THE Supreme Court should just rule posthaste on the voters’ registration issue on the basis of the law alone. The basic question is: Does the law allow registration within 120 days before the May 14 elections?

It is immaterial whether or not the Commission on Elections is ready or capable of accommodating qualified voters who failed to catch the last registration on Jan. 17, 2001. A cramped calendar and tight purse strings are irrelevant to the legal question.

If the tribunal says No on the basis of the law, then it is no. If it says Yes, then it is all up to the Comelec to comply and reopen registration. No excuse is acceptable.

If it is proved later that the Comelec, by an act or omission, is defying the court or is violating the right of suffrage of a qualified voter, that’s another matter.

* * *

AS far as the law is concerned, it is also irrelevant if there were 4.5 million or only 45 voters who want to register. The qualified voters’ number, ages, locations or motivations are also immaterial.

We mention the 4.5-million number, because it is not clear where this figure came from or if it is statistically factual. After it was mentioned in the petition and the press, everybody just picked it up.

Assuming there could be 4.5 million unregistered voters, not all of them — as usual — could be expected to register even if given another chance. Our own estimate is that only around a million would enlist if the Comelec registry were reopened.

* * *

A GOOD number of unregistered voters are radical youths who never bothered to vote in past elections, preferring to stay away from a process that they disdained. But now that some of their own are running under party-lists, they suddenly want their votes counted.

Still, whatever is their motivation, they should be given a chance to register and vote — if it is allowed under the law at this time.

The Supreme Court could shorten the process by interpreting the pertinent laws without regard for the irrelevant political and logistical arguments tending to becloud the main issue.

* * *

WORKING overtime, the tribunal should be able to come up with a decision on the legal issue on Monday at the latest, or three calendar days after the Friday deadline of the Comelec to comment on the consolidated petitions.

There is no need for the SC to wait for Congress to convene in special session that same Monday to amend the law. If it would rule anyway that a special registration could be legally conducted under existing laws, it better say so right away.

Speedy action by the court would save us the millions that would be spent on senators, congressmen and their staff — the works — convening for a special session to tackle only one piece of legislation that may turn out to be unnecessary.

* * *

THE money part is highlighted further by reports that Malacañang is releasing P17.5 million per congressman shortly. Even if the money were due them, the timing could not have been worse.

Considering that the releases would coincide with the calling of a special session where congressmen have no direct special interest, the funds come off as an incentive or bribe for the district representatives to show up for the roll call.

The release of millions, derided by the public as pork barrel, is also suspect because projects are suspended during an election campaign. So where else would the money go if public works are not to be pursued at this time?

* * *

THE silence of the Marcoses on the expose that youngest Marcos daughter Irene and her husband Greggy Araneta walked last February into a German bank to start transferring $13.2 billion hidden in the Union Bank of Switzerland lends credence to the reports.

If there is nothing to the reported attempt to transfer the USB hoard to the Deutsche Bank in Dusseldorf, there would have been a deafening howl from the Marcoses punctuated with threats of libel suits.

Because there is basis for the story, they cannot comment on record until the last strand of the elaborate expose is laid bare. They must be scared stiff.

At this point, we agree with the observation that the characters who played clumsy roles in the laundering attempt were stupid. Not only stupidity, but also cupidity must have pushed them to commit that devastating blunder.

* * *

IN Manila, meanwhile, the Presidential Commission on Good Government — the special agency tasked with recovering ill-gotten wealth — was caught not only napping, but also seemingly playing footsie with the Marcoses.

It’s a wonder we still keep the PCGG when it has amply demonstrated that it is not only useless but also possibly traitorous. The commission has degenerated into a milking cow of those in power.

Some quarters suggest that the PCGG be revamped. We say, we demand: ABOLISH IT and send the “bantay salakay” to jail!

* * *

IN fairness to lawyer Rene Saguisag (no need to qualify him since everybody knows RAVS), comments that he is haunted by a string of courtroom debacles are a bit exaggerated.

Yes, he has lost some cases, some of them rather prominent ones, but he has had his significant wins. In fact, he won his first case (in the Court of Appeals) even before he became a lawyer!

Last year, he won for Bel-Air its case against the MMDA in the opening of Neptune St. in a decision written also by Justice Renato Puno. It is a leading case where he served pro bono, the same capacity he helped Calauan Mayor Antonio Sanchez in his assets statements (not rape with homicide) case.

* * *

RENE has the tough luck of being associated with some unpopular cases. He helped very briefly in the Webb case in 1995, although he has not really been involved in the proceedings since 1996. Unfortunately for him, he attended the promulgation when word got around that Hubert Webb would be convicted.

He says he does not have the time for daily trials, which explains why he cannot help Erap Estrada in his many criminal cases. In the last Supreme Court case of Erap, by the way, the arrangement with Rene was essentially for expenses.

“We are testing certain principles,” he says, “even if it is a long shot to expect the Supreme Court to say the Chief Justice erred on Jan. 20, 2001 (unless they will recall that he and GMA told the nation she would only be an ‘acting’ President).”

* * *

RECALLING other cases, Rene says that he has just won the important spray-painting case in the Court of Appeals, but Mayor Fred Lim has gone to the Supreme Court.

“I have won a few and lost a few,” he says, “but I would like to be remembered, if I must be remembered at all, not as a winner or loser, but a fighter who fought the good fights in his life.”

When recently informed by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines that it would award him its Lifetime Achievement Award, he declined.

“Helping losers is its own reward,” he explains to us. “I help fellow losers in this society. Winners don’t need me as they join the civil society, ang mga bukod tanging Anak ng Diyos, in heckling me.”

* * *

WHICH bring us back to a previous question we posed in the last Postscript: “What is this so-called ‘civil society’ that has been cropping up in press commentaries after Edsa II sent Erap Estrada packing?”

We asked further if “civil society” as used in media refers to the perfumed crowd of affluent Ayala-Makati, and if the term implies the contra-existence of an “uncivil society” that is presumably poor, undereducated and maybe a bit rough in manners.

* * *

READER Rank Merida of the Bangko Sentral office in Cebu zipped this excerpt from Page 5 of “Trust” by Francis Fukuyama:

“Today, having abandoned the promise of social engineering, virtually all serious observers understand that liberal political and economic institutions depend on a healthy and dynamic civil society for their vitality.

“Civil society — a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches — builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instruments by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.”

There is a lot of critique available on Fukuyama’s previous book “The End of History and the Last Man.”

* * *

WE have another poser for readers, particularly the techies brimming with ideas that they are always ready to share.

We’re finalizing plans for creating, launching and managing a personal website where readers and researchers can easily access, among other media items, past Postscripts and send us feedback.

Will the experts out there please tell us which is best for us to use for this purpose: HTML, FrontPage or Dreamweaver? We’re confining ourselves to these three choices, because we’re not familiar with other software or languages.