Category: noynoy

July 12, 2016 was a very good day! #PNoy

Aminin na natin. It took chutzpah, audacity, what President Benigno Aquino III did in January 2013 when the Philippines instituted arbitral proceedings against China some months after da agawan sa Scarborough Shoal. Other presidents, from FVR to ERAP, GMA and RRD, were too careful to not antagonize China kahit anong kabastusan at kabulastugan nito sa karagatan nating pilit nitong inaangkin; or maybe they thought na madadaan pa ang Tsina sa magandang usapan LOL. No surprise then that PNoy’s closest advisers were divided on the matter, for and against arbitration court.  Read former SC Chief Justice Antonio T. Carpio‘s first-hand account. Very interesting and impressive how PNoy simply stuck to his guns despite all underhanded attempts to stop him. Good good job!

AQUINO AND THE ARBITRATION AGAINST CHINA 
By Antonio T. Carpio
July 1, 2021

One of the enduring legacies of President Benigno Aquino III is the Philippines’ landmark victory against China in the South China Sea Arbitration. It took courage and wisdom to sue China, an economic giant and a nuclear-armed superpower. President Aquino made the difficult decision even as his closest advisers were bitterly divided, with one faction against the arbitration and the other in favor of the arbitration.

These two factions fought from the beginning to the end. After consulting with Law of the Sea expert Paul Reichler and his team, then Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario submitted to Malacañang his Memorandum to President Aquino recommending favorably the filing of the arbitration case against China. Unfortunately, his Memorandum was rewritten in Malacañang, making it appear that he was against the filing of the arbitration case. Secretary del Rosario swiftly found a way to give to President Aquino his original recommendation. President Aquino then convened a meeting of national leaders who, except for one, all voted to file the arbitration case.

When Paul Reichler recommended the amendment of our Statement of Claim to include the status of Itu Aba as one of the issues to be resolved by the arbitral tribunal, the two factions fought again. Secretary del Rosario arranged for Paul Reichler and his team to meet President Aquino in Malacañang so our lawyers could explain to the President the need to amend our Statement of Claim. Paul Reichler and his team waited for four hours in Malacañang for President Aquino, only to be told by then Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. that the President could not meet them. Instead, Ochoa informed them that the instruction of the President was not to amend our Statement of Claim. Over dinner that evening, I asked Paul Reicher what he would do, and he replied he would discuss the status of Itu Aba in the Memorial without including it as an issue to be resolved by the tribunal.

When Paul Reichler submitted his draft Memorial to the Office of the President for approval, the two factions fought again. One faction wanted the 15 paragraphs in the Memorial explaining the status of Itu Aba to be deleted, while Secretary del Rosario insisted on the retention of the 15 paragraphs. I met with then Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and explained to her why the 15 paragraphs should be retained. I gave her a two-page brief on the matter to give to President Aquino, which she did. When President Aquino called the two factions to a meeting, he announced his decision — the 15 paragraphs would remain in the Memorial.

Incidentally, when journalist Marites Vitug interviewed President Aquino in 2017 for her book “Rock Solid,” she asked the President why he did not meet with Paul Reichler and his team. The President replied, in the presence of Secretary del Rosario, that nobody told him that Paul Reichler and his team were in Malacañang to see him.

Finally, for the last hearing at The Hague in November 2015, Secretary del Rosario as usual submitted to Malacañang the list of names of officials who would form the Philippine delegation. The list included my name as observer, but when the approval came out my name was deleted. Secretary del Rosario wrote back that if I would not be included he would not be joining the delegation. Malacañang reinstated my name.

When I arrived at The Hague, I found Paul Reichler and his team terribly upset. Solicitor General Florin Hilbay had earlier emailed them not to answer the questions of the arbitral tribunal on Itu Aba, questions that were previously emailed by the tribunal to our lawyers. At the meeting with our lawyers the evening before the first day of the hearing, I explained that in the Supreme Court, if lawyers refused to answer questions of the Court during oral arguments, that would be taken very strongly against them and they would likely lose their cases. Thankfully, Solgen Hilbay did not argue with me anymore and Paul Reichler and his team took that as a green light to answer all the questions of the tribunal.

