Since 1987 the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) has struggled with the question of whether it should allow two or only one member of Congress to sit in the body. Last month a divided Supreme Court finally ordered the JBC: You can have only one member of Congress. How much of a difference will that make?
The campaign against political dynasties is on full blast. Nothing will come out of it.
The controversial party-list cases have been remanded by the Supreme Court to the Commission on Elections for review. What the Comelec is required to do is to decide two related questions: (1) Which organizations may participate in the party-list system? (2) Who are qualified to represent the party-list organizations?
If I approached the Supreme Court’s recent decision on the party-list system by way merely of a mechanical exercise in statutory construction, I might conclude that the Court has stripped the party-list system of its soul. The party-list system is not merely a restructuring of the membership of the House of Representatives. It is a peaceful revolutionary measure that introduces social justice into the structure of the House. The constitutional framers intended social justice to be the soul of the system and the latest decision has preserved that soul, although giving it a reading slightly differently from the way the earlier Ang Bagong Bayani decision read it.
What shape will the role of women in the Church take under Pope Francis? As we celebrate Easter it is good to remember the role women played during the first Easter event.
Yesterday we celebrated Palm Sunday, the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The official calendar gives the day a very cumbersome title: Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion.
The last thing I expected from the conclave was a Jesuit Pope. But that is what the 115 cardinals gave us. I did not even know that there was a Jesuit among the 115 gathered in the Vatican. I first heard that there was at least one during a dinner conversation the Sunday before with a French Jesuit, who told me about the Jesuit cardinal of Buenos Aires. But I promptly forgot about him. Last Tuesday I went to bed not expecting that I would be greeted with the jaw-breaking news that a Jesuit had been elected pope for the first time in the history of the Church.
Does the Commission on Elections have the power to order churches to take down posters hanging on church walls expressing their views about the Reproductive Health Law and senatorial preferences? The Bacolod diocese says no, and other dioceses are threatening to follow. I too would say no.
There is so much being written about the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. The most basic question asked is whether a pope may resign. There is now no dispute about the legal possibility of a resignation. Canon Law is very clear: “If it should happen that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required that he make his resignation freely, and that it be duly manifested, but not that it be accepted by anyone.”
Sabah has once again become front-page material because of the move of the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu to enforce their claim to a portion of the territory. It may be good to understand what the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu are claiming. As I see it, they are not claiming political sovereignty [...]
People get the government they deserve. What people deserve is expressed through their preferences in an election. We have been having elections since 1987 when the antidynasty provision in the Constitution first appeared, and the people have chosen, administration after administration, their preferences, dynasties and all.
In the middle of last week one of the lawyers working for the release on bail of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came to me asking if there was anything I could do to help. I said that, much as I would like to, at least for humanitarian considerations, I was afraid that anything I said would just be counterproductive for the reason that I am considered kapamilya. As many know, one of my nephews is now married to Luli Arroyo. For this reason, positions I took in the past were sometimes brushed aside brainlessly even by some whom I normally respect simply because a Bernas has become a member of the Arroyo family. This is insanity, of course, but it is part of life.
