As former President Gloria Arroyo asserts her right to travel, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima argues that national interest should win over individual Constitutional rights. President Benigno Aquino calls this "higher law," but Teddy Locsin Jr. argues its place in a democracy. - The World Tonight, ANC, November 25, 2011

Noynoy's position is that the few must yield to the passions of the many; the rights of the few be sacrificed to the baying for blood of the more; and the minority submit to the majority always, more so when we are talking of just one or two. He calls this, the higher law. Is it true?

Ninoy Aquino persisted in prison fighting for the rights of the individual against a tyranny almost all Filipinos loved. Cory Aquino put democracy, not a mob, in power.

The purpose of democracy is not to give whatever the majority want but to protect the minority -- or just one -- from the majority's unjust desires, even the freedoms of expression and assembly of Neo-Nazis in a Jewish neighborhood.

Nowhere in the higher law will you find the unprincipled proposition that the majority must always prevail. The real principle is that individual rights outweigh majority prejudice.

 The higher law is expressed in the Bill of Rights, which protects the few against the many on the practical ground that, if you do not, how will future majorities arise?

 The higher law is higher reason, invoked against kings, churches and parliaments. It is a law so universally just, so unfailingly fair, everyone freely submits to it, because it does as much good as each man wants for himself, and causes no more harm to others, than anyone would knowingly do to himself. The golden rule. As Kant said, "So legislate and adjudicate, for or against others, as you would want to be legislated or adjudicated for or against yourself."

The higher law is not elitist, or understood only by a few. It is the broad conception of all people, but achieved only in their rational moments, about what they would like to happen if they put themselves in another man's shoes. It is what ordinary people think is right when they stop reading newspapers, turn off the news, stop listening to officials and start thinking for themselves.

 Noynoy cannot do what Marcos would not do to Ninoy: detain him in country and stop him getting medical treatment abroad.

 Marcos accused Ninoy of illegal possession of unlicensed firearms at the declaration of Martial Law. I was lucky, a US Naval officer got rid of the ones I kept in the nick of time. But Marcos did not openly pre-judge him until a military commission convicted him. Even then he let Ninoy go abroad with no expectation Ninoy would return and with every expectation he would resume the anti-Marcos struggle abroad.

That is because Marcos would not openly prejudge Ninoy's guilt, brazenly railroad his conviction without even semblance of a trial, and throw questions of law and evidence to a mob.

That is why Marcos held elections every time his term ended, even though the results were a foregone conclusion. He never had to pay a voter he could threaten.

Process, process, that's the key. Noynoy cancelled the ARMM elections. No process. But then Marcos, for all his boundless ambition, was educated.

Keep well.