The nation is eternally grateful to President Aquino for bravely filing the arbitration case and for steadfastly pursuing the straight and principled path until final victory.

acarpio@inquirer.com.ph

 

 

 

Marcos Is Already Undercutting The Philippines’ Economic Future

WILLIAM PESEK
Forbes.com
Sep 27 2022

History just doesn’t seem to be Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s thing.

The most obvious example is how his administration, just 88 days in, is trying to whitewash his father’s disastrous 20-year reign that ended in 1986 amid a massive “people power” revolt. Now, though, Marcos is angling to rewrite far more recent history concerning his troubled economy.

In a September 23 interview with the Associated Press, Marcos said he wants to “reintroduce the Philippines” to the world and raise Manila’s profile on the international stage. The reaction from many global investors: Huh?!

Whether it be delusion or not, Marcos is glossing over how former President Benigno Aquino III already achieved that. During his 2010 to 2016 tenure, Aquino didn’t just say over and over that the one-time “sick man of Asia” is “open for business.” He proved it in ways that scored Manila’s first-ever investment grade credit ratings. READ ON…

Mourning PNoy

Luis V. Teodoro

The return of authoritarian rule is a constant threat, and progress an increasingly elusive goal in the Philippines. Democratization and development have too often foundered on the shoals of government indifference, incompetence, and antipathy.

A process that began during the reform and revolutionary periods of Philippine history, democratization has been interrupted, delayed, weakened, and sabotaged by foreign invasion, imperialism, and home-grown tyranny, with some post-martial law administrations paying only lip-service to it.

Development and “modernization” have also found their way in the vocabularies of a succession of regimes. But they have similarly proceeded glacially, if at all, and are continuing to elude this country, as evidenced by the poverty and the feudal relations that sustain it.

In these circumstances, the true measure of political leadership can only be how much it has contributed to either course — or, in this country of declining expectations, how little it has hampered both processes.

It need hardly be said that no one is perfect, and that no Philippine president has ever approached that exalted state.

Benigno Aquino III was no exception. But there are presidents and presidents, and some, despite their similarities, were nevertheless also better than others.

Aquino III’s death at the age of 61 last July 24 was predictably hailed by the fact-resistant hordes that infest both social and old media in behalf of a regime whose knowledge of statecraft is limited to harassing, threatening, imprisoning, and killing anyone who dares tell the truth about it. But his passing also reminded the civic-minded of the difference between presidents. Despite the political and social calamities that have befallen this country, they still believe that the true leaders it needs will save it. These citizens make it their business to carefully weigh who is worthy of their support for president, and in 2010 they chose Aquino. Today more than ever they believe that they chose wisely.

Like many of his countrymen, Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III was a child of the hierarchic and quasi-colonial political, social, and economic orders that have prevailed in the Philippines for decades. He shared with the rest of the political class the instinct to preserve, enhance, and protect one’s familial and class interests. The Hacienda Luisita issue was, for example, a constant challenge during his term, to which he hardly responded. Although far fewer in number than today’s, the extrajudicial killings that in most cases claim government critics as victims also continued during his watch.

He was no leftist or revolutionary, and he never claimed to be either. Only mildly reformist was his “walang mahirap kung walang corrupt” platform of government, corruption being just one of the many factors behind the persistence of poverty in these isles of want.

Like his predecessors, he also believed the United States to be a reliable friend and ally. To supplement the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), he signed with the US the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) which gave visiting US troops access to Philippine military bases. He also thought the armed forces’ purely militarist approach to the so-called “insurgency” essentially valid, and supported the “modernization” of its weaponry.

But his father Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr.’s willingness in 1983 to sacrifice his liberty and even his own life in behalf of the anti-dictatorship resistance, and his mother Corazon’s presiding over the restoration of the Republic on whose ruins Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. had erected one-man rule, must surely have influenced and shaped his perceptions of Philippine society and governance.

