AFTER ALL
Behn Fer. Hortaleza, Jr.

OUR regular online reader, Marlowe Camello, e-mailing us from Homeland, California, perked our interest this week with his thoughts on how, if ever, the Philippines can have a more efficient and trustworthy kind of justice system. Marlowe, (we get the feeling that’s the ‘Americanized’ version of his name) took off in his commentary from Senator Manny Villar’s resolution where the legislator from Las Pinas said the rule of law is the backbone of a democratic, peaceful and orderly society”.

To get to Marlowe’s point, the man wants institutionalized in our judicial system the Grand Jury and Trial Jury setup that they have in the US. “There can never be a rule of law and trustworthy judiciary to speak about where justice is the monopoly of those who are supposed to be the answerable masterminds of injustice,” he premised.

He adds: In a true democracy, the real backbone and guardians of justice are the common people composed mostly of private citizens. (At least the upright ones, we might add.)

Fully expressing faith on the jury system’s effectiveness, Marlowe said: “When summoned before the court and asked to unite by way of judicial instruction and guidance behind their laws to confront outlaws, they (ordinary citizens)are the ultimate fearless and “skilled” enforcers of the rule of law.

Oh, how we wish he were right about the “citizens” –- in the Philippine setting. Hope anyone who reads this piece reacts at http://pangasinanstar.blogspot.com.

Incidentally, no one at the Con-Com seems to have tried even just suggesting or discussing the merits of the jury system in the section on judicial reforms, eh, Senyor Abogado Raul Lambino y abogada Rita Linda Jimeno?

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We’re encoding this at an internet shop, Micro World in downtown Dagupan, in a rush to beat deadline while our own solitary computer unit is taken over by the layout artist to produce this week’s issue of the Star. Strange how the electronic sounds of battle being unleashed by about a dozen gamers in the shop appealed to our senses. Some writers we know like tranquil, orderly areas to write their masterpieces in, In our case, we just love a cacophony of noises in the background to keep the adrenaline, and the writing juices, flowing. Our old colleagues at the defunct NMPC have always wondered at this seeming ease we have with background noises while pounding the typewriter keys even as our other fellow writers hate them.

But that’s beside our real point.

Looking at the gamers, adults and teeners fully outnumbering the children, it dawned on us how so much manpower could be idled (in a manner of speaking) okay, glued, in front of a computer screen when they must have, they should have, more productive things to do back home, or at their business areas.(The meddling instinct in us, see?) Some of them were Chinese-looking mestizos who stand out among the rugged brownboys among the players.

The analysts and scholars are right, Pinoys are slowly but surely being enslaved by the Bill Gates gadget no one’s tending to the fields and the waters anymore.

Every internet café that rises brings us that much closer to idled mental state. We don’t know if we should laugh or cry. One thing we know, we were able to finish another piece to fill this space – amid the Star Wars sounds digging into our cerebellum.

Must get out of this place now, fast.