An SC justice’s dangerous tendency

For the record, we would like to say that we have much respect for Supreme Court As­sociate Justice Marvic Leonen. After all, he is one the young­est ever to be named to the High Court.

He also served as chair­man of the peace panel tasked to negotiate a deal with the Moro Islamic Liber­ation Front (MILF). While the framework for the Bangsam­oro inked by Leonen’s group apparently failed to pass the litmus test of constitutionali­ty, he must be given credit for finishing the work given him.

Despite our respect for the man, however, we must say that Leonen may be ex­ercising the prerogatives of being a young member of the Bench too far.

He is perhaps the most avid user of social media among the members of the Supreme Court. He has a penchant for twitting and posting his dissenting opin­ions – a tendency that is being used by trolls and habitués of that dark world of the internet to foment anger.

Worse, Leonen’s twits and posts are being used to­day to generate anger against Leonen’s own peers in the Su­preme Court – his fellow as­sociate justices whose recent majority decision has cleared the way for the burial of the late President Ferdinand Mar­cos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Leonen posted and twit­ted portions of what is sup­posed to be his dissenting opinion.

Part of that post reads:

“Sooner rather than later, we will experience the same fear of a strongman who will dictate his view on the solu­tions of his favored social ills. Women will again be disre­spected, molested, and then raped. People will die need­lessly—perhaps summarily killed by the same law enforc­ers who are supposed to pro­tect them and guarantee the rule of law.

“Perhaps, there will be people who will be tortured after they are shamed and ste­reotyped.

“We forget the lessons of the past when we allow abuse to hold sway over the lives of those who seem to be unrelat­ed to us. Silence, in the face of abuse, is complicity.”

While we respect Leonen’s right to “express himself,” we are concerned that he appar­ently does not know the con­sequences of his act. Here, he is not writing about a point or law. He is not enlightening us on the constitutional basis of a decision or the absence of it. Here, he is spewing words that spark anger.

Leonen is not just doing something dangerous here. He is also setting a precedent. In the future, SC justices who dissent from what the majority of his or her peers think may resort to arguing their point before the “court of public opinion.”

In the process, they stoke public anger. Public anger is step number one in a delicate process that ends up in mob rule.

Isn’t a “mob rule” exactly what our judicial institutions are supposed to prevent?

We think the problem arises when some members of the SC begin to entertain no­tions that they are the guard­ians of our morals. We believe their mandate is to be the guardians of the Constitution. They are trained to be consti­tutionalists, not moralists.

If Leonen wants to play “national moralist,” he should remove the robe of an SC magistrate. Leonen should in­stead do a Mocha Uson – be­come a blogger and a colum­nist. There, he can moralize till kingdom come.

Until and unless he dis­robes, Leonen’s rants could end up undermining the very institution he is sworn to serve.

We are concerned that such act, in itself, could be considered lacking in morality.

Speaking of morality, we subscribe to the view that is­sue of the burial of President Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani should be con­sidered a legal and not a moral issue. The SC should not be asked to rule on the morality of a matter.

Is it legal and constitu­tional to bury the late Presi­dent at the Libingan ng mga Bayani? The Supreme Court said so. When the majority of the SC justices rule in favor of a position, that is considered THE Supreme Court deci­sion, regardless of whether or not there are dissenting opin­ions.

Would allowing the buri­al of President Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani pass the test of morality?

Who can say? Who are we to judge? Who is supposed to be the final arbiter on the is­sues of morality in this coun­try? The Church—which is struggling with its own issues of morality? The Aquinos, the Roxases and the Lacierdas of this world? The Black and White Movement (if its mem­bers are to pass their own mo­rality test)?

As for President Marcos, it can be said that he did some­thing in his life that is certainly morally upright – that would pass the test or morality with flying colors.

President Marcos fought the Japanese invaders. He fought on the side of the Fil­ipinos. He fought under the Philippine flag. That, in any­one’s book, should be consid­ered moral.

We do not know if the same can be said of some­body’s ancestor who conve­niently served, instead, in the puppet government of our erstwhile colonial masters.

We are afraid that cannot be called “moral” in any lan­guage.