By Reni M. Valenzuela
Stealing government money is bad. Depriving citizens of human rights is worse. But the bribery that sells truth, liberty, and justice is the absolute worst.
Inflicting injustice on any person through judicial fraud, trickery, and stealth is the greatest and most hideous anomaly or crime that can be done to humans, in the absence of war, courtesy of the avaricious and carnivorous.
Alas, it’s a crime against humanity that deserves the highest form of punishment based on the Law of all laws, according to the Book of all books. “Don’t rob the poor just because you can, or exploit the needy in court. For the Lord is their Defender. He will ruin anyone who ruins them.” -- Proverbs 22:22-23
The recent news and developments surrounding the slumbering issue of the “missing sabungeros” quickly roused me, horror-struck by what Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla said. He sounded the alarm that the mastermind of the gruesome cockfight crimes has judicial clout, known to have too much money to influence even the courts.
“The enemy is so powerful,” Remulla bemoaned. But what and who is more powerful than the truth (and God)?
The words “influence” and “powerful” in the good secretary’s statements speak volumes to me. Hence, I was led to scribble down the following piece that hopes and aims to correct what’s wrong and rotten (among other things) with us — the Filipino people, our leaders, our courts, our magistrates, our justice system, and our government.
Hindi po ba upang makamit ang katarungan, ang labanan ay sa batas, ebidensiya, katuwiran, katotohanan at karunungan? Patas, walang pagkiling at pagtatangi para sa naatasang manghusga.
Ngunit bakit nauuwi sa katiwalian at pagtutunggali ng mga “namamagitan” gamit ang kanilang kapangyarihan, pera at impluwensiya?
Allowing oneself to be influenced by “outside forces” in adjudicating cases, for any government functionary, is the worst form of corruption and crookedness.
I am talking specifically about justices, judges, prosecutors, the Ombudsman and every other high-level member of the judicial branch of our democratic institution, including lawyers.
The words “influence” and “powerful” could mean various things in the context of corrupting and robbing “justice,” but the most common practices refer to these insidious forms: bribe money, promised favors, utang na loob (debt of gratitude), big fat fees, “regular payroll,” subservience to rulers, political attachment/fanaticism, fraternity/personal connection and religious/group affiliation.
By the way, how can the Office of the Ombudsman perform its job of promoting transparency and accountability in public administration when the Ombudsman himself, Samuel Martires, is a staunch defender of confidential and intelligence funds — a significant chunk of which, the forbidden fruit or “pork barrel,” regularly goes to his office in the guise of an annual “budget”?
Talk about moral ascendancy, my dear countrymen, and you have it right there — in big, big question.
Dear honorable men and women in hallowed robes: If you cannot be upright, clean, impeccable, fair, impartial, wise, godly, compassionate, conscientious, courageous and brave, you have no business being in the judiciary or in the corridors of power, much less among those that decide court cases.
The heartless, the soulless, and the conscienceless have no place in any matter of human concern where justice is especially involved and at stake. Neither in Heaven nor Hades can they find a place fitted and suited for themselves — for who they are.
In short, be God-fearing, Light-bearer, truth-seeker, devil-slayer — incorruptible. Resist temptations and expose the tempters.
Why sentence and punish the guiltless and let the guilty go scot-free? Awful. Is the word “hellish” or “diabolic” too exaggerated a term to describe these crooked, devious, corrupt creatures?
Ergo, if you are one among such creatures in “public service,” then you are, no doubt, a disciple of death and darkness, spreading more and more darkness, public darkness and miseries, in society and country (as you get richer) before you ultimately and unwittingly throw every soul down and away — to everlasting fire and blackness (with you) — yourselves as conduits of the wicked, modish Beelzebub on planet Earth.
What is peaceful and enjoyable about becoming filthy rich? You will carry the “load”/heaviness behind your back for the rest of your life and the “life” hereafter.
Going around the country, I have discovered some prosecutors in nine different places to be kind human beings and wise, tender, good government officials.
The good news, despite the bad news, is that there are still members of the judiciary who have been performing their jobs rightly, well and conscientiously and have been living simple, honest, heroic lives as true public servants.
I am especially blessed to have known a humble and upright Regional Trial Court judge in the person of a next-door neighbor during the first 10 years of my married life in a Quezon City apartment back in the mid-’80s until the mid-’90s.