Shameless

Take this guy Hilario Davide, the officer-in-charge of our mission to the United Nations. He wrote a letter to Malacañang dispatched from the East Side of Manhattan, warning the country that ignoring the court ruling on the Romulo Neri case "could weaken democracy".

"According to the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s judicial power includes the duty to determine whether or not there has been grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any other branch or instrumentality of the government," he pontificates from his plush Park Avenue digs maintained at great expense by taxpayers’ money. The same taxpayers’ money that has been wantonly dissipated and abused by corruption most vile.

Davide adds, "while criticisms of the court’s decisions may be allowed (they are not conditionally allowed, Mr. Former Justice – they are part and parcel of the free flow of ideas and opinions in a democratic state), such must never denigrate the decisions for they weaken not just the Supreme Court but our democratic system as well". Hello?

Isn’t the concealment of conversations and correspondences that would shed light on the accountability of and culpability therefore, of high officials in government a graver affront to, if not destructive of, the same democratic institutions? Should decisions of the Court be used to conceal crime?

Does not the 9-6 decision, as the Senate in its motion for reconsideration states, precisely increase "the dangers of presidential abuse," bringing this democracy on the "road to autocracy"?

Precisely so, the Senate appeals its case, for and in the name of truth, justice, transparency and accountability, all hallmarks of the democracy it hopes to strengthen, rather than "weaken" as Mr. Davide shamelessly cries out in defense of his Boss Woman.

This guy Davide accepted an ambassadorial assignment after he retired as Chief Justice. Never mind if he ran for public office, as mayor of Argao, or congressman of his southern Cebu district, or even senator of the realm. At least he would have placed his fate in the hands of the sovereign electorate. But apply to become Chief of the UN Mission? Isn’t that shameless enough?

Because he had to face confirmation before the Commission on Appointments, and therefrom confront a battery of questions about his fitness for his new calling, he gets Malacañang to maneuver his re-appointment when Congress was out of session, and then immediately flies to New York to take over the mission, and the Park Avenue residence in upscale and uptown Manhattan. Isn’t that even more shameless? Taking advantage of recess to sneak in without confirmation?

The Supreme Court slowly regained its independence, reversed from the controversial decisions of the Davide Court, when succeeding chiefs, Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno wisely steered it in standing up against the abuses and excesses of Malacañang. Now a tyranny of numbers has thwarted all that, and in the name of concealing what could be patent crime on the part of the president herself. And shameless Davide from his Manhattan perch cautions the people from "denigrating" the Court?

Malacañang, stung by the column of former Chief Justice Panganiban who labeled the tribunal "An Arroyo Court?", sends in a clown in the person of Hilario Davide. Shameless does as shameless wants.

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Malaya published recently a Vera Files report on massive land conversion, and all the excuses being used to convert agricultural land, the latest being the Biofuels Act, pride of the senator from Maguindanao, Juan Miguel Zubiri.

"While ordinary Filipinos face the threat of food shortages caused by dwindling agricultural land, sugar barons in Congress are preoccupied turning their vast haciendas and other lands into plantations to produce and process biofuels. One of those engaged in this move is presidential brother-in-law Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo who hurdled last month most of the government requirements needed to convert his family’s 157-hectare Hacienda Bacan in Isabela, Negros Occidental into agro-industrial uses, mainly for the production of ethanol," Vera Files reports.

Si Pidal na naman? This guy who pops in and out of the national consciousness like a bad dream? Lately he has been quoted as ridiculing the Senate’s decision to move for reconsideration of the infamous 9-6 ruling of the Supreme Court. Nangantiyaw pa si "Jose Pidal" kuno.

Now we discover that this family of alleged "marangal, maka-mahirap, napaka-busilak ang puso", as their aging toady keeps bandying around, is using all their illegitimate power to thwart the ends of social justice. Meanwhile, Pidal-Arroyo’s sister-in-law, the Boss Woman herself, says she will put a stop to land conversions because these impact negatively on her avowed goal of producing more "food on every table". He, he, he.

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Some friends told me that my column on "Holiday economics" makes sense, but it will never get adherents in a fiesta-crazy, tradition-clinging society and culture such as ours. Well, here’s one of many who think it’s about time to be more sensible.

"Your suggestions on holidays make sense", writes Nelson from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

"Here, we have a total of nine days of holiday for the whole year – National Day on September 23; then Eid-al-Fitr, four days from September 30 to October 4 (October 3 is a Friday, which is our rest day, much like Sunday there, and therefore does not count); and finally, Eid-al-Adha, from December 7 till 10.

"That’s it. Nothing in between. Simple.

"The Philippines, the island of fiestas, has a very complex system of holidays. In the Philippines, everything is complex. That may be one reason why we do not progress as a nation".

Amen to that, Nelson. Your observation is most appropriate about land so benighted.