commentary Why can’t they just resign?
Why can’t they just resign?
Thursday, 23 February 2012 00:00
NORTH Carolina- A Texas federal judge resigned after being caught on camera sleeping during a recent trial on a case concerning a disabled teenager. It was not a short little nap, a report said, but he was actually sleeping for an extended period of time. The judge was identified as Larry Craddock. Before resigning, he blamed the medicines he was taking, and retorted back to the lawyers for not calling his attention. But the lawyers said they dropped bottles and tried coughing to stir the judge but these did not work. The judge resigned because he has delicadeza. Delicadeza, by the way, refers to behavior anchored on generally accepted moral standards. It is common in other cultures, and Filipinos used to possess it more. In many cultures, people choose to die to defend their honor as a matter of delicadeza. It is associated with honor. That is why in Japan they have "hara kiri" and in US they have "resignation." In the Philippines, we have "until proven guilty." But, actually, there is truth to the story that judges do sleep while listening to lawyers during trial. This brings me back to the good old days. As a new reporter of Gold Star Daily, I was assigned by the editor, Herbie Gomez, to cover court stories. In those days, the news reports about judiciary were rare in Cagayan de Oro. Judges just didn't want their work covered by reporters.
But two judges then, Noli Catli and Puro Velez, had a paradigm shift. There was no promulgation unless I was around to cover the story (that was my impression)! Their noble aim was deterrence. In the course of my beat reporting, I learned some of the guarded secrets and one of them was, judges do sleep "while listening to testimonies." This usually happens when the case is not interesting or lawyers are sleepy and if there were few people present. Watch those who wear colored glasses. Good for these judges, transcripts help them in deciding or resolving the cases. Actually there is nothing wrong in taking nap. It is even recommended by doctors to gain energy. What is wrong is when a lazy public official, elected or appointed, sits on the Job. These people don't have honor, and delicadeza is alien to them.
What happened in this story touches on my belief that Filipinos forget all about the meaning of this word, of which Filipinos are known for. But this story applies not only to judges but to all who sleep on their Job: judges, justices, mayors, governors, senators, congressmen, barangay captains, etc.. This has to do with performance and the nerve to get out even due to a small taint of doubt on their honor. Resignation is far from the mind of these people as they would rather face impeachment, recall, court cases, public opinion against them or challenging the public to produce evidence. Who among our public officials can do that? Who has the nerve to resign and leave before the seat becomes too hot to handle. Honor, accountability, trust are already strangers, no longer the norm. If a judge resigns because he was caught snoozing, why can't we have a mayor resign because the demand to resign is strong? Think about it.
| ||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Fire Fox or 
Google Chrome.`