A STRONG republic under a strong presidency is how President Arroyo says it. It could also be said the other way around, i.e., a strong presidency under a strong republic. The critical factor in this combination is the presidency. If the presidency is weak, we cannot expect the republic to be strong. It is when the presidency is strong that the republic follows and is made strong. A strong president makes her own decisions and leads. Relying on sulsultants around her, who have their own hidden agenda is to breed termites for her self-destruct.
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Most of the cause-oriented groups have been concentrating their protests on politics to the neglect of other equally critical issues, such as environment, natural resources, pollution, etc. But we have an environmental activist group, the Greenpeace, which addresses its concern to our future, and the world’s. Meantime, its campaign is to persuade Asian governments to use alternative sources of energy instead of coal as this emits greenhouse gases and causes global warming. If the warming continues, we will all be fried alive one day.
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Before DoJ Secretary Nani Perez left the department to run for office, he introduced one lasting and memorable improvement into the present government structure. This was the forthcoming Department of Justice Academy that was finally established. Presumably, the NBI, the Office of the Solicitor General, the Public Attorneys Office, and Office of the Government Corporate Counsel will be the government agencies to benefit most from this institution by way of more efficient and effective public service.
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The poor cannot afford to engage competent lawyers to defend them in court. They only have the Public Attorneys Office (PAO) to handle their cases. I have repeatedly urged that the PAO lawyers should all be trained to be effective defense counsel for the poor. Retired Justice Serafin Cuevas, as DoJ secretary then, had planned to institute a training program for the PAO lawyers and the DoJ prosecutors as well. The project was aborted when Cuevas was replaced by DoJ Secretary Artemio Tuquero. During the recent Ateneo homecoming, Secretary Perez and I discussed the establishment of a DoJ Academy with the same objective. That was his legacy to the justice system, before he ran for governor last May 10, just as it is the legacy left by then Secretary of Justice Datumanong as he was the one who inaugurated it last year.
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If the Charter change would push through, 74% of the people interviewed last year by a survey organization preferred a Constitutional Convention to be constituted by elected delegates, over a Constituent Assembly. The people entertained apprehensions that if members of Congress are to amend the Constitution, the people might not ratify it if they believe that some new provisions included in the amendment would only benefit the incumbent lawmakers. It would only be an expensive and useless exercise if the amended Constitution would eventually be rejected. But the people may not be thinking the same way now.
