Are the Supremes and the Senate in cahoots?

Puwede namang hindi na lang naki-alam ang Korte Suprema, lalo na’t they practically changed, and added to, the rules, in a hair-splitting kind of way, by unanimous vote yet, which has lost the Court a lot of credibility. What if they had stayed out of it instead, left it to the Senate to deal with the Articles of Impeachment, dismiss it with or without a hearing, and let the Senate thereafter be answerable, accountable, to the people who elected them.

We have no such recourse with regard to the Supremes, and that is so unfair. We’re expected to just take their word for it — null and void, ab initio — no matter what we think, kahit may pinag-aralan at nag-iisip at nakakaintindi rin naman kahit hindi tayo abogado.

The mindset is, the Supremes know best when it comes to the rule of law, and that it is best, too, for the country that we all bow to the the wisdom of “the gods of Padre Faura” because theirs is the final say, never mind if we’re not quite persuaded (more like blindsided) by the ponente’s looooong-winded arguments [97 pages of text and footnote], because to insist daw that the Senate ignore the Supremes is to be a “banana republic” kasi ang ibig sabihin, wala tayong “rule of law”.

Thank goodness that former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna have weighed in:

CJ PANGILINAN: … I would have favored – if I were still an incumbent – the issuance of a Status Quo Ante order requiring the parties to maintain the current situation. … As part of due process, I would have asked for Oral Argument before promulgating any decision. If the Court had patiently heard Oral Argument on less important problems like the recognition of foreign divorces and the PhilHealth petitions, why not on this monumental case? In the least, if only to accord respect to a coequal branch of the government, the HOR, I would have called for Oral Argument before making up my mind and casting my vote.

J. AZCUNA:  THE SUPREME COURT CANNOT BE THE ONE TO CRAFT THE RULES TO ENFORCE ART XI OF THE CONSTITUTION. … the Supreme Court members are themselves impeachable officials. So they cannot be the ones to define the rules for their own possible impeachment. This would go against the very heart of due process— No one can be the judge in one’s own case. [CAPS Azcuna’s]

Beyond that and more, from the likes of Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and lawyer Christian Monsod, a framer of the ’87 Constitution  https://www.youtube.com/, my beef is with the timing. February 18 pa noong nag-file ang bigtime abogados ni VP Sara ng petition to nullify the Articles of Impeachment. What took the Court so long?

Check out SP Chiz‘s July 29 statement to the press re the July 25 null-and-void sound effects from the Supreme Court that I bothered to transcribe, for the record. He sounds like he’s feeling quite vindicated about redefining “forthwith” and allowing the “remand”. Totoo kaya ang chismis na linigawan niya at ng isang DDS senator ang Korte Suprema to intervene when, and in the way, they did? Perhaps to spare not just VP Sara but also the Senate from the inevitable intramurals? Or coincidence lang, synchronicity baga, na on the same wavelength siya at ang Supremes?

SP CHIZ: Personally, ang posisyon ko, bilang abogado, ay ito. Nagdesisyon ang Korte Suprema. Sang-ayon ka man doon o hindi, dapat ito’y sundin. Kung hindi, magkakaron tayo ng constitutional crisis at baka tingnan tayo ng mga karatıg-bansa natin at ibang tao na isang banana republic kung saan sinusunod lamang natin ‘yung mga gusto natin.

Bilang pananaw pa sa desisyon ng Korte Suprema. Lima sa labing-isang pinag-utos ng Korte Surpema na isumite ng Kamara ay kabilang sa order o kautusan ng Senate Impeachment mismo, kaugnay sa compliance ng Kamara sa one-year ban. Sabi nga ng isang kritiko ng Senado nung mga panahong ‘yon: Wala daw karapatan ang Senado utusan ang Kamara, na tanungin ang Kamara kaugnay ng one-year ban. Sabi ng kritikong ‘yon, desisyon daw ‘yon ng Korte Suprema. Ngayong nagdesisyon naman ang Korte Suprema, ang sinasabi ng parehong taong iyan ay: the Senate is the sole judge of impeachment cases, dapat ‘wag pansinin.

