Designer genes and justified narcissism?

Published on 01 June 2012 Written by RENE SAGUISAG May I say good morning to myself? Gloating? But, Reggie Jackson said it aint braggin if you could back it up. Yet, I write this piece joylessly because I share the pain of losers. I am a loser myself and have been most comfy in the company of lifes losers. I know only too well that the whole world laughs with you, but you weep alone, Dick Gordon told me in 1998. Because of Uncle Jovy Salonga, now bedridden, Tito Guingona, Orly Mercado and me, in the Senate, and Ka Komong Sumulong, et al., in the House, ex-Chief Justice (CJ) Rene Corona, is now jobless, disgraced. We had worked on what became R.A. No. 6713 cited by many as having been breached, and used to oust Rene. We enacted it to implement the constitutional goals of transparency and accountability. Sec. 17 of Art. XI of the Constitution says a public servant shall, upon assumption of office and as often as required by law, submit a declaration under oath of his assets, liabilities, and net worth. . . . R.A, No. 6713 was the law violated. We punished violations by fines and jail time for every year of violation (five years per year). Trivial or too de minimis to impeach? But, too many low-level employees have become jobless, disgraced, for non-compliance. The greater the power, the greater the responsibility, it seems to many. No royalty in this country. It may not be proper or ethical for a lawyer to join the blame game. But, indeed, in such a case so impressed with public interest, had the defense rested after the prosecution did, and not called Ombudsman Chit and CJ Rene himself, the voting (20-3) could have been closer and gone either way. But, some defense hothead shot the team on the foot, and it became wheelchair-bound, having blown off both feet. Chit and Rene supplied data on his vast (in my eyes) deposits which he did not report as required by our R.A. No. 6713. Chit who had done her homework, relied on an official Anti-Money Laundering Councl (AMLAC) report, which deserved full faith and credit, unless discredited, which the defense did not even try to do. Was it karmic? Asking for and getting enough rope to hang himself with? Again, a litigator never asks a question the answer to which he doesnt already know. May 29, 2012, will be as historic as September 16, 1991, when the Senate in an uninterrupted day-long session, ended the presence of foreign military troops. I then learned that voting was not allowed to be interrupted. I was surprised that at least twice, the voting was stopped, if ever so briefly, last Tuesday. There remains talk that the unelected Justices may rap the elected. I dont know but I was told last Wednesday that the SC had agreed to release its SALNs, which it did only during the fist year of R.A. No. 6713. Then, it quickly ruled that due to fear of kidnapping they would be kept secret; it prevented Justice Adolf Azcuna from releasing his SALN. He was enjoined from disclosing under Sec. 8 of R.A. No. 6713, which the scofflaw SC had ignored from 1990. Miriam reminded me of what Dette Pascual reminded us of in a recent letter to the Inquirer: Llora como mujer lo que no has sabido defender como hombre. Weep like a woman for the loss of a kingdom you could not defend as a man. Sexist? Bakit galit na galit na naman si Miriam? Kanino? Should Vit Aguirre have been barred entry last Tuesday? She was my client in May 2001 when the SC dismissed our petitions as moot and academic, on warrant-less arrests and state of rebellion. Santiago v. Reyes, 357 SCRA 756, 761 (2001) Manong Johnny and Manong Ernie were in Camp Crame while Miriam remained at home, letting it be known that she was ready to shoot between the eyes any arresting officer willing to test her warning on reducing our population; natcherly, they considered themselves told. You dont monkey around with Miriam. No vale la pena. Endearing was Lito Lapid, a dramatic reminder that it was not a courtroom where members of the bar dominate but an impeachment court welcoming all elected types. A national inquest, where Rene addressed the nation; the nation answered back with a pink slip. Cynthia-Loyalist Manny Villar protested too much about C-5 but bottom-lined, Rene, out! Some have asked me about my brother, Joker. I am reminded of what Reagan said, not to worry about the deficit, it was big enough to take care of itself. Why not ask him yourself? Hes no Miriam. He, like Manong JPE, should be judged not by the testimony of a single incident or two, but by the manifestation of an entire lifetime, in an uncertain, less than perfect world. That sonofagun Johnny was on the right side of history in February, 1986, on September 16,

