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Monday, October 27, 2003
Amante: Congress is bad for my constitution
By ISOLDE D. AMANTE
I AM no longer angry at the members of the House of Representatives who signed the second impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. I am beyond that.
Anger is a newly hatched chick shivering in the cold compared to what flails and gnaws at my insides whenever I think of what these brazen men and women of the House have done.
A friend, my designated Voice of Reason, warned me not to write about the impeachment. Truckloads of newsprint will have been spent dissecting the fiasco before the weekend is over, he pointed out. “Try not to take it as a Cebuana.”
Very well, I tried. I read the resolutions to summon the chief justice to the House. I also read Chief Justice Davide’s letter, which carefully pointed out how the House inquiry on the Judiciary Development Fund (JDF) violates the Constitution.
There is nothing at all in that letter—all 5,204 words of it—that smacks of arrogance. What it is, is a politely worded explanation of some basic principles that you’d expect a reasonably sane person, or even a congressman with an IQ hovering at room temperature, to understand. These principles are: separation of powers, the independence of the courts and fiscal autonomy for the judiciary.
“To allow Congress, a separate branch of government, to pay heed to such alleged `persistent clamor’ (for the House inquiry) is to allow it to tread into, and run roughshod over, the Court’s constitutional authority,” the chief justice pointed out. You cannot get any clearer than that. The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.
After listening to the Voice of Reason, and doing everything I could to give the House the benefit of the doubt, I am now down to this: What the HELL were those honorable members of Congress thinking?
Reader, I know you’ll understand this anger. After all, many of us do not have the fortunes of Jules Ledesma, Joseph Durano and Juan Miguel Zubiri, who signed the impeachment complaint. We do not have their wealth to insulate us from the shocks our economy so often takes.
Many of us do not crave Danding Cojuangco’s approval the way William Felix Fuentebella apparently does, and would gladly live our lives not having anything at all to do with Danding. Certainly, many of us have a firmer grasp of reality than Didagen Dilangalen does.
As a constituent of Cebu’s sixth district, however, I am particularly aggrieved that Rep. Nerissa Soon-Ruiz signed up for this assault on the Constitution. My vote helped get her into Congress. My taxes help keep her there. And this is the kind of representation I get?
Fiscal autonomy for the judiciary happens to be a key feature of the 1987 Constitution—which Davide, if you’ll recall, helped draft. The Supreme Court is left to decide, free from partisan meddling, how to allocate its resources. After all, it knows best what the courts need and can best meet these needs if it is granted both flexibility and autonomy.
True, the Constitution gives Congress a role in the judiciary’s funds. But that role is clear: “Appropriations for the judiciary may not be reduced by the legislature below the amount appropriated for the previous year…”
How, you ask, is accountability guaranteed? Within 30 days from the opening of each regular session of Congress, the Supreme Court is required to submit an annual report to Congress and the President, on the operations and activities of the judiciary.
But we all know it wasn’t accountability the members of the House had in mind when they went after Davide. We ought to make them pay for putting their political survival above everything else. God help the prosecutors the House will send to confront Davide—they’ll need it after the public is through with them.
And God help this country.
(ida@sunstar.com.ph) |
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