After two years of retrofitting, restoration and renovation, the Manila Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, or Manila Cathedral for short, reopened on April 9 with a eucharistic celebration presided over by Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, Archbishop of Manila.
The other Sunday, I wrote on my vision for lawyers to (1) be ethical and competent, (2) safeguard the liberty and nurture the prosperity of our people, and (3) globalize their outlook and practice. Today, I will dwell on the globalization of all professions: accounting, architecture, dentistry, engineering, medicine, nursing, etc.
The Philippine Bar Association, the oldest and most prestigious voluntary lawyers’ group headed by Beda Fajardo, met last March 26. As the guest speaker, I had three messages, summarized as follows (see full speech at cjpanganiban.com)
Why is the Office of the Ombudsman (OOO) taking so long to act on the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) scam? Six months ago, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its complaint for plunder, graft, bribery and malversation and unloaded its “truckload of evidence” against 38 respondents, including three senators. Yet up to now, the OOO has not indicted any of them in the Sandiganbayan. Why? many impatient readers ask.
The Supreme Court decision (Jesus Disini vs SOJ, Feb. 18, 2014) on the Cybercrime Prevention Law (CPL) upheld the constitutionality of libel (both printed and online), as I explained last Sunday. I will now discuss portions of the dissents that I find reasonable.
The Supreme Court’s decision (Jesus Disini vs SOJ, Feb. 18, 2014) on the Cybercrime Prevention Law (CPL) is a delight for constitutional law scholars. The 50-page, single-space majority ruling penned by Justice Roberto A. Abad as well as the concurring and dissenting opinions of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P.A. Sereno (43 pages) and Justices Antonio T. Carpio (32 pages), Arturo D. Brion (26 pages plus a 9-page annex) and Mario Victor F. Leonen (100 pages) are veritable treatises on the freedom of expression.
Please talk of how you became “a sterling example of what a true-blue Mapan should be” and how we can give back to society, was the request of former congressman Benny Abante Jr., president of the Mapa High School Alumni Association. My full speech before 1,000 alumni gathered at the Metro Tent, Pasig City, on Feb. 23 may be accessed at cjpanganiban.com.
The televised testimony of Ruby Tuason before the Senate blue ribbon committee has been hailed as a grand “slam dunk,” only a “lay-up,” and a winning “three-point buzzer-beater.” These street-smart assessments of how the former Malacañang social queen pinned down her longtime family friend-senator are, of course, familiar to basketball diehards.
Ruby Tuason, who has been charged with plunder in the Office of the Ombudsman (OOO) by the Department of Justice (DOJ), executed an affidavit detailing her participation in the crime, implicating some of her alleged coconspirators and offering to return her share of the loot, which she admitted to the Senate blue ribbon committee as about P40 million. Is she now free of criminal liability?
Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza, the Harvard-educated and bar-topnotcher counsel of the Republic, argued in the Supreme Court that (1) the President “authorized the disbursements under the DAP (Disbursement Acceleration Program),” (2) the “disbursements [had] an appropriation cover,” and (3) “the government [had] sufficient savings to support these disbursements.”
My fellow alumni of Far Eastern University requested me to print my remarks on Jan. 28 at the investiture of Dr. Michael M. Alba as FEU’s 11th president. Non-Tamaraws will please bear with us.
Several congressmen are restive. They are dismayed by many alleged “flip-flopping” decisions of the Supreme Court and are threatening to disobey some of these and to impeach the justices for their “bad” rulings.
