The failure to consummate a heinous crime, like murder or rape, does not make the attempt any less heinous. Moreover, there is no guarantee that a failed attempt won’t be repeated, which explains why charges for attempted rape or frustrated murder are never dismissed for being “moot and academic.”
Likewise, the failed attempt to establish an entirely unconstitutional and illegal Bangsamoro Juridical Entity in Mindanao was tantamount to just such an attempted rape or frustrated murder on the 1987 Constitution itself — a heinous crime prevented only by a last-minute TRO issued by the Supreme Court, now made permanent. Ruling on the Constitutional merits of the MOA-AD in Cotabato v. GRP and finding NONE, the Supreme Court rejected Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera’s argument that the issue was now “moot and academic” just because the Palace had “dissolved” its peace panel and promised not to do it again. There is only a small difference between murder and attempted murder, but more importantly, the peace process itself cannot be “moot and academic.” Neither is the Constitution!
Among other things, the Court noted that the assailed act is not only capable of, but likely to be repeated, since the MOA-AD was intended to fulfill the “Ancestral Domain Strand” of the 2001 Tripoli Agreement. An agreement on “ancestral domain” will therefore have to be negotiated as part of that 2001 roadmap and is an integral part of the Mindanao peace process. Indeed ancestral domain is an integral part of the 1987 Constitutional itself, and several subsequent landmark laws, like the Indigenous People’s Rights Act — both of which were brazenly violated by the 2008 GRP MILF MOA-AD.
The Constitutional issues raised by the MOA-AD are NOT moot and academic because the peace process in Mindanao is NOT moot and academic, as events on the ground have amply demonstrated.
Citizens, led by bloggers Manuel L. Quezon III (The Daily Dose), Ron of the The Marocharim Experiment and FEU Law Professor Edwin Lacierda have taken the unprecedented step of “intervening” in the current impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the House of Representatives.
They advance a worthy argument. Since the Supreme Court has ruled that there was a “grave abuse of discretion” in negotiating this MOA-AD, it remains to establish WHO was ultimately responsible. Failed “consensus points” (as Devanadera calls the provisions of the MOA AD) have led to war and destruction in MIndanao and imperiled the long term prospects for peace there. Someone has definitely screwed the pooch. If these were acts of the President herself, or accomplished by alter egos with her knowledge and bidding, she ought to be impeached and removed from office.
44. The President of the Philippines, in going against the legal advice of her own officials, and in acting in a manner calculated to alarm the public, destabilize public order and security, fan the flames of ethnic and religious mistrust, behaved so irresponsibly and willfully as to render her unfit for office. For her policies, for which she is responsible and accountable, have set back the peace process, inflamed radical sentiments, fostered division and hostility among our people, caused misery and untold suffering to innocent civilians, and needlessly imperiled the lives of members of our armed forces and police, and caused great harm to the economic stability of Mindanao and the entire Philippines.
45. Indubitably, the act of respondent in authorizing the negotiation of the constitutionally infirm MOA-AD, and subsequently approving the same, establishes her blatant, willful, and flagrant disregard of our Constitution. She clearly violated the Constitution, which she swore to preserve and defend, for which, she must be impeached and brought to trial.
It would be willful hallucination to think that the buck stops with Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, who only happened to be the hapless Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process on August 5, 2008 after retiring as CSAFP just a few months before. Jesus Dureza, currently the Press Secretary, ought to be in that catbird seat instead, since he was PAPP ever since Ging Deles quit over Garci. The defense advanced by SolGen Agnes Devanadera that the President was not characteristically, even micromaniacally, involved in every detail of these negotiations with the MILF rebels, is absurd on its face given that as early as August, 2007 the President already mentioned the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity. (See a 2007 post, Ancestral Domain Regime or Bangsamorostan?)
Popularity: 6% [?]
In retrospect:
“I really don’t see why anybody should be scared if there is an ancestral domain declared for the Muslim people,” she added.”
AND WHY YOU ARE?
“Hey what about a Christian homeland? A Buddhist homeland? A Jehovah’s Witnesses homeland? A homeland for the El Shaddai? A homeland for Protestants, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Hindus, Seventh Day Adventists?”
YEAH! WHY NOT? WHO IS SCARED OF THAT?
“So this is how Al Hadj Murad, Eid Kabbalu and the MILF warlords are going to attain the same status of Sultan as Nur Misuari and the first bunch of pretenders to represent the Bangsamoro people. By being given modern encomiendas.”
I think I shall charge your Post with the fallacy of hoc ergo propter hoc for lumping things together as one.
It is the Philippine government that had “sultanized” Misuari when he was cajoled, compromised and abandoned the original stand of the MNLF. The same it has done to other “sultans” i.e. puppet local politicians like the Ampatuans, etc., who are but “magnanimous” instruments of the government to exploit their own people.
You see, narrow-minded folks like Erap did the same as you do, he lump MILF, JI, ASG together as one though he know one apart from the other, or not at all. But I am more disappointed in your case, because – i think by your “intellectual background” you are more “intellectual” than him (though he is popular than you.)You lump together Moro revolutionaries with those samanabits you call sultans in your own line of thinking!
