And just this for all
From the start of his massive antidrug campaign, the motorcycle-riding Duterte Harley already seemed to face a problem – a big ugly problem.
The administration would not know what to do with the necessary role of the judiciary in the unprecedented growth of this deadly tumor called drug trade.
Anti-drug agencies abroad some time ago estimated the racket here at about $8.4 billion a year. Yes, about P390 billion!
It was just that, after all the trouble, Duterte-Harley figured correctly that he did not have the power over the judicial branch of the government, for it to help him to stop the swelling drug trade.
He implied the problem in his famous yet brief exchange of spicy words with Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno recently.
When he named judges as among the many public officials who allegedly were coddlers of drug lords, Sereno reacted with a hint of irritation, noting that members of the judiciary were the lookout of the Supreme Court—and not Malacañang.
Besides, even before Duterte Harley could take his oath of Malacañang office last June, he already crossed swords with the judiciary.
In Davao one time, he expressed anger over the wholesale issuance of TROs by the courts, even using a strong word to describe it all, calling the TRO issuances as “wanton.”
And then he dropped the bomb: “The TRO simply means money for the judges.”
Like it or not, when Duterte Harley launched his war against illegal drugs, he must also take his administration on a much bigger crusade: To eliminate corruption deeply ingrained in the government.
In the past, as in any country, criminal activities here automatically bred corruption. Jueteng. Kidnapping. Carnapping. Drugs. Name it, and corruption was tied to it! How then could Duterte Harley stop those criminal activities without addressing corruption as well?
Duterte Harley noted that the supposed corruption in the judiciary hampered government projects, and that was one of the reasons behind his apparent desire to bring about change in the judicial system, too.
The far-reaching problem nevertheless also affected business, perhaps more so.
Believe me, in some business circles, they maintained a ticker tape on the “going rate” for TROs and injunctions in different courts in the land.
Here is one horror story that I came across recently, featuring a service provider and its customer that fought each in court over their freaking contract for what in business would seem an eternity.
The fight actually began more than 20 years ago, and thanks to the persistent meddling by the judiciary, the case still had to be settled the last time I checked.
It all began when the customer told the service provider that it was no longer happy with the service.
The customer naturally went out looking for a different provider.
Instead of wooing the customer back with terms it could not refuse, as most other sellers of service would have done, the service provider went to court.
In effect, the service provider demanded that the court should force the customer to keep its services, no matter the dissatisfaction and discontent of the customer.
Before you knew it, the court already issued the TRO against the customer, preventing it from hiring for another provider.
In no time, the court issued an injunction that forced the customer to maintain the same service provider. By hook or by crook? Well, something like that!
Several years of litigation later, and tens of millions of pesos in legal expenses and all, the case gave birth to other side issues that even went all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Perhaps exasperated, the customer agreed to settle the case, extending the contract with the litigious service provider by many more years, thus giving the provider billions of pesos in forced business.
It so happened that the two litigating parties also agreed on a specific date when the contract would expire, and when it came, the customer naturally immediately fired the service provider.
Wrong move! The same old service provider went to court, wanting again to force the weary customer to keep the business with it.
Surprise—the service provider did not only go to the same court, but it also went to the same judge! Beat that!
As expected the same judge presiding in the same court ruled in effect that the customer was very bad, indeed, and forced it to do business, once again, with the service provider for an unknown number of years.
Again—that was the customer. Who said that the customer was always right?
From what I heard, the service provider already dropped some names that were supposedly part of the rather limited inner circle of Duterte Harley.
The guys down here of course were certain that the President could not possibly be involved in this mess.
But was it possible at all that his people could be?
In its 2007 report called the Corruption Perception Index, the Berlin-based corruption monitoring NGO called Transparency International, noted the big problem of corruption in the judiciary in the Philippines.
In the report, the writer, Judge Dolores Español, expounded on the reasons behind the problem such as poor pay of members of the judiciary.
Still, the judge gave us one noticeable fact: No formal study was ever done on the extent of the problem in the Philippines.
For a problem this big, nobody even bothered to take a good look at it?
