Chilling, or cleansing?

“O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive”.

Somebody should have taught this to the ousted Chief Justice of the Supreme Court when he was in grade school, and dinned it into his mind all throughout his high school an student days. If this had been done, he would not have entangled himself in so many webs that eventually led to his disgrace.

***

Naturally, he and his supporters are now crying persecution, vindictiveness, and all that, but, to the ordinary observers, it was his own testimony, and the discrepancies in his revelations that had pinned him down. The prosecutors, after all, were right in dropping the four other charges they had initially poised against him. They realized that conviction on only ONE of them would be enough to condemn him.

***

Claims of the conviction having a “chilling effect,” or of violating the separation of powers among the Executive, the Legislative and Judicial branches of government have come up. But the Constitution has precisely provided this means of checking up on the members of the judiciary, that also has the power to act on the misdeeds of those in the Legislative and Executive branches. As for “chilling effect”, that is indeed the purpose of this exercise, to put the fear of God into the hearts of those in the judiciary, who may think they can get away with anything. Maybe it should instead be called a “cleansing effect” as one of the senator-judges had mentioned.

***

Somebody said that maybe the Coronas feel that God did not listen to all their prayers. He might have, perhaps, if the praying had been done just between them and the Lord, not in full view of the public, shown over TV, with very showy rituals, like getting the officiating priest to sprinkle him with holy water, also for TV showing. As it was, there was too much drama, that the whole thing began to appear like a work of fiction. But maybe that is their style, and it had worked for them at other times.

***

Tuesday night, I was elated to see the Philippines featured in a news program of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The report, that was quite lengthy and showed some scenes from the hearing at the Senate, covered the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona, including the voting by the senator judges. But President Aquino, if he had been watching it, must have been overjoyed to hear the BBC host saying that the impeachment of the chief justice was part of his drive against corruption in the country.

***

And then yesterday, another heartwarming report on foreign television featured the now very popular half-Filipino American Idol runner-up, Jessica Sanchez. She appeared in the program of Kelly in New York and her fans flocked to the ABS Studio to see her and seek her autograph. Some were said to have come from as far as Canada just to see her. I don’t know if some of those fans were Mexican, but for sure, many of them were Fil-Ams. It was also announced that she will be on the NBC “Today” show today (Thursday) in the U.S.

***

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom is celebrating the Diamond (60) year of Queen Elizabeth and it is a nice coincidence that this year is also when England will host the Olympic Games. The Diamond Jubilee of their queen and the hectic preparations for the Games must be very exciting for the British people. As of now, the promotion of the event is going full blast, but was marred a bit when an Olympic runner, the one carrying the torch which is the blazing symbol of the event, reportedly lost his way and got delayed a bit. But that only added to the media hype, didn’t it?

***

The Olympic Torch tradition, I think, started in the old, old days when the games were being held in honor of the gods in Greece. The torch is not actually meant to serve as light, but more as a symbol of the fire in the hearts of the athletes. Speaking of lights, several people have asked me to call the traffic authorities in the city to monitor the jeepneys going around at night. They said many of them do not turn on their lights, and that is why accidents occur, as pedestrians are not warned about their approach, and this is very dangerous. I hope City Police Chief Ricardo de la Paz reminds his men about this.*

back to top