Ano ba yan. Talaga bang nagbabago kung anong tama at totoo ayon sa batas depende sa gusto natin? Hindi ba dapat, ano man ang gusto natin, dapat ang sundin natin ay ang batas at ang Saligang Batas. At ayon sa Konstitusyon, Korte Suprema lamang ang bukod tanging may kapangyarihan magbigay-buhay at mag-interpret ng ating Saligang Batas. May mga parte din ng desisyon na hindi ako sang-ayon, pero kung babasahin natin ng lubusan, kabilang yung mga separate opinions …

Nakasaad din sa desisyon ng Korte Suprema: hindi nagkaroon, mula’t-mula, ng jurisdiction ang Senado doon sa impeachment complaints dahil sa paglabag sa Bill of Rights, partikular, due process of law.

… kaugnay sa paglabag sa due process kinlaro din nila yon. Na kapag violation ng due process ang pinaguusapan, ay wala na tayong puwede i-review o ibalik pa dahil nawalan na ng jurisdiction mula sa simula ang anumang korte o husgado, ayon sa majority at unanimous decision. https://www.youtube.com/

Violation of due process nga ba?

J. AZCUNA: The Constitution provides that NO PERSON SHALL BE DEPRIVED OF LIFE, LIBERTY OR PROPERTY WITHOUT DUE PROCESS OF LAW (Art. III, The Bill of Rights). Someone being impeached does not stand to be deprived of life, nor of liberty, much less of property. So what is the Constitutional basis for insisting on applying due process rules IN ALL PHASES OF IMPEACHMENT?

None.

***

Is the Supreme Court facing a perfect storm? by Joel Ruiz Butuyan

Firestorm over impeachment authority Inquirer Editorial 

The Supreme Court betrayed the people by Tony Lopez

 

 

SONA in the time of multiple distractions and woes

A comprehensive situationer on the eve of BBM’s 4th SONA from my favorite Manila Times columnist —  a farmer and a thinker who doesn’t shoot from the hip. 

By Marlen V. Ronquillo

TRADITION dictates that the spotlight should be trained on the president, and the president alone, not only during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) — to take place tomorrow, July 28 — but also days before, during preparations for the annual event. But the Dutertes, former allies of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., are not bound by this tradition and will say anything, fair or foul, to divert the nation’s attention from him. Inviolable political traditions are apparently not part of the Dutertes’ dictionary.

Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing impeachment charges over her alleged failure to conform to basic ledger and accounting practices and to get the names of her spending recipients right, delved into the more complex field of water science — hydrology — a tortured claim that was instantly mocked by Claire Castro, Malacañang’s fierce spokesman, who herself may not have any grounding on water science. You think of Castro in these terms: as loyal to President Marcos as Steven Cheung is to United States President Donald Trump. Their principals never err.

After the vice president ventured into a rigid field of specialization that was definitely beyond her intellectual reach, her younger brother, Davao City’s Acting Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, did the Act 11 — something that was also beyond the bounds of normal political behavior — challenging Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Nicolas Torre III to a boxing match.

If Baste’s intent was to distract Torre from what he was supposed to do, which was to prepare PNP field men for security work at the SONA, it did not work. Torre said yes to the challenge, set a date for it and even injected a sense of nobility into the younger Duterte’s grotesque behavior. Let us do a charity boxing match, with the proceeds going to those affected by the recent storms, Torre proposed.

Baste, for one reason or another, made a demand before accepting the challenge: a drug test for President Marcos, which was off-tangent to his original challenge and a sign of him clearly chickening out. Baste probably saw videos of Torre’s multiple push-ups and preparation for the match.

