THE REPORT on financial contributors to Akbayan’s 2010 election kitty is an exposé: President Aquino’s family, supporters, and big businessmen allied to him gave this miniscule group the electoral war chest to win two seats in Congress. Out of the 115 donors who gave Akbayan’s P110-million campaign funds, only 24 families, groups, or tycoons [...]
Rather than a legacy of peace, President Aquino’s pact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front contained in the “Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro” will be his curse on the nation. The consequences of the pact, renewed violence in Mindanao and even terrorist attacks in urban centers, will outlive his term, and will be one of the biggest headaches of the next president.
Read the actual document itself, not just the mawkish “peace-is-at-hand” articles, and you will see that the “Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro” President Aquino yielded to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is clearly a roadmap for the republic’s dismemberment.
Every year in September, in a ritualistic way the tale is told: A Dark Lord imposed his will on a hapless people, but then a messiah sacrificed his life to embolden Filipinos to topple the regime in 1986.
By bypassing the foreign affairs secretary in the crucial foreign-policy episode confronting the Republic, its territorial claims against the People’s Republic of China, President Aquino has debased the Department of Foreign Affairs, adding to the growing list of institutions he has damaged.
What the late Secretary Jesse Robredo could not accomplish in life in the past two years, he did through his death: the removal of Undersecretary Rico E. Puno from the Department of the Interior and Local Government, and the end of the latter’s hold over the Philippine National Police.
Ths is a reaction to Rigoberto Tiglao’s column titled “Sereno lied on her track record” (Inquirer, 8/30/12). The column is obviously a biased, unfair and baseless attack on the integrity of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. The title itself is grossly misleading and unfair. There is nothing in the column of Tiglao referring to where [...]
I can understand former Associate Justice Florentino Feliciano’s doting defense of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno in his letter to this paper (Inquirer, 9/8/12). However, facts should prevail over one’s fondness for a protégé.
Rigoberto Tiglao’s Aug. 30 column, “Sereno lied on her track record,” is remarkable in its hostility to and complete unfamiliarity with the persona and career of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes A. Sereno. Many of the unfortunate statements in that column do require some factual response.
This letter is in response to the unfortunate and untrue opinion written by Rigoberto Tiglao in the Aug. 30, 2012, edition of the Inquirer. The content of his article is untrue. I never came to the Philippines to object to anything that Chief Justice Meilou Sereno had done. I came to address the Philippine Bar at their invitation.
We have to squarely confront the issue, since the Supreme Court represents the rule of rationality, the foundation of any civilized society. My apologies to Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, but she brought this on herself, because of her greed for more glory, not content with her appointment—itself already undeserved—as associate justice in 2010.
“Fresh start,” “Excellent choice,” “Sereno’s big task”—the headlines were on the appointment of Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno. C’mon now. Wasn’t the story that the appointment was so unexpected and shocking that no one, not even any of President Aquino’s most ardent apologists, had expected he would make such an in-your-face decision? Wasn’t it so controversial that nine of the 13 Supreme Court associate justices boycotted the swearing in of their unwanted Chief?
