Karma, Sereno and other officials

Batas Mauricio.

THE quo warranto case seeking the setting aside of the appointment extended to Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Aranal Sereno by the then President Noynoy Aquino already reached and had been filed with the Supreme Court by Solicitor General Jose Calida.

I will not dwell on the legalities or on the finer points of law which Calida’s petition raised, and I have a number of reasons for not doing so. First, my daughter, Maria Luisa Mauricio, was one of the lawyers of the Office of the Solicitor General who had a hand in the preparation and filing of the petition in that case. I am sure many will say I will be necessarily favoring my daughter and the OSG in any comment I will make.

Second, the sub judice rule now applies to the Calida petition. Sub judice simply means that if a matter has already been brought for adjudication or resolution to the courts (even to the courts which are of lower rank than the Supreme Court), its merits or lack of it can no longer be discussed publicly. The rule requires to leave the resolution of the case to the courts alone.

Be that as it may, I couldn’t help but look into the issue of “karma” — or the oft-acknowledged phenomenon which assures that whatever one did or has sown would certainly come back to him or her sooner than later — affecting Sereno’s case. Indeed, whatever we did to another human being is going to be repeated to us somehow.

This is something that is written in the Bible, in its Galatians 6:7, which precisely intones: “…Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows…” Inevitably, God is going to make everyone account for whatever they have done, making sure that whatever pain or blessing we imparted to others would come back to us in more ways than one.

There are many incidents showing karma’s effects that could be read from the Bible. One of them is the story of Adoni-Bezek, a king who used to cut the fingers off the hands and feet of the kings whose kingdoms he had subdued, making the hapless monarchs eat from the crumbs that fell from his table. According to Judges 1, when it was the turn of Adoni-Bezek to be defeated and captured, his own fingers were severed from his hands and feet, compelling him to subsist on crumbs likewise.

We will always remember, of course, that Sereno was installed as the replacement chief justice by the then President Noynoy after Chief Justice Renato Corona was ousted in a Senate impeachment trial. In the same manner that Sereno took the seat from Corona, it would seem that she is bound to suffer the same fate — she, too, would be ousted.

The same thing happened to President Gloria Arroyo. She had President Joseph Estrada jailed. But, Gloria was detained too, on orders of Noynoy. At this point, Noynoy is expected to be jailed, too, for a number of reasons. Then, Sen. Leila de Lima worked hard to shame and humiliate Gloria by preventing her from leaving the country at the start of Noynoy’s term, even if Gloria needed urgent foreign medication.

But Leila subsequently went through the same pain and suffering and humiliation that she heaped on Gloria. What then is the lesson in all these? Whatsoever one did to another, that would be repeated to him. To whoever will replace Sereno, it would be wise for him or her to pay attention to what we have tackled here. There would be no harm if Sereno’s replacement would take time to consult with God first, through His Word from the Bible!

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com