• Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
• 09 December 2010
• Mobile No. 0916 6406737
• Tel. No. 4155455, 9315497

             President Aquino has lost his cool in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision scuttling the Truth Commission as an unconstitutional monstrosity.

             The President has engaged in name-calling by virtually labeling the majority justices as the “deaf and blind” obstructing his avowed crusade against corruption when he created the Truth Commission, which the Supreme Court alternatively referred to as an “adventure in partisan hostility” and “a vehicle for vindictiveness and selective retribution.”

            The Supreme Court has struck down the Truth Commission as unconstitutional for violating the equal protection clause safeguarded by the Constitution.

            In support of its decision, the Supreme Court ruled:

            Equal protection has been embodied in a separate clause “to provide for a more specific guarantee against any form of undue favoritism or hostility from the government x x x but if the particular act assailed partakes of an unwarranted partiality or prejudice, the sharper weapon to cut it down is the equal protection clause.”

           “According to a long line of decisions, equal protection simply requires that all persons or things similarly situated should be treated alike, both as to rights conferred and responsibilities imposed.”

            “The clear mandate of the envisioned Truth Commission is to investigate and find out the truth ‘concerning the reported cases of graft and corruption during the previous administration’ only. The intent to single out the previous administration is plain, patent and manifest.”

           “It must be borne in mind that the Arroyo administration is but just a member of a class, that is, a class of past administrations. It is not a class of its own. Not to include past administrations similarly situated constitutes arbitrariness which the equal protection clause cannot sanction. Such discriminating differentiation clearly reverberates to label the commission as a vehicle for vindictiveness and selective retribution.”

           “However, the fact remains that Executive Order No. 1 suffers from arbitrary classification. The PTC (Philippine Truth Commission), to be true to its mandate of searching for the truth, must not exclude the other past administrations.”

           “Although Section 17 (of E.O. No. 1) allows the President the discretion to expand the scope of investigations of the PTC so as to include the acts of graft and corruption committed in other past administration, it does not guarantee that they would be covered in the future. Such expanded mandate of the commission will still depend on the whim and caprice of the President. If he would decide not to include them, the section would then be meaningless.”

           If the President is earnest in investigating and prosecuting officials of the Arroyo administration, he can marshal the resources of the government in instituting cases before the Department of Justice and the Ombudsman without need for amending Executive Order No. 1 or seeking reconsideration of the Supreme Court decision.

            Neither propaganda and sloganeering nor unlawful shortcuts must taint or detract a supposedly noble crusade against graft and corruption.