Why have you forsaken me?

One of the most famous last words of Christ before He died on the cross was narrated in the Gospel of Matthew: Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45-46)

The Lenten season is still two months away. Yet the question lingers this early throughout the land. When it is convenient to ignore the truth and forget one’s moral sense, the question fills the air like a crying hound.  

A presidential government prides itself with a built-in safeguard against official abuse: the principle of separation of powers. State powers are distributed to the three co-equal branches of government to prevent their concentration in the hands of a single person. Under the Constitution, the power to make laws is entrusted to the Legislative Department while the power to implement them belongs to the Executive Department. Of course, courts are independent to interpret the laws and dispense justice without fear or favor.

The essence of separation of powers is: Restraint! Yes, restraint so that nobody can have naked powers.

Ours is theoretically a limited government because powers corrupt and absolute powers corrupt absolutely! It was true in the past as unto this day.

President PNoy has no business interfering with the affairs of a co-equal branch of the government. This is basic in Constitutional Law.  And if Senator Revilla’s revelation is to be believed, then, there had been a gross violation of the Constitution. Any sensible citizen would know the gravity of the President’s indiscretion when he dipped his fingers in the internal affairs of the Senate: He tampered with the principle of separation of powers. He committed a culpable violation of the Constitution. He betrayed the public trust. He committed a mortal sin against the Constitution. Gravely, he wronged the Filipino People!   

But only few are sounding the alarm. Only Dean Fr. Ranhillo C. Aquino of San Beda Graduate School of Law had the balls to declare openly that what the President did is an impeachable offense. Self-proclaimed experts who inhabit the social networks and the mass media had fallen into deep slumber. Other whodunit scholars conveniently brushed aside the revelation as an unnecessary noise resorted to muddle gross corruption issues.      A conspiracy of silence camouflaged the gross violation of the fundamental principle of our constitutional democracy.  

Miserably, it seems that any act of indiscretion on the part of President Benigno C. Aquino III can pass unnoticed even to the most intelligent segment of the society. He is that popular—he can break the public will without anyone complaining about it.   

The question is not for President PNoy of course. The question is for us.

Have our ears gone deaf to the cries for righteous indignation?

Have we crucified the future with the callousness of our insensitivity to such moral evil?

Have we forsaken our people?

Have we forsaken our children?