Lucio Tan's Supreme Court

THE Constitution empowers the Supreme Court to be the arbiter of legal disputes and controversies within its jurisdiction. As the Highest Tribunal of the land, disputes are settled with finality in this Court. After the Supreme Court, there is no other court left for recourse, except of if you recognize the courts of the New People's Army or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

As a former law student, I was trained to respect the voice of the Supreme Court; when this Court speaks, it speaks with authority; its voice is the Law. Now, the Supreme Court seems to have an alter-ego. Its voice seems not solitary but it reverberates, albeit in different levels or divisions.

Last Oct. 4, the Supreme Court ruled "with finality" the case of the Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines (Fasap) urging the Philippine Airlines (PAL) to reinstate 1,400 of its members. The case has been languishing at the Supreme Court files for more than 13 years now. The decision was met with utmost relief since, if you read the case, Fasap members are really entitled reinstatement. Their dismissal was really illegal and in violation of the law.

Then comes the Court's regular "amicus curiae" Estelito Mendoza, PALs blue chip lawyer writing from his desk in Makati, citing the fact that the decision was issued by a wrong division. It should have been the third division, not the second, a very simple technicality which sectors find extremely unfortunate, says Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

For Fasap and the rest of the militating labor at PAL, it is not just unfortunate but extremely irregular. For a very sensitive issue such as a PAL labor dispute, this is irregular and unjust. It is totally condemnable, says Anak Pawis Representative and labor leader Rafael Mariano.

The ruling of the 2^nd division was just, yet the decision of the court to withdraw what it said was "final and executory" solicited extreme public reaction. It just proves that this Court favors most of Lucio Tan's companies, what with a series of court cases favoring the sickly tobacco magnate.

And when one case came through out of the Court's radar, the Highest Court which dispenses cases with finality finally proved vulnerable to another flip flop. This is a shame. This just proves that our Laws are extremely ludicrous and prone to differing views and opinions.

 

Credit that to a highly politicized House that inks laws of very dubious natures and an Executive that knows absolutely nothing. Worse, we have a Supreme Court that is supposed to correct legal infirmities -- again, a body that knows absolutely nothing. The people should be the ones to correct these things. It is time to overhaul the system and replace it with the correct and right bodies.

(Issue of Oct. 10-16, 2011)