Firing Torre

Read “Big questions on Torre’s ouster” by lawyer Joel Ruiz Butuyan.

A reading of the laws governing the Napolcom (Republic Act No. 6975 as amended by RA 8551) does not show that Napolcom possesses the power to review and overturn the PNP chief’s assignment of police generals to top brass positions, as claimed by the agency. The powers of Napolcom are primarily for “policy and program coordination” and administrative disciplinary proceedings against erring police officers. Its “administrative control and operational supervision” over the PNP are clearly for the limited purpose of developing policies and promulgating rules and regulations,” which do not include the power to review and reverse designation or transfer of officers made by the PNP chief to high-ranking positions occupied by colonels to generals, contrary to Napolcom’s claim.

… However, the President’s decision to remove Torre as PNP chief is valid because the President has absolute discretion to appoint and remove the PNP chief. But there are big and gnawing questions: Was the President misled into believing that Napolcom possesses the power to review and overturn the PNP chief’s designation of top officers, and that Torre blatantly violated the agency’s exercise of its powers? Did Napolcom overturn Torre’s reassignment of officers upon direct orders of the President?

Makes you wonder what’s really going on and if there’s any truth to The PH Insider story shared by MaxDefense Philippines on Facebook that Torre’s sudden removal has to do with his “refusal to sign a Request for Endorsement and Budget Support to Congress for an additional Php8 billion funding for the PNP for the acquisition of 80,000 units 5.56mm assault rifles for FY2026”?

The justification for such acquisition was said to be due to the PNP now focused on taking-over internal security operations from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, in which the PNP currently has capability gaps in terms of many aspects including firepower, and that its current inventory of rifles are insufficient.

The report said Gen. Torre refused to sign as he believe the acquisition is excessive for a civilian agency like the PNP, which had him in disagreement with Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Sec. Jonvic Remulla.

Meanwhile the DDS are on celebratory mode, which makes you wonder if firing Gen. Torre is some kind of concession to the Duterte camp that heartily hates the fired PNP Chief for the Quiboloy and Digong arrests.

REGINE CABATO:
Facebook 26 August 

The DDS are having a field day with news of police chief Nicholas Torre’s dismissal. My disinformation-related take: Not only does it send mixed signals about the Marcos administration’s commitment to human rights-related reform, but they have also thrown to the trolls one of its most high profile officials capable of tackling the pro-Duterte disinformation machine.

Just last week, Torre exposed an organized smear campaign against the police. He pointed to a coordinated attempt among DDS vloggers spreading viral video to depict “lawlessness” in the Philippines. But these videos were from Indonesia and Vietnam, and the one video from the Philippines was taken out of context. What does this mean? There is an organized attempt to make crime in the Philippines look worse than it actually is, all toward: 1) campaigning for a Duterte return to power, and 2) spreading the ideology of killing, as opposed to reform, as a solution for crime.

Torre’s publicity stunt against Baste Duterte last month was another rare moment: he was seen as standing up to a bully, successfully fundraised some PhP 20 million for flood victims, and won some amor among soft Duterte supporters. (I’ve seen comments going: ‘I’m a DDS, but Baste was wrong this time…’)

Torre has proven himself to not only be efficient in tasks that few others would have gamely executed — particularly the arrests of Duterte and Quiboloy — but in a skill so many of our public figures lack: seizing the narrative in a Duterte-driven information ecosystem.

He turns defense into offense, and it sends DDS trolls scrambling, which is why they dedicate so much of their time making transphobic video reels that liken Torre to social media influencer Diwata, in an attempt to emasculate and undermine him. The flooding of laugh news reactions on news items about his dismissal, and the gleeful comment of senator Imee Marcos about karma, show that the Duterte disinformation machine does not rest.

Torre being out of the way after pushing for the takedown of 1,000 fake news posts allows the Duterte machine to recuperate, and the curtly worded dismissal letter gives trolls and vloggers another bullet for their smear campaign. This also raises questions about whether the next police chief will make similar commitments to information integrity among and affecting its ranks.

The smear campaign against Torre should not be taken in isolation: it is part of broader smear against career officials in law enforcement, including the military and coast guard, because the DDS machinery wants Duterte loyalists in these positions instead. The script against Torre is also being levelled against AFP chief Romeo Brawner, PCG spokesman Jay Tarriela, and so on. This script includes accusing them of being foreign hacks or sympathizers, using distraction to undermine reform, and it comes from the same influencer talking heads of the DDS sphere. The accusation that Torre, et al are ICC or U.S. puppets is especially hypocritical and ironic, given that these pro-Duterte networks have been found to have ties to China.