Was it broadcaster Waldy Carbonell who said the Dutertes do not really like fair fights? Even with the Dutertes’ showboating deflated by the President’s subalterns, multiple woes on several fronts will still be the gloomy backdrop of the SONA speech tomorrow. Days of incessant rains induced by Severe Tropical Storm Crising and Typhoon Emong — a months’ worth, weather experts say — overwhelmed the three regions that contribute 60 to 70 percent of the Philippines’ yearly economic output. Many parts of Metro Manila, Southern Luzon and Central Luzon were forced to declare a state of calamity due to the flooding the rains caused.

Television news vividly captured the anguish of people in the flooded areas: the dead bodies, the crowded evacuation centers, the long lines for relief goods, the low-lying residential areas that were turned into “Waterworld” overnight, and the creaky dams.

The other casualties, far from the media loop, were unreported. Near the field where I planted Napier grass for animal feed, the “sabog-tanim” of my neighboring rice farmer was inundated, the days-old rice sprouts swept into many directions. The “labanderas,” the ice cream vendors, the hollow-block makers and all the marginal workers who need the sun to ply their trade were in a state of both grief and paralysis.

All those who farmed know this: after a week or two of continuous rains, cash crops like “ampalaya” (bitter gourd) will wither and die after being exposed to only a week of harsh sunshine. My farmer-neighbor with the goner sabog-tanim also planted plots of bitter gourd and string beans. I do not know where he would get his next sustenance post-Crising and Emong. And how many small farmers across Central Luzon are in the same prostrate state? President Marcos will deliver his SONA amid a discouraging international context: the greatest trade shock in recent history that was the result of Trump’s unilateral imposition of punitive tariffs on trading partners, big and small. The President recently met with Trump to negotiate for a lower tariff. Trump responded with a 1-percent reduction of his earlier 20-percent tariff on Philippine goods shipped to the US — a clear “consuelo de bobo” — in exchange for zero tariffs on US goods shipped to our country.

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and almost all multilateral institutions have predicted slower global economic growth this year, next year and in 2027 after that without directly blaming the real culprit: the punitive tariffs that have disrupted a stable global trading order since World War II. The Philippines, the multilaterals said, will also fail to meet its growth target.

China and the European Union, with their sizable economies, can probably work their way around the tariffs and survive even without US trade. The Philippines and other smaller economies may just have to wait for Trump’s exit from office, which is more than three years away. Meanwhile, they have to live with the tariff-induced lumps and bumps.

I do not know how the people in Malacañang can spin a hopeful and forward-looking SONA with the domestic and international backdrop both gloomy and discouraging. Maybe they can borrow from the Duterte playbook, which is this: don’t let the facts get into the way of a triumphant SONA.

Bagyó, bahâ, boksing, bangág

Now that the rainy season is always also flood season, thanks to decades of deforestation and corruption and bad governance, this week has been more depressing than usual, with most of our kababayans on disaster-mode, tapos lumabas pa yung balita na bilyunbilyong piso na naman ang nakalaan for flood control programs sa 2025 budget na alam naman nating walang patutunguhan as usual dahil sa laki ng komisyon ng mga mambabatas at mga kontratista, at dahil wala naman talagang master plan na sinusunod para kabit-kabit at pang-kabuoan ang solusyon.

ALEX MAGNO. Shortly, we will be given some numerical estimate of the destruction caused by rain. It will always be an understatement. It cannot possibly quantify all the horrors, the discomfort, the dislocation, the loss of productive time and the great heroism put in by our small army of rescuers – all these escape national accounting.

We are wrapped in an overpowering sense of helplessness inflicted on our people by incessant calamity. My phone is full of calls for prayer from those completely daunted by the warning that rains will continue pouring the coming days. Having given up on government, our people are pleading for divine intervention. https://www.philstar.com/

Yes, the collective sense of helplessness is more pronounced than usual, with, I imagine, a simmering stewing discontent, coming, hopefully, from the populace being now more aware, better informed, via their smart phones, about who is, are, to blame for the terrible miserable state of affairs countrywide, i.e., no less than our powerful government officials, past and present — fat politicians and their minions and subalterns — who don’t really care about nation, only about making hay while the sun shines, because it can’t go on forever, it’s not sustainable, one day the system will collapse, crumble, from sheer instability.

