Just because a person once fought the dictator Marcos is no guarantee that he won't go bad or blind or batty after having achieved power himself by fighting what he thought was a good fight. I think this tragic and sorry happenstance applies to Senator Joker Arroyo, a leading candidate of the administration about whom this news story in PDI today...Notwithstanding proclamations and executive orders that have been declared unconstitutional, Senator Joker Arroyo said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is still the “best protector of the Constitution.”Boy, Joker must really think everyone in this country is as stupid as Joseph Estrada, whom he once helped to overthrow in a judicial coup d'etat pulled off by the Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide, when together they aborted the Senate Impeachment Trial and, ahem, employed distinctly unconstitutional means to install the Vice President into power. Illegally, unconstitutionally and immorally.
The re-electionist senator, a noted human rights lawyer who has helped challenge the President’s edicts before the Supreme Court, repeated his criticism of the opposition who, he said, has not denounced attempts to oust the administration through unconstitutional means that could derail the country’s economic growth.
He also reiterated that the President had never tried to stop critics, himself included, from assailing her and her decisions.
The asinine thing about Joker's claim that GMA is the "best protector of the Constitution" is that he's got to be astute enough to know that such a claim has to be true only in the cynical sense that, OF COURSE, she has to be the best protector of a Constitutional order that benefits her in the here and now. And of course her best apologist and co-conspirator, Joker Arroyo!
The problem with the living saints of politically correct acquiescence is that they themselves are chained to the tree of lies that gave them their present positions. Thus, Joker can praise Gloria for never pressuring him when the Senate fought her depredations against the institution and Congress's power of inquiry, but he cannot claim at the same time that she has never tried to stop her critics, when that is precisely what the Supreme Court battles over EO 464, 1017 and CPR were patently all about.
We'll see how much of a "human rights lawyer" he really is as time goes on. History's verdict on him is not yet in. Not until a man dies can his worth to the nation be truly weighed, because a man with Free Will and political power like Joker, still has the opportunity to swing it one way or the other.
But I think the real lesson of Edsa Dos and the role that Joker and Davide played in it is that the Constitution is an extremely vulnerable document--one that is basically defenseless against a sitting Chief Justice and a Supreme Court that was nursed by Javellana vs. Executive Secretary in its infancy with the milk of acquiescence to naked power.
9 comments:
"The asinine thing about Joker's claim that GMA is the "best protector of the Constitution""
Ja, ja, jawol, Joker...
This is the sorry thing...even the good guys with their good intentions can cause great evil! I think he knows Edsa Dos was a mistake and an anomaly, but he played too big a part in it to admit it now, even to himself! If he had a graceful way out of the moral dilemma, he would take it, but the door is locked by vanity and pride.
Your statement -- that EdsaDos is a mistake, that PeoplePower can commit an error, is an affront to..... the romantics.
I do agree with you. PeoplePower, despite all the romanticism around it, is shot full of holes for mistakes to be made. PeoplePower is a vehicle for a few thousands to usurp the mandate which, by constitutions, is vested in ALL the people.
AND... what the romantics have failed to see is that PeoplePower has been commercialized as release 4.1 while their hearts all year for PeoplePower-Beta-release. Jerks!
E-Ofw, I guess I have nothing against Romanticism per se, often thinking of myself as a Romantic myself. I think however that thoroughly non-romantic people hijacked Edsa People Power for a lil old fashioned putsch and coup d'etat against a President (Erap) who probably deserved to be overthrown. But what got overthrown was Democracy itself, not Erap, whom we have not actually brought Justice to, and who still calls the shots in a large part of the Opposition. It is a difficult case to fight because its main symbol, Erap himself, is a nasty piece of work himself.
Yet to see that a greater crime continues because we have employed illicit means to gain an end--that is the challenge to the sensient and the principled.
There are greater stakes than Erap or Gloria, for it is the Future that has been compromised by our acquiescence and inconsistency.
Thanks for your comments!
protector of the constitution huh? siguro nakalimutan lang niya yung Arroyo Initiative at CON ASS ng administration.
this is what i remember re joker arroyo in the early years around 2001.
maganda rin basahin ang comment dati ni max soliven sa kanya.
http://www.ellentordesillas.com/?p=925#comment-114358
http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-53420.html
thanks for those links john!
i would still vote for him, though ;)
my thoughts here-- http://www.soulavenue2.blogspot.com/ and here too-- http://mariaclararowena.spaces.live.com/
the photo that i am referring to is the philippine daily inquirer's banner story last sunday.
tatambay na rin po ako dito.
"But what got overthrown was Democracy itself, not Erap,"
Agree Dean.
Joker and the rest of them should have been thrown out with Democracy.
Joker, Pangilinan (the 2nd husband of the singer), and a few others who are running for a seat in the Senate should be thrashed, thumped and get thrown out for good.
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