Category: congress

in defense of tish

wittingly or not, patricia cruz bautista has succeeded in sharpening the divide between the pro-duterte — who love her to pieces and can’t wait to see chief andy impeached and replaced with a digong cohort — and the anti-duterte who have only contempt for a mother who has exposed her own children to public scrutiny and shame, never mind that chief andy does have truly a lot of unexplained wealth and unusual banking practices to explain.

and what if tish’s suspicions prove founded.  what if she’s not making up any of this.  what if she  speaks the truth, this is bigger than her and her children, the stakes are just too high.  i can relate to that.  she is said to have a “third eye,” is a faith healer of sorts, and believes that the universe will provide for, will look after, her children.  shades of desiderata.  very brave and new age, kinda like gina lopez, breaking out from patterns that oppress, even, breaking a taboo, as walden bello puts it:

Now that the taboo has been broken, there will be more B vs B cases. Good if the impact is less corruption.

yeah, IF.  would a duterte appointment in COMELEC bring less corruption?  i doubt it.  the president can rant and warn all he wants that he will not tolerate the slightest whiffs of corruption, but it’s really all talk and bluster, the corruption goes on anyway, sa COMELEC pa.  so do  i want chief andy to stay?  it’s out of our hands, it’s all up to congress, and we know naman, what digong wants, digong gets.

digong wants barangay elections postponed once again, from october this year to may 2018, kasabay ng plano nilang plebiscite on charter change (related to federalism and economic provisions malamang) and the BBL, and the house has obliged.  the senate is playing harder to get, good for them, but i’d be very surprised if the super-majority would dare defy, disappoint, duterte on this one.

so if it’s a done deal na pala, chief andy will be replaced, sooner than later, he should be considering options other than taking his wife to court for robbery, extortion atbp. (hell hath no fury like a macho scorned).  on SRO (dzmm teleradyo) i heard alvin elchico ask atty. tranquil salvador III (who was with the defense team of chief justice corona) what he thought chief andy should do.  he said he would advise chief andy to resign (spare us all from house and senate hearings and a possible impeachment process) AND to settle na with tish, for the sake of the children.  then the talk will just die down; he gives it three weeks (correct me if i heard wrong).  then, i suppose, the people can take andy to court, depending on NBI findings? and he can defend himself there.

in other words, huwag nang gatungan pa ang apoy, baka kumalat pa ang sunog.  which makes one wonder, how widespread kaya can it get.  if we are to believe ex-chief sixto brillantes’ parting words to acting chief robert lim in 2015, before chief andy’s appointment…

Brillantes’ advice to acting chairman Lim: “Relaks ka lang. Walang kwenta ‘yung mga batikos… Kalahati lang ang alam nila. Hindi nila alam ang tunay na nangyayari.” (You just relax. Criticisms are of no value. They only know half of the story. They do not know what really happens.)   

… then maybe we should have those house and senate hearings, now na!  let’s hear more from ex-chief sixto, and chief andy, of course.  let’s have the whole story finally, straight from the horses’ mouths.

Tug of war

Manuel L. Quezon III

As the hearings in the Supreme Court on the martial law petitions take place, many hope to find out what ought to have been put on the record weeks ago—namely, what factors contributed to President Duterte’s decision to impose martial law in Mindanao.

Read on…

Requiem for separation of powers

Ernesto P. Maceda, Jr.

Yes, Congress chose not to convene in joint session. There are arguments to be made for standing behind the President and presenting a united front in times as grave as these. But so many wish that they would have done the joint session – if only to justify Congress’ continued raison d’etre.

We know the central institutional feature of the Constitution to be separation of powers. This means limited government. It would prevent a single branch from consolidating strength to act tyranically. The best protection was the interest of each branch in jealously defending its prerogatives. That is what the framers naturally assumed.  Read on…

reappoint gina!

DITCHAY ROXAS:  I just heard that Gina Lopez was not confirmed this morning. That very slight glimmer of light at the end of this fucking dark tunnel has just been diminished even further. Yes she is not perfect. Yes she is an oligarch and bourgeois as hell. Yes she isn’t technical nor legalistic. Yes she is an imperfect human being like all the rest of us but goddamn it she carries a torch for the country and our people, a torch of hope and light that glows from a distance and brightens the horizon. We live in a world that is crumbling, an environment that is dying, and one of the very few in government who has the guts, the heart and the vision to do something about it gets tossed out like rotten fruit by maggots eating at the flesh of our gangrenous society. May they wallow in their stinking rottenness!!!

c’mon, mr. president!  you promised.  a war on drugs.  and. on. mining.   pinaasa mo kami, sir!