WE ARE NOT RELATED, SORRY.

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         Going through airport Immigration recently, the lady officer, while examining my passport, showed facial disposition to be cheerful.  "Are you related to the Secretary, sir?"  It is a question I am asked often but decided against my set answer and instead teased the lady.  "Young lady, look at my hair.  It's real, not a wig!  We are not related."  I laughed and we both laughed as she stamped and handed back my documents. 

          The secretary referred to is, of course, Secretary of Justice Vitaliano Aguirre II, the powerful and popular classmate and cabinet member of the sitting President.  I have not met him but some years back as a lawyer of the ordinary variety, he was caught in the sweep of a spotlight during the impeachment trial of the late Chief Justice Renato Corona when he stood up to the verbal bullying of the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago.  It was his 10 minutes of fame and I remember that after that, in banter among friends, I claimed him as a relative for vindicating our common name by his  refusal to be bullied even by the fearsome senator.  But since then he has been forgotten by most, me included, until Duterte became president and my namesake, like some seasonal fungus sprouting from the dirt, surfaced to be appointed Secretary of Justice.  From this point, his negative popularity and reputation has been on the rise or on a steady nosedive, as many put it.

         My assessment of Secretary Aguirre as a person and as an official is a judgment call influenced by my ideal concept of the job and the inevitable comparison with the performance and conduct of worthy individuals who also occupied the position ahead of him.  I was taught to view the position as the beacon that guides and directs the impartial and effective administration of justice which is the most important pillar of governance.  It is somehow expected and human that the role of Secretary of Justice is both that of a defender and a weapon to serve the administration that appointed him.  He must perform that role with all his dedication and ability but it ought not to be carried out outside the parameters defined by common decency and the laws.  The Secretary of Justice should not be an attack dog that, on cue, pounces on any opponent of an unhinged master.  The Secretary of Justice  should not be too much of a lackey that demonstrates his servitude by contriving or fabricating charges against those who displease him and the administration he serves.  Blind justice must be accorded obeisance with a conscience and mental honesty which I do not see in the demonstrated character and mental profile of the Secretary of Justice.

       I have not heard from colleagues or overheard from people I do not know anything that contradicts my assessment of Vitaliano Aguirre II.  I have heard worst.  But I do not need those to add to the list of considerations why I will never lie to claim the honorable secretary as a relative.  

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