1991, and then May 29, 2012. What does he have in common with Joker, Cong. Rudy Farinas, Veep Jojobama, Prez Erap and Butz Aquino? But, this is a family paper. This afternoon, the Yellow Ribbon Movement will gather in Club Filipino. It has been two years since an underestimated PNoy took power, with the genes of a pragmatic feet-on-the-ground Ninoy and a prayerful stubborn Cory. A weakie, they said. But look, Ombudsman Mercy Gutierrez, resigned; midnight-appointee-delicadezachallenged CJ Rene, impeached and convicted; GMA, Ben Abalos, Larry Mendoza and the Ampatuans, guests of the state; Mike, et al., charged; Ambassador Brady, OK in a jiffy, Ambassador Lee, pa-consuelo de bobo, etc. A looming dictator? Can he really dictate to Manong Johnny, Joker, Gringo, Speaker Sonny, et al., all veterans in anti-dictatorship struggles? PNoys secret: designer genes, prayer and the sovereign people, who will support and follow a non-lying, non-cheating and non-stealing Prez to the ends of the earth, an expression I heard Ninoy use in praise of Ka Pepe Diokno. The next CJ should account for the billions in the Judiciary Development Fund. That may be the next battleground. My own formula: Justice Bobby Abad, retiring in 2014, should be the next CJ, and with 67 topnotcher and Harvard law alum Rudy Robles, short-listed last time, to replace him. Both should be for transparency and accountability. TonyCarp, not just now, healing is paramount and priority, but when Justice Bobby steps down, he should be shortlisted again, in 2014. Again, because he took the eminently correct position in May 2010 that no appointment could be made during that interdicted period by a lame duck caretaker-Prez, GMAs and Renes Original Sin. That was why de facto Chief Justice Rene was never my CJ, appointed by one who was never my Prez. Guesting last Tuesday morning on ANC, I was told media row had expected 19-20 Senators would vote to convict. I was incredulous. Later in the day 20 was right on the nose. I look at the press as the object of new respect. Manong Johnny was a clear winner; last Monday he concluded on mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa in Roman law and the Austinian command of the sovereign. Wily Afin Cuevas was reduced to saying that he might have been absent when the jurisprudential staple was taken up in UP Law. Rep. Rudy also scintillated, completely overshadowing his performance in that videotape with a sultry star in the martial law years. The Coronas encounter with the Senate Sgt. at Arms was disastrous. The Coronas could have pled illness instead of remarking in a manner reminiscent of his mata-pobre remark in April 2001 on the masa and descamisados at Edsa. Thus, the revenge of the masa on dugong-bughaw Rene excusing himself without seeking permission to leave from the Impeachment Court. Crazy. Indeed, those whom the gods wish to destroy they make mad first. Criminal prosecution of Rene? If he can be truly humble, the Pusong Mamon in me says the impeached and convicted CJ - first ever - has been punished far beyond what any court can impose. I dont know with the reds and pinkos in PNoys polka-dot coalition though.

People reverse supreme court; we need a transparent JDF CJ Published on 08 June 2012 Written by RENE SAGUISAG Rene Corona I never accepted as my chief justice (CJ). A usurper, or a de facto justice at best, never de jure. Enough justices shoehorned his unconstitutional delicadeza-challenged midnight elevation by lame-duck caretaker GMA as CJ as valid anyway. Last May 29, the electors, through their elected representatives in the Senate, nullified and reversed the unelected Supreme Courts cockamamie de Castro ruling of April-May 2010. The hope now is that the remaining GMA appointees will behave like the Prez Cory appointees: call a case as they see it, disregarding utang na loob. The framers knew that impeachment was about lawyers and laymen deciding a respondents fate. In the last few months, it had room for superlawyer Justice Afin Cuevas as well as relatively unlettered Lito Lapid, both charming blarneyers. When Presiding Officer Senate Prez Juan Ponce Enrile spoke of culpas, Roman Law and Austins command of the sovereign, I wondered how many appreciated what was referred or alluded to. The brilliant Afin was reduced to muttering he might have been absent when the matter was taken up in class. I had taught Roman Law (part of the curriculum then). I now handle Legal