The Beekeeper
The Beekeeper
BY PET MELLIZA
SC can redeem self
The Supreme Court can still redeem its reputation by reconsidering its status quo ante order on the Congress, virtually stopping it in its initiatory tracks of impeaching Ombudsman Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez.
With that controversial order for the Lower House to turn back the clock before Rep. Niel C. Tupas, Jr. (LP, 5th district, Iloilo), chair of the committee on justice, threw the monkey wrench on Madame Gutierrez, the High Tribunal forfeited a very rare opportunity to redeem its tarnished reputation as an “Arroyo Court”.
Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ who holds a master of law degree and a professor at the Ateneo College of Law called the highest court of the land the “Arroyo Court”. Yours truly can’t add to that. Fr. Bernas is among the few legal luminaries who don’t hesitate to chide anybody in his column at the PDI, like Madame Gutierrez, his student in Ateneo Law and the members of the judiciary, many of them also his former students.
We don’t know when, if ever, the High Court would reverse itself but hopefully, it would come soon and fast because the longer Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez stays in the Office of the Ombudsman the longer the agony of the Filipino people.
When Atty. Joenar Pueblo, legal officer of Rep. Tupas, informed me he would be slapping impeachment charges on Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez, I was imagining a better Philippines ahead, particularly, the culture of impunity being shaken off its foundation.
Gutierrez was named to her present post by Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for all reasons except to protect the Filipino people. Her subsequent acts show that he betrayed her constitutional mandate as “protector of the people”. She failed to act, much less investigate motu proprio, the graft and corruption complaints against the President, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo (who happened to be her classmate at Ateneo Law), and members of the royal family who were linked to multi-million peso scandals like the GTE-ZTE deal, the fertilizer scam, the Diosdado Macapagal Highway, etc.
GMA and her royal family plundered the Philippine treasury but Ombudsman Gutierrez abetted the broad daylight robbery by her inaction and deliberate efforts to whitewash it, the way she de facto reversed the Supreme Court ruling in the P2 billion election automation scandal by dismissing the complaint against Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos despite the finding of the High Court that there was probable cause to indict him.
In late 2006, Gutierrez signed more than 3,000 decisions ordering the dismissal from service of elective officials for corruption. There was no thorough investigation; the decisions were rigged and aimed to cripple the opposition in the forthcoming May 2007 elections. Among the victims of her fabricated decisions were then Iloilo Gov. Niel D. Tupas, Sr., SP Domingo Oso, Jr., and SP Cecilia Capadosa.
Her two orders of dismissal on the three were signed in December 2006 and “served” on January 17, 2007. I put quotation marks on the word because the service of the decisions was invalid; the copies that reached her victims were all photocopies, not originals.
Despite that, she still ordered the immediate execution of her orders of dismissal which nearly led to a tragic end as it was entrusted to a company of hoodlums in PNP ranger uniforms who stormed the Iloilo Capitol Building on January 17, 2007 to flush her victims out and dump them in jail. Her victims were saved in the afternoon by a TRO from the Court of Appeals but even securing that relief was already an ordeal because Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez served them mere photocopies which were inadmissible as an attachment to an appeal.
More than one-half of the current Supreme Court consists of Arroyo appointees. Without necessarily scrutinizing the moral moorings of the appointees, it is a given that GMA named them to the Highest Court of the land for reasons personal to her, particularly, the protection she and members of her family badly needed after she stepped down from power.
Under the GMA regime, the AFP was emboldened to throw its weight around in the name of promoting peace and order. GMA’s hands are bloodied with more than 1,000 persons, mostly activists, murdered and more than 200 forcibly disappeared. Her armed minions carried out such anti-people policy brazenly because of the culture of impunity bred by her government, among which was the Office of the Ombudsman.
As “protector of the people” Ombudsman Gutierrez had the obligation to protect, well, people, not just properties, but she turned a blind eye on the massive human rights violations committed by her appointing power.
It’s not yet late for the High Court to redeem its tarnished reputation and thus, prove to all and sundry, that it is indeed the court of last resort in the land, the final refuge for victims of injustice. Thus, prove critics wrong for having tagged it “Arroyo Court”.
