(A brewing crisis by Ellen Tordesillas blog -> http://blogs.gmanews.tv/ellen-tordesillas/archives/73-A-brewing-crisis.html )

It looks like there would be no boring moments in the Noynoy Aquino presidency.

This early fireworks are starting to be lighted in the controversy of Gloria Arroyo’s appointment of Renato Corona as Supreme Court chief justice succeeding Reynaldo Puno who retired on Monday.

Aquino’s adviser, Avelino “Nonong” Cruz, who was also Arroyo’s chief legal adviser until he fell out of grace when he disagreed with her attempts to change the Constitution for her to stay in power forever, told the president-in-waiting to void the Corona’s appointment just what Arroyo’s father, President Diosdado Macapagal, did to the midnight appointments of his predecessor, Carlos Garcia.

“I think that can be done and I think that’s what (Aquino) should do. That is the legal way to do it. Void midnight appointments through an executive order and then appoint a new chief justice,” Cruz said.

To underscore his non-recognition of Corona’s appointment, Aquino said he will take his oath before a barangay captain.

Lawyers, even among those who supported Aquino, do not agree with his plan.

Marvic Leonen, dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law, and who criticized the High Court in allowing Arroyo to appoint the Supreme Court justice despite the two month pre-election ban said Aquino should “respect the office and not necessarily the incumbent.”

On Facebook, Leonen wrote,

“On June 30, 2010 the President-elect will take his oath of office, hopefully before the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This is a ceremony not only between Noynoy Aquino and Renato Corona. The act of taking your oath is not a statement against Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

It is to affirm that you accept the trust given to you by the Filipino people and promise this before the branch of government charged with the protection of the constitution.

You can attack the former President, even the person of the Chief Justice if you want to, during your inaugural address — although I do not think that that also will make good politics.

For example, you will have a series of appointments caused by some vacancies in the Supreme Court within your term. The JBC is under the supervision of the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice presides over the JBC.”

Leonen further said,

“There is a difference between criticism of a decision of the Supreme Court as a private citizen and the acts that you do as the potential incumbent of the Office of the President of the Republic.

As a citizen you are accountable only to yourself, your community and your culture, and its people.

As the President, you represent more than yourself or your immediate communities. You take on a formal persona. In many constitutional doctrines, you even shed some of your rights as a citizen.”

Leonen gave Aquino his unsolicited advice: “Be the President of the Republic of the Philippines. Act that part. Take your oath before the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, whoever its incumbent may be. There are many other ways to improve the administration of justice. (For example, immediately get a good Secretary of Justice and a competent Solicitor General).”

UP law professor Harry Roque disagrees with Leonen and like Cruz, urges Aquino to appoint his choice of Supreme Court chief justice.

Roque, in his essay,”A breach of mandate”, said,

“The Presumptive President-Elect must keep his promise not to recognize the legitimacy of an Arroyo appointed Chief Justice for two reasons. First, he must honor the mandate of the sovereign people when they ratified the 1987 Constitution. Second, this has become a political issue already decided by the people when they gave the Presumptive President-Elect an overwhelming mandate.”

Roque, who will be going on indefinite leave from teaching Constitutional Law and Public International Law in the UP College of Law and will be resigning from the Philippine Judicial Academy to protest the Supreme Court decision in De Castro vs. JBC, said, “Judicial power cannot and should not be used to thwart popular will of the sovereign who only now, chose Noynoy Aquino as their true leader based on a promise not to recognize the legitimacy of an Arroyo midnight appointee.”

Just when I thought we had avoided a crisis with the success of the first automated elections, here we are compelled to watch closely a brewing confrontation.

How Aquino will handle this will define his presidency.

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