The Duterte appointees in the Supreme Court may yet turn out be more objective in the face of the huge uncertainty the country faces today.’
IN turning to prayer, many people have become aware of their neighbors and others in their communities who have less in life. We regularly pass them by now and then, and hand out token assistance as we pretend to be moved by their penury and helplessness. But, probably for the first time since we moved to our neighborhoods, many of us now witness a deep sense of want and confusion that were never there before. There is much less food but the disgruntled and the docile are now together unable to come to terms with the unwanted reality.
The all-familiar Lord”s Prayer we have since recited during our formative years and sung during Sunday church services resonates today with more meaning. Those who have enough for a week should strive to provide for others who only have enough for a day. Bible believers have long held on to the Lord’s promises which come if and when they obey.
This is an extraordinary time when we can feel strongly for others’ needs and believe with our hearts that He will provide, anyway, for our basic necessities, after we give them away to those who crave for them more dearly. We should make, especially, this part of the Lord’s Prayer come to life, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and embrace the truth that God wants us to have enough for a day after providing for our neighbors. We believe Him to be our true and genuine Provider, and not man, and to act on it by fully trusting Him. This virus scourge presents a momentous event in our life to enable our humanity to touch our neighbors by loving them, as Jesus commands “as ourselves.”
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The Duterte appointees in the Supreme Court may yet turn out to be more objective in the face of the huge uncertainty the country faces today. This is with regards the petition of a private lawyer for President Duterte to disclose his medical records and other documentation on his medical condition. The petition alleges visible signs of deteriorating health which he has exhibited during his daily press conferences. Everyone knows it is a myth to think that the high court, then and now, issues rulings independent of Malacañang’s intrusions.
But, today the justices cannot remove themselves from the greater and immediate calling for them to come to the succor of thousands of lives endangered by a limped governance led by a physically and psychologically-disengaged Chief Executive. The President’s blatant delay to fight off the spread of COVID-19 and the continued arrival of Chinese workers justified by a selective travel ban as the virus had rapidly spread were crucial scenarios that strongly indicated official and personal incapacity.
The High Court knows the pandemic has assumed a magnitude similarly devastating as another world war with piles after piles of casualties staring at their faces and the economy mercilessly threatened like never before. Returning Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque has promptly shot down the petition, arguing that the President is immune from suit, as the Constitution provides. The Supreme Court can pluck a legal remedy even from thin air if it wants to, not unlike its strange ruling that favored a quo warranto petition to expel a chief justice contradicting, of course, a clear constitutional fiat that only through an impeachment can a President be removed from office. Roque also invoked the client-doctor confidentiality which, of course, the justices can contravene, if it wants to, citing grave national interest.
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Sen. Sonny Angara could not contain the joy of reuniting with his family after undergoing hospital treatment for the coronavirus and fearing he may never see his loved ones again. It was surreal for someone who has lived with power and privilege all his life to think one day that everything may be slipping away.
Several “milestones” he was looking forward to were the high school and college graduations of his children, as well as the promising careers that await them. But, he now says his joy at home is diminished by thoughts of doctors and nurses whose lives seem to hang in the balance due to their constant exposure to the deadly disease. Personal accounts of overworked and undermanned frontliners driven away from their condo or apartment units now hound him.
