There is something fundamentally wrong with the state of affairs in our country right now that makes it awfully hard for anyone to be neutral. I personally have tried for so long to remain objective in interpreting the news. I have always believed that no matter how flawed our justice system may be, we should always put our trust in our government and in our institutions to somehow work for us, the people. After all, if we just simply say the institutions are corrupt and we no longer honor them, we condemn our society to eternal chaos. A flawed system is better than no system at all. And so for lack of clear strategy to address fundamental system flaws, every administration for years has maintained the status quo in order not to rock the boat.
The rise of Duterte to power has rocked the boat and has disrupted the status quo. Flaws within the systems are exposed. Social classes are challenged. Power and influence struggles ensued. Simply put, Pandora’s Box was opened. As expected, this impending, if not already ongoing, drastic change has brought our nation dangerously close to anarchy. The play of partisan politics is now at its height and its machineries are hard at work to capture the bigger slice of the supporter’s pie that is the masses. After all, in any mobocracy, the side that holds popular support and that yaps the loudest wins.
I cannot help but ask, “Why the hell did this president open Pandora’s Box and not follow the footsteps of those wise leaders before him?” I say “wise leaders before him” because for lack of a clear strategy, it is almost always prudent and wise not to rock the boat. For him to have challenged the status quo, he better have a clear strategy to address its fundamental weaknesses. And although we are not privy to his strategy in reforming the existing social norms, unlike his “wise” predecessors, he is the only president in the Philippines’ modern-day history who made a promise on his life to rid the nation of drugs, criminality and corruption. The strategy may not be apparent or crystal clear, but the focus and intent are and the actions are swift. He is also the only president in recent years who has made a lot of improvements in the lives of the common Filipino in his first 100 days of office. These, for me, were reasons enough to give my conditional support to this administration.
Yes, his war on drugs and criminality may be bloody and questionable at times, if not always. Yes, the institutions around him may not be at their purest. Yes, the laws he bases his rules of engagement from may not be as perfect as we would want. But at least there is action. And that is all I need from a leader – a clear and uncompromising bias for action. As for the constituency, if you are afraid of getting caught in the crossfire, the only commonsensical option is to “stay away” from the crosshairs.
I believe in a very simple rule in life, “do not get entangled in any legal affairs and you wouldn’t have to worry about being the subject of any legal proceeding.” Yes, you might still end up being a collateral damage, but its probability is proportional to the distance you put between yourself and your involvement with any legal matter. If that is difficult to understand, let me put it in simpler terms. If you don’t want to get burned, stay away from and do not play with, you guessed it – FIRE. Following that simple rule drastically decreases the probability of you becoming a collateral damage in any fire accident. If you somehow get scorched, logic only dictates that you somehow got dangerously close to it.
On the curious case of Senator de Lima, she may not be the source of fire. But the clear truth is there is fire – a damn big one! And judging by the tremendous amount of heat she seems to attract, logical thinking can only infer that she has gone dangerously too close to it. However, that is not at all the troubling part. What’s troubling is how she reacts to the situation. Any sane thinking person, unless you have the brain of a moth, would, by instinct, move away from the fire. I refuse to believe that she is dumb. She is brilliant, but the very dangerous kind.
As a lawmaker and as a member of the current government, she should be the very first person to encourage the populace to abide by the law. Advocating otherwise defeats the very purpose of being a lawmaker. Having said that, no matter how flawed the system maybe, the moment she got into the legal debacle of being linked to drugs, she should have been first to welcome being the subject of due process instead of discrediting the established laws and institutions to arbitrarily clear her name. If I were a brilliant lawyer, as many people believe de Lima is, I would not be scared of facing off with anyone, even in an uneven playing field, if I know that the truth is on my side. Discrediting the government (that funnily, she is a part of) and encouraging citizens to go against the president (again, funnily a part of the very same government she is a part of) is not only interestingly very odd but also shamelessly very selfish of any sitting senator or public official.
In any civilized society, a government official that somehow gets tainted while being in office would normally resign or take a leave of absence and focus all his/her time, effort and resources into clearing his/her name. In some societies, the disgraced official would even take his/her own life to atone for the “dishonor.” Only in the Philippines would an incumbent official go on social media when an accused, demonize the accuser(s), and then discredit the existing laws and institutions to clear his/her name. This seems to be the very clear approach that Senator De Lima has decided to take. In doing so, she has set a very dangerous precedent. As a law professional, she knows the flaws of the law and she is learned in the ways and the means at manipulating them. If she succeeds in exploiting these flaws through technicalities and through popular vote, she practically would be setting the blueprint for all lawbreakers and potential lawbreakers to circumvent the law. Here are only a few dumb ways I can think of:
- If she gets away with her petition for writ of habeas data, any person accused of doing any illegal activity gets a constitutional-right to petition for the writ of habeas data citing “persecution by the government” to stop all the elements of the law from investigating the person and getting personal information that would incriminate him/her. In any illegal activity, there is no such thing as professional or personal data. Hiding behind your right to protection of “personal data” is a guaranteed way of circumventing the law. Any person “allegedly” involved in illegal activities is innocent until proven guilty. By default, any innocent person is, and should be, protected from persecution. One need only shout, “persecution!” and all data collection against him/her stops, effectively killing any and all investigations that may otherwise find him/her guilty.