MEANWHILE, as we await BBM‘s SONA (na sana hindi nakakasuya) and some First Lady video that’s soon to drop (or so we hear, at sana fake nga) and the Supreme Court decision on the impeachment (na sana ipaubaya sa Senado) and VP Sara‘s impeachment trial (na sana masimulan na nang matapos na), like everyone else I am so looking forward to the boxing match that Davao City Vice Mayor Baste Duterte sort of challenged PNP Chief Gen. Nicolas Torre to.

“Matapang ka lang naman, you have the position. Pero kung suntukan tayo, alam ko kaya kita kung gano’n lang. You are a coward. You are nothing without your position,” said Duterte during an episode of his podcast Basta Dabawenyo on July 20.

The PNP chief accepted the challenge on Wednesday, July 23, and suggested turning the 12-round bout into a ‘boxing match for a cause,’ aimed at raising funds for victims of the recent floods and southwest monsoon or habagat. https://dzrh.com.ph/

Di lang malinaw kung saan magaganap — Araneta Coliseum, Amoranto Stadium, o Rizal Memorial — pero ang mas dumadagundong na tanong ay, sisipot ba si Baste? Sabi ni Ronald Llamas sa Storycon, kung hindi daw sumipot, ok lang, basta nandoon si General Torre at “yung mga iba, magdadala ng mga relief para sa mga nasalanta, magiging parang relief operation.”   https://www.youtube.com/

At heto pa si Senator Ping Lacson who tweeted early Thursday morning @iampinglacson:

A credible source told me last night, the CEO of a popular resort casino hotel, a well-known philanthropist is willing to open their ballroom for the “charity boxing match” between Nick Torre and Baste Duterte. For the sake [of] the many poor flood victims, let’s do it! https://x.com/iampinglacson/

***

BREAKING NEWS. Thursday, just before 6 p.m. the Dabawenyo responded to the general:

BASTE: ‘Wag ka mag-alala, Torre, kasi matagal ko na talagang gustong makabugbog ng unggoy. Kung gusto mo lang talaga ng suntukan, bakit kailangan mo pa ng charity-charity. Why do you need … kailangan mo pang gamitin yang nangyayari ngayon na baha diyan sa Metro Manila. If you’re really serious about this, kung gusto mo yung charity na yan, and you’ve laid some conditions, let me lay my own conditions for the event. Kung serious ka talaga, ha. These are my conditions. Pakiusapan mo yang amo mo na presidente, and let it come out of his mouth, that all elected officials should undergo a hair follicle drug test. Papalagan ko yang charity-charity mo na yan. Walang problema. If it will answer the issues nitong bansa natin, I can do that. https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=baste%20torre%20fight

I’m so disappointed, lol. Bakit biglang na-drag in (no pun intended) si BBM?  Eh it was all about Baste bragging that he could beat Torre in a fistfight. Gusto ko lang naman makita, maalaman, kung totoo. Given that Torre is all of 18 years older than he, Baste is kinda llamado. What if, pinatumba muna niya si Torre, AND THEN he followed it up with that demand — na hindi pa rin masusunod malamang, na magpa-drug test lahat ng elected officials, but at least then he would be coming from a stronger position than now, when he’s being seen as the one pala who’s duwag (or so commenters are saying on facebook threads).

And then again, baka wala lang sa kondisyon si Baste, so he’s playing for time? Which would mean that Torre had a fighting chance sana, kung sa Sunday na ang laban. Shucks, we’ll never know now. Back to regular programming, ika nga.

Palpak DDS propaganda

Dahil Digong is detained in The Hague, and Sara is up for an impeachment trial here, and desperate ang mga DDS to bring Digong home AND to get the VP’s mpeachment case dismissed, they pounce on every opportunity to paint BBM as an incompetent leader who deserves to be ousted and replaced by the VP, now na. They’re also not beyond pouncing on the First Lady every chance they get, as in the Tantoco case. This, as the Ph Coast Guard is making suyod Taal Lake for the remains of e-sabungeros who went missing under Digong’s watch.  Distracting us much?

