Chief Justice Renato Corona’s secret bank deposits did it. The defense team of the impeached Supreme Court Chief Justice, as well as Corona himself and the management of the Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) where Corona has numerous peso and dollar deposits, finally sought help from his colleagues in the high tribunal itself to prevent the [...]
The brawl over impeachment court subpoenas is no simple black-and-white battle of the forces of light versus the forces of darkness, of the anti-Corona versus the pro-Corona camps, where each side single-mindedly throws everything including the kitchen sink against the enemy and runs roughshod over respected rules in the legal equivalent of ubusan ng lahi. [...]
The impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona stood precariously yesterday (Thursday) on the knife’s edge of an impasse over petitions by Corona’s defense team asking the Supreme Court to stop the impeachment proceedings and the presentation of evidence on his bank deposits. This turn of events sent the Supreme Court and the Senate tribunal [...]
Anyone who posts anything on the Internet should be aware that he or she is releasing it to the whole world—or at least the “wired” world. Which is why when I heard that mothers of young Filipinas who were engaging in cyber-sex over the Internet justified their daughters’ activities by saying that “at least our [...]
Everyone, with the notable exception of the prosecutors in the ongoing impeachment trial, misses Miriam Defensor-Santiago on the floor of the Senate. While she excused herself from the trial, she appeared at a convention on hypertension and provided everyone with a mouthful of pre-Valentine’s Day quotes, one of the most memorable being, “ang pag-ibig parang [...]
I caught a newscast the other night showing rescue work after the earthquake in the Visayas. There was a couple, one of them clutching a cell phone. Both husband and wife were agitated, having received a text from their daughter, who was buried under the rubble. The daughter was calling on her parents to hurry, [...]
This refers to Kristine L. Alave’s article titled “Don’t belittle ‘GG’: It’s now imported.” (Inquirer, 1/30/12) Indeed, it is heartrending to know that the lowly galunggong, the poor Filipino’s dish, is being priced out of his table. What makes this more outrageous is that its price is manipulated by monopolies with the apparent support from [...]
Ramon Tulfo deserves kudos for setting the record straight on the reported denial by retired Supreme Court Justice Serafin Cuevas, head of Chief Justice Renato Corona’s defense team, of his claim that a Malacañang emissary was pressuring him (Cuevas) to withdraw as Corona’s lead counsel in exchange for dropping the case against sacked NBI director [...]
The editorial “Pathetic” (Inquirer, 1/25/12) called me a liar for saying that reports of the World Bank’s release of an aide-mémoire “is now turning out to be fake.” It was fake. Even the opinion piece admits this: “The WB itself said it had not released the report.” The editorial writer then betrays his motive by [...]
I remember a scene from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” where Eli Wallach is taking a bath and someone appears with gun in hand and murder in mind. The would-be killer gloats over his position and rants about how sweet vengeance is. Suddenly, Wallach’s gun fires from under the soapsuds and the fellow slumps to the ground. Wallach says: “You want to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
If only because every so often it haunts us like an annoying ghost from an exultant past, it is worth remembering that the 1987 Constitution was ratified on Feb. 11, 1987, exactly 25 years ago.
When President Benigno Aquino III was asked for his reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision ordering Hacienda Luisita to be turned over to its farmers, he didn’t bother to applaud this epic victory for social justice. He instead replied quickly: “But there is also just compensation for the landowners.”
