However, recent pronouncements by Chief Justice Reynato Puno have surprised many and led them to reconsider their traditional views and perceptions of the High Court.

First, the Chief Justice announced, in response to the Philip Alston Report on extrajudicial killings and disappearances, that the Court would designate special trial courts all over the country to resolve these cases with dispatch. Administrative Order No. 25-2007 defines as part of the mandate of the special trial courts the speedy resolution of cases involving the killing of political activists and journalists.

Second, he declared that the Court would exercise its power on judicial rule-making, which is little known to the general public but granted to the Court by the Constitution. Article VIII, section 5(5) vests the Supreme Court with the sole authority to "promulgate rules concerning the protection and enforcement of human rights." It is a power that is not frequently invoked except by a few lawyers and then, only as a last resort.

Third, and in relation to the exercise by the Court of the power to promulgate rules on the enforcement of human rights, he also announced the holding by the Supreme Court of a multi-sectoral summit to discuss issues relative to the extrajudicial killings, stressing that the summit would have implications on the principle of "command responsibility."

The Court likewise stated aloud that it would review its own ruling on Executive Order 464 (which prohibits top government officials from appearing in congressional probes without clearance from the President) and that should an appropriate case arise, it would, in Puno's words, "plug the holes" in the decision.

What is surprising about these three announcements is not only that they have been made at all but that they have been made publicly by the Chief Justice, speaking as the head of the judicial branch.

In making these announcements through public statements, not decisions (as the Court usually does when it wants to educate the public on matters of law), the Court through the Chief Justice has effectively declared that it would take on a new role: from passive receptacle, it would now shift to being an active intervenor in the national debate on human rights.

The power to promulgate remedies to protect and enforce human rights is a significant power for the Court to exercise. By invoking this, the Court effectively recognizes that no effective or meaningful remedy exists at the moment to protect certain fundamental rights. Where a right exists, there must be a remedy. Clearly, the right to be protected from extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances exists, but there is no meaningful remedy to enforce these rights. Thus, the power in Article VIII, section 5(5) is significant.

The idea behind that power came from the chairman of the judiciary committee of the 1986 Constitutional Commission, the late former Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion, in connection with his proposal to come up with a writ of amparo (from the Spanish amparar, or "to protect") for the Philippines.

In 1999, the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), in the case of Pablito Andan v. People of the Philippines, asked the Court to exercise this power by coming up with a writ of amparo as contemplated by the CONCOM; in its petition, it argued that there were no existing remedies available to address the violation of the right to life when it came to the death penalty and thus sought the promulgation of rules to enforce the writ of amparo.

The Court did not act on this, ignoring the prayer for the writ of amparo. In the next years, this particular argument would be raised over and over again, the last occasion being the oral arguments against the National Police's Calibrated Pre-emptive Response case.

Nine years later, the Court is now set to promulgate rules governing the writ of amparo and other rules to protect human rights.

What exactly it will extend to and what situations it will cover are unclear at the moment; what's clear is that the Court, in exercising this power under Article VIII, sec. 5(5), is free to define the rights that may be covered by the protection, the extent of protection, the acts or omissions that would constitute a violation of these rights, the consequences thereof, if not penalties for violation.

Indeed, Chief Justice Puno's invocation of the exclusive power under Article VIII, section 5(5) has placed the Court in a role that is quite welcome but also unfamiliar, even to itself.

Emphasizing the inherent weakness of the great writ of liberty-habeas corpus-in the face of brazen disappearances like Jay Jay Burgos's, the Chief Justice has drastically upped the ante for constitutional protection and, at the same time, dramatized the utter helplessness or unwillingness of the two other branches of government to address serious charges of human rights violations.

To use a phrase that Puno coined, the need for a remedy to address the existing situation has been "brightlined in scarlet" by the Court; that it has done so-after what appears to have been half-hearted efforts by the executive and legislative branches-is quite telling.

This early, Chief Justice Puno has lived up to his reputation as one who is deeply concerned about fundamental rights and adherence to civil liberties.

Puno's insightful response to the perception that there exists no meaningful remedy to the current situation of unabated extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances is a welcome move by a Court which many had written off as being irrelevant for being too passive.

By taking the initiative and building on the momentum that his predecessor started, Chief Justice Puno has taken the Court from "strength to strength." And we are all the better for it.

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