The Comelec
and the High Court

What? The Supreme Court is going to review again, for the third time, a decision that it has called “final and executory” three times before it suddenly turned around and reversed it? We are talking about the case of the 16 towns that their congressmen had worked to convert into cities, even if they did not meet the constitutional requirements. After its latest flip-flop, where it gave in to the pleadings of the 16 towns to let them continue to retain the status of city, it is now studying the case again.

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I sympathize with the 16 towns that have also been on a see-saw all this time, but they shouldn’t have insisted on the conversion in the first place. The Constitution is very specific: there is a required minimum for land area, for population, and for income. Of course being cities will entitle them to bigger internal revenue allotments, or IRA, to the disadvantage of the old cities that were the sources of that money.

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The third “final and executory” decision of the High Court was arrived at with a vote of only 6-5, quite a close one. Now we are hearing that several SC justices had voted against it because they probably did not want to have people asking what “final and executory” means. But with the barrage of unfavorable comments about the latest decision, it seems they are having second thoughts, i.e., the ones whose hearts bled for the unqualified towns that wanted to be cities. So now we wait for the next “final and executory” decision, while the poor officials of the city-wannabes are palpitating with anxiety as to what their fate will be.

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“Once a priest, a priest forever”. I always liked that quotation which I first heard during our religion classes at LCC. More so when the late Bishop Manuel Yap and then Vicar General Antonio Fortich, who were our instructors at the Cathetical Institute conducted by the Diocese, explained it. Now it has become clearer, and more relevant with the news that the Irish priest, Fr. Michael Sinnot, who was kidnapped and held by a still undefined and unconfirmed group in Mindanao for more than a month, has returned from a brief vacation abroad, and wants to go back to his mission. Considering that he is now 80 years old, and that retirement for him is long overdue, Fr. Sinnot exemplifies, indeed, the priest who will serve his God forever. Catholics must pray that their priests will have the same zeal and fidelity as Fr. Sinnot.

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Noynoy Aquino should be happy that everybody is picking on him. That should mean he is the one considered seriously by his opponents. Even Malacañang is taking potshots at him, especially when he commented on the Chief Justice issue. Now even the marital problems of his redoubtable sister are being used to drag him down. As for the sister, the popular, but sometime infamous Kris Aquino, she is all over the media after reports of her having confronted the mother of the woman she suspected of running after her husband.

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Poor Cory, she must again be storming the heavens with prayers for her youngest offspring. In a TV interview yesterday, Kris was lamenting that it seems she is the one who has to do most of the loving and understanding in their marriage. But didn’t she herself had crushes on basketball stars when she was younger? And, much as I sympathize with her and admiring her for working to save her marriage, I think what her siblings should stress to her is that she knew there was more than 10 years gap in their ages, so she has to resign to being a sort of mother image to this obviously immature and wayward boy.

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Meanwhile, I saw a picture of the statue of her mother, the late President Cory Aquino which, I understand, had been commissioned by Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim. It is, as all the works of sculptor Ed Castrillo, powerful, but I’m sorry, I can’t feel that it has captured Cory. I don’t see it exuding her gentle yet firm character, in fact there seems to be a strong hint of arrogance. I realize that artists have their own way of depicting their subjects, but since this statue is supposed to stand there through the years, that will be the way the next generations who haven’t seen or known her will imagine her to be. But, at least, it’s better than the image set up at EDSA that some critics had described as “parang daing (like dried fish)” when it was first unveiled.”

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By the way, the Commission on Election seems to be taking its cue from the Supreme Court. Now it is reinstating candidates it had rejected before, so that we already have about 10 bets for president, and 144 party-list groups seeking representation. What if they all win?*

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