Terrorizing the High Court

The Chief Justice of the land was his usual candid self when he admitted that the justices are being subjected to political pressure to decide immediately on the petitions on charter change one way or the other. But even as the Arroyo administration denies to the high heavens that it has made overtures to the justices, the political reality today points to her fingerprints in the cookie jar. Clearly, she is out to collect the most important IOU notes, having appointed 10 of the justices to their posts, and she is not the least coy about it.  Her recent public statement stressing the urgency of charter change notwithstanding the pending petitions before the High Court smacks of the highest kind of political terrorism.
   

There is no doubt that there is unanimity on both sides of the political fence that a constitutional change is needed to hasten economic growth in the country. Foremost in our politicians’ legitimate agenda is opening up land and media ownership to foreigners in keeping with global developments. This is what President Gloria Arroyo continues to harp on but it’s no secret that she and her cohorts want it for a clearly different and bigger political agenda. She wants a constitution that will ensure complete, total and unimpeded hold to autocratic political power guaranteed with lifetime immunity from legal suits. How so? Let us count the ways.

The President issued P.P 1017 to curtail freedom of expression guaranteed by our constitution. She marshaled her political allies not only to crush two attempts to make her account for her alleged cheating in the 2005 elections but to have the COMELEC commissioners confronted for documented massive cheating that made her proclamation possible. She issued E.O. 464 to prevent her cabinet members and military generals to account to the people through the Senate for their illegal activities. She continues to assign retired military and police generals to government posts traditionally reserved for bureaucrats. She refuses to be confronted by human rights bodies for the unprecedented number of political killings in the country, targeting peasants, journalists and the religious. She refuses to have her closest allies investigated for documented accounts of corruption and yet quickly suspends political foes for the littlest charges of corruption.

The First Gentleman is a candidate for the Guinness World of Records as the only presidential spouse in the world who has filed the most number of libel suits against journalists. He used the resources of the Presidency to complete the cover-up of his Jose Pidal scandal. Reports of heightened smuggling and illegal gambling activities continue to be linked to the man behind the President.    

Now comes Mrs. Arroyo telling the Supreme Court to help her “slay the dragon of politics as usual because politics dominates our lives way out of proportion to the real needs of the people and a change in politics must be accompanied by a change in our system of government.”

We pray the High court that has so far consistently demonstrated its true independence will not fail the nation now by finally succumbing to the most relentless, vicious and dangerous kind of political terrorism that the nation has ever known.

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