- If she gets away with “obstruction of justice” by again citing “persecution by the government” and then twisting legal words to warp “obstruction of justice” into “obstruction of persecution,” any criminal accomplice or potential criminal accomplice can also claim that he/she or his/her partner in crime is being persecuted by the government. Those persons can then get away with not honoring the summons of any institutions because they would have a basis to say that it is not “obstructing justice” but rather “obstructing persecution.”
- If she gets away with giving an “advice” to a person to effectively break the law, any criminal mastermind can then say that he/she did not order anyone under him to conduct any illegal activities. The mastermind can say he/she merely “advised” his/her employees (staff, aide, personnel or whatever you want to call it) on the profitability of the illegal business. They had freewill and by choosing to act on the advice does not make the adviser culpable. The criminal mastermind can then be acquitted of any and all culpability related to practically any illegal activity.
Now you could argue that the points I just presented are utterly absurd, stupid and dumb to the highest degree. You can argue that none of these things are arbitrary and that there are clearly written laws that classifies what fits where. You can further reason that judges and lawyers very well versed with these laws and can interpret these things better than most of us so that these laws cannot be used arbitrarily. And the funny thing is, you would be so right and I would totally and completely agree with you. But I will also again point you back to where I started off. If a lawmaker who is the supposed “expert” on the law distorts the very same law and its terminologies the way it is distorted now, if a lawmaker discredits the established institutions that are supposed to interpret and implement the law for the benefit of every citizen, if a lawmaker incites the dishonoring of the government itself, then where do we go from here? Who do we turn to? Do we still turn to the institutions, to the president, to the Senate, to the Congress, or in this case straight to De Lima? From the looks of it, based on all her statements and press conferences, she seems to be the only person who is in the side of what is “lawful, just and true” and everyone else just lies and fabricates lies.
I think it is about time that she, if she’s not willing to resign, should at least take a leave of office and clear her name first before she completely divides this nation, drive it to a constitutional crisis by burning down the credibility of its institutions and its officials, and throwing it in a complete and total ochlocracy. Is she being persecuted? She may or may not be. Is she guilty of the allegations? She may or may not be. That is not for her or for you and me to judge in as much as it is not up to a murderer to say whether he/she is guilty or not. Let the system, no matter how flawed it may be, do its job and make the proper determination. That is what is called the rule of law. She of all people should know this. If she can determine and declare that she is innocent without the courts doing so, then we have to let a murderer declare and determine his own innocence as well without taking the murderer to court. Otherwise, we are all guilty of what she and her allies call “double-speak.”
As far as the records are concerned, there are already an astonishing number of people with sworn testimonies tagging her in the drug trade. Are they factual or just pure fabrications? Again, that is for the courts to decide. If she truly is on the side of what is true and right, then I don’t think she would have any trouble providing evidence to prove her innocence. So far, all there is are her blanket denials in her official statements, press releases and privilege speeches, as well as her constant branding of everyone else not on her side as liars. She should face the music and take it head on like any true scholar of the law would.
You ask, “What then of the government that ‘acts with impunity’?” Well, give me a government that acts with impunity and I will embrace it anytime if its end goal is to protect the future of its next generations. I will choose it over and over again over another government that allow its individual members to brazenly bend and break the law for their own protection and benefit, whether it is "to clear their own name" or to further their own political or economic agenda. This choice is firmly rooted on that simple rule that I stated earlier – widen the distance between you and illegal activities and you would not have to worry about the repercussions of a government that ‘acts with impunity’ because you will be a part of the majority that it tries to protect. We are still a nation largely made up of good-hearted and law-abiding citizens of our country and of this world. We should not be scared of a government that cracks down on drugs, criminality and corruption even if it is done with so-called “impunity” if it aims to protect those of us that respect the law.
Personally, I feel as a citizen that my rights are now more protected than ever compared to previous administrations. But I am a conformist, at least generally, so it is only rational for me to feel this way. Had I been a maverick who loves to challenge the law and makes a habit of circumventing regulations for my own gains or benefit, it would only be sane for me to be scared of a government that cracks down on any illegal activities – regardless of the methodologies it employs to influence the result that it wants for the good of the many.
Are we regressing to a government whose principal policy supports the mindset of an “end that justifies the means”? I suppose one could see it that way. I choose to see it as a progression from previous governments whose principal policy is that of futility, inaction and indifference.
This is, quite honestly, the best government the law-abiding Filipinos has ever had in the past couple of decades. This is a government worth rallying to and this is me openly voicing my support to this President, my president. I love Philippines and I support my government!
As for Senator de Lima, I really could not care less if you are innocent or guilty. You bend the law to its breaking point as you wage war to clear your name at the expense of throwing this nation to the darkest depths of chaos and lawlessness, with "human rights" as your sword and "women's rights" as your shield. This nation is bigger than you and the Filipino people is more important that your name. Do you really want to serve this nation and its people? If you do, spare the nation, resign and clear your name first before you ride your white horse to fight evil. This is my unsolicited "advice" to you – #DELIMARESIGN
This is my standpoint and I firmly stand by my “advice.”
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