Tawdry entertainment

How we love circuses.

We open court trials to the public and the media, giving full rein to the court of public opinion in influencing the impartial appreciation of facts, which is what should matter most in the administration of justice, and indulging our favorite pastime of jumping to conclusions.

We give saturation coverage to the most inane congressional investigation. Then we wonder why lawmakers keep grandstanding and turning inquiries supposedly in aid of legislation into public inquisitions.

President Arroyo herself is not beyond her own brand of inquisition, posing for photographs with arrested individuals and pronouncing their guilt long before it is established in court.

Now we want to see candidates for the highest position in the judiciary perform in a circus, by subjecting them to a public interview. Naturally, the inquisitors — especially those who are not part of the judiciary and who are now fixated on the upcoming elections in May — readily agreed. Everyone likes seeing his face in the news, tormenting rather than being tormented.

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What did the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) hope to achieve in conducting a public interview of the candidates for chief justice?

In the first place, unlike Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago who is applying for the job to be vacated on Dec. 7 by Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, seniority landed five associate justices of the Supreme Court on the list of candidates.

If the JBC simply wanted background information on the six candidates, that information is in their résumés, and much of it is surely well known to JBC members. Otherwise, they do not deserve to become members of the screening committee for the highest position in the judiciary.

If JBC members wanted to find out the candidates’ views on raging issues, the JBC members should be disqualified. Members of the Supreme Court, particularly the chief justice, must never telegraph their views on matters that may reach the tribunal.

This was a cardinal rule that was followed by the late Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee. He often reminded reporters about it when we tried to get him to comment about certain issues. It’s a rule that was not followed by Panganiban, which earned him the ire of his peers when he put his foot in his mouth midway through his tenure.

Supreme Court justices with big mouths who like preening before TV cameras can be accused of bias and asked by litigants to inhibit themselves from a particular case.

What did JBC members intend to ask the candidates for chief justice? Their stand on the people’s initiative, on Charter change? This case goes back to the high tribunal, by the leave of the court, on Dec. 7.

Speculation for the motive in calling for a public interview is focusing on the people’s initiative, which Panganiban’s court has thrown out twice, because of reports that the petitioners in the initiative case were banking on the next chief justice to cast the swing vote that would reverse the SC ruling.

By seniority, Reynato Puno is next in line for chief justice. Puno had voted to send the initiative case back to the Commission on Elections for review.

Initiative proponents are also pinning their hopes on the fact that in their motion for reconsideration, the SC had reversed its 1997 ruling against using a people’s initiative to amend the Constitution.

This time, the SC ruled that the existing initiative law is in fact sufficient to amend the Constitution but not to revise it. Shifting to a parliamentary system of government, which was the principal advocacy of the latest people’s initiative, entailed a revision of the Charter, the SC ruled.

Why should SC justices be exposed to public heckling and a shouting match with JBC members — a big possibility, considering some of the characters in the council — over their views?

Those views are going to be part of the law of the land. Justices of the Supreme Court must be given the greatest leeway to ponder their positions on national controversies.

In the past year SC justices, regardless of who appointed them, have performed the tribunal’s role of final arbiter with credibility, reducing national tension and restoring stability. The court has brought clarity to constitutional provisions. It has given nuanced interpretations of the roles of democratic institutions and the principle of separation of powers.

If we don’t start showing some respect for members of the high tribunal, the court will lose its effectiveness as the nation’s court of last resort.

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Yesterday a member of the JBC, Sen. Francisco Pangilinan, said the justices who failed to show up for their interview would have to be disqualified from the position of chief justice.

Perhaps Pangilinan was merely responding to a question on JBC rules. But coming from a politician, his remark was not surprising.

Both chambers of Congress have led by example in promoting a Filipino culture of rudeness and institutional discourtesy. Many respected military officers have complained about being made to feel like pieces of garbage when being grilled by lawmakers. Even hearings on non-controversial matters can turn into inquisitions.

The lack of common courtesy is evident in many other aspects of national life, from the way we drive to our inability to stand in line for anything.

Perhaps lawmakers are simply reflecting a cultural flaw — one that enjoys laughing at the expense of others, that tends to sees the worst in people and enjoys seeing public figures subjected to public humiliation.

It’s a culture that thinks arguments are won by whoever shouts and heckles loudest. It’s a culture that never tires of circuses.

All this tawdry entertainment eventually takes its toll on national life, diminishing everything that it touches. No one and nothing is spared. Not even the Supreme Court.