Philosophy, where Austin is a staple. I also took up at Harvard the subject of Jurisprudence under Prof. Lon Luvois Fuller (thoughts celestial, grade abysmal, was said of the legend on campus and beyond), with whom I corresponded after coming home. Jurisprudence was the title of the subject when I was in law school in San Beda, under scholarly Prof. Pons Mathay. He introduced us to Austins positivism in the early 60s, and which I taught myself in the mid-60s. So I perk up and delight when I hear anyone able to tell Austin from a hole in the ground, authoritatively. But, impeachment is a political process. The people are sovereign, with their rough and ready sense of justice. If they dont like what the SC has ruled, impeachment is one way of nullifying its decision. The GMA SC had sadly validated the installation of a midnight CJ by her, which the people in turn reversed on May 29, 2012. Neat institutional arrangement. Impeachment is a national inquest into the conduct of a few high public men; here the nation just found against the justices who incredibly rubber-stamped the decision of one who had stolen the presidency not once, but twice! (Susan Roces), and sat on a throne of bayonets, with generals as Little Prezs. The ouster of Rene is confirmation of vox populi vox Dei. Also, that a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client. Too, you never ask a question whose answer you dont already know. Likewise, we should require breeding as an unwritten qualification for the highest posts; kids learn by example and ape unpunished misconduct. The lopsided 20-3 outcome was a clear win for an underestimated PNoy now being badgered to sign a waiver as to his bank accounts. He has said he would not do so as his SALN contains such an authorization, sans the PR theatrics. Is it a good requirement? Or will it make good people now in private life shy away from it, where one is overworked, overcriticized, underpaid and underappreciated in our scofflaw heckling society? Renes case might have been sui generis. The next CJ should heal and not spark another draining episode. Justice Bobby Abad went along with his colleagues in April-May 2010 in their sorry ruling that the constitutional ban on midnight appointments would not apply to Rene, ignoring the history of midnight appointments and the Constitutions plain meaning. But, church-going Bobbys retiring in less than two years and the passage of time should have a calmative effect. Then in 2014 Justice Tony Carp, Sec./Sen. Leila de Lima, Raul Pangalangan, et al. may be considered. Please include Justice Gregory Ong whose being a natural-born Pinoy can no longer be questioned. Taking the very long view, the arcane, secretive barkadahan tayo-tayo JBC may have to go, given its lack of transparency and accountability, unless it truly reforms itself.

For starters, it should ask CJ wannabes to bare what has happened to the billions stripped from the hides of litigants since 1984 under P.D. No. 1949 so my studes can get another assignment in meandering in the bowels of the bureaucracy. We need sunshine so we can tell how much has gone to Baguio mansions, travels, vehicles, etc., contrary to the intent of the P.D. of Macoy and Lolong Lazaro. The CJ aspirant I can support must TODAY make a public vow to reveal what has been done with the JDF billions extracted from litigants since 1984, in this new post-Corona era of transparency and accountability. This disclosure CJ Jun Davide fought in 2003, and his homecourt SC sustained himnot against the brat pack of 77 Congressmen, who included the venerable Menyong Teves and Gibo Teodoro, Wimpy Fuentebella, et al., but against the people they represented. The JBC should make the aspirants make a vow to level with the people. I have sent hundreds of my students, in vain, to the SC, which said in pink Resos, naming them and me, that we are bad people who could not be trusted with the info. But, pray tell, what could we do with an honest, accurate and public-oriented liquidation and accounting? I share the view that we cannot add to constitutional qualifications. Hence, my reservation on bank waivers. Total obliteration of any zone of privacy, the right to be let and left alone, is the aim? Only the rascals who park their money in their childrens names, for instance, may go to, and remain in public life. The JBC can set policy and may ask for the transparency vow. We, the people, have the right to know. Sandbagged Rene is to get the credit for the new transparency? We might as well thank Osama Bin Laden for our anti-terrorism law and safeguards.

