Some 300 lawyers urged the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday to compel the Senate and the House of Representatives to convene and vote jointly on President Rodrigo Duterte’s Proclamation 216 declaring martial law and suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in Mindanao, following the siege in Marawi City.

The petitioners were led by jailed Sen. Leila de Lima, former senator Rene Saguisag, former Commission on Elections chairman Christian Monsod, former Commission on Human Rights chief Loretta Ann Rosales, former Philippine Health Insurance Corp. president Alexander Padilla, and Rene Gorospe.

Named as respondents were Senate President Aquilino Pimentel 3rd and Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.

Ex-solicitor general Florin Hilbay, also one of the petitioners, said Congress has the power to revoke martial law and the “constitutional obligation to have a joint session to exercise that power both to revoke or to affirm,” for transparency and accountability and to protect the people from “potential abuses.”

“They cannot exercise the power to revoke by silence or by resolution by separate houses,” he added.

The petitioners asked the Supreme Court to intervene because “the Senate and the House of Representatives have unlawfully neglected the performance of an act, which the 1987 Constitution specifically enjoins as a duty resulting from their office.”

Article VII, Section 18 of the Constitution, they argued, is clear in stating that Congress has the “mandatory obligation” to convene in joint session.

They branded as “absurd” arguments raised by House leaders that Congress should only convene to revoke the proclamation.

“Petitioners seek nothing more than compliance with a minimum procedural fidelity to the mechanisms enshrined in the Constitution meant to prevent abuse of power and to ensure popular mandate in the exercise of the Presidential martial law powers,” the petitioners said.

Oral arguments set

On Monday, Representatives Edcel Lagman, Tomasito Villarin, Gary Alejano, Emmanuel Billones and Teodoro Baguilat Jr. filed a 31-page petition questioning the basis of Proclamation 216 before the high tribunal.

The Supreme Court set oral arguments at 10 a.m. on June 13, 14, and 15, at the New Session Hall in Manila.

It told the Office of the Solicitor General, for and in behalf of the respondents, to comment on the petition not later than June 12 at 12 noon. It also ordered the docket receiving section to be open on June 12, Independence Day, a national holiday.

Counsels for the parties were required to attend a preliminary conference on June 12 at 2 p.m., and submit their respective memoranda not later than June 19 at 2 p.m.

Lagman warned Solicitor General Jose Calida against belittling the seven lawmakers who filed the petition.

Lagman, the lead petitioner, was responding to Calida’s tirade that they were rabble-rousers and psychotics.

“If Calida has not read the 30-page petition or has nothing yet to say traversing its merits, he should hold his tongue and study the case seriously. The petitioners’ well-reasoned petition contains legal and factual verities, not psychotic perorations,” Lagman, a lawyer, said in a statement.

“The congressional records of the petitioners verily show that they are vigilant and hardworking lawmakers who vigorously protect the independence of the legislature, safeguard the civil liberties of the people and actively participate in the debates on important legislation,” Lagman said.

Lagman also scored Presidential Chief Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo for branding the petition as black propaganda, saying the statement must be disregarded as a “stereotypical reaction by apologists of the President.”

Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto 3rd claimed the petitions were courting a constitutional crisis.

He pointed out that Congress had decided against a joint session and there was a possibility the legislature would disregard the high tribunal.

At least 12 senators have rejected the resolution filed by members of the Senate minority bloc asking Congress to convene in joint session and deliberate on the declaration of martial law and suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.

But Pimentel said the court should step in as referee and settle differing interpretations of the constitutional provisions on martial rule.

“Let us be guided by the Supreme Court pronouncement on the issue,” the Senate chief said.

THE death from asphyxiation of 37 people, triggered by the attack by a lone gunman at the Resorts World Manila Friday, is our worst fire tragedy since 1996 when a conflagration at a disco called Ozone killed 162 people.

It has severely tarnished the country’s image, with reports, mainly pursued by the online news site Rappler and the Doha-based TV al-Jazeera that it was a “lone-wolf” attack by an Islamic State (IS) adherent. Occurring on the heels of the attack on Marawi City by verified IS-linked gunmen, that fake news has had some traction.

