Time of visitation spurned?

In his 1967 essay “Tyranny of the Urgent,” Charles Hummel warned: “Our greatest danger is letting urgent things crowd out the important.”

It was urgent that she seek medical treatment abroad, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo told the Supreme Court. There were no pending court charges and she had a right to travel. Eight justices she had appointed scrambled to issue a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO).

A hasty TRO “could frustrate the government’s right to prosecute,” cautioned Antonio Caprio, the best chief justice Filipinos never had. “This Court must hear first the government in oral argument.”

“The Commission on Elections decided, by a 5-to-2 vote, to file poll sabotage charges against GMA. Across the road, the Supreme Court rejected by an 8-5 vote the Solicitor General’s motion to scrap the Arroyo’s TRO. It ordered Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to explain why she should not be held in contempt of court for shrugging off the TRO. Paalam Gloria and Mike.”

In October, the joint Department of Justice and Commission on Elections panel recommended that GMA and 35 others be probed, and charged if warranted, with 2007 election fraud. GMA lawyers walked out in protest.

Others tagged included former Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos Jr. and ex-commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer, former Justice Secretary Alberto Agra, supervisor Lintang Bedol and detained former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr.

Beyond the TRO and charges, by GMA camp of “railroading election sabotage charges,” fester long-range issues. These are tossed up by the clash between a President who seeks to hold the corrupt accountable and Supreme Court justices who say they seek the same end. Arroyo justices are hobbled by charges of subservience.

However, this TRO issue plays out, the issue of GMA’s health will persist. That “crown o’ thorns” that Arroyo wore, on her earlier aborted departure flight, was not a put on. This “Minerva brace” should be worn for three months, St. Luke Hospital doctors say.

Prognosis by her Filipino physicians state that barring complications, GMA should be fully recovered from spine surgery in six to eight months, Justice Lourdes Serreno notes. The metabolic bone disease needs lifetime maintenance treatment.

Arroyo’s claims of life-threatening ailments fall short of “evidentiary requirements for a TRO.” “The majority is completely bereft” of any explanation for granting a premature TRO “in the face of untruthful statements,” Justice Serreno adds.

Have TROs become a buy-one-take-one drill? The completed Senate Blue Ribbon Committee report on dumping overpriced helicopters on the National Police tags Mike Arroyo, among others. Yet his separate request for a TRO had been stitched into his spouse’s petition.

“Mike became free to leave by virtue of consolidation,” Inquirer’s Raul Pangalangan points out. “How did Mike get to benefit from Gloria’s medical emergency?” If one asked Hamlet, he’d have shrugged: “There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Indeed, this “TRO proved the wisdom of packing the high court with one’s appointees—for that foreseeable future when one is forced to call in favors,” an Inquirer editorial pointed out. And “why didn’t Chief Justice Renato Corona inhibit himself?” wondered Sun.Star columnist Frank Malilong. “(This) case personally involved his former boss.”

President Arroyo skipped senior justices to hand her former chief of staff a midnight appointment. Thus former Sen. Rene Saguisag and some see a “de facto chief justice.”

Like Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico, DOJ cannot “accept a referee’s decision graciously,” observes constitutionalist Joaquin Bernas. TRO means executive officials must allow GMA to travel “effective immediately,” until the court lifts the order—“if we’re to abide by rule of law.”

Secretary Leila de Lima’s view in a motion for reconsideration stops TRO dead in its tracks. That’d render any TRO absolutely useless … Anger at GMA “consigned reason to the sidelines.” That “affects even the highest executive authorities (and) is a sad, sad thing.” Sen. Miriam Santiago adds it’s enough to make one feel like “slashing wrists.”

Martial law detainees were denied the right to travel, under Proclamation 1081. Most will instinctively swear by Fr. Bernas’ constitutional insights. Seared by dictatorship detention, our minds insist the Constitution must be upheld. But our guts rebel at all those “dragon teeth” that the Arroyo years sowed.

In Greek mythology, Jason sowed teeth of the dragon slain at the spring of Arbes. And from them rose warriors to do battle for Jason. The phrase means systematic fomenting of disputes.

As her bids for term extension failed, GMA appointed scores to the judiciary, Pagcor, government corporations, until leaving Malacañang. That included the Palace gardener who got a Luneta Park post. Gen. Delfin Bangit’s term as AFP chief exceeded by 11 months Arroyo’s departure from Malacanang. President Benigno Aquino fired Bangit. “Dragon teeth,” however, still battle for her.

President Arroyo had an unprecedented 10 years to serve. It was a window of opportunity for greatness. That slammed shut in a decade of sleaze when she let urgent things crowd out the important. Sad to say, she did not “know the time of visitation.”