Duterte propagandists eating up the dead: The worst of political discourse
Katrina Stuart Santiago
VeraFiles.Org

What is the size of a controversy? And how is a story magnified, amplified, expanded at this time when anyone at all can manufacture digital noise, generate so much content that it will make it to our newsfeeds despite our algorithmic bubbles?

The Rodrigo Duterte presidency was a grand display of how government propagandists could make mountains out of molehills, be it about the purported achievements of their beloved president, or about his declared political enemies. We now know what it takes to keep any narrative going, where content is constantly and consistently generated to feed it, to repeat what is being said, until it starts moving on its own. Case in point: the criticism against the elite, the label of dilawan, the terrorista-komunista tag, and even, the label bobotante.

This, to me, is how we know for sure that even the worst, most baseless false narratives, when un-addressed and un-dealt with, can and will fester. To the point that there is no curing it—not with the truth, and certainly not with the tools that are familiar.

The Anti-First Lady trip

Duterte propagandists have always had it in for First Lady Liza Marcos, a project that has been helped along by both Vice President Sara Duterte’s and the Presidential sister and Senator Imee Marcos’s pronouncements against her.

What happened at the First Lady’s US trip for the Manila International Film Festival (MIFF) in March, as such, from the perspective of the Duterte propagandists, is an opportunity to hit the First Lady harder than they ever have. Never mind common sense and decency; never mind respect for a family in grief.

As early as March 11, the louder among the Duterte propagandists was already screaming at the top of her lungs about the death of someone from the First Lady’s MIFF entourage. Her unverified tsismis was aplenty: the First Lady was questioned and detained, the group of the FL was “nataranta”, they didn’t report the death until seven hours after, all of this pointing to what she insisted was an effort to cover up the death.

Part of this story was repeated by Vice President Sara Duterte in May, during the electoral campaign, where she connects this narrative about the First Lady being detained to the arrest of Rodrigo Duterte by the International Criminal Court (ICC). On May 5 2025 the Vice President claimed:

Noong nagkaroon ng malaking krimen sa Estados Unidos na mayroong namatay dahil sa drug overdose at kung makikita ninyo sa police report ay nandoon ang pangalan ni First Lady Liza Marcos. Noong nagkaroon ng drug overdose at mayroong namatay sa Amerika at nandoon sa loob ng kwarto si First Lady Liza Marcos at nandoon sa police report, cocaine ‘yong sinasabing nagkalat doon sa kuwarto na ‘yon, ay bigla na lang nila hinila, kindinap, dinukot si Pangulong Duterte.

This narrative that the Vice President weaves is one that has been repeated by Duterte propagandists. It surfaced in response to the fact that while the first tsismis spewed was that the First Lady was detained on March 8, this was easily disproven by the First Lady’s official accounts, among many others: during the day she is seen with members of the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles, and in the afternoon and evening at the MIFF 50: Konsyerto Para sa Filipino at Cerritos Center for Performing Arts in California. She would also be in Manila by March 11, turning over donations to the Girl Scouts of the Philippines.

But being disproven by facts is rarely the end for these narratives, dependent as these are on insinuations and possibilities, mostly maliciously articulated. Once the detention was disproven, it was only a matter of time before they came up with a new way to spin the narrative—because again, the goal is to keep it going. And going.

Unknotting the narrative

On rotation on Duterte social media algorithms has been a police report with margins in pink. At the bottom of it is what the Duterte propagandists have used to drive a knife through the First Lady’s narrative: her name along with two others, calling her a “companion of the victim” who is “summoned for questioning.”

The Palace, through its Spokesperson Claire Castro, has called this bottom section of that document “fake”, saying that it was added to the original document which only details what had happened to Mr. Tantoco.