And you had tried your best spewing ad populums in order to condition your readers of your inveterate but sophisticated prejudice against the Bangsamoro legitimate rights as distinct people (Bangsamoro is not and can never be Filipino) in their own homeland. why? I only hear those terminologies, equivocations, semantic gymnastics, etc., you have been using here from the mouths of McCain, Bush and other imperialism-minded-in-the-guise-of-global-anti-terrorism-campaign Americans.
I think, you need to tear out the image of Lincoln here for it does not suit your line of thinking or conditioned mentality. You know well Lincoln and what he fought and died for, don’t you?
But I believe that both the administration and the opposition have used the issue on MOA-AD to advance their own political interests, in battling one against the other and vise versa, at the expense of the Moro people’s legitimate interest.
Thanks to the Supreme Court, the Philippine state’s final arbiter and interpreter to make laws true to all citizens of this fabricated state, thanks to its ruling on unconstitutionality for it has reaffirmed once again the prejudicial reality that Moro people’s rights have no place in the Philippine courtyard.
Thanks for that for it but only reaffirmed the resolve of the Bangsamoro to take back what it was taken away from them.
Thanks for talking peace, about the Philippine government’s peace agenda in Mindanao in different inter-faith dialogues over the world while conducting carpet-bombing over Moro communities. Moro civilians and even Christians find the Philippine government’s peace only inside evacuation camps, only in the barrels of howitzers and bombs, only in the occupation of the military of their homes.
i am not a GMA fan nor her admirer, used to but not now.
but the issue of MOA-AD which was junked by the SC is better left to legal students and scholars and not to laymen. when laymen try to weigh in on the subject from a myopic binoculars of looking at it as akin to “frustrated rape or murder”, then we commit the fallacy of oversimplification.
“when laymen try to weigh in on the subject from a myopic binoculars of looking at it as akin to “frustrated rape or murder”, then we commit the fallacy of oversimplification.”
Humbly, Atty. jcc,
This is not about being a ‘learned lawyer’ or being a simple layman, albeit schooled and passionate student of history.
This is about being Filipinos who have every right to analyze and pass judgment on the actions of their leaders, no matter how contumacious they may be, not to mention being corrupt and drunk with messianic aspiration to hold on to power, power obtained through fraud, mind you.
JCC,
Quite literally, the “ACTS” of the Supreme Court are all pieces of English Composition.
If you like, the Supreme Court of the Philippines (SCORP) is just a very special BLOG whose posts have the force of Law.
But it cannot be denied even by lawyers, that the palaver of the Supreme Court, the endless dialogue of the Law, is entirely accessible to anyone who can read and comprehend with a modicum of intelligence and logical ability.
After all the Court itself argues not from authority but from reason and the history of its own decision making.
I challenge lawyers who are also bloggers to learn how to show your learning by being able to give the superior arguments and explanations. We are all open minded enough here to be swayed by good, powerful ideas and expressions of them.
IN your respectful direction sir!
I woke up from my deep stupor, content of the victories I had debating with these poor gentlemen here at this site when I suddenly came across another piece of poor argumentation by this man by the appropos name of “d.j.b.” or what I call “DisJointed Babbler”.
Reading his entry here makes me want to puke at the sight of him preaching,while perched in a very high pedestal. My migraine came back.
Look, mr.djb, the MOA-BJE is just a simple document that tried to resolve the Mindanao issue.And since both parties failed to sign it, no one can accuse no one of complicity,okey? How can you accuse anyone of committing a crime when there was NO act violative of the laws to speak of?
The Supreme Court has spoken and we need to respect them, okey? As a dutiful citizen of this country, you need to recognize that, my boy. What laws or charter do you want to follow? Yours? If that’s the case, then, maybe, just maybe, you go buy an island in our archiepelago and form your DJB republic.
It’s useless arguing with a simpleton.
ding,
If you analyze a legal issue from the point of view of a layman that analysis will be deficient compared to the analysis of one who studied law for some period of time.
Take for example the issue of the unsigned MOA-AD being compared as frustrated rape or murder. This analogy is off for the following reasons:
Rape is a crime against chastity while murder is a crime against person. Both have the element of “malum en se” or the criminal mind.
MOA-AD is an executive act, which if signed would not raise it to the level of a crime against person or chastity. And the executive can enter into an agreement to address the turbulent Muslim issue. Obviously the “malum en se” element is absent. We cannot impute bad faith on the Executive because the presumption is that a public duty is properly exercised and made within the ordinary and regular course of business.
Every Filipino has the right to weigh in for the correctness of any act of a government official, but for him to say that the SC has the right to junk the unsigned MOA-AD because it is not mooted since it is equivalent to frustrated murder or rape and therefore reprehensible is too much to take.
