Once again, corrupting the rule of law

I was lucky enough to be able to get into the session hall on the first day of the Supreme Court hearing on DAP (short for disbursement acceleration program). Even if some decisions made in that hall, for one reason or another can be disappointing it exudes an atmosphere of the sanctity of law.

So it can be dismaying when the sanctity of the law is violated by ignorance. I remember once in a hearing on people’s initiative a woman justice screamed at a petitioner’s lawyer asking if God were in the people’s initiative. If God was not there, then there was no point for it and it is unacceptable. What?!?

Still, it is awesome when the court asks for silence as the venerable justices take their seats. And even without a word spoken, it lifts up your heart that this is what respect for the rule of law means.

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Happily I sat among petitioners, in front were former cabinet secretaries Leonor Briones and Benjamin Diokno, who were shaking their heads in amazement at some of the arguments put forward by Abad and later by Solicitor General Jardeleza. On my right was Dante Jimenez whom I had not seen since we campaigned for federalism in Bicol.

We heard Budget Secretary Butch Abad go through a litany of reasons defending the President’s DAP. He went on and on but at the end of his long discourse on savings and cross border transfers to augment funds, he surprised the entire room of justices, defense lawyers and petitioners by saying “there is no more DAP.”

At that point, Jimenez said he could almost see the headlines the next day “No more DAP” (Jimenez was still thinking in previous days when important news was treated importantly and made into headlines). Those days have long gone because mainstream media now has different criteria for making headlines. What was the point of continuing the trial? It was to stop hearing petitioners’ arguments. Because of that last sentence made by Abad, the petitions against the President’s use of DAP were deemed “moot and academic.”

I do not know much about legal jargon but to me it was strange reasoning. The petitions were not just on the future use of DAP but about the concept of DAP used at any time done could be justified as constitutional.

 It implied the trial could be stopped by simply saying “we won’t do it again, your honors.” Or that a crime committed today ceases to be a crime tomorrow if the criminal promises not to do that again. Is that what motivated the budget secretary when he ended his discourse that “the DAP no longer existed.”

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The trouble is there is a provision in the Constitution specifically prohibiting President Aquino and his government for having created the DAP (not counting for what it was used because that would make it political).

 So when the final hearing on the constitutionality of DAP is heard on Feb. 18 it will have to reckon with this specific provision of the Constitution. It will no longer be about arguments on whether one is for or against the Aquino government.

The text is stated clearly in black and white that no political strategy can escape. Neither can the Supreme Court justices wiggle their way out of interpreting that text unless they are willing to be criticized for not knowing the Constitution, let alone not knowing how to read.

It was flashed on huge screens both on the left and right side for the audience to read. The text is found in Section 25 of Article VI on the Legislative Department.

“(5) No law shall be passed authorizing any transfer of appropriations; however, the President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the heads of Constitutional Commissions may, by law, be authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.”  A word —  cross-border — transferring “savings from one department to another,  was introduced when Abad and Jardeleza during the discussions spoke to justify what they called “cross-border transferring.”

This item in the Constitution was preceded by items (3) and (4).

“(3) The procedure in approving appropriations for the Congress shall strictly follow the procedure for approving appropriations for other departments and agencies.

“(4) A special appropriations bill shall specify the purpose for which it is intended, and shall be supported by funds actually available as certified by the National Treasurer, or to be raised by a corresponding revenue proposal therein.

There could be no defense for the violations against the Constitution that were made in the practice or program of Aquino’s DAP. So the consequence is pretty clear — the Supreme Court has no choice but declare that the President and his DAP practice or program (whatever his budget secretary calls it) was unconstitutional. And as Senator Miriam Defensor says, an unconstitutional act of the President is impeachable.

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By declaring the petitions moot and academic because it was no longer being done and the clear violation of a provision of the Constitution, the ball has been thrown to the people to judge. Are Filipinos prepared to accept a governance that corrupts the rule of law and ignores the Constitution?

 We are moving to a national crisis. Still there are defenders of government that conducts itself above the law. They reason that it is the price to pay to fight corruption, never mind if it has greater implications in ordinary people’s lives. I am convince that the widespread lawlessness we see all around us today is an indirect consequence of this lack of respect for the law by our highest officials.  It filters down.

As members of the National Transformation Council said to this column “corrupting the rule of law to fight corruption” is not acceptable. We should have none of it. We must protect the state from lawlessness. It would oblige good citizens to rise up if on Feb. 18, the Supreme Court skirts the inevitable conclusion that the Constitution was violated by the practice of DAP by the Aquino government whether or not it still exists.