[this was the most exciting thing I've seen today. it is really awesome when someone notices the pretentious and tells the truth freely]
MIRIAM DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO has an explanation for why she lost her bid to become one of the 15 members of the International Court of Justice despite the frenzied efforts of no less than her commander in chief to shove her there. "It was a hard campaign, but ultimately it was a power game," she said. "[The UN] keeps advocating gender balance but now in the ICJ there are 15 judges without a single woman judge. This shows the UN does not advance international interests as much as the national interests of powerful countries."
Well, if it so, what of it? Power game is all Santiago knows, power game is all she plays. I remember again her sly comment about why Ronaldo Puno is so malakas with all the presidents. We might ask her the same thing. Why is she so malakas with all the presidents, except Fidel Ramos?
The most dramatic instance of it is her being malakas with both Erap and GMA, who are mortal enemies. With the guy she (and Juan Ponce Enrile) defended from being found guilty during the impeachment trial and the gal she (and Enrile) defends from being impeached today. With the guy she (and Juan Ponce Enrile) drove a mob to storm Malacañang for, shouting "Sugod! Sugod!" and the gal she (and Enrile) is driving an angry people away from Malacañang for, shouting "Urong! Urong!" With the guy she (and Enrile) vowed undying loyalty to then and the gal she (and Enrile) vows undying loyalty to now.
Power play did her in at the UN? Nakarma siya.
But even power play isn't so easy to buy. That presupposes the UN took Santiago's bid seriously, or paid any notice to her sponsor, the most dysfunctional ruler of the most dysfunctional country in Asia, recommending her to their attention. We have only her and GMA's word on it, and they both have yet to show they have a firm grasp of reality, never mind a capacity to tell the truth.
Quite simply, why in the world, physical or metaphysical, known or unknown, would any international body having remotely to do with law and justice want to include Santiago in its ranks? Being a man or woman has nothing to do with it, being a champion of justice or not has everything to do with it. The title of the organization is the "International Court of Justice," it is not the "International Court of Jesters."
What are Santiago's qualifications that should endear her to jurists? In sense and sensibility, in IQ and EQ, in mind and in body, she is no more and no less only than that other Filipino who has the word "justice" tacked to his name: Raul Gonzalez. Would you imagine Gonzalez qualified to judge the world? In fact, would you imagine him qualified to clean your toilet? By the same token, would you hire Santiago to do either one of those tasks?
In fact, like Gonzalez and their common boss, the only thing Santiago knows is to try to look, and sound, important. She is not. She has neither the academic nor the juridical accomplishment, the legal nor moral stature, to commend her to any body that takes law and justice seriously, let alone an international one. On the contrary, she has all the baggage to commend her to the nation as a negative example: Huwag tularan! Look upon her and despair.
I will not go again into her record of power-playing, of defending perfidy and wrongdoing in the Senate. That is plain for all the world to see, which the world probably has. Suffice it to marvel here at the breathtaking heights of delusion Santiago and GMA have reached, imagining they can take their sister act to the world stage and somehow get rave reviews.
It's not so hard to see why GMA should campaign long and hard to get someone who once tried to oust her, and who even dared authorities to arrest her for it, to a position of authority in the world's courts. It should come in handy when GMA is out of power and is being hounded for the "culture of impunity" she unleashed upon this land. Like Ferdinand Marcos, she can be haled to the international courts for it. Like Marcos she can be found guilty for it. Like Marcos, she can be made to pay for it.
Although if that is the case, you have to wonder why GMA should trust the one person who vowed undying loyalty to the president she replaced until he was out of power to do that for her when she too is out of power. But, well, that's another one whose karma will come. And soon.
Meanwhile, you have to marvel at the cheekiness of it. This country has distinguished itself in the first decade of this millennium only for the most unflattering things. For having one of the most corrupt governments in Asia, for having one of the most illegitimate rulers in Asia, and for having one of the most vicious rules in Asia, reviving and rivaling the murder and mayhem of Marcos' times. And yet Gloria and Miriam flatter themselves that they can stride into the world and bedazzle it with their wit and charm, or what they deem to be so. That is not audacity, that is brain damage.
It's almost as if, having gotten used to getting their way with this country, who cares whether the public likes it or not, they have the power the people do not, they figure they can get their way with the world, too. It's almost as if, having gotten used to fooling all their countrymen all the time (or at least most of them), they figure they can fool all the world all the time, too. It's almost as if, having gotten used to bamboozling a people who have grown too tired to protest inanity and iniquity and stupidity, if at all they can still distinguish them from reason and decency and justice, they figure they can power-play the world into submission, too.
As a Filipino, I am deeply shamed that I have these people to speak in my name at this time of my life, at any time in my life. Not all the karma that befalls them will be able to dispel that.
-Conrado de Quiros
the philippine daily inquirer
november 12, 2008
