JBC was correct to disqualify them

The Judicial and Bar Council decision to henceforth vote publicly on nominees to the Supreme Court came as a relief to decent Filipinos. It was timely. Like the 23 senators’ unanimous pledge to halt the House Charter-change steamroll, the JBC edict served to foil greedy term extensions.

 Weeks before, the admin had begun moves to prolong Gloria Arroyo in power, eyeing the SC as pawn. Reps. Luis Villafuerte, as her party head, and son Mikey passed around a resolution for constitutional amending by constituent assembly. It was sneaky. While congressmen as a rule submit amendments to the proper committee for study, the Villafuerte-Arroyo paper was secret. Only one copy is in circulation to date. Their game plan is to get 197 colleagues to sign for term extensions by any means. The number is three-fourths of the combined Senate (24) and House seats (238). They’ll fast break their interpretation of the constitutional rule of “three-fourths vote” as “both chambers voting as one”. The issue surely will land in the SC. To pull the trick the admin needs pliant justices. There’s an opening to make it suit Arroyo. Seven of the 15 justices would be retiring in 2009; she can pack it with sycophants who, out of gratitude, will uphold self-serving term extensions.

Not if the JBC hangs tough. As the constitutional body that screens justices and judges for presidential appointment, it can send short lists only of potential independents. Which is what it primed itself to do in opting for public deliberations. With transparency, the JBC in effect is inviting outside participation in the nomination process, especially in filling up the seven SC vacancies.

The JBC must have surprised both Arroyo and foes. By its makeup, it was thought to be a mere formalization of the President’s pick. Only two of its members — the Chief Justice as chair, and the Senate justice committee head — are traditionally independent. The House justice committee head and Justice Secretary are usually presidential gofers. And because they are themselves subject to presidential appointment, the reps of the Integrated Bar, law academe, retired justices, and private sector were perceived to be under the gun. Not so Atty. J. Conrado Castro, Dean Amado Dimayuga and Atty. Aurora Santiago, who joined Chief Justice Reynato Puno and Sen. Chiz Escudero in opting for public deliberations. Only Rep. Mat Defensor, Justice Sec. Raul Gonzalez, and retired justice Regino Hermosisima wanted to keep it secret.

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With its vote too, the JBC opens itself to unsolicited advice from the press and the bar (like this item).

Arroyo’s election lawyer Romy Macalintal, for one, assails the JBC rejection of two Palace factotums for SC posts because of pending cases. He says it’s unfair, if not unlawful, to junk Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera and ex-BIR chief Mario Bunag just because complaints against them are still for “preliminary investigation” by the Ombudsman. A JBC rule disqualifies aspirants with “pending criminal or administrative raps,” Macalintal agrees. But the Civil Service Commission defines the phrase to mean cases already assigned and being tried in court, he insists.

Macalintal speaks from a vacuum of the ideal. In real life, a person under preliminary investigation who is named to the SC can then sway the investigators. It does not matter that the Ombudsman is an independent constitutional body, or that prosecutors of the executive are separate from the judiciary. All lawyers are still under the SC. Government lawyers more so cannot afford to cross a justice lest they lose their jobs.

 There’s nothing wrong with dream worlds. But Macalintal more than other lawyers must know that his client’s rule isn’t a bowl of cherries but a can of worms. Under Arroyo the law has been bent too much too often to contortionism. There’s the ruling on Romy Neri’s executive privilege line, for instance, which is just a cover-up for crime in the highest places. There’s the release of murderers with connections to Malacañang. There’s the use of police powers of the state for murder, kidnapping and torture.

If Macalintal is so worried about Devanadera and Bunag, he can ask what’s taking the Ombudsman so long to investigate. Their cases have been pending for two years. That too is the real world.

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There was a typo error in my column Friday about fuel pump prices elsewhere compared to RP’s. The price of regular unleaded gas in Southern California is $1.65, not $16.50, a gallon. That pesky decimal point confused readers. My apologies, especially to Delano Manibog and Tops Vaflor, the first to point it out.

At an exchange of P49:$1 and equivalent of 3.78541 liters to a gallon, $1.60 comes up to about P21.36 a liter, which I rounded off to P21.50. That’s a far cry from the P36-per-liter price Friday (before the meager rollback last weekend).

RP rates are higher, although its Dubai Crude Index is always several dollars cheaper per barrel than the US West Texas Intermediate. Wilfredo Bernardo reports that in Houston, Texas, and suburbs, gas is only $1.49 a gallon, or P19.29 per liter. Tony Antonio adds that the $1.65-per-gallon tag today in Chicago is pretty much the same as the $1.60 level when he first lived there in 2001.

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