By Reni M. Valenzuela
Selective justice is worse than injustice. A public official who practices such a perversion is, in reality, an enemy of the state and people – a liability to progress, good governance and a just, humane society. Bane, profane.
Law and justice rarely blend on account of putrid hearts, rotten judicial system and rotting “due process.” Example: a political warlord or government thug may massacre people in broad daylight, yet behold how laughable the “wheel of justice” runs its course. For instance, the unfolding judicial fooleries we have in the Degamo and Bantag notorieties, not to mention similar blatant infamies in the past like the Maguindanao-Ampatuan massacre and the Duterte drug war victims of extrajudicial killings.
Free Leila De Lima. Jail the demagogues and demigods instead – and so let justice rule and reign in our land.
De Lima, a former senator and justice secretary, remains undaunted and is admirable in declaring recently that she will gain freedom based on the merits of her case and not for humanitarian reasons because, in her own words, “the DOJ has no case against me from the very beginning… it is all fabrication of charges…” Atrocious, De Lima remains in jail even after the recantation of major witnesses who were merely coerced to testify against her. Cruel, hellish. “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.” – Proverbs 21:15.
A government official will never be a good leader of the country, notwithstanding the “good” things he may do in the discharge his duties and responsibilities for as long as he has blinders or “politics,” personal/partisan/hidden agenda and political gratitude running in his veins. Wicked.
One effective way to find out if a so-called public servant is serving (truly) the public interest is that his actions bear no “strings attached.” A statesman in the true sense of the word, his integrity is intact. He is no respecter of person, unbiased, impartial, fair – much less in treating crooks, robbers, bandits, criminals, murderers, scoundrels and the despicable in the government, past and present. Otherwise, he is no different. The same principles apply to the fourth estate, the media.
Ridding the public service of all sorts of scalawags and hoodlums is the first duty of every genuine leader of the nation just as the chiefs of BuCor and DILG and a few local executives in the provinces have been doing (courageously) in their respective turfs to cleanse their ranks (the police and themselves). May the same marvel happen in the military and police as institutions and as a whole, and the entire executive, legislature and judiciary.
No private person/entity like Pharmally will be able to engage in a malpractice to cheat the government and steal from the nation’s coffers (only to “exculpate” themselves later with their loots and backers), without being in cahoots with VIPs in the government, those who are in key positions of power, together with their equally corrupt subordinates/cohorts.
Justice knows no blood/frat relations and political colors in like manner as justice was served on Mt. Calvary – pure, unadulterated and total – with Jesus Christ, in the form of man, having taken the punishment of sin on our behalf. With Him, there is no cover-up, shortcuts, manipulation, partiality, false/coerced witnesses, made-up stories and planted evidence – as opposed to and distinct from human “justice,” diametrically.
Jesus Christ, the ultimate Judge, is the Criminal Court of both heaven and the universe that defined the way for man’s redemption and damnation. He served as the substitutionary atonement for the sinful, hell-bound world. In order to fulfill the requirements of the law that would exact justice on sinners, God’s response is the cross. Christ, the Son of God, died for all of us. (John 3:16).
Dear public servants (Matthew 20:26-28), do right and do justice to all, without fear or favor. The victims of injustice are waiting in pain, faith and prayers. Do it – now or never.
