“BIGGEST JOKE of the century,” according to a recent banner headline in this newspaper for an article on the Supreme Court’s decision that Marcos’ ally Eduardo Cojuangco’s purchase of 20 percent of San Miguel Corp. shares in 1983 was legal and therefore wasn’t ill-gotten wealth.

The phrase was really an uncalled-for hyperbole made by senior associate justice Conchita Carpio-Morales in her dissenting opinion: “The argument that Cojuangco was not a subordinate or close associate of the Marcoses is the biggest joke to hit the century.”

Justice Carpio-Morales may have thought she was being clever in using that phrase. However, she in effect portrayed her nine Supreme Court colleagues, who voted for Cojuangco’s position, as gullible fools. Quite unfairly, as none of her colleagues in the Court argued that Cojuangco was not Marcos’ close associate. Not even the tycoon in fact, as he publicly had said that he was proud that he was at Marcos’ side to the dictator’s very end. What he had been denying is that his purchase of San Miguel shares violated Philippine laws.

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