Moving finger

THE SUPREME Court ruling on Fernando Poe Jr.'s electoral protest, as filed by his wife, Susan Roces, is a classic in many respects. It is a classic above all in unintended literary irony. My friend, Isagani Cruz, a most literate justice, who is now unfortunately retired (but who fortunately applies his skills to writing for this newspaper), should really advise his active colleagues to examine their literary allusions well, to make sure they aid their cause.

In a 14-page resolution, the Court ruled to throw out Roces' protest with these opening lines: "The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,/ Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit/ Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line/ Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it." It's the most famous stanza from Omar Khayyam's poem, "The Rubaiyat." The Court means to tell Roces that what's done is done, it cannot be undone.

That is all very well, except for one thing. In Edward Fitzgerald's translation at least, which is what the Supreme Court uses, the Moving Finger refers to the one that writes a message to Belshazzar, King of Babylon. As Bible-readers know, the story -- found in the Book of Daniel -- is that in the middle of a feast, Belshazzar and guests beheld a hand writing on a palace wall the words, "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." The King commanded his seers to interpret it, but no one could, or would. He then had Daniel brought before him, who, without thought for his head as the bringer of bad news, forthwith said:

"Mene, mene" meant "God has numbered your kingdom." "Tekel" meant "You have been weighed and found wanting," or as the Tagalog so well puts it, "Tinimbang Ka, Ngunit Kulang." And "peres" meant "Your kingdom will be torn up and divided." Indeed, neither newly discovered piety nor wit prevented it from happening.

Bill Clinton invoked the same quote when he was being impeached for lying about his sexual dalliances. He added: "Not tears nor wit nor torment can alter what I have done. I have to make my peace with that." This provoked a columnist of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Cal Thomas, to write:

"The poem ... contains a deeper and far more important message for him. He also [like King Belshazzar] has demonstrated arrogance and pride. He has flouted the law and behaved as if the presidency were his by right...

"Given such history and evidence of the president's disrespect for the law, the House is right to move forward with articles of impeachment. The Senate, if it is principled, should vote to remove him from office. Such acts will not tie up the country. They will serve as a purgative. They will affirm that no one is above the law, nor should anyone, including the president, be able to hide behind opinion polls or clever statements to avoid being held accountable to the law."

The same principle applies here. The quote does not apply to Susan Roces, it applies to the Court's current patron (by now almost self-evident), Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The Moving Finger has spoken, and neither newly discovered piety nor wit may alter a word of it: God has numbered her government; she has been weighed and found wanting; her country will be torn up and divided.

The rest of the Supreme Court's argument is anti-climactic. It says Roces does not have the legal personality to protest her husband being cheated because she does not stand to inherit the presidential mantle anyway. That is more than a vacuous technicality, that is a vicious suggestion. It proposes that future candidates who plan to cheat their rivals would do well to murder them afterward. No beneficiary, no case.

"We laud [Roces'] noble intention and her interest to find out the true will of the electorate," the Court adds. "However nobility of intention is not the point of reference in determining whether a person may intervene in an election protest." Well, what the hell is the modifier "supreme" in Supreme Court for, if that court cannot see that finding out "the true will of the electorate" supersedes all other concerns, above all technical ones? Can anything be more important?

The case has a direct beneficiary, and that is the people. The people deserve to have the president they voted for, not the president that the Commission on Elections, the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections and the Electorial Tribunal took it upon themselves to install. It is the supreme duty of the court, above all the supreme one, to give them that. I myself do not particularly care if Fernando Poe Jr. would have made a good president or not, that is irrelevant, that is not what we have elections for. The only question is whether he won or not. Does it matter what man or woman, angel or beast, hounds the court with the doggedness of the Furies?

The Supreme Court itself, with richly poetic irony, tells us what this case is all about with its opening lines. It is about justice, which is what law, too, is all about. It is about morality, which is what governance is all about. It is about right and wrong, the discernment of which justices are there for. This Supreme Court has no higher task than finding out whether the right president rules this country or not. Life does not go on that is burdened by iniquity. It is impaled where it stands and rots there. If Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cheated in the election, then she should be impeached. To paraphrase Thomas: It will not tie up the country. It will serve as a purgative. It will affirm that no one is above the law, nor should anyone, including the president, be able to hide behind force and farce and to avoid being held accountable to the law.

Unfortunately, all the moving fingers the justices know are the ones that run up and down their limp possessions and give them disconsolate pleasure. It gives whole new meanings to pornography.

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