A while ago, former White House aide Scooter Libby (or, as I call him, Scooby) was sentenced to 30 months in prison for lying to investigators in the probe of the identity leak of hot undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame (hot by real-world standards; Sydney Bristow isn't real).

Oh no! 30 months in prison sounds horrible. What can Scooby do? No worries, dude. President George W. Bush, as the God's divine representative on earth, commuted Scooby's sentence. Now he won't have to spend a single day in jail. Yay!

Understandably, many people are criticizing the president's decision. Too bad Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on vacation this week. I'm sure they would have lots to say about this. But all the criticism won't do any good. A US president does have the constitutional power to pardon crimes and commute sentences. Best of all, he doesn't need to provide any excuse for doing so, and his decision cannot be challenged by the courts or Congress.

What the hell were the Founding Fathers thinking when they decided to put this ridiculous provision into their Constitution? And they were doing so well too with nice concepts like having three co-equal branches of government, the point of which is precisely to prevent giving too much power to one person.

I'm no expert on US history, but I would imagine that their discussion went like this.

"The president is supposed to be the head of state, just like a king, right?"

"Um, I guess so."

"Then shouldn't he have at least some kingly powers? This Constitution we've drafted makes him a total pussy."

"Hmm. What do you propose then?"

"I know! I know! Let's make the president the commander-in-chief of the armed forces!"

"Yeah, good idea! What else?"

"How about letting the president pick justices for the Supreme Court?"

"Sweet!"

"And we should also give the president the absolute power to instantly pardon criminals without explanation and thus make a mockery out of our justice system!"

"Yay!"

They really shouldn't serve wine at constitutional conventions.

Unfortunately, we Filipinos pretty much copied the US political system, including the presidential pardon crap. Somehow, the long dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos wasn't enough to knock the concept of limiting executive power into the heads of the drafters of our 1987 Constitution. So as the criminal trial of former president Joseph "Erap" Estrada approaches its end, I'll make this prediction: Erap will be convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but right before his supporters start rioting in the streets, he will be graciously pardoned by Her Majesty Queen Gloria in the name of national unity. Yay!

We'll see in a few weeks if my prediction is right.