What do you know: after the Supreme Court’s unanimous 13-0 ruling declaring the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) as unconstitutional, President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III was silent for a good two weeks. But now it can be told that he was preparing for his counter attack and that’s exactly what happened last Monday when he hit back at the Supreme Court on nationwide TV. The Empire strikes back!
I don’t have to reprint the not-so-veiled threat that P-Noy sent to Supreme Court Justices…that they were courting a possible clash between the Executive and the Legislative branch. So now the whole damn DAP thing is the fault of the Supreme Court?
As if on cue and in Darth Vader fashion… suddenly the Yellow lapdogs of P-Noy are now hounding the Supreme Court seeking repeal of a law that created the Judiciary Development Fund (JDF), which they now dubbed as the SC’s pork barrel. Without a doubt… this is Malacañang going on the PR offensive vs the Supreme Court. So will the SC Justices cower in fear of losing their JDF? We’ll soon find out.
Then all of a sudden the once silent Iloilo Rep. Neil Tupas, House committee on justice chairman, sounded like an angry Doberman showing his canine fealty to P-Noy and snarled back at the Supreme Court saying that their ruling on the DAP was “too legalistic” and “narrow minded.” Wow! We’ve got one Yellow blooded “open-minded” Congressman from Iloilo and 13 narrow-minded Justices of the Supreme Court? Hah!
Hmmm, now it reminds me…whatever happened to that P50 million mansion that the Daily Tribune bannered that Tupas was building in Xavierville Subdivision in Quezon City? While Rep. Tupas denied this report, there was no real investigation on this issue, whether it was true or not? So what’s the score here? Does he really have the money for this house?
Come now…we’ve gotten a lot of rulings from the Supreme Court that we were not happy about…like their ruling on the Reproductive Health Law…but we accepted their verdict for the simple reason that they are the court of last resort. Above all, when we took up Law, one of the fundamental jobs of the Supreme Court is they interpret the law, while the Executive Branch implements the law and the Legislative Branch enacts our laws including the National Budget under the General Appropriations Act (GAA).
In my book, DAP under the Executive Branch blatantly usurped the Legislative authority of the House of Representatives, but since this Congress is under the pocket of P-Noy…no one complained that their power was taken away from them. In my book, this is a dereliction of duty by our Congress, which is supposed to be independent from the Executive. What we have here is a tattered Philippine Democracy!
Appearing on a Cebu Radio Station, Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, openly declared his support of P-Noy and that the DAP wasn’t illegal. I have no doubt that the Aquino regime is calling on their markers and everyone is showing their support to the President vs. the Supreme Court… to the point that P-Noy suggested that those who still believe in him wear Yellow Ribbons. Hmmm, P-Noy probably thinks that his Yellow Ribbon is some kind of “amulet” or “anting-anting” that gives him special powers not only to use the DAP sans the nod of Congress and to interpret our laws like the SC!
Even Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Soc Villegas went out of his way to say that Pres. Aquino is honest, yet he still demanded that DBM Secretary Abad should resign in order to “protect” the President. Perhaps Bishop Villegas has forgotten that phrase, “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are!”
Finally… people here are asking…why is P-Noy so bold in attacking the SC? If the SC doesn’t cower in fear and rejects his motion for reconsideration…what is P-Noy’s next move? Declare a State of National Emergency…another name for Martial Law or a Revolutionary government? At the height of the impeachment trial for CJ Corona, we wrote a column on May 29,2012 entitled “A P-Noy Led revolutionary gov’t in the offing?” We wrote that column because of the potential trouble that was brewing if the Senator Judges acquitted CJ Corona.
I wrote that article because I had some basis. On Nov. 22, 2011, I wrote an expose’ quoting former DND Spokesman Jess Paredes during a Kapihan at the Rembrandt Hotel boasting that a Revolutionary government was being proposed. I asked him…why was a Revolutionary government being proposed when P-Noy was at the height of his popularity? I didn’t get a reply, but Paredes was ousted a week later. So is this the “Clash of Titans” that P-Noy was preparing against the SC…that he just might call a revolutionary government and remove all the SC justices? Abangan!
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