Transparency in. Men of letters out Published on 15 June 2012 Written by Rene Saguisag Highly-regarded Vera Files cannot say that the JBC has still to live down its mistake of nominating [to the Supreme Court (SC) in 2007] Chinese-born Gregory Ong. His brother, Atty. Walter, and I have handled his various citizenship cases all over. What mistake? We have lost nowhere. Justice Ong remains in the Sandigan. This apo sa tuhod o talampakan of natives of Malolos and all of his siblings are natural-born Pinoys. Greg descended from Jose Santos and Agata Cruz, indios del barrio [Santiago] who begat Maria Santos (in Malolos). Maria begat Juan Santos who begot Dy Guiok Rita Santos, who begat Gregory Santos Ong. No live challenge that we know of exists today, following Topacio v. Ong. 574 SCRA 517 (2008). A disgrace was GMA returning a JBC list because all three on the list of nominees for Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeals were seen as having links to kin of administration foes. How would an economist advised by generals serving as Little Prezs know better than seasoned lawyers? But, the JBC meekly submitted another list instead of asking GMA sino po ba ang talagang gusto ninyo ng hindi na po tayo mag-aksaya ng panahon? [who dost Thou really want, so we dont waste time?] Greg I can support for Associate Justice (AJ). My CJ for 2012-2014 is AJ Bobby Abad, for the interregnum. He has the edge of knowing where the comfort room is. No resentment towards an outsider, either. If things work out, CJ Leila, or CJ TonyCarp, in 2014, when, we would hope, the current controversies would have simmered down and we see an increase in light, in preparing for the unprecedented. But, they would have the likes of Dean Raul Pangalangan to contend with in 2014, particularly if he gets named AJ now. Some nominees are household words only in their own households, including a nurse who could see how sick the judiciary is. Whatever may have been TonyCarps shortcomings in the The Firms debatable storied past, in 2006, he saved the nation from the Arroyos wrongdoingno mean featalong with CJ Panganiban, and AJs Carpio-Morales, Quisumbing, Ynares-Santiago, Callejo, Austria-Martinez and Azcuna, the Magnificent Eight, who shot down the spurious Peoples Initiative in Lambino v. Comelec, 505 SCRA 160 (2006). In the 2006 orals, which lasted deep into the night, CJ Panganiban, towards the end, called Joker Arroyo and me to the rostrum, simul, unusual, and we gamely fielded questions. The Eight led by TonyCarp and Art carried the day against the Dissenting Seven. I was reminded of the US SC, with members described as nine scorpions in a bottle, vetted and voted on by the US Senate, not by a Let-Me-Call-You-Sweetheart JBC (which has incomprehensibly junked the constitutional practice in my time in the Senate of having only one member of Congress at one time). In 2010 TonyCarp was again with the people in following the Constitution and stood for having Prez-elect PNoy pick a new CJ, instead of a lameduck caretaker naming a midnight appointee, who the people shot down last month through impeachment, a national inquest more political in character than anything else. The electors shafted the unelected SC. To sum up, in an uncertain imperfect world, J. Bobby for CJ, from 2012-2014, Lei for the Senate in 2013, and in 2014, either she or TonyCarp or whoever. Greg, Raul and the others for AJ now. I think that with the impeachment and conviction of midnight CJ Rene, the slate is clean and the current SC will call it as the institution sees it, the way it did during Prez Corys watch. IOUs settled. The Macoy and GMA SCs were disasters. We see now where mere letters are entertained. Ka Lauro Vizconde saw Rene C, who voted against Hubert. Rene should have abstained. To stress the unnecessary, for me to endorse anyone, he or she must vow to disclose the status of the secret Judiciary Development Fund (JDF) and the Special Assessment for the Judiciary Fund (SAJF) and make the quarterly reporting mandated by Sec. 3 of P.D. No. 1949, which TonyCarp has just done. If he nobly declines his automatic nomination now, in the public interest, hes my man in 2014, 99.99 percent, for announcing his sunshine positions on these issues. No hurry. Weve had no CJ for more than 4,000 days, and for a week in May 1982, following a bar scandal, we had no SC even. We moved on. The new CJ should let the sunshine in. No more arcana, which we have in PacquiaoBradley, in boxing, Jimmy Cannons red light district of sports. VPJojobama, who grew up in Culi-Culi, Makatis former red light district, should know about such panandaliang-aliw [quickie-fun] places. And, for his own good, Rep. Manny should focus on the rematch and give up his congressional seat. Focus was what he did years ago as a hungry

