No old or new jurisprudence should be reduced to an effective tool to disturb the democratic spirit, much less crowd the democratic space to the extent that society can hardly breathe, thereby suffocating all forms of human life underneath.
While it becomes rare, if not almost nil, for any binding precedent to be challenged, more so replaced by another, people under its bosom warmth would choose subservience over rebellion, silence over noise, and no matter how harsh, law is king.
The sudden change in the Senate leadership struck us with disbelief, thus disturbing, at least for a brief but painful moment, our collective psyche. Is ethics as a philosophical study thrown out the window? Is public policy of lower precedence than case law at every given turn? Doesn’t any jurisprudence have to worship the legal architecture and its crucial provisions in every way, shape, or form? Is deductive logic better than inductive logic, or are they not parallel lines of reasoning? Is jurisprudence loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it’s loved by the gods?
In truth, whether the judgment laid upon the disconcerting national debate is tantamount to a usurpation of authority on either side of the aisle or that it favors any political camp or pro-administration faction of the Senate membership, nothing adds up.
The Pinoy’s brand of politics appears to thrive even without government, even without governance. It has acquired a life of its own; maybe it’s the fifth branch of government by some covert or overt acts? One could even say that within the Senate’s organizational culture, there exists a sub-culture such as the notion of an “old boys’ club” that could either be beneficial or inimical to society at large.
Whatever be thy Supreme Court will, it is of some philosophical significance for it to weigh upon how a large population viewing its affairs could have possibly responded to its verdict. For it cuts only on two options, namely: whether they could still trust the law or they could find some other option. A clean sweep in the forthcoming 2028 election could be considered a way forward to a new normal, assuming the next bunch of leaders are not actually wolves in sheep’s clothing or the same dog with a different collar.
From the outline, the ratio of one lawyer per 2,500 Filipinos for a population of over 110 million people means that the ideal ratio is a work in progress. Crucially, the epic confusion a central societal issue generates across intelligences becomes understandable.
The quorum launched by the then minority bloc to do business, declare seats vacant, elect the Senate President Pro Tempore as well as the Majority Floor Leader, designate the Senate Secretary and Sergeant at Arms was a strategic move that was one step away for the Gatchalian-led bloc to wrest the Senate presidency — without resistance, without the presence of a single soul of the then ruling majority bloc.
Worse, during the intervening deadlock, impasse if you will, one jumped ship and still another also did to turn the threshold of 13 majority into full circle in favor of the old ruling faction within just a short-lived Cayetano reign. Such a culminating development was totally in line with Senate rules, historical precedent, transcendental jurisprudence, and the constitutional text.
Categorically enough, the High Tribunal used deductive logic and simple mathematical calculation of what constitutes a quorum consistent with the landmark case, Avelino vs Cuenco. Did the High Court deem the quorum valid, lawful, and constitutional? In light of a recent decision it rendered, the High Tribunal did just that.
Even if the whole weight of jurisprudence based on Avelino vs Cuenco was applied to the Gatchalian-led ascent to the Senate presidency, Sen. Rodante Marcoleta called it a “naked power grab.”
What happened in 1949 and in 2026 don’t come anywhere close as “identical twins” by all exhausted attributes we can muster.