The very issue of the MOA-AD being political justifies the public’s right to weigh in on the issue because this is the political arena where the matter really belonged and should be debated and not with the court. The collective dissatisfaction of the people over the MOA-AD had pressured the Executive to back off from the plan, and the President decided not to pursue it. The court has no business meddling with it.
But the public’s right to weigh in does not justify that they weigh in recklessly using horrendous analogy and explanation that the botched MOA-AD is reprehensible because it was akin to frustrated murder or rape. Their being laymen should caution them of the possibility that they could misargue the issue and use non-legal arguments to dispose of a legal issue. :)
djb,
the above post is also for you. Peace and Cheers. :)
djb,
if you are so enamored with the SC, please don’t show your contempt to those who do not have the same feelings towards the SC, specialy me. :)
jcc,
As I said, SCORP is just a BLOG to me. Some posts are better than others. Like blogging, Supreme Court decision making is all about the creation, deployment and the clash of memes. I am not “enamored” of the Supreme Court. But they are a source of powerful, usually cogently expressed essays on matters of great importance to all citizens. There are many Supreme Court decisions I don’t agree with. That is because I do not believe there is anything final about Supreme Court decision making. Any Supreme Court can reverse or modify any past decision, within reason. Therefore it is a never ending work of redaction, of perfecting and honing the laws and their application to real world events. Like Science therefore, the Law shares a tradition of successive approximations to a grand ideal, one in search of the Truth, the other in the hope for Justice.
HIgh Priest,
You need more sleep. The Supreme Court did rule on the MOA-AD. It was an attempted murder of the Constitution. Please address my analogy. It took some time to dream it up. You should respect the Court’s decision. I do. But what follows is necessarily a question about who is responsible for the grave abuse of discretion that is not in controversy but was actually committed. We are left with the absurd conclusion that Hermogenes Esperson is guilty of grave abuse of discretion for attempting to sign the MOA. Also you really must read the decision and address the detailed reasoning of the Court about why the peace process is not moot and academic, and therefore the MOA AD issues are not moot and academic.
Else, get something stronger to put you under.
“Also you really must read the decision and address the detailed reasoning of the Court about why the peace process is not moot and academic, and therefore the MOA AD issues are not moot and academic.”
DJB, Kuyang, be assured HPoS did read the decision. Right, HPoS? In fact didn’t the decision bear your name, too? :)
Worse than being blind are those who refuse to see, and were even scolded by the justices.
BTW good sir, you said you were awakened from stupor?
Not drunken stupor I hope.
Have a restful weekend, HPoS.
BTW, Dean Magallona sends his regards.
Mimicking his style here, I’d rather opine that DJB’s own “version” or “interpretation” of the SC ruling on the unconstitutionality of MOA-AD is just like his inveterate bias over the Bangsamoro in general and her rightful claim for ancestral domain in particular.
I would rather ask why the issue on the constitutionality of the MOA-AD and the legality of the GRP panel’s action was just raised only after 11 years. I can not believe that the senate/congress and the SC were not aware of what the GRP panel had been doing since the start of the GRP-MILF peace talks in 1998. And by that, I can not also believe that the GRP panel is not required to undergo legal processes and comply with those required documents and official credentials before they can leave Philippines for the peace talk. Too, I can not believe that Senator Mar Roxas was not made aware of every time the GRP panel leaves for Malaysia nor can I believe that the GRP panel is not required by the government both to refer back and report what it shall sign and what it had signed respectively with the MILF panel when it comes back to the Philippines at the conclusion of each peace talk.
More grievously, I can not believe how the SC has been so swift to act upon Pinol’s et al quest for right to consultation when it has been remiss, let alone totally indifferent, since time immemorial over the right of the Moro people to live peacefully, let alone progressively, right in their own communities.
Mimicking again his fallacy of lumping things indiscriminately together, I do not wonder over what had transpired over MOA-AD, after all, the senate, the congress and the SC are just the same: they are the Philippine state’s arms anyway, conditioned to trail common line when it comes to the Moro issue.
What a just justice system! What a united government!
Danilo,
You have to be careful with mimicry. The ideas you are mimicking could be catching, y’know. But I firmly believe that Moros are no different from Tagalogs or Ilocanos or Cebuanos and could be part of a united nation. Unfortunately the historical claims of land and territory made for the Moros cannot be accomodated as they might wish because a subsequent history and reality has made that accomodation impossible. Christians and Moros and Lumads, whether from Luzon, Visayas or Mindanao are inextricably intermingled throughout the southern Philippines, much as they are in the rest of the Archipelago. That is simply an irreversible reality. If the MOA AD had been signed, there would surely be war and destruction on a scale yet unseen on that island.
As such, a thing like the BJE as described in the assailed MOA AD is simply an impossible fantasy. After all there are in fact 111 officially recognized Indigenous Peoples or Indigenous Cultural Communities (IPs/ICCs) in the Philippines. The historical injustices suffered by each are no worse than those any other–at least the Law makes no such distinction. Each could not be given such a separate homeland as the BJE, even though equity would seem to demand it.