fighter but now that he has money to burn, he has to understand why the Forbes crowd are not anxious to mix with his crowd in their snooty plutocratic enclave, so far from flooded Glan in Sarangani. I should not really be for TonyCarp, given The Firms history, but I found exhilarating not only his decision to have the judiciary disclose its SALNswhich we have yet to seebut the papers announced his plan also to disclose secret Funds. Should he convince the SC to release SALN, JDF and SAJF data within the month, hallelujah. He may be my next CJ, not in 2014, but now, when he may settle for a monument however. My calmative interregnum formula is for mild-mannered church-going CJ Bobby Abad, for less than two years, when he will be 70. My other bet, Leila, has to be commended for heeding St. Thomas More and for eliminating all those fees litigants have had to shoulder all these years, another legacy of the GMA reign, which mocked the constitutional provision on free or affordable access to justice. I am sure Leila is also for JDF and SAJF disclosure, a plus for an outsider. Insiders may try to cover their arses. Lei is one I can easily recommend for a Senate seat next year, which would not foreclose her being CJ in 2014, with all due respect to the other names being mentioned, but who should either run for the Senate or serve as AJ first, like Dean Raul, Katrina L, Kim H (a niece-in-law; full disclosure), Dean Cesar, Francis, and other worthies. The next CJ should see to it that never again will a columnist write that someone up high said he was talking individually with every [justice] to convince them to reverse an earlier decision on mining. PDI, Dec. 7, 2004, p. B3, col. 1. No static. And that never again will a CJ Concepcion have to denounce colegialas [college girls] for daring to write to the SC. It just wasnt done, he said, in late 1971, in a concurring Reso denying a motion for recon in an attempt at an advance plebiscite on reducing the voting age to 18. Tolentino v. Comelec, 149 Phil. 301, 307 (1971). Now Titong Mendoza, Toy Feliciano, et al. lead the Men of Letters.

Birth anniversaries and JBC mystique/mistake Published on 22 June 2012 Written by RENE SAGUISAG This week marks the birth dates of two great Filipinos, Jose Rizal, after whom was named the province that used to be represented by Rep. Jovito Salonga, my uncle Jovy, who will be 92 today, but is not aware of it. Given his shape, we cannot hear his voice rising above the din on the choice of a new Chief Justice (CJ) to replace Rene Corona. Rene is now jobless because of R.A. No. 6713, which Uncle, with help from the UP College of Public Ads Ledivina Carino, had authored, which Tito Guingona, Orly Mercado and I co-authored, and which Ka Komong Sumulong and I shepherded in conference. (Whenever the Senate and House versions differ, a bicameral conference committee is formed to reconcile conflicts.) Removed just because of SALN? Why ever not? It is not meant only for low-level employees, such as Delsa Flores, court interpreter. It goes into the moral fitness of a public servant, including a CJ unconstitutionally inflicted in May 2010 on us by the Arroyo Eight. Delicadeza flew out of the window as a de facto CJ had rushed from the US to allow GMA to leave without medical evidence that she needed urgent medical treatment abroad. It has been six months since. OK naman, unlike Dolphy. Prayers. Was I glad Sec. Leila de Lima prevented GMAs departure, clearly justified by police power, overriding policy considerations and a higher law. And pity on the justices who defied the Constitution and precedents to please their appointer. The sovereign people, the electors, overruled the unelected SC through constitutional impeachment. I teach my studes never to surrender their conscience to the state and hang the costs and consequences, suspension, removal, indeed even freedom and death. MABINI stalwart Jun Factoran, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano and I scrambled to meet last Friday, given the June 18 deadline. We agreed that Ronnie Zamora should be recommended to be the new CJ. I had earlier endorsed Justice Bobby Abad. Bobby and Ronnie can serve only until 2014 when they turn 70. We need a period of calm to quiet todays turmoil. Either can best help navigate through the current shoals in a stormy sea. The deadline was extended last Monday by another two weeks on the request of some lawyer for reasons unclear. But, request granted, said the JBC, reasoning