Moral force, where are thou?

Pit Senyor Sto. Niño! As an unsolicited reminder, may the Christians among us, be reverent first, then, later we shall have our fill of the mundane pomp and pageantry. Let not the rhythmic cadence of the Sinulog drums distract us from paying our homage to the Holy Child. The sound and color of the mardi gras will and must come only after we have paid our tribute to Sto. Niño. Having said that, may all Cebuanos extend our hand in welcoming our visitors from distant shores. Here is a hope that their stay here in our city be blessed and their experience worth remembering for years to come.

Few days ago while we were preparing for the feast of Sto. Niño, I heard a distress though poignant call. I refer to the statement of Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno. It was aimed at those who possess the moral force to fight. I could not assume any other context of the call than that the fight be waged against the evil, meaning the corrupt in the government. Those words were uttered when we were so focused in our religious undertakings here in Cebu City that they, to me, assumed a relevant spiritual complexion!

If I may recollect, the call of the magistrate was an unintended rejoinder to an ugly rumor. Whispers were heard saying that an impeachment case is being poised against him when our legislators report back to work. Why would such an action be initiated? Why attempt to unseat him?

The chief justice is supposed to be impeached for allegedly sitting on a case. There is this disqualification petition filed against a candidate who got the nod of the electorates in the last elections. That poll winner, rumors continue, should be disqualified for not being a natural born citizen. Accordingly, the required number of justices has already affixed their signatures to the ruling disqualifying the said winning candidate. Unfortunately, it is claimed that the chief justice has not released that decision. And so, for withholding such judgment, he should be punished with the disgrace attendant to being impeached.

It is hardly the intent of this column to discourse on the profound constitutional provisions on impeachment. Even in my constitutional law class, this matter takes long hours of interminable discussion. Rather, I proceed to assume that the grounds for removing from office an impeachable officer may be so broad as to cover the kind of act attributed to Chief Justice Puno. This means that a decision on the disqualification case had already been penned and that the chief justice consciously withheld its promulgation. What hefty assumption!

With that frame of mind, I can accept the happenstance that the impeachment case be, indeed, lodged anytime next week. It may, thus, be filed in the same congress that threw away many impeachment cases filed against the sitting president for a plethora of far graver impeachable crimes. Considering that it be presumably endorsed by the political warlords whose interests may have been affected by such non-release of the decision, (or their comrades in arms), I also foresee the chance that it be acted with kind of brutality unseen in previous impeachment proceedings.

The call by the chief justice for the moral force in our society to resist the forces of evil is his implicit indictment that most members of lower house are bereft of any fiber of morality and so, undeserving of our people’s trust. Without claiming ability to approximate the depth of Chief Justice Puno’s thought processes, I must surmise that to him, the unraveling events are crystal clear. If congressmen (I mean the majority) have the audacity to dismiss the cases against the president despite the gravity of the charges and the enormity of the evidence, they shall have the same temerity to make a mountain out of the mole hill called disqualification case.

Against this horde of immoral leaders (to use the alliteration), almost everything is possible. Chief Justice Puno must be on the belief that only the moral fiber of our people can be relied upon to prevent the total breakdown of law and justice. In so few words, he seems to have echoed, “where are thou, moral force?”