Allowing the BJE to be established by the MOA AD would beg the question of why not 110 others? It’s a reduction to an absurd but inexorable conclusion that peace can only be attained by enforcing a “separate but equal” existence for our separate tribes and ethnicities. In other words–APARTHEID.
I oppose the MOA AD and BJE on that account. Not because I have anything whatsoever against the Bangsamoro, who are indistinguishable to me from Igorots or Ilongos or any other archipelagic people.
I think we must judge the content of the individual man’s character, not the color of his skin or the gong of his Religion.
“Each could not be given such a separate homeland as the BJE, even though equity would seem to demand it.”
But why? Why can’t that be in your own premise? Aside from being ruled out by SC as unconstitutional, what is your moral or just basis of your egoism not to consider the Moro people’s rights to live their own way?
Is it just for a man to impose a fabricated fatherhood towards a boy who has come to realize that such faking father can never treat him truly as a son in exact opposite way he keeps on telling him?
“Allowing the BJE to be established by the MOA AD would beg the question of why not 110 others?”
What is wrong with these (uncomplaining) 110 others when they do not find any differences among themselves and the Philippine state? (But don’t they, really?) Shall they be affected with the granting, neigh, return of the BJE to the Moro people? And what is wrong with them comes a time when, out of discontent over their discontents, these 110 others shall assert their own ancestral domains? Shall it not be an outright APARTHEID when the Philippine state shall denied them of it and continue instead to impose itself upon them?
danilo,
I guess what you would call my philosophical position is this. I believe that the adoption of more or less democratic constitutions in 1898, 1935, 1972, and 1987 abrogated and abolished the previous imperial, sultanic, regal, pontifical and colonial regimes.
Under democracy, the distinctions you seek to re-establish-based on religion, language, ethnicity, tribal affiliation, or other discriminant have been declared anathema and unconstitutional.
All men are created equal…we hold that truth to be self-evident. As such citizens are equal before the law as individuals and may expect equal protection under that self-same law.
What you espouse however, is not apparently democracy. You profess–or so it seems–a preference for apartheid, in which human beings are to be judged not by the content of their character and lawful behavior, but on the color of their skin, the provenance of their ancestors, the gong of their religion or the speech of their tongue.
Indeed, you distinguish only between the Muslim faithful and the Kuffar, the Other?
You have no interest in Democracy and the principle of religious freedom?
You want a fundamentalist Islamic State in Mindanao?
Dean,
“If you like, the Supreme Court of the Philippines (SCORP) is just a very special BLOG whose posts have the force of Law.”
Hah! That’s one hell of a pittoresque analogy but I like it.
danilo, “return of the BJE to the Moro people”?
such arrogance. note that the BJE enroaches on lumad lands… and as has been pointed out by the lumads themselves, they do NOT consider themselves Borg — MILF Moro, i mean.
in the GRP case, it was trying to find a solution to a longstanding problem. The new complaint says that the president: “blatant, willful, and flagrant disregard” of the constitution.
my question is this: isn’t the govt doing (trying to do) its job by trying to solve a longstanding problem, and the SC is doing its job by confirming/clarifying the paramters in which the executive must work in? isn’t that how the system works? checks and balances?
The constitution must be interpreted, and sometimes the interpretation of the executive can be wrong (as judged by the SC), hence the SC is tasked to be the final interpreter.
in this case, the SC has said that the executive was wrong RE the MOA-AD case. fine.
But why is this a willful and blatant disregard of the constitution that behooves impeachment?
if so, does that mean that everytime the executive’s reading of the constitution is rejected by the SC, the executive must be impeached?
if so, thats fine by me.
i am wondering now, how many decisions of the executive has been called unconstitutional? and whether impeachment was ever the proffered solution?
isn’t this a little extreme however? Moving away from the specific example of MOA-AD, do we really want a system where when the executives’ interpretation/ decision while doing its job is overturned by the SC, the executive can/should be impeached?
can we not have a system where the term “blatant disregard” for the constitution means that some previous SC decision on contitutionality was ignored by the executive?
Here, it is ‘blatant’ because there is previous jurisprudence to guide the executives decision and no possible confusion regarding interpretation.
GabbyD,
Your points are germane to the post’s main contention. (At last, a comment that actually applies!)
Should the President be impeached every time she violates the Constitution? When does such violation amount to being “blatant” or “willful” and is this impeachable? Let us engage the topic even if impeachment has become “assault with a dead weapon.”
Since it is the House that has the “exclusive” power to initiate all cases of impeachment, it ought to have a clear answer for all these questions, not only in regard to the President but for all 31 impeachable officers of the Republic (which includes the Veep, the 15 justices of the SC, the 13 Commissioners of Elections, Audit and Civil Service, and the Ombudsman.
When DOES impeachment become a political and judicial duty of the House?
In the case of the MOA-AD bear in mind that we do not have here some minor disagreement over a subtle point of Constitutional law, but brazen, indubitable and culpable violations of the Constitution that were ATTEMPTED but stopped by a Supreme Court TRO at the last minute. When the SC made that TRO permanent, it ruled in essence that the attempt was an attempt on the life and integrity of the Constitution and that the temporary restraining order was not only right, but ought to be made permanent so that no further attempts of this kind will be allowed.