that anyway the 90-day period would not end until late August. We have survived without a CJ for weeks now, belying the spurious urgency in May 2010, occasioning the violation of the Constitution banning delicadeza-challenged midnight appointments. I let it be known in my nomination of Bobby and Ronnie that the new CJ should 1) no longer give my students problems in securing SALNs and accounting of public funds; 2) help stop tragicomic flip-flopping; and 3) ban ex parte contacts between the Justices and people like Ka Lauro Vizconde, Speaker Joe de Venecia, ex-SolGen Titong Mendoza and ex-Justice Toy Feliciano, whether in person, through intermediaries or through letters, but may be heard only through formal filings, like the rest of us, copying the other side. I erred in writing to the SC on an impeachable offense a decade ago and am still facing a disbarment charge today lodged by well-meaning lawyers whose father, a good lawyer-comrade against Macoy, Haydee Yorac and I had criticized on an unrelated matter. And what gives the JBC the right to add the qualification that Leila should not be facing a disbarment charge for an anti-GMA posture? The Justice Secretary has no right to be presumed innocent? Suppose the case is not decided within the next decade, as in mine? Facing charges should not be a basis to disqualify outright but may be considered in determining moral fitness if it involves discretion or policy impressed with a public interest and is not about dishonesty and the like that go into integrity. Filing charges is the easiest thing to do. The new CJ should make clear the SC policy on travels. CJ Felix Makasiar told me he never traveled abroad. Why should Justices travel at all anyway with cases pending in the SC for decades? Computers provide most everything. The new CJ should vow to have Manila, the nations capital, have a new decent courthouse within a year or so. It is shameful that you go to our courts there at the risk of incurring tetanus, with its jurassic equipment and inoperative elevators. In courthouses abroad, you speak in hushed tones, as if in some cathedral. I want justices to be read, and not seen nor heard, as before. I want Justice on Wheels reexamined; good for show but institutionalizes nothing and adhocs everything. Guatemala is known for something else than speedy justice. Justices should write shorter rulings. In the 60s one Supreme Court Reports Annotated (SCRA) volume may have months of decisions in plain language. Today, only four days, and may need to be translated.

I want the new CJ as JBC head to refuse any request by a Prez to submit a new list of nominees, as happened in the first decade of this millennium. How could GMA and her Little Prez-Generals, know more than lawyers about lawyers? TonyCarp in 2014? For all that has been said of his past, as acting CJ, he has in effect reversed the ruling of the unelected in 2003 banning an inquiry into the Judiciary Development Fund) in a case involving Gibo Teodoro (a CJ nominee himself, who declined, not being a legend in his own mind), Wimpy Fuentebella, Menyong Teves and 74 other elected Congressmen. But, the report should not only be in computers but should be made available to the public in hard copies at photocopying cost. I for one would not know what to do with websites to save my life. My first assignment to my computer-savvy classes this new semester has to do with SALNs and JDF/SAF reports denied hundreds of my students before. Has there been compliance with TonyCarps breath-taking initiatives? Back to Bobby and Ronnie, is anyone better? We cannot just be hearing from the nattering nabobs of negativism. I recommended Bobby and Ronnie and was shocked to be told that someone also kindly nominated me. In January 1987, I turned down a signed SC appointment, when I was 47. You do the numbers on my age. Speaking of numbers, BIR chief Kim Henares, a niece-in-law, should stay put and have Manny Pacquiao tell us how much he paid our government in taxes on an income of $62M last year, or a knockout P2,728B. Taxes paid the BIR? Ambot. Under Sec. 7 of R.A. No. 3019, a public servant must also report taxes paid. I doubt that anybody does. I was right not to hold my breath about SALN transparency. Cebu RTC Judge Menmen Paredes, a fellow human rights lawyer reportedly wondered how a truthful SALN can be used against anyone (specially the powerful). So the SC will continue to deem my studes and their teacher as bad people not to be trusted for exercising their right to know under the Consti, as particles of popular sovereignty. Unelected, it continues to tamper with the work of the elected. Sad.

