Acquiescence Invents Reasons That Reason Knows Nothing Of

SONNY ALVAREZ understands the Constitution and the Law far better than he was letting on while talking to Manolo Quezon about Edsa Dos on The Explainer (ANC) Tuesday night. Sonny likened those developments to a game of chess in which a power vacuum had to be filled by the Vice President, allegedly in the interests of maintaining "an orderly community." Sonny's argument leaves me cold, it's just another fallacious variation in the defense of Edsa Dos in which the end of Erap justifies the illegal and immoral means employed by a Chief Justice plainly in dereliction of his sworn duty and a Chief of Staff that invented a euphemism for Mutiny in "withdrawal of support." But it made me shudder to realize Sonny Alvarez is the same man that fought the great good fight against the dictator Marcos with Raul Mangalapus and Ninoy Aquino (albeit mainly as a steak commando in the environs of Washington DC and New York City). Yet here he was, justifying and rationalising, along with MLQ3, a violation of the Constitution as bad as anything Marcos ever did! Sonny Alvarez simply knows better. But acquiescence forces a person to find reasons that Reason knows nothing of and justifications that are not only lame but intellectually dishonest.

So choke on Javellana vs. Executive Secretary, Sonny! Everything has come full circle and you are become the Enemy you once fought. You've come imbued with the borrowed, second-hand soul of that same infamous decision, but in the guise of Estrada vs. Arroyo.

Though Manolo was trying to be helpful by insisting that somehow Erap had thrown in the towel, the unavoidable truth is that Edsa Dos was an illegal Regime Change that undeniably violated the Letter and Spirit of the Constitution. I have no reason to reject a just and reasonable ruling of the Supreme Court. But one that revolts my senses of logic and morality and adherence to the Constitution in its substantial and essential aspects, such a decision should earn our derision and everlasting disdain. It was not only for Erap to obey the Constitution. Nor was he the only one who violated their oaths of office and shirked their bound duty. The Rule of Law is not the Rule of Force, nor of chess, nor a game of Generals and Judges deciding what is ultimately good for the people and the country.

Edsa Dos was a space time anomaly in the universe of constitutional democracy, because the nearly inconceivable happened--the head of the Military mutinied and the Supreme Court Chief Justice ignored the Constitution, ignored his duty to conduct the Senate Impeachment Trial, and inexplicably swore in the Vice President for no good reason. The "Rule of Law" is once more sacrified to a Doctrine of Acquiescence just as it happened once before with Ferdinand Marcos. Because people like Sonny Alvarez cannot bring themselves to admit it!

Finally, when MLQ3 asked Sonny Alvarez why, after six long years, the Government has failed to convict Joseph Estrada, his dodge of a non-answer was to point at the non-resolution of the Marcos cases and slow pace of justice in the Philippines. I would say this was a most disingenuous analogy considering that Marcos is dead and that he had fled. Erap is alive and and he never ran away to exile even if it was offered to him with the blessings of the Powers That Be.

In his old age, Sonny Alvarez has succumbed to the disease of power, moral inconsistency. That is why there is no more fire in belly, no more sparkle in his eye. For the light of ideals and eternal principles has been dimmed in him and no longer animates his mind nor inspires his soul. He has nothing more to contribute to the Public Discourse but inutile acquiescence.

All that is left for Sonny Alvarez is the Survival of the Mediocre.