IGLESIA PALA!: Remember the white van with license plate No. RAP 407 that started a discussion in this space on arrogant officials who bully their way through traffic escorted by police vehicles armed with sirens and blinkers?

It turned out that that van is registered with the Iglesia ni Cristo -- according to the records of the Land Transportation Office.

Now, why would the Iglesia enjoy preferential treatment? And why were two police cars assigned to escort it and scare away other motorists from its path?

Is that royal ride based on the Bible, or on the bursting ego of a bigwig from the Iglesia ni Cristo?

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VELARDE, TOO: But the Iglesia is not alone in this seeming abuse. Every Saturday evening, the road in front of the international airport in Paranaque is clogged with vehicles of followers of religious leader Mike Velarde of El Shaddai.

Why cannot the authorities force them to obey traffic rules? President Arroyo is beholden to Velarde all right, but does that endow him with extra powers?

Is it not enough that Velarde collects millions from his followers and is given multimillion-peso easy loans by the government while legions of poor Filipinos must squat and live in shanties?

Note that Velarde is not a prelate of any church and El Shaddai is not a religion. Is he paying taxes on his collections by the millions? Who audits him?

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COMPROMISE: This layman cannot understand why, instead of resolving the legal question posed by the Senate, the Supreme Court simply offered a compromise that skirted the key issues raised.

The High Court, as I understand it, is not intended to function like a barangay good neighbor arbitrator or a public relations agency smoothing out disputes among protagonists.

When legal conflicts are submitted to it for resolution, the Court is expected to speak with a clear voice in sorting out the relative rights of the parties involved.

So when senators asked the Court if Secretary Romulo Neri may snub its committees or, appearing before them, hide behind so-called “executive privilege” and refuse to reply to questions, I expected the tribunal to give a clear answer.

Instead, the Court fashioned a compromise: That while Neri must respond to Senate summons, he may invoke executive privilege. If the senators insist that Neri talk, he can ask the court to tell senators to back off.

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THREE POINTS: In that ambivalent context, the Senate was right in rejecting the Supreme Court's middle ground position.

With the Court giving Neri more legal leeway in refusing to answer questions of the Senate, his appearing before a legislative inquiry with his mouth zipped up would be ridiculous.

There is no point in his appearing before the Senate if he will not respond to questions, especially on these basic points:

1. Did President Gloria Arroyo follow up the NBN project with Neri?

2. Did the President tell him to give priority to the National Broadband Network project?

3. Did the President instruct him to go ahead with the project after he told her that then Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos had offered him a bribe?

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EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE: These points were asked Neri the first time he appeared before the Senate, but he invoked “executive privilege” in refusing to give details of his conversations with the President.

The privilege, btw, does not belong to Neri but to the President, who is immune from normal audit by the two other co-equal branches of government.

The moment Neri quits, steps out of the Cabinet or is removed from office, he is stripped of the cloak of “executive privilege” and therefore open to more thorough legislative prying. So he is staying.

Obviously, senators want to link the President to the deal that almost everybody and his uncle, except probably for the Chinese who will finance and put it together, believe is overpriced and anomalous.

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EVASIVE: In rejecting the SC compromise, the Senate was hewing to the line that the people's right to be informed as enshrined in the Constitution was supreme.

Senate leaders also said that their accepting the formula would be tantamount to compromising congressional powers of conducting inquiries in aid of legislation.

Throwing a compromise at the senators instead of deciding squarely the legal questions posed, the Court is deemed by some as being evasive.

Stressing that the Senate is a co-equal of the two other branches of government, senators Nene Pimentel and Dick Gordon said the Senate would be selling out if it agreed to the SC-brokered compromise.

If the Senate agreed, Pimentel said, “There would be a thousand more Neri's who would also invoke the same principle as in the present case.”

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BIBLE-BASED: Now this lawyer cites not just the law but also the Bible for objecting to calls for President Arroyo to resign.

Melanio Mauricio, nominee of the BATAS (Bagong Alyansang Tagapagtaguyod ng Adhikaing Sambayanan) Party List, said that the ouster of a leader in a manner not consistent with the law violates the Bible and would bring curses from God and more difficulties for the people.

Mauricio, aka Attorney Batas, quotes Romans 13:1-2: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.”

“The authorities that exist have been established by God,” he said. “Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

He added: “While President Arroyo, her family and her officials are accused of grave wrongdoings, and if found guilty should be meted punishment, this is something that must be dealt according to what the law provides.”

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