These DDS online reactions are not, of course, a clear indicator of the true pulse of public opinion. But they are an indicator that Marcos is losing the optics war.

 

Ninoy wasn’t perfect but he was one bright star!

First posted November 2019

And he was for real, nothing like the three “brightest stars” kuno … “shining” in the sky … that Duterte claims himself, Go, and Cayetano to be.  Hello.  Not one of them, not all of them together — kahit isali pa natin si Inday Sara at ang buong Konggreso — can hold a candle to Ninoy.

Were he still alive, Ninoy would be 87, retired na siguro but still nakiki-alam malamang, still holding forth with his ten-centavos worth on every issue under Sun and Moon, leveling up popular discourse at the very least.  What I’d give for some informed intelligent talk about Nation, with wisdom that comes from age and experience, with credibility that comes from integrity and love of country.

One thing his political opponents couldn’t fault Ninoy for, ever, was corruption.  And so they hit him hard with the communist card, tagged him a godless enemy of the state, without evidence other than that he was friendly with certain anti-America anti-bases Huks and communists, but then so was Marcos, friendly with certain other anti-America anti-bases communists but secretly, of course, in the run-up to martial law.

Which is not to say that Ninoy couldn’t have played his cards better.  I can understand, for instance, that he thought it a great idea to facilitate, hasten, a meeting (which would have happened anyway without his help, it is said) between the communist ideologue Joma Sison and the rogue Huk Bernabe Buscayno, but did it have to happen in / around Hacienda Luisita?  Of course nakarating ang intel kay Marcos, and of course Marcos exploited it to the hilt.  Ninoy laid himself wide open for that.

I like to think that Ninoy didn’t have to die just so we could topple Marcos.  I like to think that we would have toppled Marcos with Ninoy himself leading the way.  But i guess that would have been a different kind of battle.  Enrile, for one, might not have given way to Ninoy the way he did to Cory.  And then, again, who knows.

Ang nakahihinayang sa lahat, Ninoy never, it would seem, considered the possibility, in case he was killed, that Cory might take up the struggle in his place.  Because if he did he might have prepared Cory better, and Noynoy too?  Or did he try sharing the Christian Democratic Socialist ideology with his family but their eyes glazed over?

Maybe they would all have tried harder had they known how much Ninoy was loved and admired for standing up to Marcos, even in exile, and had Ninoy known how eagerly we awaited his return.  But then how was he to know, when Marcos controlled all media, and he continued to denounce Ninoy as communist, and we had learned to keep our mouths shut, or else.  Almost like now.

We had no idea then how many we were (legion! pala) who believed in Ninoy and trusted him to lead the way forward, that is, until he was taken from us, murdered on the tarmac, our one great hope.  No wonder the love and the hope spilled over and embraced Cory and the children in grief.  The rest is history, ika nga.

Nowadays, we have no idea, either, how many we are who desperately desire a better life for the marginalized and impoverished masses and a just and equitable social and political order for all.  But little do we really know what it would take to achieve these goals.

What we need is a Ninoy, nay, we need many Ninoys, who have the welfare of the masses at heart, and who have the expertise to pick up where Ninoy left off, craft a credible and sustainable development program (beyond BuildBuildBuild and PPP) toward systemic change that would be worth uniting behind. 

In an interview with Nick Joaquin, Ninoy said that in 1967, when he ended his gig as manager of Hacienda Luisita to run for the Senate, it took eight men to take over his job. [The Aquinos of Tarlac page 278]

Eight is a good number, for starters.  But, yeah, Ninoy is a hard act to follow.

*

Kwatro Alas & Mercury Retrograde

My mistake, giving Chiz Escudero the benefit of the doubt all through the “forthwith” furor. I imagined that he had valid reasons for delaying the trial. I actually thought that when the time came, he was capable of rising above the political fray and leveling up as presiding judge of the impeachment court a la Davide in 2000 and Enrile in 2012.

Instead, August 6 saw him and the bulk of 18 senators all set to dismiss the case. Puro pala sila DDS. Kapani-paniwala tuloy ang chizmiz that he seriously wants to run for president in 2028. Politics much?

