Transcript of interview by Ces Drilon and Ricky Carandang on The Rundown, ANC, Tuesday, May 18, 2010.
Intro: Columnist and ANC’s the Explainer, Manolo Quezon, does not see the country falling into a constitutional crisis over the refusal of senator Noynoy Aquino to recognize the appointment of Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Quezon notes neither President Arroyo nor critics questioning so-called midnight appointments have taken any steps to take the matter outside of legal institutions.
Let’s look at the history and exceptions.
There are three non-negotiables: the date when term begins, the time (high noon), the text of the oath, there’s an option to swear before God or doing on affirmation -everything else is tradition or ritual.
In 1935 there was a raging debate for the number of guns in the salute the president would get, and it was pointed out that legally speaking you can take your oath of office in your sala, in your pajamas and its perfectly legal because there was a threat there would be a boycott of ceremonies
There are innovations in the inauguration of the president here’s three very recent ones:
Pres. Aquino dispensed with the tradition dated back to Osmena that the outgoing president would only accompany the incoming president as far as the inauguration site, and following American practice leave them there then go home so by the time the incoming president took his oath of office the old president was already at home to become an ordinary citizen.
Pres. Aquino deviated from this long standing tradition because she felt that her commitment was to restoring democracy and therefore part of it was to witness the oath taking of her constitutionally elected successor, Pres. Estrada didn’t take his oath of office in the Quirino Grandstand where all the presidents since Quirino had been doing it, because it was the centennial year and they had to do it in Barasoain, which was of course, a place where Aguinaldo did not take his path of office before a chief justice, he did it before the Malolos Congress.
During WW2, during the gov’t in exile, Quezon took his oath of office for the 3rd time in 1943 before Felix Frankfurter, then Osmena when Quezon died in 1944 took it before justice Jackson, who was the lead prosecutor in the Nuremburg trials because Chief Justice Abad Santos had been shot by the Japanese and we had no SC to speak of.
Pres. Arroyo herself deviated from tradition in not having her oath of office in the capital, the first president to do so not under wartime circumstances.
Q, But under ordinary circumstances a president takes the oath before a member of judiciary?
Under ordinary circumstances. The question here is whether these are ordinary circumstances or not, we should bear in mind that it is not a legal issue completely.
It is as much an ethical issue as it is a legal issue. The issue is not Corona himself, it is whether Corona’s designation or appointment was valid or not and should be accepted or not and what the options are of a future president under such circumstances
Q. So what about Aquino’s intention of taking his oath before a barangay captain?
What they tried to do was pin down Sen. Aquino, what they did was to leave him with a steaming pile of a problem.
An ordinary president who was concerned with an ordinary and peaceful transition would not leave his successor with this sort of dilemma. This who controversy was created by an assertion made by Pres. Arroyo that went against every precedent established by her predecessors starting notably with her own father.
For the part of Chief Justice Corona, the example he had to wrestle was the example of former Chief Justice Manuel Moran who was offered an appoinment to the C under similar circumstances, but declined it out of what he felt was delicadeza not out of any legal question.
For Moran the ethical part of the offer trumped the legal part, for Chief Justice Corona now he doesn’t want to consider the ethical dilemma debate there.
On the part of the presidency as an institution, you have again instances of several weighty precedents: the voiding of the midnight appointments of Pres. Garcia upon the instigation of President Macapagal as approved by the SC and so placed in jurisprudence, the case that it was specifically inserted into our present constitution as an important principle that there should be this element of self-control to the extent of prohibition on a president’s ability to influence things going into the successors [new term], the case of 1998 SC decision based on the constitution based on the precedents established by the Garcia actions which also affected Justice Corona because Pres, Ramos tried to put him in the SC that time and the SC looked back at the precedents…
What the SC did this time around and what has made it controversial which is why I’m saying this is a unique circumstance -every past precedent including inaugurations does not hold- is that the SC said we have an exemption for ourselves (it doesn’t apply to us, this would be a shocking innovation will lead to a debate: what should you do?)
What should you do if you are the incoming executive? Th Palace prefers [Aquino] to roll over and take it up the rear end like a good boy.
[After all] If you were to accept that ethics mattered in this situation then the whole sort of legal house of cards they set up would collapse anyway, then of course they cant do that.
Q. Would this present a constitutional crisis?
There have been dark mutterings this could be some sort of constitutional crisis but I don’t think anyone can say that any side has deviated from any resolution of this matter outside of the courts or outside congress (where all these questions are supposed to be settled) there’s no constitutional crisis now and never-
It boils down to clashing attitudes on how a president should approach their job, as a pragmatist or [on the basis of ethics] where not everything legal is right and where personal honor or standing [should be] as [a] considered stand.
This was a stand not arrived at by whimsy, it was a stand shared across the board by virtually all the candidates running for president. All of them felt the president should not push this issue, it was the wrong argumentation, it was going to present a diminishing of the court, [reduce] the standing of the court, the standing of the justice system, and it was an intrusion into what should be the clean break from the past that every new administration should be able to expect…
Constitutional crisis? Only if you consider being bold enough to challenge executive decisions before the court, and resorting to remedies vs. impunity as a constitutional crisis. Only if you consider the courts and accountability measures in congress a constitutional crisis, but these are provided for in the constitution.
This is an issue regarding impunity: impunity on the part of the president, and to a certain extent impunity on the part of the SC in terms of its giving itself an exemption no one else can enjoy. But if you look at the objections and how its been raised, it’s been done in a fairly respectful manner, a very democratic manner and in a manner that is in conformity with our laws and the constitution: in that sense all the talk of a crisis is much ado about nothing.
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