The government has been at pains to defend Andres Bautista’s proposal to scrap the Presidential Commission on Good Government, and for good reason. Bautista, head of the PCGG, made his proposal known on New Year’s Day. The hunt for the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth, he said, would now go to the justice department.
ALL ADMINISTRATIONS since Cory Aquino, unlike those in other countries, did not have a strong resolve and missed the historic chance to clean up the mess of autocracy and kleptocracy. Letting the Marcoses get away with plunder and corruption and other political-economic transgressions against the Filipino people would be a monumental error that would reverse the gains of People Power and destroy what little faith we have left in this democracy. It is a virtual indictment of our supposed democracy that our institutions, with all their vast powers, have to bow down to and crumble before private, self-aggrandizing interests of the remorseless greedy who wield immense wealth and influence.
Twenty-six years after Edsa I, the fabled treasure hoard of the late Ferdinand Marcos continues to dazzle and intrigue. During his 20 years in power, the strongman and his wife Imelda, as well as a number of their cronies, were believed to have moved billions of dollars of public funds to bank accounts and investments in Switzerland, the United States and other countries. So much wealth was taken from the country that no precise amount of the loot has been given to this day. And very little has been recovered so far.
DO IMELDA Marcos and Ferdinand Jr. use the same dictionary ordinary Filipinos work by? Read the senator’s delayed reaction to the close to $354-million contempt judgment, slammed by the US Court of Appeals (Ninth Circuit) against them.
I wrote many years back that, for the martial law torture victims, the “unkindest cut of all” is not in being forgotten but in being misunderstood. The other day, they suffered another legal setback, in yet another instance of foreign courts misunderstanding the role of the extraterritorial adjudication of human rights abuses. The US court [...]
In his keynote speech at the launch of the book “History of the Supreme Court” to mark the Court’s 111th anniversary on June 11, former Chief Justice Reynato Puno decried the “spiritual slump” and apparent disarray in the judiciary in the aftermath of its “collision with the political branches of government,” as well as the widespread confusion following the conviction of now ex-Chief Justice Renato Corona by the Senate impeachment tribunal. But because of Corona’s decision not to appeal his removal, we will never know for sure how a “severely wounded” Court would have dealt with certain questions the answers to which were left hanging in the course of his impeachment trial.
The philosopher Confucius was not confused when he said: “In a country that is well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of; in a badly governed country, wealth is something to be ashamed of.”
In its written “Judgment” dated May 29, 2012, the Senate convicted Chief Justice Renato C. Corona and imposed “the penalty of removal from office and disqualification to hold any office under the Republic of the Philippines.”
What makes the embattled 23rd Supreme Court chief tick? Renato Corona testifies before the impeachment court today—finally. Will we glimpse the tragedy of hollow men?
Renato Corona faces the impeachment court today (Tuesday). This is as good a way as any to sum up what he’s been to us.
These are days of anticipation for many Filipinos. Today, Chief Justice Renato Corona will testify before the Senate impeachment trial, that is, if he keeps his word. Perhaps then we will finally get to the bottom of his allegedly hidden wealth—be it in dollars or pesos—and why such monies aren’t reflected in his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth, as required by law.
AS A Catholic priest, I want to express my utter disgust at the regular use of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for political purposes in the Supreme Court. (Inquirer, 5/18/12) There are millions of Filipino Catholics who have no access to Mass and they are the poor.