Mabuti na lang at kumontra nang bongga sina Tito Sotto, Ping Lacson, at Risa Hontiveros, armed with arguments that forced the 18 to back down, though only a little, as in, archive na lang (mas maigi sana if they tabled it), habang hinihintay ang final ruling ng Supremes, hopefully only after hearing oral arguments of complainants and friends of the court.

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

To people who are into astrology, the August 6 drama did not surprise: Mercury retrograde kasi — seen from planet Earth, itsura’y paatras ang galaw ng Mercury, the planet associated with the rational mind and everyday communications, kayâ paatras din at hindi pasulong o paabante ang galaw ng mga isip natin, senators and magistrates not exempted.

Siyempre nagulat ako, at naaliw, nang ungkatin ang Mercury retrograde sa Kwatro Alas kahapon. Diyatat “woke” pala these machos to cosmic and occult vibes? https://www.youtube.com/

MICHAEL FAJATIN: Maraming nagsasabi — di ko alam kung alam niyo ‘to, guys, kasi millennial ako eh. Yung mercury retrograde, have you heard about it?

ALAN GERMAN: Of course I have …

FAJATIN: Simple explanation, ang mercury retrograde daw, hindi ka dapat nagde-decide ngayon dahil affected ka …

GERMAN: Because of the tides, because of the tides, the planetary alignment, naaapektuhan ang ating mga tides, pati yung liquid sa ating brain daw, naaapektuhan ng tides daw, at sa ating utak…

FAJATIN: So ibig sabihin hindi magiging sigurado ang desisyon mo pag ngayon mo na [ginawa] ‘to?

GERMAN: Parang you are confused, ayon sa mga naniniwala.

RONALD LLAMAS: Kaya pala ganon yung August 6 sa senado! Naapekto yung ibig pahiwatig!

“Because of the tides … the tides … the planetary alignment”?!? The effects of Mercury retrograde have nothing to do with “tides” that are caused by the Moon’s gravitational pull kapag full moon (that came three days later pa, August 9 mismo while Kwatro Alas was broadcasting līve) when the alignment of Sun, Moon, and Earth heightens emotions and yes, brings on high tides and howling egos, but it’s fleeting, peaks quickly, and then dissipates.

Mercury retrograde, in contrast, is some three weeks long. Mercury has been moving paatras since July 18 and starts moving paabante today, August 11, though quite slowly for another week or so, bumubuwelo kumbaga, before moving on at its usual speed.

Fajatin got some of it right. When Mercury is retrograde it’s not a good time to make certain decisions. Lalo na on old issues, na akala natin ay tapos na, settled na, e hindi pa pala. Tipong paulit-ulit lang yung problema dahil paulit-ulit din lang, same-old same-old, ang solusyon natin. Mercury retrograde nudges us into rethinking, reviewing, reconsidering, how to handle things differently, break out of patterns that trap, para maiba rin ang patutunguhan, toward possibly better outcomes, when Mercury again moves forward.

BUT THEN AGAIN

Unfortunately, our issues are so deep-seated and find us so divided, there are no quick and easy solutions. Even if all the planets were wonderfully configured, kung hindi naman tayo handang kumilos as a united opposition for systemic change vs dynasties and oligarchs atbp., wala rin.

Which brings me back to Kwatro Alas and their kind of political commentary. For what it’s worth, hearts in the right place naman, these men, but stick to the stuff you truly know, guys. Otherwise, nakakahinayang ang loss of credibility. Also, we could do with a lot less self-approbation, na nakaka-turn-off. And a lot less laughter, please. The sad state of the nation is no laughing matter.

Activism, impeachment, dynasty

There is judicial activism when a court undertakes any of the following: a court invalidates the constitutional action of another branch (e.g., legislature, executive); a court fails to adhere to a precedent; a court engages in judicial policymaking; a court departs from accepted interpretive methodology; or when a court engages in result-oriented judging (Kmiec, 2004). In judicial restraint, judges limit their interpretation to the text of the law; whereas in an activist court, members delve into broader societal issues and make themselves architects of legal and social change. Courts as Policymakers: Untangling Judicial Activism in the Philippines by Alicor Panao 22 March 2024 up.edu.ph

