Marites Dañguilan Vitug began demystifying the Supreme Court in her controversial and groundbreaking book, 2010’s “Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court,” a book that resulted in a libel suit and death threats aimed at Vitug.
In 2011, Vitug published her second book on the high court, “Our Rights, Our Victories: Landmark Cases in the Supreme Court,” co-authored by Criselda Yabes.
But now Vitug continues what she began in “Shadow of Doubt” with a new book about a Supreme Court in the process of being transformed by history. Vitug’s “Hour Before Dawn: The Fall and Uncertain Rise of the Philippine Supreme Court” (Cleverheads Publishing, Quezon City, 2012. 319 pages) focuses attention of the Court under Chief Justice Renato Corona. Corona, of course, has since been impeached and the Court has never been the same again.
‘Midnight appointment’
“Hour” picks up right where “Shadow” left off, when former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was poised to choose a new Chief Justice shortly before a presidential election, despite what seemed to be a constitutional obstacle to it. In this new book, Vitug discusses in detail the “midnight appointment” of Corona in 2010.
From there, Vitug surveys the breadth of Corona’s short, eventful stint as CJ, giving the readers an insider’s view at to what happened behind the scenes as one controversy after another wracked the Supreme Court: the plagiarism scandal, the surprising reversal in high-profile cases, the Hacienda Luisita issue and the Court’s difficult relationship with the President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, with the judicial in effect engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the executive. The portrait Vitug paints of the Court is a scathing one: The justices appear to be political and personal in their decisions, smug in their positions and almost arrogant in the power they wield without accountability.
The most scathing part of the well-written and exhaustively researched “Hour” is the book’s indictment of Corona. Anyone who followed the impeachment proceedings on television is familiar with the theatrics employed by both sides. Vitug goes directly to the evidence, surveying what the prosecution presented and how the defense was blindsided into losing their cause. The most damning portion is one in which Vitug notes various movements in Corona’s bank deposits immediately after certain decisions in big cases.
“The implications of these coincidences, a member of the Court says, are ‘dangerous.’ That, in the end, could do the most damage to the Court,” Vitug writes. “If people believe that a Chief Justice traffics in decisions, then laws would lose their sanctity and money would rule. Philippine democracy, brittle as it is, would crack and crumble.”
Then “Hour” shows us the immense changes in the Supreme Court after the impeachment, echoing “Shadow” in that the book also ends with a search for the next Chief Justice. Vitug’s book was finished shortly before a new CJ was named, but “Hour” proved prescient in that it clearly showed how, from the moment she was being considered for a position in the Court to the advent of the impeachment trial, Ma. Lourdes Sereno was never afraid to go against the tide and advocated an open and transparent Supreme Court, a vision she is charged with implementing now that she heads the same Court she so wanted to change.
Accountable
“What we care for is that, through our reporting, we make officials and institutions accountable,” Vitug says by way of explaining what this book is about. “We push the limits of transparency and we’re agnostic about where our search will take us. We follow the facts and they lead us to truths, no matter that some of them may not be pleasant.”
With this engaging and important book, Vitug continues her quest of explaining the workings of as well as holding accountable for its actions, the Philippine Supreme Court. “Hour Before Dawn” will enlighten and disturb you with the surprising revelations of what went on in the high court during Corona’s tenure. But Marites Dañguilan Vitug also leaves you with the aspiration that the Supreme Court, after going through the crucible of public scrutiny, has now been resurrected in a new, hopeful point in our history away from the shadows.
Available from leading bookstores.