Update: Gloria Arroyo has lifted 1017 March 3, 2006, start of weekend. Previous timestamp of this entry is February 28, 2006 @ 22:31.

Barring any untoward incident, Proclamation 1017 will be lifted on Monday, March 6, 2007. The reason: to preempt the Supreme Court from passing judgment on the proclamation. It is a tried and tested tactic.

When the news item that the proclamation is up for review on the coming weekend, and the Supreme Court scheduled oral arguments on the proclamation on March 7, I made up my mind – the Fortress at the Pasig will indeed lift the proclamation, Monday, March 6, at the latest.

The SC said that due to its urgency, it has scheduled oral arguments a week from now. If it is urgent, why not two days from now? The Fortress can defend its position, thank you; the complainants must be, or they should have not filed in the first place if they are not ready. Too bad, I cannot expand anymore about the said urgency; I don’t have the money to pay as fine, like what the SC did to former Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima.

Again, all those suits filed at the SC are futile. Number 1, the proclamation itself is constitutional – Franklin Drilon, Miriam Santiago, and Katrina Legarda all said this is so. Number 2, the proclamation will be lifted before March 7 (boy, how I hope I am wrong, for it is hard to be right). Number 3, look at the timing of the lifting and the schedule of oral arguments.

What they should have asked the SC to do is to declare the actions made by the government in the name of Proclamation 1017 as unconstitutional. The incident at The Daily Tribune is a case in point. In all angles, what the police did was unconstitutional – no search warrants, no probable cause. There might be probable cause, but that is shot down by the pronouncements of the PNP Chief. And any case that they file against the paper will be useless, save for rebellion. Why? All evidence that they have taken from the Daily Tribune offices will be inadmissible, since they were taken without any search warrant. They should file rebellion charges if they want to throw the book at the paper.

Nachura et al are correct, but they are just playing semantics. Their actuations speak for themselves. They are pushing the legal envelop too far, and the judiciary will be the next casualty in Gloria’s undeclared war against our government institutions.