If the lone gunman was a jihadist, he certainly wasn’t an adherent of the belief which motivates many such terrorists: that if the mujahid kills an infidel and is killed, he will be rewarded in Paradise with 72 virgins. He shot with his assault rifle not a single person in the hour that he roamed the casino complex unchallenged. Instead, he fired his gun at the ceiling, to scare people away, the usual behavior of bank robbers.

Very strangely, he poured gasoline on the baccarat tables and set them on fire. Is it too far-fetched to believe that he was really pouring his anger on the gambling table where he lost his shirt? This is a strange jihadist, who knew where the casino kept its gambling chips, forced its doors open, and stole the most expensive gambling chips, equivalent to P130 million. I don’t think he believed he could cash the chips in Jannah, Islam’s notion of an after-life heaven.

The attacker was shot, and retreated to a hotel room. It’s not too far-fetched to imagine the following scenario: He realized how stupid his plot to rob the casino was, and decided to kill himself, setting himself on fire with the gasoline he used to scorch the gambling tables, in order to conceal his identity, and save his family from humiliation. Before he died, he certainly didn’t know that there were 37 people killed in the wake of the fire he started.

Professional journalists do not just believe any report they come across. The news site Rappler.com, in its article entitled “ISIS claims Resorts World Manila,” said this was according to the “communique of the ISIS East Asia division”. The news site didn’t find it odd that the “communique” reported that the IS man ”killed and wounded nearly 100 Christian combatants”. The 37 killed at Resorts World of course weren’t combatants, and none of them was even a security guard. They were casino employees and guests, many of whom probably were merely fleeing the heat of the city.

‘Abu Khair al Luzonee’

Rappler’s editor-in-chief Maria Ressa claimed the gunman was an IS adherent named “Abu Khair al Luzonee”. “Al-Luzonee,” as in Luzon island? The lady didn’t get it. (A more credible IS news site is Almasdar News, which even backed up its reports that it was IS-linked groups that attacked Marawi with photos of the fighters, one even showing them raising their rifles atop a destroyed armored personnel carrier.)

That the Resorts World attack was by an IS militant was obviously the kind of fake news one reads every day in Facebook. These over-eager IS social-media activists though are devious: How can the killed gunman deny that he was an IS fighter?

However, the claim that it was an IS attack, is a huge distraction from the task of implementing our laws, and getting justice for the 37 victims, as it serves to cover up Resorts World Manila’s negligence that could even be criminal.

The most obvious instance of negligence is Resorts Worlds’ total failure to stop a man in combat attire with an assault rifle, and carrying two huge sinister-looking military-style duffel bags.. This is a especially huge lapse in security, considering that the metropolis has been on a high security alert status in the wake of reports that the IS-linked groups would attempt an attack in Manila to distract government forces away from Marawi.

The CCTV footage showed the gunman bypassed the metal detector at the entrance. After walking with him asking him to go through the metal detector, the female security guard ran away terrified. What’s the use of a security at the entrances if armed men cannot be stopped there?

Resorts World Manila chief security officer Armeen Gomez claimed that “security personnel attempted to stop him, but the assailant managed to overpower the security.” The CCTV footage shows that he is lying. There was only one security guard at the entrance, an unarmed female. The assailant “overpowered” the female security guard by just staring at her.

Entrances to malls and five-star hotels have typically at least four security people, routinely with sniffer guard dogs. Resorts World had only one unarmed security guard, a female. Was it scrimping on costs?

Sprinkler system?

The attacker doused four gaming tables with gasoline and lit them. Resorts World Manila’s chief operating officer Stephen Reilly claimed that the hotel-casino’s “fire safety equipment worked as it should do and the sprinkler system activated.” The CCTV footage showed no water or fire-extinguishing chemicals showering on the game room nor any other place in the casino complex.

Reilly made an asinine statement: “The issue we actually had was with smoke, not with fire. Unfortunately, those victims suffered from smoke inhalation. There is proper ventilation within the property. Unfortunately, a lot of it was a degree of panic.” Isn’t the function of sprinklers to put out the fire, and with no more fire, there is no more smoke? The 37 victims died because they panicked?