Among his accomplishments as president was economic growth and the resulting decrease, so claimed government agencies, in poverty incidence. He also defended the country’s rights in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) by bringing the Philippine case to the UN Arbitral Tribunal, before which his designated petitioners succeeded in getting that body to strike down imperialist China’s absurd claims over some 80% of the WPS. But equally important was his remaining true to the Constitutional prohibition against abridging free expression and press freedom. What he did not do was, arguably, as significant as what he did. He never disparaged human rights, and neither did he vilify or threaten its defenders.

One of his first acts as president was to ban the practice of government vehicles’ wendingtheir way through traffic with lights ablaze and sirens blaring, a practice known as “wang wang,” that proclaims to ordinary folk how privileged and self-entitled the supposed servants of the people are.

He was his parents’ son, and was anti-dictatorship. He shepherded through Congress and signed into law the 2013 Human Rights Victims’ Reparation and Recognition Act, through which, rather than a Truth Commission, the Philippine government finally acknowledged that the Marcos regime had indeed committed such human rights violations as illegal arrests, detention and torture, involuntary disappearances, and extrajudicial killings, for which the survivors or their kin deserved indemnification. A landmark law, the Act, as he himself described it, was intended to “recognize the suffering of many during (Marcos’) martial law.”

Like his predecessors, he too was critical of the press. He complained about what he thought was its inordinate focus on his private life, and the bias against his administration by some broadcast and print practitioners identified with the regime prior to his. But he never threatened, insulted, or harassed journalists. He thought the numbers in the killing of journalists in the country’s rural communities that have been going on since 1986 exaggerated. But he did not justify the killings by blaming the victims and accusing them of corruption.

He answered the hardest questions even from his harshest press critics rationally, with civility, and, one must add, coherently. Although he did lose his temper at times, usually with his own officials, he never barred any journalist from covering his Office or his press conferences. Neither did he use the powers of the presidency to shut down any media organization the reporting of which he thought unfair and offensive.

Journalists were confident that they could report, monitor, and criticize his acts and policies and subject them to the closest scrutiny without fear of retaliation or petty vindictiveness. Without self-censorship and government hostility, the full exercise of press freedom and free expression was possible, although not always realized, during his six years in office due to reasons other than government intervention. He thereby convinced the nation and the world that he valued those rights as a necessary pillar of democratic governance.

Benigno Aquino III was a well-meaning, fairly competent product of this time and place. What he was not was a tyrant. Neither was he a brusquely anti-human rights, grossly incompetent and abusive poor excuse for a president and head of State.

Hounded as it was by such calamities as typhoon Yolanda and lapses in executive judgment like the Luneta hostage-taking crisis and the Mamasapano debacle, his term was far from perfect. It was neither an international embarrassment nor so bad as to deserve summary dismissal and total disparagement. But some of the worst enemies of the people are manufacturing misleading and totally false “information” about it for the meanest political reasons.

Every death diminishes us all, and Benigno Aquino III’s is no exception. But the Filipino people should mourn not only his passing but also the end of that less trying time when he was in office.

Comparisons, so the adage goes, are odious. But how can anyone with an iota of awareness of what his term was truly like avoid them in the context of the horrible present?

from cj puno to cj sereno #lookback

cj sereno’s quick rise to the judiciary’s highest post in 2012 was far from auspicious, coming as it did on the heels of the ignominiously controversial impeachment and conviction of her immediate predecessor, cj renato corona, in 2011.

and then, again, the reverse might also be true:  that pNoy’s appointment of sereno was auspicious because it was a matter of righting a wrong — the corona appointment by outgoing prez gloria arroyo was a (post)midnight appointment, expressly prohibited by the constitution; it was for incumbent prez benigno aquino III to appoint the replacement of cj reynato puno who was due to step down may 17 2010.

(Article 7, Section 15) “Two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his term, a President or Acting President shall not make appointments, except temporary appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies therein will prejudice public service or endanger public safety.”

katatapos ng may 10 2010 elections, obvious winner na si pNoy, pero presidente pa si gloria, when on may 12 she appointed corona sc chief justice — ni hindi pa bakante ang posisyon — with the backing of the puno supreme court, no less (even if puno himself abstained), and some very powerful figures in legal and political circles.

it was the culmination of a scheme initiated as early as december 2009 by arroyo diehard, rep matias defensor, so the backstory goes.  read marites danguilan vitug’s Inside the JBC: The appointment of the Chief Justice in 2010.  

