Injustice in the Judiciary

On March 17, 2010, the Supreme Court allowed Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to appoint the successor of Chief Justice Reynato Puno despite the ban on appointive posts during the election period.

Article VII Sec 15 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution states that Two months before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his term, the President…shall not make appointments….

The constitution does not state that this provision is exclusively for appointive government officials. Hence, it can be argued that this provision is also meant for the judiciary, whose top positions are all appointive.

But the decision of 9 Supreme Court Justices (who, mind you, were all Arroyo-appointed) was indeed, as UP Alyansa put it in a speech delivered at the March 19, 2010 indignation rally, a "bastardization of our Constitution."

This is a blatant effort made by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (notice that I don't put the word "President" anymore because she is not worthy of the title) to perpetuate herself and her, as one blogger put it, "Satanic" family in power. Her strategy of appointing Bangit in the helm of the AFP and now, another Arroyo appointee in the helm of the Supreme Court, are just the preliminaries for a greater scheme of things - a fearsome nationwide system of organized cheating to declare a national-level failure of elections.

We, as Filipinos, must act now and save our nation from more years of repression.

RESPECT THE CONSTITUTION!

STOP THE MIDNIGHT APPOINTMENT OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE!