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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Why waste political capital on De Lima?

DEMAND AND SUPPLY
By Boo Chanco
The Philippine Star

Those in the know say that P-Noy is focused on getting Justice Secretary Leila de Lima into the JBC shortlist because he is bent on appointing her the next Chief Justice. It is difficult to see why P-Noy wants to do this but once he gets his mind focused on something, it may be impossible to get him to think otherwise.

I have nothing against Ms de Lima. In fact she does seem to be among the more hardworking of P-Noy’s cabinet. But there is a time and a place for everything. Just in her early 50s, she isn’t quite Chief Justice material yet. In street language, hindi pa hinog para sa posisyon. And think that if she gets appointed now, she will be the face of the Supreme Court for close to 20 years until she retires at age 70.

I think P-Noy wants a friendly face in the Supreme Court as we can understand every President would want. That is why he wanted Frank Drilon to be Chief Justice. But Frank knew better than to agree. Given his role in the impeachment trial, Frank knew such an appointment would be politically difficult for him and P-Noy. So Frank declined also to protect P-Noy. But in his disappointment, P-Noy turned to Ms. De Lima.

Given the history of the Corona impeachment and her role in it, de Lima’s appointment is probably the most “in your face” defiance of the High Court as an institution that P-Noy can make. P-Noy doesn’t have to do that now. After that impeachment trial, statesmanship is called for to get everyone working for a single objective of dispensing justice. Even appointing Senior Justice Tony Carpio, Corona’s arch enemy, isn’t half as bad for the SC as an institution as appointing De Lima.

With the IBP refusing to dismiss outright Ms. De Lima’s disbarment cases, the Palace is now mustering all their influence on the JBC members to get her on the short list. But present regulations rule that out. That means the Palace must make a mockery of the independence of the JBC by putting extreme pressure to break those rules for Ms. De Lima. That is sad because this administration is supposed to be as different from the previous ones as night is to day.

Even among P-Noy’s supporters, I share the sentiment of many who are rather disappointed Malacanang has openly interfered with the Constitutional selection process for the next Chief Justice. As P-Noy himself admitted to Malacañang reporters, Palace lawyers are helping Ms. De Lima clear up her problems with the Integrated Bar. Edwin Lacierda denying the Palace is doing anything makes it worse for credibility in the light of P-Noy’s slip of the tongue admission.

It is rather shameful. This moro moro with the JBC selection process is something we despised when Ate Glue was the Palace tenant. I am sure of one thing: this is not the pagbabago we are being told supposedly reigns today.

There is a need to remind P-Noy that the reason people supported the impeachment of Mr. Corona is not to give more powers to President Noynoy to tilt the balance of power in favor of the Executive over the Judiciary that’s contrary to what is prescribed in the Constitution. We wanted Corona impeached to have an independent judiciary… and that’s defined as not being beholden to anyone or anything but the pursuit of justice. I remember P-Noy saying something like that too at that time.

I am not saying Ms. De Lima is not capable of being independent. But in our realm of things, perception is a large part of reality if not reality itself. Moving on from being P-Noy’s alter ego to CJ is quite a jump. That will make people wonder if she isn’t P-Noy’s Corona. We didn’t go through the national agony of impeaching Ate Glue’s Corona to install P-Noy’s De Lima.

P-Noy will throw out whatever moral victory we won with Corona’s impeachment if his appointed replacement is less than credible. With all due respect to Ms. De Lima, she will be working against the headwinds of credibility as CJ. Her appointment will also negatively affect P-Noy’s credibility.

The public has placed so much hope on the selection of the right person to be the next Chief Justice. The public has been exposed to the JBC selection process and people now have a good idea of the capabilities of the candidates like never before. As such, everyone knows there are indeed, better candidates, those who have better qualifications and experience for the job.

The last thing we need at this point is public disappointment with P-Noy because of a less than stellar choice for Chief Justice. The cost in terms of P-Noy’s political capital would be significant. It isn’t as if he has a surplus of such political capital to squander given the consistent decline in his approval rating.

I, for one, still hope and pray for P-Noy’s success. We owe it to ourselves. I am happy to see P-Noy has grown more confident on the job through the past couple of years. But he must sometimes be protected from himself. He must be told to be extremely careful about this appointment. Given the national trauma of the impeachment trial, this is probably the most important appointment P-Noy will make. He simply cannot screw this one up.

RH bill

The debate on the RH bill had also been vigorous in an e-group of economists. Here is one interesting and informative input by one leading economist (who I shall not name for the time being as I have not obtained his consent to use his name. But because of so much misinformation around, I thought it would be useful to share this input now).

Actually, the papal position on the use of modern contraception IS THE MINORITY OPINION among Roman Catholics. Let me quote from a website that strongly supports the minority opinion:

“When a vote was taken on June 20, 1966, of the 15 prelate members of the commission who were present, nine of the 15 bishops voted in favor of change. In addition, 12 of the 19 theological experts supported change, as did almost all of the lay advisory members. Sadly, even Paul VI’s personal theologian, Bishop Carlo Colombo, made clear that he believed there might be contraceptive methods consistent with the Church’s moral tradition.

“Commission member Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Kraków was prevented from attending the sessions because of obstacles put in place by the Polish authorities. No doubt he would have voted in the minority.” (from http://www.zenit.org/article-32545?l=english: Father Ford, Paul VI and Birth Control)

In short, don’t think papal infallibility applies on this issue. It is also worth noting that the debate then was on the use of contraception by Roman Catholics in rich countries.

The arguments for modern contraception become even stronger when it is the poor in poor countries like the Philippines who will be given access to the modern methods. This is because, like Father Tanseco and Fr. Georges Piron, I think 100 percent reliance on NFP is quite difficult. (However, unlike the two priests, I am speaking from personal experience).

Those who find it easy to use NFP should of course use it. But those who find it difficult (e.g., women with irregular menstrual cycle or are married to uncooperative husbands who want sex on demand, especially when they are drunk), should be given other options.

I don’t know what the real agenda of the most vocal RH supporters are. But I support the RH bill because it will significantly increase and improve the poor’s access to contraceptive methods that millions of non-poor Roman Catholic Filipinos are already using.

Let’s do our best to remove coercive provisions, if there are any. But I think it would be bad for the poor and the country if the poor are told that they should have more babies than they want if they are not lucky or disciplined enough to make NFP an effective family planning method.

Well… here is one issue where it is worthwhile for P-Noy to use some of his political capital because the results could well contribute to something good for the country.

Headache

A guy is out with buddies – has a few drinks – is feeling a little bit frisky but, true to his wife, goes home.

He finds her sound asleep in bed with her mouth wide open, so he gets two aspirin and drops them in her mouth.

She starts to choke, but recovers and asks – “What the hell did you put in my mouth?”

He says, “Two aspirin.”

She replies, “BUT I DON’T HAVE A HEADACHE!”

He says, “That’s all I wanted to hear!!.”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco

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