The complete abandonment and abjuration of the MOA-AD by the President is actually an admission that it is full of Constitutional toxic waste. But her acts of commission and omission have caused war and destruction costing many lives. Worse, it has probably set back the peace process by many years because as the news yesterday shows, the MILF want the MOA-AD or promise endless war.
Not only has she violated her oath, I agree with the intervenors that she is unfit to be President and Commander in Chief.
Because she has lost the public’s trust, she is unable to lead the nation in either war OR peace. As such she should be removed from office.
the tripoli agreement was undertaken during marcos time. the SC then did not bother to look into the legalities of the issue because the members were so afraid of mr. marcos.
gma was just following what DJB claims the third tranche of the strand when it brought into the forefront the MOA-AD.
the claim that it was brazen assault on the constitution is not true because the MOA-AD was placed in the backburner.
the insinuation that it may be revived is a suspicion that has its basis on fear and distrust.
the court is never allowed to rule on the basis of speculative fear and distrust on the other co-equal branch. it must rule on a “actual controversy”
the MOA-AD being botched, scrapped, frozen and and put in the back burner, does not deserve inordinate attention from the court specially if such attention has the effect of embarrassing another branch of government which is co-equal of the SC.
jcc,
Oh, you don’t know about the 2001 Tripoli Agreement? Hahaha! You never read Cotabato v. GRP! In the very first section (Factual Antecedents) we have:
Do you even have a link to the Jurisprudence section of SCORP blog?
on my goodness: still stuck with impeachment and the bias ruling of the SC court?
It’s also Congress that is responsible for the biggest scam in the history of this country.
Therefore, I am looking for citizens who have had enough of this current Congress and their inbred concern for their own interests. I am calling for impeachment of the body of Congress with a special election to be held within 60 days of that impeachment to limit the amount of Bullshit and Bias we will inevitably be subjected to in order to elect new Congress members.
Hopefully, we can put in “real” people who have not sold out to the ruling elite and are a little more in touch with reality and the damage which was inflicted upon us.
We can’t be apathetic any longer. If you don’t act now, you will have no right to complain about anything. I will be hiring jcc and bencard as my lawyers. :) any opinion?
Folks,
There are two interesting issues we can discuss here (after everybody reads Cotabato v. GRP at least once, and knows about the concurring and dissenting body of opinion):
(1) Did SCORP violate Separation of Powers and usurp Executive prerogatives by ruling on the Constitutional merits of the MOA-AD instead of dismissing the petitions and interventions as moot and academic? Are the issues raised against the MOA-AD moot and academic?
(2) Was SCORP right on the substantive judgments it has made on the Constitutional merits of the MOA-AD? Does the MOA-AD brazenly violate the Constitution or not?
As an opening shot let me say that just this morning I read in the newspapers that the MILF is promising endless war in Mindanao if the MOA-AD is not signed, and they seem to be making good on the threat. This doesn’t seem like the stuff of “moot and academic” to me.
But I would like to hear a cogent attack on the merits of the Decision itself which finds that the MOA-AD violates treasured tenets on people, territory, governance and sovereignty, that the BJE is tantamount to commonwealth on the way to independence.
The claim that “peace cannot be achieved without giving up the Philippine Constitution” remains to be adequately explained and defended.
Bad News Leytenian: No Senator or Congressman is impeachable! There are exactly 31 impeachable Constitutional officers: President, VP, Ombudsman, 13 Commissioners of Elections, Civil Service and Audit, 15 Supreme Court Justices. Only the Congress has NO impeachable officers. That is why the Power of Impeachment is the “sole and exclusive” power of the Congress. There can be no judicial review of any case of impeachment, since the decisions and verdicts of a Senate Impeachment Court are final and executory. Not even the Presidential power of pardon can touch the Power of Impeachment or even mitigate its penalties!
Now THAT is Separation of Powers as plain as a geological formation! But today the Power of Impeachment is tantamount to assault with a dead weapon. Why?
DJB,
exactly my point. the weakest link is our congress and it has the strongest power to represent the people and yet, no one stood by us, maybe very few.
djb,
the tripoli agreement i have in mind is the one started by Mr. Marcos when she sent his envoy Imelda to Libya. If there is another one that has been finalized in 2001, that’s not the one I have in mind in my previous post. That I am not aware of the 2001 Tripoli agreement does not detract from my issue that the right of the executive to pursue any peace agreement with any discontented groups of our society is a political question for which the SC should not meddle about.
“As an opening shot let me say that just this morning I read in the newspapers that the MILF is promising endless war in Mindanao if the MOA-AD is not signed, and they seem to be making good on the threat. This doesn’t seem like the stuff of “moot and academic” to me.” DJB..
This the one that you should laugh about. The continuing war promised by the MILF if the MOA-AD is not implemented only highlight the fact that the issue is political because the SC has no army to contain the MILF threat and make good its pronouncement that the MOA-AD is unconstitutional.