BY PET MELLIZA
SC can redeem self
The Supreme Court can still redeem its reputation by reconsidering its status quo ante order on the Congress, virtually stopping it in its initiatory tracks of impeaching Ombudsman Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez.
With that controversial order for the Lower House to turn back the clock before Rep. Niel C. Tupas, Jr. (LP, 5th district, Iloilo), chair of the committee on justice, threw the monkey wrench on Madame Gutierrez, the High Tribunal forfeited a very rare opportunity to redeem its tarnished reputation as an “Arroyo Court”.
Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ who holds a master of law degree and a professor at the Ateneo College of Law called the highest court of the land the “Arroyo Court”. Yours truly can’t add to that. Fr. Bernas is among the few legal luminaries who don’t hesitate to chide anybody in his column at the PDI, like Madame Gutierrez, his student in Ateneo Law and the members of the judiciary, many of them also his former students.
We don’t know when, if ever, the High Court would reverse itself but hopefully, it would come soon and fast because the longer Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez stays in the Office of the Ombudsman the longer the agony of the Filipino people.
When Atty. Joenar Pueblo, legal officer of Rep. Tupas, informed me he would be slapping impeachment charges on Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez, I was imagining a better Philippines ahead, particularly, the culture of impunity being shaken off its foundation.
Gutierrez was named to her present post by Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for all reasons except to protect the Filipino people. Her subsequent acts show that he betrayed her constitutional mandate as “protector of the people”. She failed to act, much less investigate motu proprio, the graft and corruption complaints against the President, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo (who happened to be her classmate at Ateneo Law), and members of the royal family who were linked to multi-million peso scandals like the GTE-ZTE deal, the fertilizer scam, the Diosdado Macapagal Highway, etc.
GMA and her royal family plundered the Philippine treasury but Ombudsman Gutierrez abetted the broad daylight robbery by her inaction and deliberate efforts to whitewash it, the way she de facto reversed the Supreme Court ruling in the P2 billion election automation scandal by dismissing the complaint against Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos despite the finding of the High Court that there was probable cause to indict him.
In late 2006, Gutierrez signed more than 3,000 decisions ordering the dismissal from service of elective officials for corruption. There was no thorough investigation; the decisions were rigged and aimed to cripple the opposition in the forthcoming May 2007 elections. Among the victims of her fabricated decisions were then Iloilo Gov. Niel D. Tupas, Sr., SP Domingo Oso, Jr., and SP Cecilia Capadosa.
Her two orders of dismissal on the three were signed in December 2006 and “served” on January 17, 2007. I put quotation marks on the word because the service of the decisions was invalid; the copies that reached her victims were all photocopies, not originals.
Despite that, she still ordered the immediate execution of her orders of dismissal which nearly led to a tragic end as it was entrusted to a company of hoodlums in PNP ranger uniforms who stormed the Iloilo Capitol Building on January 17, 2007 to flush her victims out and dump them in jail. Her victims were saved in the afternoon by a TRO from the Court of Appeals but even securing that relief was already an ordeal because Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez served them mere photocopies which were inadmissible as an attachment to an appeal.
More than one-half of the current Supreme Court consists of Arroyo appointees. Without necessarily scrutinizing the moral moorings of the appointees, it is a given that GMA named them to the Highest Court of the land for reasons personal to her, particularly, the protection she and members of her family badly needed after she stepped down from power.
Under the GMA regime, the AFP was emboldened to throw its weight around in the name of promoting peace and order. GMA’s hands are bloodied with more than 1,000 persons, mostly activists, murdered and more than 200 forcibly disappeared. Her armed minions carried out such anti-people policy brazenly because of the culture of impunity bred by her government, among which was the Office of the Ombudsman.
As “protector of the people” Ombudsman Gutierrez had the obligation to protect, well, people, not just properties, but she turned a blind eye on the massive human rights violations committed by her appointing power.
It’s not yet late for the High Court to redeem its tarnished reputation and thus, prove to all and sundry, that it is indeed the court of last resort in the land, the final refuge for victims of injustice. Thus, prove critics wrong for having tagged it “Arroyo Court”.
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