[OPINION | Newspoint] Presumption of abnormality

Vergel O. Santos

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

[OPINION | Newspoint] Presumption of abnormality
The law seems to have become (with apologies to Samuel Johnson) the last refuge of the scoundrel

Harry Roque has set an aggressive and lawyerly tone for his role as spokesman for President Duterte. It’s all very much like him and also not unlike his boss.

On his very first day on the job, Roque threatened to throw “hollow blocks” at Duterte critics, reminding them at the same time that he is “an experienced litigator.”

Among Duterte’s own early pronouncements as president was “I will kill you!” – aimed at illegal drug dealers and users – and an oft-repeated brag is that he was a public prosecutor once, as if to suggest he could make the law accommodate his kills.

Indeed, little is left in doubt about how serious Duterte is: thousands have died, and more continue to die, since he made his death threat. Roque, in comparison, may be blustery, but he seems not likely to use his hollow blocks as a deadly weapon. He may himself do all sorts of tinkering with the law – rationalize around it, bend it, twist it – but chances are he’ll stick with it.

He comes across more as a legal fixer and enforcer than as a spokesman or anything else. For starters, he demands that his client be given the benefit of a “presumption of regularity,” a customary concession in law, he instructs us. If this is any indication of the quality of counsel he intends to dispense to Duterte, he is fundamentally mistaken: regular is the precise type his client is not.  

Regularity may be presumed of someone of normal temperament and average means. But, where one’s temper is hair-triggered and out of control or where one’s means itself constitutes power, a presumption of regularity becomes a high-risk proposition.

Rodrigo Duterte is a notorious example. He possesses such great power as any presumed democracy has ever put in the hands of one man, but, while he may be entitled to it as his nation’s duly-elected president, his psychological state, duly certified to as well, does not at all make for a hopeful prognosis for the nation. His “antisocial narcissistic personality disorder” gives him a “grandiose sense of self-entitlement”; it makes him “highly impulsive,” hard put “controlling his urges and emotions,” and unable to “reflect on the consequences of his actions.”

Only on its 17th month, his presidency has been replete with manifestations. His speeches are constantly interlarded with expletives, some probably mouthed out of habit, but the rest specifically aimed – at daughters and sons, no matter whether president or pope, toward whom he displays his displeasure by debasing their mothers in one common cuss phrase. His hands-in-pocket slouch, rolled-up shirt sleeves, and lazy walk, all in apparent defiance of the formalities around him, more or less define his deportment.

But his manners are the least of the nation’s problems. His tendency to shortcuts have provoked protests of “extrajudicial killings” (EJKs) from local and international rights advocates. His despotic disposition is revealed not only in his professed admiration for the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and self-comparison with Hitler, but in repeated threats of nationwide martial law. 

He has compromised national sovereignty by doing nothing about China’s encroachments on potentially resource-rich parts of the South China Sea to which Philippine territorial rights have been upheld by an international arbitral court.

Where, then, lies the presumable regularity that, according to Roque, has been unfairly ignored? Indeed, a presumption of abnormality would seem, in Duterte’s case, more deserved than any presumption of regularity.

But why waste time on legal amenities when the law already has been twisted enough to work in Duterte’s favor? Harry Roque must now be engaged in some rationalization of conscience. After all, some of the most egregious Supreme Court’s rulings of late have benefited Duterte allies who were among Roque’s own prime targets in his previous, right-minded incarnation.

Among these beneficiaries are Marcos’ heirs. For all the murder and plunder of his 14-year authoritarian rule, he was allowed by the court to be buried a hero. There, too, is Juan Ponce Enrile, Marcos’ enforcer who had managed to carry on with his old ways until the law caught up with him; he was arrested, detained, and denied the right to bail, as prescribed by law for anyone accused of plunder; he is now free, the charges against him lightened, thanks again to the court. Similarly accused, President Gloria Arroyo has gotten an even better deal: not only does she walk free, all charges against her have been dropped.

How, indeed, could Roque in conscience take all that? But, then, how could Duterte have enlisted him without him taking all that?

Senator Leila de Lima would seem the consolation. Roque obviously doesn’t like De Lima, although for what reason I don’t know. With Duterte, given his psychological makeup, I somehow understand: when De Lima was chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights and Duterte was mayor of his native Davao City, she investigated charges of death-squad murders against him; now, he simply feels compelled to take revenge.

Roque must hate De Lima to a comparable degree, or he would not have joined Duterte’s enforcers in Congress (unless by then he had secretly become one of them) in the gang-rape of her rights at one-sided hearings in both houses. The Supreme Court completed the travesty of justice by upholding a trial-court ruling denying her her right to bail; in effect, the Supreme Court took the word of life-term, drug-dealing convicts herded by Duterte’s cowboys to testify against De Lima. State lawyers have yet to determine what crime to charge her with; for the time being, it’s taking drug money, although no drug or money has turned up in evidence. In any case, she is now on her 9th month of incarceration.

The law seems to have become (with apologies to Samuel Johnson) the last refuge of the scoundrel.

In fact, the law is supposed to be the final distillation of moral doctrine; it sets down the dos and don’ts that make for civilized behavior. It is supposed to stand on moral principles – moral principles taken from moral philosophy. That’s why every provision of law has to pass the test of reason and rectitude.

But, reasoning being precisely the prize trick in the legal trade, lawyers and judges tend to hold up the law as the supreme standard. They are loath to probe beyond the law, lest they be revealed to themselves for their lack of moral conviction. That’s why Enrile and Arroyo are free, while Leila de Lima languishes in jail.

That’s also why Harry Roque wants Duterte given the benefit of a presumption of regularity: it provides an opening into his last refuge. – Rappler.com 

Add a comment

Sort by

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

Summarize this article with AI

How does this make you feel?

Loading
Download the Rappler App!