Truth's Commission

The "truth commission" that was recently established by the Aquino administration's first Executive Order is being heavily criticized by quarters in government which, in the words of President Noynoy Aquino, "seem to be the people who might be part of the process." While the issues raised against it are admittedly legally cogent, these seemed to have missed the point why there is a pressing need for such a commission.

One of the oft-repeated problems that the truth commission needs to address is its "constitutionality" or lack of a "legal leg to stand on." Albay congressman Edcel Lagman, for instance, stated that the House minority will question the legality of the truth commission before the courts.

Equally frequent is the assertion that the truth commission duplicates the tasks saddled on the Department of Justice and the Office of the Ombudsman. This, in fact, was the public contention of Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago who also cited the truth body's lack of constitutional and budgetary support as constraints against it.

Notwithstanding the fact that these two legal luminaries are closely identified with the previous regime as its defenders within their respective legislative chambers, their objections against the new administration's truth commission do require appropriate legal responses. But the brouhaha these objections create only lead to further questions whose answers, we are tempted to conclude lay beyond the ambit of legal claims. Why is there the need to establish a truth commission that is principally intended to investigate the anomalies and irregularities of past nine years of the Arroyo regime? How is it that despite the existence of the DOJ and the Office of the Ombudsman, these anomalies and irregularities remain unresolved and without closure to the public's mind? Could it be because Mrs. Arroyo's government had been able to manipulate the law for its own benefit in such a way that it has become immune to prosecution under the law?

The establishment of a truth commission is premised precisely on the palpable and urgent public need for the accountability of and the truth about Mrs. Arroyo's regime. This need has not been adequately met by the legal institutions-those which had legal legs to stand on-for the past nine years. And this is why the truth commission employs, ultimately, moral imperatives instead for its "crutches" as it attempts to stand up and walk "the straight path." For the past regime had so corrupted our public and legal institutions that extralegal recourses such as the truth commission become necessary in the meantime.