EDITORIAL - Prudent exercise of power

The Supreme Court completed yesterday its own parallel probe of an ongoing criminal investigation – of a grenade explosion on the final day of the recent Bar examinations that left over 40 people wounded, including an examinee who lost both her legs. What if certain individuals are prosecuted for the attack and the case reaches the Supreme Court, and their defense contradicts the conclusions reached by the tribunal in its parallel probe? 

The case makes you wonder if the court is suffering from an identity crisis, with several members wanting to assume the powers of the executive, a co-equal branch of government. In the previous administration, the court also granted a petition to order several executive departments to clean up Manila Bay. The aim is laudable, but this is an executive task. Considering the highly ambitious objective, people wondered what was in store for the executive officials who failed to carry out the SC order.

Yesterday President Aquino, who has been at odds with the majority of the SC’s current membership since the election campaign, lamented that an order issued Wednesday by the court could set a dangerous precedent and wreak havoc on his reform agenda. The SC had emphasized that its order suspending the ouster of National Commission on Muslim Filipinos head Omera Dianalan-Lucman for being a midnight appointee of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo did not cover other officials affected by Executive Order No. 2, which nullifies all midnight appointments. But President Aquino expressed concern that the case could embolden other former officials affected by E0 2 to seek similar relief from the Supreme Court. Equally worrisome for the President, projects invalidated by the current administration on suspicion of corruption and other anomalies could also be brought to the SC.

The high court may argue that its actions are valid. After all, being the final arbiter of the nation’s laws, what the tribunal says is the law. Even if it is starting to look too much like encroachment on the powers of a co-equal branch, what can a law-abiding president do but bow to the majesty of the law, as the SC justices see it? Like the two other branches of government, however, the judiciary should also strive to exercise its powers with prudence. Never mind perceptions of an identity crisis. The SC should avoid making its actions precipitate a constitutional crisis.