Footnote to a farce October 30, 2006

THE DISINFORMATION WAS FLYING THICK and fast Tuesday night. I got a number of text messages saying the idiotically named “Sigaw ng Bayan”—“Sigaw ni Joe” was more like it—had prospered, the Supreme Court voting to give it life near the Day of the Dead 10-5. Weeks ago, a friend had told me he had it on good authority that the justices were near-unanimous in their detestation of it. I wondered what had happened. I was tempted to call him until I got conflicting messages about the figures. The messages clearly carried the imprint of government’s (and its allies’) favorite pastime, which is lying. I figured I’d wait.

Up until the morning of Wednesday, friends of mine were texting me angrily that the justices had lived up, or down, to public distrust, as revealed by the SWS a couple of days earlier—the public apparently did not think the Supreme Court would vote right on this wrong—and felt oppressed by it. But if Sigaw’s proponents thought they could railroad the Court by this ruse, well, maybe they didn’t completely think wrong. I was under the impression the voting would not be close at all, and 8-7 is as close (a shave) as it comes. But in a democracy, whatever remains of it in this country, the embers now feebly glowering in a cold wind, all it takes is 50 percent plus one to carry a vote.

It’s not 15-0, as was the case with 1017, EO 464 and CPR, but I’ll take it. Which brings me to the same two points I raised when the Supreme Court voted to put an end to those wretched impositions—or at least put a legal barrier against them as it hasn’t really stopped them—some months ago.

The first is a deep appreciation of what it has done. I did wonder at one point if the cynical predictions by some friends that Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban would crumble at crunch time—his position on 1017, etc. apparently being merely an attempt to score points with the public so that he could uphold Charter change later on—would come true. Panganiban has debunked that completely. Call it principle, call it keeping an eye to posterity, call it even political ambition, I don’t mind. In these days where counting blessings instead of sheep can keep you awake all night as you will scarcely be able to use all your fingers, I’ll take that blessing with much gratefulness and gratitude.

Doubly so in light of the pressures Joe de V and GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) put to bear on the justices. Not least through (expensive) full-page newspaper ads cajoling them to heed their cry. I wonder where they got the money. Though while at this, I’m not so sure that GMA’s heart was really into it. Her endorsement of their cause looked more like a quid pro quo for the things they had done for her, but she didn’t particularly care whether the “quo” was forthcoming or not. Why should she? She has three more years, barring the citizens’ sudden recovery of their wits or moral values, whichever they’ve lost more, to look for options to extend power. Oh, yes, she will. So why should she be anxious to pave the way for Joe de V to barge into Malacañang with a welcome mat waiting at the end of it?

But the pressure was still tremendous, and for that the justices who stood their ground deserve utmost commendation. Panganiban has already scored 4-0 against Malacañang, a thing nobody seriously thought possible. He has, not a little surprisingly, turned the Supreme Court into a bulwark of sanity amid the swirling madness. That Court now stands as a formidable obstacle against the tyrannical manipulations of the thuggish minds in GMA’s Palace and Joe de V’s House.

That brings me to the second point, which is how we’ve allowed ourselves to reach such a desperate pass—just doing the right thing, the sane thing, the commonsensical thing now takes on the aspect of epic heroism. The Supreme Court ruling, apparently penned by Antonio Carpio, trenchantly called the Cha-cha bid a “fraud” and resolved that the justices would not allow themselves to be used in a “grand deception” of the people. I grant that calls for applause, but does that really say anything the public does not already know? Or know beyond any shadow of doubt? But of course, it is a grand deception, the sigaw emanating only from the pit of the congressmen’s fevered brains. Or, as Jejomar Binay pointed out, from the hollow spaces deep beneath Makati’s cemeteries, with many of its Sigaw petition’s signatories currently and permanently residing there.

There was never any argument about Cha-cha’s merits or lack of them. It was just a crass attempt by a selfish few to bend the country to their will, no more and no less than Malacañang’s attempt to unseat Binay presumably for hiring ghost employees. It wasn’t a question of law, it was a question of force. It wasn’t a question of wit, it was a question of will. It wasn’t a question of discernment, it was a question of fortitude. There was nothing there to resolve with the head, there was everything there to resolve with the heart. Thankfully, the Court did the right thing, the sane thing, the commonsensical thing.

But that still leaves us with the question: Are we simply going to be content fending off the mind-boggling exactions of this government? Are we simply going to be content preventing GMA from unleashing 1017, EO 464, CPR, Cha-cha and whatever new Halloween horror enters her head? Are we simply going to plunge into drunken revelry and toast to our victories after stopping this government from ousting a duly elected mayor, scrapping a duly constituted Constitution and massacring duly instituted journalists and political activists? Has that become the summum bonum of our existence? Has that become the supreme expression of our national ambition?

Or will we go further and do something about the source of the bane?

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