Those who rallied for the appointment of a Chief Justice despite the ban during the election period stood on shaky ground. Their main argument hinged on an imagined scenario that revolved on a forthcoming novel experience. With the country’s first-ever automated polls, they foresaw confusion and a deluge of election protests that would eventually reach the Supreme Court. It was important, therefore, to have a Chief Justice to preside over the resolution of these contentious cases.

more than a decade earlier, says marites, cj andres narvasa was faced with the same kind of pressure but he withstood it.

Chief Justice Andres Narvasa refused to convene the JBC to fill up a vacancy on the Court because it fell during the appointments ban. He fiercely stood his ground despite pressure from Malacañang.”

unfortunately, cj puno was (is?) made of different stuff.

In March … In a 9-1 vote, the Court decided to exempt itself and the rest of the judiciary from the appointments ban. President Arroyo could appoint the next Chief Justice.

so accommodating of cj puno, diba? making an exception for arroyo, on such flimsy grounds, when an acting chief justice would have done as well during the transition.

what if

what if puno had done a narvasa instead.  what if he had stood firm about following the constitution?  he would have saved nation the aggravation and expense (!) of the corona impeachment and trial and, even, this whole sereno shebang.  i guess it tells us whose side former cj puno was really on then, and whose side he’s really on now, as he shepherds the crafting of a draft constitution.  (gma, is that you?)

matakot tayo.  magtanong tayo.  ano ba talaga ang agenda ni ex-cj puno?  who / what convinced him to be part of this scheme to sell charter change and federalism as the solution to all our problems, which are legion and complicated.  does it not bother him that many think him a sad sell-out?  is he?  pa-executive session executive session pa ang consultative commission (just heard it on dzmm).  what’s all the secrecy all about?  what do they think they’re cooking up.  other than more chaos and anarchy, mabuhay ang elite rule?

what if cj puno had insisted, first, on an intense multi-media information campaign, and shown some semblance of taking the time to listen to and discuss with the people.  twould  be great to have a national conversation about this.  and it’s what we need.

but back to cj impeachments  

if puno had not played along with arroyo, and if arroyo had not appointed corona cj when she did, then pNoy would have had to choose from a list that could not have yet included sereno dahil i-a-appoint pa lang niya ito as associate justice in august 16 2010.

malamang ay napilitan si pNoy to choose from the eminently more qualified and next-in-line, and the supremes might not now be so restive and vulnerable to political nudges from left right and center, what a shame.

which brings me to the 2012 sereno appointment and the perception that it was a good, an auspicious, beginning, because a matter of righting a wrong.  i have a real problem with this.

the wrong done was the midnight appointment, the wrong was done by president arroyo with the complicity of cj puno and the supremes.  BUT the wrong found and for which corona was punished — undeclared wealth — had nothing to do with the midnight-appointment itself that was a brazen violation of the constitution.

bakit ganoon ang nangyari?  because no one dared take gma to court?  or it was easier, took less courage, if a lot of money, to find fault with corona, anything that would get him out of the way?

in my final analysis, corona was faulted and removed for accepting the arroyo appointment — he could have said no, it was against the constitution, he’d take his chances with the new prez.  ironically enough, sereno too might well be faulted and removed for accepting the aquino appointment — she could have said no, she was too young, she had no court experience.

neither anticipated that their SALNs would be under scrutiny.  after all, according to senator rene saguisag who helped craft the law, violation of the SALN law was NOT an impeachable offense until the enrile senate sitting as an impeachment court dared declare it so in the 2011 trial.

in any case, pareho lang si corona at si sereno, it would seem.  and she, too, deserves her day/s in court, let the chips fall where they may.

at itigil na please ang quo warranto eklat na iyan, mr. solicitor-general.  nagmamalinis naman masyado ang duterte admin.  after six months of impeachment hearings in the lower house that practically tore apart the cj, let s/he who is without sin cast the next stone.  i would so like to meet him  and shake his hand.