angelic moo

Speaker Jose de Venecia's attempts to vilify the Supreme Court after it's decision in Lambino was a desperate attempt to pressure the Court to reverse itself. The Speaker has been claiming, without any proof, that there is a clamor for constitutional change in the Philippines. In previous posts, I showed how he presented the Supreme Court as stumbling block to economic progress because it refused to allow the amendment of the Constitution through a “people’s initiative.” Contrary to de Venecia’s claims, there is no evidence that the Court's reputation has suffered because of Lambino . If anything, recent surveys show that the Court's reputation is improving. Recently, the Supreme Court announced that the Makati Business Club recognized the court ( Katrina M. Martinez, MBC Survey: SC is 3rd Best-Performing Gov’t Agency, March 16, 2007 ) as the third-best performing of 37 government offices, institutions, and basic services surveyed in 2006. This is no small feat for the ...

I wrote elswehere that the Supreme Court's decision in Javellana in 1973 destroyed its reputation and signaled the Court's subservience to the executive branch of government. More than three decades later, the Arroyo administration elevated the their own attempt to revise the Constitution before the Supreme Court. The Court was given an opportunity to reprise its role in 1973 and approve a shift to a parliamentary form of government despite the apparent defects in manner the Constitution is amended. When the Court deliberated on Lambino , I suggested that a ruling in favor of the initiative would have been politically safe route; it will shield the Court from heat. I predicted that ruling against initiative would open the Court to vilification by the other branches of government. Indeed, the Speaker of the House aattacked the Supreme Court and went so far as to initiate impeachment proceedings against the Justices who voted against the initiative claiming the Supreme Court d...

The Supreme Court's decision in Lambino v. Commission on Elections is consistent with my prediction I posted last October. In that decision, a bare majority of the Court held that the Commission on Elections did not abuse its discretion when it voted to dismiss Sigaw ng Bayan's petition for initiative. The Court denied a motion for reconsideration on November 21, 2006 with the same vote but added that: Ten justices however reiterated their earlier opinions that RA 6735 is sufficient and adequate as an enabling law to amend the Constitution through a people’s initiative. Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban and Justices Consuelo Ynares-Santiago and Adolfo S. Azcuna joined their dissenting colleagues – Senior Associate Justice Reynato S. Puno, and Justices Leonardo A. Quisumbing, Renato C. Corona, Dante O. Tinga, Minita V. Chico-Nazario, Cancio C. Garcia, and Presbitero J. Velasco, Jr. – in opining that RA 6735 suffices as an enabling law to implement the constitutional provisio...