CHECK AND BALANCE
If there is anything good
which could come out of the Supreme Court decision declaring as
unconstitutional the DAP, it is the
constitutional principle of checks and balances. Senator Alan Peter Cayetano,
himself a lawyer, said the system works.
The Supreme Court, though,
admittedly the weakest, of the three major departments of government, should be lauded.
The High Court has shown
its independence and fortitude in deciding one of the most politically controversial and highly
charged issues ever to confront the
current administration. As the guardian of the constitution and the final
arbiter of justiciable questions
involving the proper exercise of constitutional powers by the political
departments of government, the Supreme Court has once again upheld the
supremacy of the Constitution, not its
own supremacy, when it in effect ruled that this time, in the DAP controversy the Executive has overstepped its powers and encroached
upon the domain of a co-equal branch of government.
This is the beauty of the
mechanism of checks and balances which operates tangibly and not theoretically in our government affairs. Here
we see in reality this constitutional principle at work. The principle is enshrined in the Constitution,
to guard against excesses in the use of
power or abuses in the exercise of discretion
when either Congress or the President steps over the constitutional boundaries.
It also provides a sobering thought that not even the President or the
members of Congress could simply act in any way they wish, or tread beyond uncharted course for they
might run afoul with the fundamental law, whose keeper and guardian is the
Highest Court of the land.
The pragmatic implication
is that while we are a government of laws and not of men, we are governed by men, whose imperfection, frailties, and inclination might lead them to irrational
zealousness or to be drunk with power thus subverting the very institutions
upon which our nation stands.
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