Change CJ Puno's birthday

Chief Justice Reynato Puno should spare all of us from the agonizing problem of appointing a new chief justice after he retires. He should change the year of his birth.

The same goes for the 15 justices appointed by President GMA. Their predecessors should have known better than vacate their posts while President GMA is in office. Then we would not have had this problem of a Supreme Court made of her appointees. Would it have been better if we left it to the Opposition to do the appointing?

And when it came to the question of who should appoint the Chief Justice, should we follow Justice Antonio Carpio’s prescription to leave it to the next president? Offhand that sounds reasonable until you peek into the background of Justice Carpio to discover that he and the law firm he worked for had a falling out with the Arroyo administration. Can we expect objectivity from a justice who has used the post to get back at his adversaries?

The bottom line is we are caught in fortuitous circumstances not of anyone’s making. However much you disagree with President GMA, she is the president until June 30, 2010. She is responsible for what happens in the country. How did it happen that all 15 justices were appointments of the President? Go figure. Either she is very lucky or very unlucky. But the situation of having had to appoint 15 justices fell on her lap.

Any decisions they make that would favor her would be immediately suspect. Should they then decide only against the President to please the baying wolves of the opposition? That does not make them impartial either.

Given the fortuitous circumstances we will just have to deal with it in the best way we can. We may not like having a Supreme Court made up of Arroyo-appointed justices but we can give them the benefit of the doubt and ultimately strengthen the institution beyond her term. The justices should be judged by how they decide issues on a case to case basis not on how the opposition wants them to decide.

But given the propensity of media for sensational headlines and setting political agenda and especially the political season, well-reasoned arguments do not sell newspapers or airtime.

The Supreme Court has been prejudged in media as an ‘Arroyo Court’ and is being unfairly compared with the Marcos Court. Critics add that its image is tarnished. Are they saying that President GMA should not have appointed justices at all?

It may be appropriate these days to remind critics that Justice Antonio Carpio was an Arroyo-appointee. The Opposition is not complaining about him.

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MISCELLANY: To commemorate International Women’s Day, the Women of Independence, The Power of One conference was held by IBN (Intelligence Business Networks) in Kuala Lumpur.

It showcased the accomplishments and achievements of exceptional women who are leaders in their field — business, politics, academia and philanthropy.

Some of the speakers were India’s first woman Director General of Police, Kanchan Chaudhry Bhattacharya; Veronica Pedrosa from the Philippines, news anchor with Al Jazeera (English); Salma Ali Saif Hareb from United Arab Emirates, CEO of JAFZA & Economic World Zones; Milka Duno, a professional race driver in Venezuela; Houzan Mahmoud, activist, Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq; and Malaysia’s first female fighter jet pilot, Major Patricia Yapp.

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In India the women’s reservation bill was recently passed with an overwhelming vote to amend the Constitution to reserve one-third of all seats in national and state legislatures for women. (See how they amend the constitution in India!)

Female lawmakers were jubilant crying “we have made it” after it passed.

India leads many other countries for women’s participation in politics. American women make up only 16.8 percent of the US Congress and 22.9 percent of statewide executive offices across the country, according to the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.

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Rudy Buhay Rodil, vice chair of the government peace panel that negotiated with the MILF until the MOA-AD of 2008 makes an interesting point. He says “we have to decolonize the Philippines by adopting a new Constitution.”

He says it isn’t only the Bangsa Moro struggle for self-determination that is being fought for. He gives a refreshing view that should be known by more Filipinos.

“The Bangsamoro leaders’ political position challenges the very foundations of our present sovereign state. There is no question about this. And to defend national sovereignty and maintain the integrity of national territory, every government of the republic must uphold the Constitution. And in any political negotiation it conducts with the MNLF or the MILF it is duty-bound to use the Constitution as its guide and framework.

But this is the very Constitution that upholds the legitimacy of the Treaty of Paris! This is the very Constitution that upholds the primacy of colonial logic in the formation of our Philippine republic.

This is the very same logic that led to the marginalization of the indigenous peoples of Mindanao. And now, is the government saying that we should use the same tool and the same colonial logic to correct the historical injustice perpetrated upon the Bangsamoro and the Lumad?

If we uphold the legitimacy of the Treaty of Paris through our Constitution, must we also de-legitimize the celebration of our national independence on June 12, 1898? If we do, this will in effect render meaningless President Diosdado Macapagal’s order to move celebration of independence from July 4 to June 12.

If we uphold the legitimacy of the Treaty of Paris through our constitution, are we not in fact upholding colonial principles against democratic principles?

To solve the Bangsamoro problem, it seems that we have to make a number of major decisions. One, we have to complete the decolonization of the country and declare the Treaty of Paris as a colonial legacy that must go. Two, uphold the legitimacy of the Sultanates of Sulu, Sultanates of Maguindanao as de facto states in their own right at the time of the Treaty of Paris. Three, reorganize the Philippine republic on the basis of consent of the governed. Needless to say we need a new Constitution.”