Monday, April 26, 2010

The Supreme Court has finally spoken

We cannot permit the meaning of the Constitution to be stretched to any unintended point in order to suit the purposes of any quarter.
It has been insinuated as part of the polemics attendant to the controversy we are resolving that because all the Members of the present Court were appointed by the incumbent President, a majority of them are now granting to her the authority to appoint the successor of the retiring Chief Justice.
The insinuation is misguided and utterly unfair.
The Members of the Court vote on the sole basis of their conscience and the merits of the issues. Any claim to the contrary proceeds from malice and condescension. Neither the outgoing President nor the present Members of the Court had arranged the current situation to happen and evolve as it has. None of the Members of the Court could have prevented the Members composing the Court when she assumed the Presidency about a decade ago from retiring during her prolonged term and tenure, for their retirements were mandatory. Yet, she is now left with an imperative duty under the Constitution to fill up the vacancies created by such inexorable retirements within 90 days from their occurrence. Her official duty she must comply with. So must we ours who are trusted by the Constitution to settle the controversy (Arturo M. De Castro, et al v. Judicial Bar Council and Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo; denying with finality the Motion for Reconsideration of Petitioners).

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Landowners' rights

The noble purpose of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law to emancipate the tenants from the bondage of the soil and to transfer to them the ownership of the lands they till should not be the guise to trample upon the landowners' rights by including lands that are unquestionably outside the coverage of the CARL. Neither should such noble intention be frustrated by designating beneficiaries who are neither tenants or tillers of the land, nor otherwise qualified under the law to be the beneficiaries of land reform (DAR v. Pablo Berenguer, et al. G.R. No. 154094. March 9, 2010).