When the law is a matter of color

What is wrong with our laws when seemingly clear provisions produce so many competing interpretations?

Are our statutes and constitutional provisions deliberately crafted with enough ambiguity to leave loopholes, allowing whichever side commands the numbers to find a legal interpretation that serves its interest?

Or is the deeper problem not always the law itself, but the tendency to read the law through political lenses?

These questions have become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Take impeachment. The 1987 Constitution is direct: conviction requires the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate. That is different from formulations that measure a vote against those present. The distinction is not trivial. It makes conviction deliberately difficult.

There is good reason for such a high threshold. Impeachment is not simply another political contest. It is an extraordinary constitutional mechanism for removing officials entrusted with the highest responsibilities of government. A high voting requirement protects an elected official from removal by a transient political majority and reduces the possibility that an impeachment becomes an instrument of political maneuvering.

It is therefore reasonable to ask whether the framers intended to make conviction difficult precisely because of the destabilizing consequences of removing an elected official.

An impeachment is also sui generis. Acquittal does not necessarily erase accountability. Depending on the facts, administrative, civil or criminal remedies may be available under ordinary law. The experiences of Presidents Estrada and Arroyo demonstrate that political accountability and legal accountability need not always travel on the same constitutional vehicle.

Yet today, reputable lawyers, former magistrates, and constitutional scholars can reach sharply different conclusions about what appear to be straightforward provisions.

That should concern us — not because disagreement among lawyers is unusual, but because legal disagreement sometimes appears to coincide with political affiliation.

One cannot help noticing that an interpretation favored by one political camp is often championed by its legal allies, while another interpretation emerges from those associated with the opposing camp.

That does not prove bad faith. Lawyers are entitled to interpret the law according to their understanding. Former magistrates may legitimately disagree because constitutional interpretation involves text, history, precedent, structure and consequences.

But when legal interpretation seems to follow political color, public confidence suffers.

The same concern arises in the controversy over bank secrecy and the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA).

The Bank Secrecy Law makes confidentiality the general rule but expressly provides exceptions, including impeachment proceedings. AMLA, meanwhile, declares a policy of protecting the confidentiality of bank accounts while granting the AMLC specific investigative powers and imposing penalties for unauthorized disclosure.

The apparent tension between the two laws should not be resolved by whichever interpretation happens to serve the political circumstances of the moment. Nor should an implementing rule be allowed to expand or restrict a statutory power beyond what Congress enacted. An administrative regulation may implement the law; it cannot amend it.

If the two statutes can reasonably be harmonized, they should be. If they genuinely conflict, the courts — not the political branches — should determine which provision controls and to what extent.

And if the statutory language is plain, the starting point should remain the language Congress actually enacted, not what one wishes Congress had said.

That is why judicial clarification is so important. Those who believe the plain meaning controls should not be placed at a disadvantage merely because others advance a contrary interpretation. If there is genuine constitutional or statutory doubt, let the Supreme Court resolve it. What should concern us is allowing a disputed interpretation to acquire the force of settled law simply because it happens to favor the prevailing political majority.

When the stakes are this high, nobody — not the Senate majority, minority, Executive, AMLC, or political allies — should become the final interpreter of the law merely because they possess the numbers or institutional platform. That responsibility ultimately belongs to the judiciary.

And this is not merely an academic concern. It troubles law students and young lawyers who are learning, or have learned, that the law should be approached with discipline, consistency, and fidelity to its text and purpose.

I hear this concern personally from my own son, a young lawyer, who sometimes tells me, “This was not what we learned in law school.”

That simple observation is perhaps the most troubling part of all.

What are we teaching the next generation of lawyers when provisions that appear clear can be made to mean something entirely different depending on which political side benefits from the interpretation?

We should teach them that disagreement is part of law. That precedent can evolve. That statutes can be imperfect. That constitutional questions can be genuinely difficult.

But we should also teach them that political convenience is not a method of statutory construction.

The law cannot be a chameleon, changing color according to who holds the majority.

We should demand clearer legislation where ambiguity exists, greater discipline in statutory construction, and timely judicial resolution when constitutional questions arise. Most importantly, we should resist interpreting the law differently simply because our political allies benefit from doing so.

Ultimately, this is bigger than an impeachment proceeding, a bank account, or a dispute between political camps. It is about the kind of legal system we leave to those who will inherit it.

“When the law changes color with politics, it ceases to be a shield for the people and risks becoming a tool of whoever holds power.”