Who's setting up Justice Artemio Panganiban?

Soon the Supreme Court will decide on The People’s Initiative filed by Sigaw ng Bayan, the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines and more than six million signatories verified by the Comelec. Reading through the presentations of Charter change advocates and those who are against it, confirms the saying that in a debate, both sides are right in what they say but wrong in what they do not say. Therefore, although it is necessary to fulfill the requirements of a legal process, it would be a mistake if we were to be distracted by technicalities and legalisms. Our duty is not to lose sight of the intent and spirit of the law and the events which led to a people’s initiative. It institutionalized the legacy of people power revolutions. In this enterprise we must resist the attempt to make us examine the bark and the leaves of the trees, and lose sight of the majestic forest. The majestic forest in this case is the opportunity to create a prosperous and stable nation.

Someone remarked to me the other day that it may be good to gently remind the justices that they should not ‘play god’ just because they have been given the honor of being the "last bastion of "justice." They should not fall into the trap of tyranny. It is further being talked about (horror of all horrors) that Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban may be one of them. This I cannot believe.

Indeed, many Charter change advocates would have given up ever taking up a people’s initiative again had it not been for Justice Panganiban whose words in 1997 ring loud and clear to this day. His brilliant dissenting opinion will continue to be an inspiration to all political reformers regardless of how CODAL, the opposition’s lawyers seek to interpret his words. They even claim that he has now changed his mind. I believe this is a ruse fomented by those who do not wish him well. It besmirches his good name and unfair to a man with a remarkable character quite capable of greatness.

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There is no better defense for the evil machinations than to cite Justice Panganiban’s own words in his dissenting opinion in 1997. He said the highest consideration in his opinion is free speech. He believed that this Court has no power to restrain them from exercising their right of initiative. "The right to propose amendments to the Constitution is really a species of the right of free speech and free assembly. And certainly, it would be tyrannical and despotic to stop anyone from speaking freely and persuading others to conform to his/her beliefs."

That commitment to freedom is not limited to the lifting of a TRO. It is only the beginning. It must be fought for until it sees the light of day. Panganiban was fighting for free speech. Very few men are given a second chance to make good on such a commitment. It would be truly disappointing if the man who defended a people’s initiative as a right of free speech and free assembly should now turn around and make its fulfillment impossible.

Here again, Charter change advocates can take refuge in Panganiban’s words: "As the eminent Voltaire once said, ‘I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ After all, freedom is not really for the thought we agree with, but as Justice Holmes wrote, ‘freedom for the thought that we hate.’" If he believes that, it follows he will do everything in his power to uphold that principle.

It is déjà vu. The same threat now faces the future initiative that Panganiban so prophetically predicted. Of what use is lifting the temporary restraining order on private respondents if in the end it is frustrated by a court through mere technicalities. Or is Justice Panganiban now being intimidated by the same vanguards of the status quo of the past? CODAL lawyers quoted him as saying that "If the oppositors can prove that even in one district the three percent was not reached this will be the end of the petition." I thought the Supreme Court was an arbiter of law, not of fact. Isn’t the Comelec the constitutional body to determine whether the numbers have been met? Isn’t the Comelec, after determining that the numbers have been met, also the constitutional body assigned the role of designating the day for a plebiscite after it has framed the amendment being proposed?

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There is no question that Charter change is a leadership issue even if those who are against it are loath to admit it. Being a leadership issue, Charter change advocacy can flourish only if there is support from intellectual and political leaders, those who are able to understand and enable the masses to participate in it. For a very long time Charter change advocates were orphans. Therefore attacks that this is not a people’s initiative just because we have a government which supports it or local authority’s mediation is pure hypocrisy. What about the opposition which are said to be funded in the millions by oligarchs?

How to bring the masses up to difficult political undertakings like Charter change happens in every democratic society even those in the most sophisticated countries. Other countries amend their constitutions by a simple constituent assembly. But with a recalcitrant Senate this has become impossible. That is the raison d’etre of the people’s initiative. The masses have to be led initially, but only a plebiscite can bear the stamp of a people’s choice. Only then can we say that the people have spoken. That is the bottom-line of the issue before the Supreme Court: will it allow the people to make the choice through a plebiscite.

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Will the Supreme Court throw out the petition because it allegedly failed in more than 15 districts? If it did, then it is not performing its duty as an impartial court as an arbiter of law. More so because the Opposition vowed to employ every dirty trick to make sure that the numbers are not met. The guiding principle it seems to me is the preponderance of verified signatures against a few signatures that admittedly could have been faked. But by whom? By the opposition or by the petitioners? A group of women in Makati showed me their written affidavits on how they were harassed by the opposition’s bully boys from Makati.

On the other hand the advocates in their 97-page memorandum said their groups complied with the procedures set by the Comelec and stipulated under the Initiative and Referendum Act. Moreover they said that questioning the validity of local election officers’ certification should have been done during the verification process.

"This is because the constitutional principle of due process necessarily requires that the Comelec election officers whose official acts have been impugned be granted reasonable opportunity to defend their actions," they said. Why was this not done?

And lastly, there is still another right, apart from the right of free speech and free assembly that the good justices must uphold when they cast their votes in a few days – the right of choice. If they deny a plebiscite they deny the right of choice to the people.

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