Politicized

I don’t get this point: Why is it that if the outgoing president appoints the next chief justice, the process will be politicized — but it won’t be politicized if the incoming president makes the appointment?

I would rather think that the danger of politicization is greater if the appointment is left to the incoming president. He will, after all, have to live with the new chief justice for the major portion of his term.

However this process moves over the next few weeks, however, the issue itself has been politicized from the start.

Every lawyer I have talked to say this tempest in a teapot circulates around one person: Justice Antonio Carpio.

Justice Carpio is plugged into a number of influential networks. He comes from a law firm once closely identified with President Gloria Arroyo. The President and the main personalities of that firm have had a falling out. The relationship between them is one of bitter animosity.

The firm is composed of members of the UP Sigma Rho fraternity. In Filipino legal circles, Greek-letter fraternities are very important. Law firms are organized on the basis of fraternity affiliation. The same fraternity affiliation provides important bridges between bar and bench.

The Sigma Rho is particularly notable for the especially fierce loyalties of brotherhood its members exhibit. It is legendary for the motto: My Brother, right or wrong.

Jose Anselmo Cadiz, former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), is from the Sigma Rho. He caused the release of a statement in the name of the IBP strongly condemning the possibility that President Arroyo might appoint the next Supreme Court Chief Justice. Some members of the IBP have criticized the issuance of that statement, saying it was issued after Cadiz’ term as president expired.

Cadiz, along with his Sigma Rho brothers from The Firm, are said to be well-placed in the inner circle of the Noynoy Aquino campaign. This might explain why Sen. Aquino, the sensitivities of the separation of powers principle notwithstanding, allowed himself to declare that he would not recognize a Chief Justice named by President Arroyo.

There are grave implications to such a statement. It raises the specter that Sen. Aquino, if he is elected President of the Republic, will begin his term with a constitutional crisis pitting the executive branch against the judiciary.

Although, to be fair, Noy Aquino did not repeat that reckless statement, he has not retracted it either. The threat — and the specter of a constitutional crisis — stands.

The consensus among the lawyers I have talked to is that should President Arroyo appoint a Chief Justice after Justice Puno’s retirement on May 17, it almost certainly will not be Antonio Carpio. There is also the same consensus that if President Arroyo does not make an appointment and Noy Aquino gets himself elected to the highest office, his appointment will almost certainly be Antonio Carpio.

That prospect does not bode well for judicial independence. His closest legal advisers are from The Firm. His likely choice for Chief Justice has roots in The Firm.

The Firm will again rule it over. The biggest clients will fall in line and pay the huge acceptance fees for The Firm to lawyer for them. It is a prospect forcing other law firms (especially those associated with rival fraternities) to throw their support behind Aquino’s rivals for the presidency.

Carpio, being the most senior associate justice, is on the list of nominees being considered by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) even as he has declared he will not accept an appointment from President Arroyo.

The inclusion of Carpio in the list of nominees for Chief Justice precipitated a strong letter of opposition from Atty. Joel Obar. The letter writer was former dean of the faculty of law of the Foundation University of Dumaguete and is a respected opinion writer for the Bohol Chronicle.

In his letter, Obar reminds the JBC that Antonio Carpio was among those named in the report issued by the Supreme Court on its ethics inquiry into the conduct of the 1989 election for president of the IBP. That election for IBP leadership was marred by an aggressive effort on the part of a faction of lawyers to control the association.

The Supreme Court, in its report, observed that money and government resources were “extravagantly spent for solicitation and electioneering.” The Court roundly condemned what happened as being “in clear contravention of IBP by-laws that the body should at all times be apolitical.”

The report found Carpio to be one of the “conspirators who treated the sanctity of such elections with ignominy.” Obar adds that, based on the records of that Supreme Court inquiry, Carpio himself spent P20,000 in hotel accommodations for delegates to the IBP elections. This instance, among others, says Obar “has been adjudged by the Supreme Court as a conscious and deliberate act to influence the outcome of the election in clear contravention of the IBP laws.”

For this reason, Obar opposes the inclusion of Carpio in the list of JBC nominees. That list, says the letter of opposition, should include only lawyers of “proven integrity” and “independence.”

It seems to me this controversy over President Arroyo’s appointment of the next Supreme Court chief is really less about resolving conflicting provisions in the Constitution. It appears to be more about which mafia controls the post that administers the entire judiciary.

Little wonder that this thing has become so politicized.