Republicanism in this country is the aloofness of the Supreme Court from the political departments and its superior respectability compared to the accommodating availability of the President of the Philippines and Congress to the importunate electorate and their dependence on its capricious goodwill.

I had a colleague on the Court who during the more than eight years I sat there did not utter a single word in our deliberations en banc and consistently concurred with another member who was obviously his idol and dictator. In an unguarded moment, this taciturn justice’s wife revealed that all he did was sign (probably without even reading) the opinions prepared for him by his anonymous researchers. He subsequently retired with full honors and a generous pension for his exemplary career.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines usually dances to the music of its counterpart in the United States and dutifully embellishes its decisions with American jurisprudence not necessarily relevant or even logical. That model, for all its great traditions, is hardly flawless. In 1857, the US Supreme Court pronounced the horrendous Dred Scott doctrine that Negroes were mere chattel owned by their white masters. Even as late as in 2004, its Republican members decided the Florida electoral returns in favor of George W. Bush to defeat Al Gore, his Democratic opponent, who had won the popular vote.

The US Supreme Court sustained the forced segregation of American niseis as security risks during World War II, to its subsequent regret and repentance. But it never acted as shamelessly as our Supreme Court during the Marcos despotism when martial law reduced its members to plastic flunkies remote-controlled from Malaca?ang. Intimidated and bribed with ridiculous ease, they “legitimized” every wrong the dictator committed. Their cringing genuflection was unbelievable. Their cowardice and avarice indelibly blemished the sterling record of our judiciary, as enriched before and after their disgraceful stint, by the legal and moral qualities of their worthy peers.

The Supreme Court is no longer the idealized bastion of truth and justice the people could look up to before for the protection of their rights under the Rule of Law. Our liberty was more valiant yesterday, is in serious jeopardy today, and may be tomorrow only a vanished value. Many fear—and there are thousands, nay, millions of us who do—that we are now under what is deplored and detested as the perilous Rule of Arroyo. How do the honorable justices stand?

Now at least, the less impressionable among us can look at the present Supreme Court not with the old adulation and even fear before it lost its virginal rectitude. Albeit with “neither sword nor purse,” it still has the ultimate power and duty to check the abuses of the president and Congress and uphold the rights of every individual with the cold neutrality of the fearless judge.

But will it? Regretfully, we can no longer confidently predict, as during its innocent days, that its decisions will be bold and just. I hope for the best, being an optimist, but prepare for the worst, to be realistic. The Neri decision is like an apparition in the dark.

Tags: al gore, buses, chattel, decisions, democratic opponent, despotism, dis, dl, dred scott, electorate, george w bush, jeopardy, judiciary, negroes, nnoc, peril, popular vote, realist, republican members, republicanism, respectability, security risks, sham, supreme court of the philippines, ubs, us supreme court, world war ii

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