THE LEGAL FRONT

(Part I)

In my May 12 and 13 columns, I mentioned the days of disquiet and the healing that our Supreme Court had experienced. The passage of time was a critical factor in the healing; time softens feelings by allowing interactions, consultations, and dialogue. Changes in the Court’s membership did their part, too, as they opened the opportunity for fresh outlooks. With the Court’s own openness to change, the consequent healing was not at all surprising. Another influencing factor, a variable one, was the character of the Court’s leadership that the succeeding Chief Justices provided during and after the days of disquiet. With leadership always comes the leader’s vision – the promised land of stability, harmony, and productivity. Fortunately, the succeeding Chief Justices were united in their visions as they were all homegrown: they all rose from judicial ranks and largely underwent similar experiences from where their shared visions arose. There, too, is their common overriding standard – the Constitution and its precise statement of the traits that the Court and its magistrates must live up to. I mention all these as they all contributed to the healing – the positive outcome - that resulted in addressing the Court’s problematic days. With the nation this time in mind, I believe that similar factors should be brought to play to address the nation’s challenges as it interacts in a world that is increasingly becoming disquiet. War exists in many areas and looms in many others. The war in far-off Ukraine is the most disturbing because of the potential use of nuclear weapons.  Distance offers little comfort as waves caused by war can still reach us as strong ripples.  Distance too may not be very material if other countries are drawn in and weapons are nuclear. Modern-day war does not also solely involve actual physical fighting; it is waged across many other fronts – the economic, ideological, political, trade, commerce and propaganda, among others. Many effects may also be initially hidden, indirect, or difficult to immediately discern. In the political/ideological areas, the Ukraine war has brought to the surface the long-standing rivalry between the West (led by America, NATO, and their allies) and the communist bloc (led by Russia and China), to which the BRICS organization of nations now tends to identify. In our part of the world, North Korea’s saber-rattling and its unfinished war with South Korea cannot but be active and continuing concerns. But the shrillest sounds of disquiet emanate from China’s continuing threat to take over Taiwan, and its Nine-Dash-Line claim over the South China Sea. Many bordering states, including ours, see this as a sovereignty-intruding issue. The alarm from China’s territorial claim has become doubly strident since it began building military facilities in reclaimed reefs and atolls, while its Coast Guard has been driving away fishermen from its claimed areas. The West, on the other hand, has invoked freedom of navigation in the high seas covered by China’s claim, and has been showing the flag to show continuing resistance.  While no major confrontation has so far taken place, one may yet happen once human decision-making falters as militancy and tension escalate. The growing ideological rivalry between the West and the communist block (with China and Russia in the lead) can be scary as this quest for dominance had once brought the world to the brink of nuclear war – in the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis.  As before, both sides have their respective arsenals of nuclear armaments. They had likewise fought each other before in the Korean peninsula in the Korean War.  This time, any confrontation will carry the potential involvement of North Korea as the joker in the pack, and a nervous Japan that had a previous taste of wartime defeat before, and might not peaceably accept another nuclear conflagration in its shores. But Japan at war and economically distracted, by itself, may prejudice world trade and finances because of Japan’s leading role in these areas.  Our country necessarily assumes a front position as an active base of US Forces strategically closest to Taiwan. Our favorable Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling affecting China’s claims would always be a sore point, an irritant, between us. Last but not least of the potential world problems, is the snowballing move for de-dollarization, encouraged by the BRICS nations who want to dethrone the US dollar as the medium of exchange in world trade and commerce in favor of another means, currency, or practice as yet undefined. This is not an easy problem to resolve because of its deeper roots; it is a response to the sanctions the West has imposed on Russia for its destructive foray into Ukraine. If this type of problem can prejudicially affect the richer nations, how badly will it affect smaller and weaker ones like us? How the nation and our leaders will address these disquieting developments raise deep concerns for ordinary citizens like me. ([[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])) (The author was a former Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court and of the Court of Appeals.  In the Executive Branch, he served as undersecretary and later, secretary, of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).  For a time, he was Foreign Affairs undersecretary; chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy (Philja), and a partner at the Siguion Reyna, Montecillo & Ongsiako Law Offices.  He taught law at the Ateneo de Manila University, the University of Asia and the Pacific, and was dean of the San Sebastian College of Law.  He still teaches law at the San Pablo Colleges in San Pablo City where he currently resides.)