To my mind, “activism” is always associated with social-political movements seeking to improve the status quo and make life better for our marginalized majority, i.e., social justice kumbaga. But as it turns out, the Supremes’ kind of “judicial activism” is differently minded, as shown by the Supreme Court’s decision on VP Sara’s impeachment. Parang mas pinahalagahan ng Korte ang kapakanan at kahilingan ng VP na ipa-walang-bisa ang  Articles of Impeachment kaysa ang kapakanan at kahilingan ng taongbayan (represented by the Lower House) na ituloy ang trial (sa Upper House) kung saan Duterte can defend herself and even possibly clear her name. https://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/

Nakakagulat ba itong desisyon ng Supremes? Nakakadismaya pero hindi nakakagulat. Siyempre sumagi sa isip ko ang 1973 decision na nagpa-walang-bahala sa pagkaka-“ratify”-kuno ng Martial Law Constitution ni Marcos via raise-your-hands “Citizens Assemblies” — wala na daw magagawa, in effect na daw kasi, or something like that. And then there was Gloria Arroyo’s midnight appointment of CJ Renato Corona in May 2010 even it was against the law. And what about the burial of Marcos Sr. sa Libingan ng mga Bayani noong November 2016, na kahit ang mga Marcos ay tila nahiyâ — behind closed gates and by-invitation-only ang naganap na seremonyas.

BUT HERE’S A SILVER LINING

Check out this convo of a couple of hopeful young thinkers: rappler‘s senior legal reporter and a UP law prof: https://www.youtube.com/

LIAN BUAN: Can SC be judicial activists, too, for the pending anti-dynasty case?

JOHN MOLO:  If we can create guidelines for impeachment, which is the sole prerogative of both Houses of Congress, I’m pretty certain we can finally order Congress to finally pass a law that’s 40 years delayed as required by the Constitution. That’s the silver lining perhaps here .. Kung ito, hindi lang nag-act … hindi gumalaw yung sec-gen … is already grave abuse of discretion … e mas lalo pa kaya the pending political dynasty issue … na required legislation, na 40 years in-ignore. … Kinda gives me more confidence that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Quite a long dark tunnel it’s been, with the Supremes dismissing petitions (since 2013) to compel Congress to enact an anti-dynasty law because daw Congress is a co-equal branch of government … to do so would be to “violate the principle of separation of powers among the three branches of government.” Still pending is the last one filed March 31 2025 by the 1Sambayan Coalition of former justices, retired military officials, priests, academics, and lawyers, calling it a “desperate attempt to give life to the 1987 Constitution” and a “relief from the chokehold political dynasties have placed on this nation.” https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/

And guess who was quick to anticipate the Supremes, forthwith, at the time:

The Supreme Court cannot compel Congress to enact a law banning political dynasties, Senate President Francis Escudero said, citing constitutional limitations.

His remarks come in response to a petition filed by 1Sambayan and other civic groups urging the SC to mandate Congress to fulfill its constitutional obligation under Article II, Section 26 of the 1987 Constitution.

“The Supreme Court has said that Congress cannot be forced by a mandamus from the court to pass a law. The legislative process is a political question,” Escudero said at a press briefing on April 3.

I don’t get it (because I’m not a lawyer?).  The Supremes can’t order them around on the matter of political dynasties, sabi niya noon, pero ngayon, on the matter of impeachment, puwedeng puwede?

“The Supreme Court’s ruling is final and immediately executory,” Escudero said. “Whether we like the Supreme Court’s decision or not, we might be called a banana republic (if we do not follow it).”  https://www.manilatimes.net/

And it doesn’t seem to matter na ayon sa OCTA Research, based on a July 12-17 survey:

RANJIT RYE:  A significant number of Filipinos, 8 of 10, feel that the Vice President is innocent and want the impeachment trial to continue. A lot of people don’t see the impeachment just as pananagutan or accountability. A lot of people think of it as due process, a chance for the VP to clear her name.  Storycon 31 July https://www.youtube.com/

Senator Tito Sotto says he will object vociferously if when the Duterte bloc rushes to dismiss the Articles of Impeachment on August 6 without waiting for the Supremes to rule on the Motions for Reconsideration because daw the Supremes just MIGHT hear oral arguments and even reverse their ruling. “We will object!’ Sotto papalag kung may mag-mosyon i-dismiss ang impeachment ni VP Sara
https://www.youtube.com/

But then again, what if the Supremes stick to their guns? Next year na lang uli? But given all those new rules? Asa pa!