Seares: Castration with consent

“THE court cannot allow a castration of a vital part of the checks and balance enshrined in the Constitution, even if (Congress) suicidally consents to it .”

--Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, in his separate opinion on DAP, which concurred with the 13-0 ruling that it was unconstitutional

CASTRATION is destructive. Applied to a human being, it removes testicles or ovaries, depriving one "of essential vigor or significance."

As metaphor, castration -- which is how Justice Carpio compares the violence of DAP on congressional power -- "mutilates, expurgates, subjugates, emasculates."

One can't imagine castrating Congress's power of the purse but the figure of speech aims to summon "the horror" of the violation.

Yet, Carpio says, Congress "suicidally consents" to the assault, which must make it worse than an act of rape. In rape, consent rules out the crime, though not when the victim is a child or of unsound mind. And legislators agreeing to the castration are not children.

Consent was evident even after the crime was done, after the high tribunal had declared DAP unconstitutional, during the July 24 Senate committee hearing on the controversy.

Redeem Senate

Two senators led and guided Budget Secretary Butch Abad in defending the act of outrage. Not unlike holding up bloody balls and coaching the butcher to say he did it for the country.

One willing victim, Senate President Franklin Drilon, on the eve of PNoy's Sona, ignored the irony when he urged fellow senators "to redeem" the Senate's name.

Bullock. I refer to the steer or castrated bull.

(paseares@gmail.com)

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