The issue of mootness is a legal issue and it is either present or absent at the time at the time the action has been instituted or by subsequent circumstances of the parties and not because one party refused to abide by the pronouncement of the Court and instead would wage war against the government.
That the MILF would continue waging war against the government therefore justifies the jurisdiction of the court over the MOA-AD impliedly admits a corollary proposition that had the MILF had filed its manifestation jointly with the SOLGEN that it would not ask for the MOA-AD implementation and would not wage war against the government would in effect divest the court to entertain the issue and close its eyes about the constitutionality of the MOA-AD even if it is actually unconstitutional.
to impeach the congressmen and governors, we will have to form States thru Federalism.
JCC,
Your ignorance of the 2001 Tripoli Agreement explains everything. You do not have the facts of the case and have been arguing from a theoretical point of view. Without understanding the relationship of the MOA AD to the 2001 Tripoli Agreement you can hardly say anything sensible about the mootness issue. Please read naman the Decision so you don’t embarrass yourself. The 1976 Tripoli Agreement was applicable to the MNLF–a different bunch of rebels altogether.
Leytenian,
isa ka pa. don’t make palusot okay. No Congressman or Senator can be impeached. that’s just the way the Constitution was written so forget about this plan of yours to impeach the Congress. It’s plain silly.
djb,
as bencard said, you may read the decision over and over again but it will not detract from the basic fact that the MOA-AD which has been abandoned and unsigned cannot be subject of a judicial review… period.
the argument that the court has skirted the issue of “mootness” because the issue is “capable of repetition” and yet evading review, applies only where the issue does not inolve a co-equal branch of government” and thus I cited the case of a woman who was questioning the abortion law in Texas and was arguing the issue when she was no longer pregnant.
The court said that “mootness” does not apply because the offense is “capable of repetition” and yet evading review, the prosecutor may again prosecute the woman on for aborting a second pregnancy.
Compare:
State Law on Abortion is already passed and being implemented
MOA-AD in the backburner, unsigned and abandoned.
State of Texas is involved, rebuking authority is Federal US Supreme Court.
Here, SCORP is rebuking the Executive.
If you cannot process the info.. sorry na lang po tayo. :)
DJB, MLQ3,
You have been citing authorities penned by legal midgets and dwarfs masquerading as legal luminaries.
Here is a political and legal giant when it comes to constitutional law, Thomas Jefferson.
Read and savor his genius:
The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a coordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet . . . We shall see if they are bold enough to take the daring stride their five lawyers have lately taken. If they do, then . . . I will say, that “against this every man should raise his voice,” and more, should uplift his arm . . .
Having found, from experience that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scarecrow, they consider themselves secure for life; they sculk from responsibility to public opinion . . . An opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid associates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his mind, by the turn of his own reasoning . . .
A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.
A usurping judiciary will become a despotism
—– To Jarvis, 1820
To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is “boni judicis est ainpliare jurisdictionem,” and their power the more dangerous as they are in once for life . . . The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots.
If the Federal judiciary is not checked, it will destroy democracy.
—– To C. Hammond, 1821
It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression (although I do not choose to put it into a newspaper, nor, like a Priam in armor, offer myself its champion), that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed; because, when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government or another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. It will be as in Europe, where every man must be either pike or gudgeon, hammer or anvil. Our functionaries and theirs are wares from the same workshop; made of the same materials, and by the same hand. If the States look with apathy on this silent descent of their government into the gulf which is to swallow all, we have only to weep over the human character formed uncontrollable but by a rod of iron, and the blasphemers of man, as incapable of self-government, become his true historians.
Sinister procedure of the Supreme Court
—– To Pleasants, 1821
Another most condemnable practice of the Supreme Court to be corrected is that of cooking up a decision in caucus and delivering it by one of their members as the opinion of the court, without the possibility of our knowing how many, who, and for what reasons each member concurred. This completely defeats the possibility of impeachment by smothering evidence. A regard for character in each being now the only hold we can have of them, we should hold fast to it. They would, were they to give their opinions seriatim and publicly, endeavor to justify themselves to the world by explaining the reasons which led to their opinion.
DJB, MLQ3, THIS IS MY IS MY FAVORITE:
To curb Federal judges, they should be appointed every six years
—– To Pleasants, 1821
[For the] difficult task in curbing the Judiciary in their enterprises on the Constitution . . . the best [remedy] I can devise would be to give future commissions to judges for six years [the Senatorial term] with a re-appointmentability by the president with the approbation of both houses. If this would not be independence enough, I know not what would be . . .
The Judiciary perversions of the Constitution will forever be protected under the pretext of errors of judgment, which by principle are exempt from punishment. Impeachment therefore is a bugbear which they fear not at all. But they would be under some awe of the canvas of their conduct which would be open to both houses regularly every sixth year. It is a misnomer to call a government republican, in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation.
