers would be so stupid as to offer two cause-oriented activists half a million pesos apiece just to get a bill passed -- when any fool can expect that the two protest-inclined individuals would immediately "blow the whistle" on any shenanigans real or perceived in the chamber. If anybody was that dumb, he or she deserves to be exposed.

Magtubo, after all, is already well-known in the House as a professional troublemaker. Wasn't he the guy who invited his fellow Sanlakas members to invade the Batasan building and spray-paint angry and insolent messages and slogans on its inside walls? Isn't it a crime for persons to deface public property, much less flout the law by painting grafitti all over the chamber of the lawmakers? Owing to the President's carelessness in naming two-bit street parliamentarians to parliament (congress) itself, the protest movement has moved indoors.

Surely, everybody knows (to paraphrase the late Senate President Jose Avelino) that congressmen are "not angels." The pork barrel, when all is said and done, is literally a barrel from which the politicians in both Houses can grab their pork. Legislators legislate funds, perks, and allowances for themselves shamelessly. But P500,000 per vote in the case of such a multibillion-peso privatization scheme involving the National Power Corporation would be petty cash.

I'm not saying that the cheapskates among our politicians wouldn't take the money and run, but if they were selling their souls to some powerful and well-heeled lobby, most so-called solons would demand much more. It doesn't look credible as a scandal, sorry Magtubo-baby. To some "honorable" gentlemen and ladies, that amount might even be downright insulting.

This is one for Ripley. There are only six vacant positions for Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals. To nobody's surprise, the names of one hundred and forty-eight (148) applicants for those six vacancies were published by the Judicial and Bar Council yesterday, as the law requires, in newspapers of general circulation.

The notice published yesterday contained a proviso that "the Judicial and Bar Council invites the public to furnish the Council any information, comment, feedback or complaint on any of the above-listed names."

May I suggest that the JBC not rely merely on this "invitation" to the public as a means of dredging up any derogatory information, especially with regard to the integrity and moral character of the eager aspirants? The Judicial and Bar Council itself must be pro-active, conducting its own checking, of the applicants. This isn't a difficult task. For example, in the case of Regional Trial Court judges, quasi-judicial officials and others already serving in the government, sourcing information on their respective track records, integrity, moral character and dedication to work is a relatively easy undertaking. This is particularly easy for those holding office in Metro Manila.

The "hoodlums in robes" -- meaning the morally and intellectually unfit, and the indolent judges with a huge backlog of undecided cases -- are known in Bench and Bar circles. Certain members of the Court of Appeals who are currently controversial did not become "corrupt" overnight or after they became members of the appellate Tribunal. These Justices brought into the Court of Appeals the "bad habits" they formed in their previous positions. In fact, it's unbelievable how the JBC didn't spot their defects and infirmities when considering them for promotion to Higher Court, since these rascals were already notorious. How did they manage to sneak through the JBC's so-called "screening" process?

The nomination by the JBC of questionable applicants for Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals surely means that the members of the Council were not doing their "homework." Or, worse, they preferred to ignore the negative reputations of those applicants because they had influential backers and padrinos. This is disgraceful. Will that disgraceful practice be continued -- this year?

According to one official of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), a JBC nominee for the Court of Appeals who got appointed last year had, at the time of his nomination, a pending administrative case for gross ignorance of the law. The nomination by the JBC and the appointment by the President (who wasn't warned) of this "influential" but unworthy nominee was made, of course, at the expense of and to the prejudice of much more qualified and longer-serving RTC judges in Metro Manila, of which there are several. Those unfortunates, alas, did not have the same access to those who walk the corridors of power.

We must always bear in mind that the Court of Appeals is no ordinary body. It is the second highest judicial body from where a majority of the members of the Supreme Court have been drawn over the years. Of the present 15 members of the High Court, ten are former Court of Appeals Justices.

Even an unfit appointee to the Court of Appeals who is below 55 years of age is now a potential candidate for the Supreme Court after having served about ten years in the appellate court. Thus, when -- thanks to influence-peddling or the compadre-system -- an unworthy applicant for the Court of Appeals gets appointed, that hoodlum-in-waiting has only one more step to take to ascend, smirking all the way, to the Supreme Tribunal.

What happened to President Estrada's vow to go after "hoodlums in robes"? Those rats have not been deterred by his threats. They know that, with the skids being properly greased, they can whiz by and become High Court justices -- right under Erap's very nose.

As a report from Paris says, the French government seems to be reluctant to "upgrade" the June 5 arrival of President Estrada in Paris to the status of an "official visit." Malacañang is getting somewhat irritated with the puny efforts of our envoy to France, Ambassador Hector Villaroel, to get the government of President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to have our Chief Executive greeted with the proper honors and courtesies.

The fact is that France's top businessmen and industrialists are themselves very eager to meet with President Estrada. However, if our President is simply going to appear to arrive in Paris like a "tourist", then I propose that he cancel that expedition altogether. As Humphrey Bogart said to Ingrid Bergman in the romantic movie classic, Casablanca, -- "We'll always have Paris." But not this inhospitable season if those welcoming smiles prove to be unnatural, not sincere.

The very opposite obtains with regard to the President's coming trip to London. He's literally "going to London to visit the Queen," and has a royal audience with Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, scheduled for June 2. The President will be met with all pomp and pageantry, and his schedule in England is all laid out, with every door opened wide for Sir Erap. (He might even end up someday on "The Queen's List." Don't ask me to explain that, I was only kidding).

This red-carpet welcome can be attributed to Erap's unorthodox ways. When the Princess Royal, Princess Ann, came to Manila on March 11 last year on a formal visit, the President was in deep mourning for his elder brother, Dr. Emilio Ejercito, who had just died in Poughkeepsie, in upstate New York. Since this is the "big brother" who had virtually brought Erap up, the Chief Executive was so crushed by the news that he relegated the hosting of the formal banquet in Malacañang Palace to Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Both our Ambassador to the Court of St. James, former Trade and Industry Secretary Cesar Bautista, and the UK Ambassador Alan Collins, despaired of President Estrada getting to greet Princess Ann during her visit here. However, Erap in a spontaneous gesture dumbfounded the pessimists.

He decided almost at the very last minute that, instead of asking Princess Ann to make a call on him in the Palace, that he would call on Princess Ann at the British Ambassador's residence on his way to the airport (to fly to New York for his brother's funeral).

Some Palace officials were horrified. One of them quavered: "Why, Mr. President, calling on the Princess would be a complete breach of protocol! Think of your Presidential dignity!"

Erap waved away that formality with an impatient gesture of his hand. And so, he stopped at Ambassador Collin's official residence in North Forbes Park for "a chat" and exchange of greetings with the Princess.

Mr. Estrada often gets slammed for his unorthodox, and some say "undignified" ways. But sometimes, when he's moved (to borrow from Abraham Lincoln) by "the better angels of his nature", such a lack of insistence on protocol and a simple approach pay off -- in warmth and friendship.