The Duterte propagandists, of course, will not have any of it. For one, they insist this is a matter of public interest, that someone who they claim was part of the First Lady’s entourage died of a drug overdose. For another, they insist that since public funds were used for this MIFF project and trip, that they—and we—have the right to ask about what unfolded, especially given what they claim to be a “big deal”.

The reasoning behind thinking this “a big deal” is different for all of them. For the noisiest and crassest among them, protected as she is by being in America, she claims that this is proof of a government being run like a drug syndicate, and we should all be angrily standing with her in her battle against it. For the ones who are in the Philippines and already at risk of being sued for libel and defamation, they insinuate that the fact that the First Lady evaded questioning gives the US leverage against us.

If these are far-fetched and out of this world, that is precisely the point I am making here. It is as absurd as the connection the Vice President has made between the Tantoco death and the arrest of her father, which implicates the First Lady in both.

At the heart of all of this is the worn-out and disproven yet sustained baseless insistence that the President is a cocaine addict. This is the bigger narrative that this smaller story about the First Lady sustains; this is the larger claim that these smaller stories are supposed to buttress. In the same way that these are sustained by a Harry Roque creating dance steps to the “bangag” song that is now on its nth iteration; in the same way that this is sustained by the worst of political discourse that seems to gleefully celebrate the death of a person, because it is a means to the end they’ve been working towards.

It is why it’s important that when we engage with stories such as this one, we contextualize it in how it’s been sustained by the Duterte side all this time; because the last thing we want to do is to encourage these narratives and layer it with our own sense-making. Yes, we can be critical of the Marcos government, but goodness gracious, we certainly can do it better than the best of the Duterte propagandists.

Accidents, propriety, sobriety

It was on March 11 2025 that the Philippine Consulate General posted a statement on the death of Mr. Juan Paolo Tantoco, the same day the family would officially make its announcement. On July 13 2025, the LA County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office report would be released online about Tantoco’s death, which is why we are speaking about it at all.

Duterte propagandists will insist this is a big deal and spew a whole lot of questions that they insist deserve answers. Yet, even on the surface, all of this makes sense.

Tantoco was obviously plus-one to his wife, who was on official duty as Deputy Social Secretary. As one who has been plus-one on low-key small-scale government-funded trips, this to me always means that I will spend for my own expenses, including flights, hotel room additions (if you’re staying in the same room), and meals. This also means that you are not tied to the itinerary or schedule of the delegation.

Given who Tantoco is, it seems safe enough to presume that he didn’t spend a cent of public funds to make this trip.

And let’s say that he was, in fact, seen at some of the parties related to MIFF—wouldn’t that have been simply his right, given that he is also a taxpayer whose taxes paid for that dinner? That is how I would rationalize my own meals were it given to me as plus-one.

Being plus-one also means that you are extraneous to the official delegation; you can decide freely what to do with your time, and you can engage in activities that are solely yours. What happened to Tantoco on March 8 was solely his and his wife’s business. That his wife might have been on official duty as Deputy Social Secretary doesn’t make this any more a public matter than if the accident happened in Manila, while the wife was working in Malacañang.

That the First Lady would carry on with her activities on March 8, despite the death of her Deputy Social Secretary’s husband, is also as expected. She needed to keep to her schedule and keep up appearances, if only to give the family time and space to inform children and elders, put affairs in order, and address the situation calmly, properly, and with as much clarity as possible.

This is what decency and propriety teach us to do. This is what pakikiramay means. If that is something we cannot even see anymore as valid, if it is something that we must question, then that says more about those asking these questions than it does about the First Lady.

What might in fact be truly controversial is the fact that we have a Vice President drawing far-fetched connections in the way her father did to justify his slapshod leadership, and a Presidential sister and Senator demanding that government violate the Tantocos’ right to privacy to feed the monster that is Duterte propaganda.

What is a big deal is that we are at a point where we cannot tell the difference anymore between irresponsible, unjust, baseless commentary that should be shut down at scale, and the kind of political discourse this democracy urgently needs.