JCC,
Here is where your analogy to an abortion case in Texas fails. The 2001 Tripoli agreement is analogous to that State Law on Abortion. It is already being implemented, indeed, parts 1 and 2 were completed already. So just like the second abortion, the ancestral domain strand can, must and will be addressed again.
Your own line of reasoning shows the Court was right, the issue of ancestral domain isn’t moot, if you accept that there really is a 2001 Tripoli Agreement that covers Security, Rehab and Ancestral Domain, just like there is that state law on abortion in Texas.
JCC,
Yada yada yada. I like Thomas Jefferson too, but gratuitous cutting and pasting cannot even begin to capture, much less emulate, the grandeur of the man. Or making any constructive point about the issue at hand.
Cheap thrills in your direction, sir!
DJB,
of course, the house are not impeachable. my point is how? how can we impeach and weakens the power of Congress. is it not Gloria’s Charter Change or Federalism proposa of pimentel?
i think we are discussing issue but the ball is always on the other side. whatever theory you guys have, in reality it won’t work.
one problem here is a premodern versus a modern or what considers itself modern view. an insistence on looking backwards to old polities and a shared ethnic identity is one thing, but in a world and society where “purity” is increasingly impossible to find, then how does that work.
appeals to cultural purity and the need to defend it to the extent of separation, independence, etc. harks back to an era when clearly defined areas had clearly identifiable populations related to each other by blood and kinship ties.
but consider where all the various regional chauvenisms leave the products of mixed marriages, which may still be easy to resolve in the first generation, but the products of parents themselves the products of mixed marriages, and who are migrants to another part of the country, where does that leave them? yet soon enough they will be the majority too, and indeed, are in many areas. what is the relevance of the old boundaries, of kingdoms, sultanates, chieftainships, provinces, or even regions and countries to such people?
djb,
please read carefully. if the tripoli agreement is like the texas abortion law, and therefore becomes justiciable, please consider that it involves the state of texas and not the U.S President.
Gets mo na ba?
The pasting isssue was made because I am not even worthy to parse the genius of T. Jefferson so I want you to read the gems from the man himself.
Gets mo na ba?
jcc,
please read the decision FIRST before you start embarrassing yourself again.
jcc,
I think you are basically a “faker”. I am willing to believe that even to this day, you have not even bothered to read “Cotabato v. GRP.” Shame on you!
djb,
:) :) :)
djb,
you still do not understand the genius of Thomas Jefferson that the Court is not the only interpreter of the constitution, in fact he said that the Court can pervert the constitution.
jcc,
okay, i will stipulate to an idolatrous attitude toward Thomas Jefferson if it makes you happy. But though he knew a thing or two about Mussulmen because of the Barbary Coast pirates and the US government’s troubles with them, I’m pretty sure he knew little about Mindanao or the BJE and Tripoli Agreement of 2001.
SCORP really did learn even me somethin’ on the matter of “moot and academic”. Let’s just get something straight right now: the issues attendant upon the MOA-AD are not “moot and academic” because they happen to be the issue of “ancestral domain”–which is not only a formal strand of the 2001 Tripoli accord, but also a primary concern of the 1987 Constitution itself, and of subsequent enabling legislation in the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (two documents I also highly recommend for your close perusal).
Thus, while clearly establishing the constitutional boundaries beyond which no govt official may range, all are entirely free to explore the extent of their various discretions–so long as they do not abuse the same, gravely or otherwise.
This is particularly true in regards to the Mindanao Peace Process, which will outlive the Arroyo regime—that seems certain.
Perhaps too, I have the advantage over you in that I’ve been paying attention to GMA’s statements on the BJE since mid-2007, when NO ONE was paying much attention to it at all.
If truth be told (though this is only my guess), I think that BJE was supposed to be GMA’s “peace legacy” to the nation.
Susmaryosep! What a painful laugh. Aray!
“What you espouse however, is not apparently democracy. You profess–or so it seems–a preference for apartheid, in which human beings are to be judged not by the content of their character and lawful behavior, but on the color of their skin, the provenance of their ancestors, the gong of their religion or the speech of their tongue.”
I categorically deny and take exception from this allegation of yours, djb. what the bangsamoro wants is that their freedom to rule themselves their own way be given back and nothing else. nothing in my posts that insinuate anything that sounds “racial” to you but FREEDOM. don’t you get that? is freedom not a core value of democracy?
if your premise is that all systems of governance including the sultanate were abrogated by the fabrication of the Philippine state, then it has no any moral basis and it is immoral, even illegal.
is it democratic to impose a system upon other peoples who for the life of them did not consider themselves to be part of that system nor had been subjugated by such system? is it not dictatorial to impinge upon one’s freedom to decide for themselves their own way?
well, if that is democratic to you then yours is same as BUSH’ BRAND who imposes democracy into the throats of other sovereign people. that is instead DEMONCRAZY which lincoln shall categorically take exception of. IT IS BUSH’ AND YOUR GOVERNMENT OFF THE PEOPLE, BUY THE PEOPLE AND FOOL THE PEOPLE.