20 questions for CJ wannabes Published on 29 June 2012 Written by RENE SAGUISAG San Beda topped the last CPA exams. No. 1 was Manuel Buensuceso. All his classmates passed. Last year, in law, San Beda Mendiola and Alabang had overall passing percentages in the 90s. Results are clearly measurable, which is more than we can say on the nebulous standards in picking a new Chief Justice (CJ). Very loose as in kunyari SALN disclosure. Pretend. Lets play a game by having the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) ask a CJ aspirant for the Supreme Court (SC) 20 Questions, after the popular parlor exercise. TV will dramatize the exercise which will, willy-nilly, lengthen the proceedings. The JBC seeking psycho tests results presents its own set of problems likeshould not the JBC members themselves exhibit proof that they have passed the same tests. One nut I know who got a certificate of sanity was a perennial Prez candidate long ago, Pascal Racuyal. Released by the National Mental Hospital (NMH), he was armed with official proof of sanity no foe could match. When Imelda ran in Metro Manila for the Batasan in 1978, she campaigned in the NMH and was wildly cheered in every pavilion save the last. She asked why. The sheepish reply: that was the pavilion of the cured, being processed for release. My personal suggested questions (and answers cum insights, in parentheses): 1. Is there anything about your past or background that if exposed would embarrass us all? (Routinely asked in US headhunting.) 2. Are you willing to show us your SALN? (Sure, here is mine, no problem, no preconditions.) 3. Are you willing to give copies of same to the public (including my innocent students. I want weirdo Saguisags studes to pass.) 4. Would you sign a waiver on your dollar accounts, if any? (A private citizen may say, yes but only once shortlisted, not before, as a private citizens right to privacy, to be let and left alone, is sacrosanct. ) 5. Will you make available to the public SC Resolutions say on forum-shopping? (Yes, I will have the current practice of secrecy changed. Resos affect the public.) 6. Have you ever complied in your government service with Sec. 7 of Art. 3019 on reporting your income, family expenses and taxes paid for 2011? (Tomorrow. I will submit my compliance. Thanks for reminding me of this virtually dead law no one seems to follow.) 7. Have you ever applied for or availed yourself of another citizenship? (Hmmmm) 7.1. Variation: Have you ever migrated, resided abroad and returned? (Ditto) 8. Will you help inform the public of what the SC does with the Judiciary Development Fund (JBC) billions? (Sure.) 9. Why no decent courthouse in the nations capital? (Ill see what I can do about it to remedy this shameful lack, exposing guests to tetanus.) 10. We have two members from Congress, unlike before, when we had one. Are we right and our predecessors wrong? (May I decline to answer just in case I am blest to be named next CJ and have to deal with the issue on expansive bureaucratic appetite?) 11. Will you ask any traveling Justice to report on coming home, on why he traveled, at what cost, and on whose account, and how it discharged a Justices only duty really: to decide cases (about 8,000 pending)? (Sure. I will discourage travel until we shall have reduced our backlog to say 1/5 of what it is now. CJ Makasiar never traveled abroad. Today we have the Internet even.) 12. If heavies like Titong Mendoza or Toy Feliciano write to the SC, or like Lauro Vizconde, Dante Jimenez and

Speaker Joe de Venecia, go to see you in chambers, instead of filing a formal pleading, motion or manifestation, what would you advise the SC to do? (To say it just isnt done, make the improper approach of record then inhibit myself. If an obscure impoverished uninfluential litigant comes to see me and pleads his case, same, but I will be kinder and gentler; he may simply not have known any better.) 13. Who would you want shortlisted with you? If you are not nominated, which two others among the aspirants would you want shortlisted? (Name names.) 14. Your views on Justices socializing. (Minimal, as before?) 15. TV? (Oh, no, not another telenovela. But, KISS, Keep It Short Stupid. Sunshine is admittedly a disinfectant but so many to be interviewed because being nominated has become like being cited for the French Legion of Honor, said to be a distinction almost impossible to escape. Even I, at 72, got nominated. I got a signed SC appointment at 47, which I turned down, not being cut out for public life and seeing many others far more qualified. The one who nominated me may have confused my second childhood with youth.) 16. Will you continue Justice on Wheels? (Review. We should really have more permanent courthouses as a finer institutional arrangement and not follow what is supposed to be done in Third-World Guatemala, an extrajudicial killing capital of the world.) 17. Your take on increased filing and other fees. (Maybe we can look at reducing such fees as only the wealthy can access the courts today, and victims may go to Tondo contractuals or the NPA.) 18. Your take on abolishing the JBC? (It should try to be close to the dream of CJ Concepcion, to merit public acceptance.) 19. If the Prez returns a list to the JBC, as GMA would, what to do? (Return the same list. We lawyers know our profession better than any layman Prez.) 20. What do you think of JPEs proposal for a CJ aspirant to take a bar exam? (Only if Manong JPE will take it with me. Seriously, law has become so specialized senior citizens may have trouble with 2012 questions, half of which may be Multiple Choice Questions not testing reasoning and articulation.) The only perfect SC Justice so far is from my alma mater, San Beda (Clase Superior), Justice Gregorio Perfecto. But, we should approximate paradigmatic CJs of before, like CJ Concepcion, Clase Superior and AB. Judge not on the basis of the testimony of a single incident or two, but the manifestation of an entire lifetime. (The Cardinal.) We are looking for a CJ, not canonizing anyone.