Democracy not a ‘spectator sport,’ we ‘must speak out’ — Pangilinan

Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / JOAN BONDOC

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Francis Pangilinan on Friday said the “most lethal antidote” to tyranny and abuse is “public anger and righteous indignation expressed in mobilized and organized manner.”

Pangilinan said this during the first-ever international forum on lawfare at the De La Salle University, in Manila as he called on the Filipino people to “speak out.”

“The call to action is that democracy is not a spectator sport. If I’m not mistaken, it was the director, Michael Moore, who said that democracy is not a spectator sport.” he said.

“We are all participants in this democracy. We must stand up. We must have our voices heard. We must speak out,” he added.

“In the end, public anger, righteous indignation expressed in mobilized and organized manner is still the most lethal antidote to tyranny and abuse,” he further said.

Before this, he pointed out that the country’s judicial system has been in a “chronic crisis” as it is unable to serve the vast majority of Filipinos.

Pangilinan said that 85 percent of the population earn P30,000 or less per month.

“P30,000 a month or below means kapag ikaw ay nagkasakit, you are reduced to poverty. Kapag ikaw ay naaksidente, you are reduced to poverty,” he said.

“Income that is severely inadequate and will lead to immediate and certain penury, should illness or injury or calamity befall,” he added.

‘Accessible only to a handful’

The senator warned that when a justice system “is merely nonexistent on an overwhelming number of the population,” support and respect for the rule of law would not prosper.

“It is a system of justice that is inherently weak, serves the interest of a very few, and as such is vulnerable to manipulation and machinations of a few to the detriment of the many,” he said.

This is where lawfare becomes possible, he added.

“Its seeds are from a dysfunctional and antiquated system of justice that has become more or less irrelevant or worse, a stumbling block, to nearly eight out of 10 or more of our citizens,” Pangilinan said.

“It is a system that is callously undemocratic and horribly anti-poor,” he added.

If a country is a computer system, Pangilinan said that the justice system is the country’s operating system.

“While health, education, investments would be its software. No matter what the software, if the operating system does not work, the entire system will not work,” he said.

“If meaningful access to the operating system is limited to a few, the rest given token access if at all, how sustainable can that system be? Unsustainable, weak, unworkable, prone to abuse. And this is where lawfare is able to thrive,” he added.

Mass murder

“We are facing mass murder. Some will call it EJKs, some will call it killings, but it is mass murder. In the context of what is happening today, we have to ask ourselves: Where do we stand in the face of mass murder?” he said.

“And where does the law stand in the face of mass murder?” he added.

“I recall, if i’m not mistaken, it may be, was it Senator [Jose] Diokno who said it, that when the levers of power are concentrated on a few, justice and the rule of law are not necessarily synonymous. In a system of justice that is dysfunctional, lawfare will thrive,” he further said.

Pangilinan then called for the modernization of the country’s justice system.

“Strategically we have to increase our judiciary budget. The combined budgets of the DOJ [Department of Justice] and the judiciary is not even 2 percent of our P4.1 trillion budget,” he pointed.

“We must increase our conviction rates. We must reduce the shelf life of cases in our courts. We must fill up the vacancies in our courts, in our prosecution service, to speed up the system of justice,” he added.

Pangilinan said “mass murder was made possible precisely because the system of justice has not been able to punish more and punish swiftly.”

“And it will not go away unless we address that squarely,” he added.

Edited by JPV