‘note that the BJE enroaches on lumad lands… and as has been pointed out by the lumads themselves, they do NOT consider themselves Borg — MILF Moro, i mean.’ jester-in-exile
Were you not made aware JESTER that these group of “lumads” (such a concocted term unindigenous to IPs, for it is a visayan word)with their respective heads were nothing but organized by no other than the Philippine government who successfully duped them that IPRA and other related laws-for-nothing is a heaven-sent to the IPs? And as long as the IPs entrust their political fate on the government, they can never get what is due them.
Danilo,
“A government of the people, by the people and for the people”
We can both agree on this goal.
Now I ask you, between the GRP and the MILF, who has the greater legitimacy to be the government of the Filipinos, whether they be Moros or not?
Or is it your belief that the Moros ought to have their own independent country in Mindanao?
If it is the latter, then by all means, whoever wants to follow the MILF are free to do so. They can try to win their own independence like the Filipinos did, first by revolution, then by evolution.
But however you cut it, it was the Filipinos who established the first democratic republic in Asia (the oldest since 1898).
The Philippine State does not owe the Moros (or anybody else) a restoration of some previous dispensation, monarchy, autocracy, tribal rule, sultancy or ancestral abracadabra. They have to win such state with their blood and guts just like the Filipinos did, if their premise is that the Philippine state does not need to be respected.
The Moros are not owed rectification of their own wretched and miserable history, any more than the Filipinos are, by anything but their own efforts and enlightened self-interest.
The Bangsamoro are of course welcome to share in whatever fruits may accrue to peaceful and cooperative efforts to build a great nation, should they decide that that would be easier than setting up their own country, with all that that entails.
But I think it is impt to decide whether you believe Moros are Filipinos and owe allegiance to its Flag and Constitution or whether it is war that you want.
“But however you cut it, it was the Filipinos who established the first democratic republic in Asia (the oldest since 1898).” DJB
WRONG! It was the Americans who established this “democratic republic” for them after 10 or more years of encysting the mentality of elite Filipino politicians with it; after choosing for the Filipinos who shall be their President; and not until the Filipinos were forced to compromise and acquiesced to the 100 years US tenure in the Philippines. What a democratic condition, neigh, imposition!
By the way, wasn’t it the Americans who also chose and imposed Rizal to be the Filipino national hero? What a “veneration without understanding” says Renato Constantino! And what a democracy!
Hey DJB, don’t fool me that you do not know history. Or you do have a (colonial) version of it, don’t you?
Jester’s fave quote: “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”
What about looking at the other side Jester:
Wasn’t it the Philippine state who has been playing Borg over the indigenous peoples of these Islands since its establishment, neigh, fabrication?
Danilo,
The First Philippine Republic proclaimed its independence from Spain on June 12, 1898. The Malolos Constitution was our first democratic Constitution. Australia did not become independent until Jan 1 1900 and New Zealand 1906. We are the oldest democratic republic in Asia, ahead of China, India, and the raft of Asian states that became independent after WW2. The Commonwealth Republic was the Second Philippine Republic, that one, under America after a period of conquest.
The Philippine American War was won by the US. It spelt the end of the First Republic, which lasted less than two years. But there it is: indelible history.
Now you were saying…
i doff the foolscap over that, dean. well put.
Yeah, but not without the tutelage of America. It was through the insinuation of America that Aguinaldo should go back to the Philippines from his exile in Hongkong and Singapore in 1897 and “established” his revolutionary government against Spain. As such, it can be said that prior to Aguinaldo’s Proclamation in Malolos, there had been prior contacts between him and American authorities. Note that this was in the context of war between Spain and America.
Aguinaldo was deluded that his engagement with the Americans was an entente. He was not aware of the sinister plan of US to seize Spain’s colonies including the Philippines and replace its colonial rule.
As such, Aguinaldo, “inspired’ let alone deluded, by US sugar-coated insinuations, proclaimed independence and established his government modeled on American one, thinking or hoping that US shall support it. But lately did he realize that he and his troops were just exploited by the Americans to beat Spain and grab the Philippines easily. Not until Spain sold the Philippines to the Americans in the Treaty of Paris that his government was just a sham, an offshoot instead of American malicious suggestion to hasten its control over the Philippines. (The oldest republic indeed!)
That is to realize the contrived scenario, a conspiracy indeed, that it was America who really freed the Philippines from the clutches of Spanish colonization and not the Filipinos themselves. Of course, not without preconditions!
Haven’t you thought of that yet, or you’re just in a denial?
Orchestrating to be that way, that is, to make it appear that it was America who really freed the Philippines, its “freedom day” was shifted to July 4, 1946; same as that of America’s.
And “On July 4, 1946, Roxas became the FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES,” (emphases mine) – Ronald E. Dolan, ed. Philippines: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1991.
So it was 1946 DJB, not 1898 as you said.
Danilo,
History is messy like that. But Filipinos have a nation and independent country, which they won with blood and treasure. The Bangsamoro…well, they’ve got nothing if they don’t want to be part of the Philippines.