If there were sprinklers, how could smoke have spread so much as to reach even toilets far from the fire, where several victims were found? How on earth were the 37 people killed unable to exit the casino?

“You’re fired today. Get out of the service. You do not contradict your own government.”

–President Duterte to DDB Chairman Benjamin Reyes (GMA News)

AND with that unceremonious public shaming, another one “bites the dust”. What brought this about was the bureaucrat openly contradicting his boss in public, pegging the number of illegal drug users in the Philippines to a mere 1.8 million—in contrast to the 4 million used by the Deegong in justifying his war on drugs.

The first ever on record on a similar scenario ended too in tragedy circa 70 B.C. A messenger was sent to Tigranes, King of Armenia, warning him of the coming of Roman General Lucullus. Tigranes didn’t like the message and had the messenger’s head cut off. No right information was ever given Tigranes again. He eventually lost the war.

The analogy ends here but the lesson portrayed may wreak havoc with the way the President’s men will communicate with him and with the public henceforth. This incident opens a plethora of questions that puts under scrutiny the way the Office of the President is run and even how the personality of the President shapes the culture of his bureaucracy. The limitation of the length of this article prevents the writer from discussing the issue thoroughly. But let me refer the readers to a 3-part series that I wrote in this column on January 26, February, 2 and February 9, 2017 on “Controversial Alter-Egos”.

Bureaucrats and members of the Cabinet may now be very careful about double -checking their data when presenting them to the big boss or to the public. Public policy when proclaimed by vested authority impacts on the lives of the citizenry. As an instrument for government to better the lives of its people, its principal purpose, it demands no less than precise data upon which a strategy is shaped.

This is where the confusion started. In December last year, Rappler’s Maria Ressa asked the President on his use of 3 million to 4 million drug addicts in his speeches rather than the 1.8 million DDB estimate. PRRD only said that most of drug addiction cases are not reported anyway. Another reason is that he trusts the estimates from PDEA rather than from the DDB. Perhaps, this is to give flesh to his claim of the wide extent of drug use and abuse in the country.

A parallel issue is what is the role of the Dangerous Drug Board (DDB) in contrast with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA). Under its mandate, the DDB “…makes policies, strategies and programs on drug prevention and control”, under the office of the President. The PDEA “…is the lead anti-drug law enforcement agency, responsible for preventing, investigation, and combating any dangerous drugs…”. Further to this, “PDEA is the implementing arm of the DDB”. Both are under the Office of the President.

If it is the task of DDB to shape strategies and policies that will curtail drug usage in the country, it is only appropriate that they make use of accurate and timely data in every assumption and future projections. What is unfortunate is that the President himself has already been using data contradictory to one proclaimed by the DDB. Right or wrong, the President’s pronouncement has precedence and a subaltern has no business contradicting the President in public. If he stands by his figures, then it is the alter-ego’s duty to tell the facts even if it contravenes presidential directives, but a private approach could have been prudent on Reyes’ part.

But a nagging issue hovers in the periphery and it is not about the 1.8 million or 4.7 million drug addicts. How did they come up with such statistics? Data are essential in planning as it gives policy makers a grasp of the context and extent of the problems; fashioning solutions through timely and sustainable programs; allowing the implementers to carry out their responsibilities and achieve their goals properly and effectively. Inaccurate or unavailable information are prone to gloss over strategic gaps that could be fatal to programs on the ground.

The conflicting number of drug addicts espoused by the two agencies under the Office of the President is further complicated by definition of terms. Both have failed to differentiate between drug addiction, drug usage and drug pushing, thereby distorting the numbers submitted to the President and the public. In the process, the lower number belies the oft-repeated position of PRRD that the country is in the grip of unnamed drug lords and on the way to becoming some South American type of narco-state. This resulted in a fatal consequence to the DDB chairman, the bearer of bad numbers.

This whole sordid episode on the dismissal from office of the bearer of bad news; tantamount to the proverbial “killing of the messenger,” could have, I’m afraid, an unintended result, a chilling effect on bureaucrats tasked to gather and proffer data to the presidency. Will they in future willingly stand by their facts and risk public shaming or will they trim them to the liking of the Deegong?