Matter of fact

Grace Poe Llamanzares really has all the reasons to rejoice over the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET)’s decision finding her qualified to be elected and to sit as Senator of the Republic. The SET has ruled that she is a natural born citizen of the Philippines which was questioned in the case since it is one of the qualifications for the position. This ruling really has a tremendous impact on the minds of the doubting public about her citizenship. It is a big first step for her towards erasing all doubts on this issue that cropped up when she expressed her intention to become president of this country.

The aspects of this case most appealing to Filipinos are the circumstances surrounding her birth. Most Filipinos empathize with the fact that she is a foundling or a child born of unknown parents who have abandoned her. It was not really her fault at all to be born of parents who chose to leave her after her birth apparently because they did not care for her or perhaps had actually no visible means to support and look after her as she grew up. Her story is indeed a stuff that legends are made of. And this will certainly click with the adoring and very sentimental mass of our people who could readily feel what she feels. In fact her TV political ad has exploited this appealing episode in her life.

This emotionally appealing aspect surrounding her birth obviously had an effect on the SET decision. While the issue in this case is purely legal involving the determination of who is a natural born citizen of this country, the SET apparently injected some politics in its decision that reflects the public pulse. In a hairline 5-4 voting the SET ruled in favor of Poe. But instead of solely relying on Philippine laws and jurisprudence, it resorted to principles of international law which presumes foundlings to be natural born citizens of the country where they are found. Such reliance is legally questionable considering that our Constitution is based on the principle of jus sanguinis (blood relationship) rather than jus soli (place of birth) in determining natural born citizenship. Besides, this is a principle adopted by an international organization where our country is not even a signatory and therefore not absolutely binding here. 

The five who voted in her favor are all Senators. Being elected Senators like Poe herself, it is quite understandable that they decided in favor of Poe not entirely because it is legally correct but because it is more politically advisable and proper to do so. In fact the three Justices of the Supreme Court, who are considered more knowledgeable about our laws as this is their main function, voted against Poe together with a single Senator whose father is a lawyer. The SET decision is therefore more of a political than a legal decision.

Moreover, the SET decision is not yet final. It has not settled once and for all whether Poe is a natural born citizen. In fact this is also the issue raised before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on her qualification to run for President. The ultimate arbiter which will resolve with finality whether Poe is a natural born citizen or not, is the Supreme Court itself. It is the branch of government that decides with finality all constitutional questions. Poe’s victory in the SET merely involved her qualification as a Senator. It may have resolved the constitutional question about her being a natural born Filipino citizen, but in view of the four subsequent petitions for her disqualification as candidate for president filed before the Comelec directly raising such issue once more, the SET ruling is relegated to the background. To be sure, the SET ruling may be disregarded by the Comelec in resolving the four petitions especially because it has not been upheld yet by the Supreme Court.

At this stage therefore, it is also imperative on the part of the Comelec to resolve the various disqualification petitions filed against Poe as soon as possible so that the Supreme Court will have sufficient time to finally rule on it before the elections in May 2016. This is important in order to properly guide our voters on their choice of the presidential candidates. If this is not finally resolved before the elections, more confusions and cases may arise especially if Poe is eventually disqualified.

Opinion ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1

To be sure, every election should be held without unresolved issues regarding the qualifications of the national or local candidates for elective positions. Our voters deserve to know at the very least that their votes for candidates will not be wasted if the candidates they voted for will be ultimately disqualified. Before the election, disqualification cases must be decided with finality.

With respect to Poe, it would be more advisable for her to erase all doubts on this issue even without waiting for the SC ruling. Indeed she already tried to do so by the DNA testing of the relatives of the possible parent who left her at the Church font in Iloilo province although it turned out to be negative. She should still pursue this step further in fairness to our voters who should be given enough information about the candidates.

The SC ruling here will mainly settle pure questions of law. Poe on the other hand, can still help in resolving the question of fact about her parents and their citizenship. This is especially true with respect to her mother. As a wise saying goes: “motherhood is a matter of fact although fatherhood is a matter of faith.” No mother can bear to be completely separated from the child she carried in her womb. She must have met Poe when the latter was still young. At Poe’s age now, it is possible that her mother is still alive. And if so, she definitely knows as a matter of fact that Poe is her daughter. So she should come out now to clarify this issue. Or Poe can conduct a campaign to search for her, dead or alive.

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E-mail: attyjosesison@gmail.com

A LAW EACH DAY(Keeps Trouble Away) By Jose C. Sison (The Philippine Star) 

Amid the APEC hoopla, an execrable Senate vote

The last time our senators took a vote on May 29, 2012, after taking an oath to render “impartial justice,” they convicted and removed Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona on the basis of questionable evidence on a non-impeachable charge, after having been impeached at the behest of Malacañang by188 congressmen who never read the Articles of Impeachment they had signed.

Nineteen of the 20 senator-judges each received P50 million or more from Malacañang’s P150-billion Disbursement Acceleration Program, which the Supreme Court subsequently declared unconstitutional, and for which grave misconduct Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, among others, is now facing criminal charges before the Ombudsman.

The senators committed a despicable crime, for which not a single one of them has been prosecuted until now. Some of the nineteen have since left the Senate, some others are still there and running for reelection or for higher office in May 2016.

On Tuesday, Nov. 17, while the nation was being entertained by all the government hoopla for the APEC Economic Leaders Summit, six senators, three of whom were among the 19 senator-judges who had been paid off three years ago to remove the country’s highest judiciary official, took another vote. This time, on a complaint before the nine-man Senate Electoral Tribunal questioning the right of Sen. Grace Poe Llamanzares to sit in the Senate, for her not being a natural-born Filipino citizen and for having failed to meet the residency requirement of at least two years immediately preceding the May 2013 elections.

The six senators on the SET are old timers Vicente Sotto 3rd, Loren Legarda and Pia Cayetano, and newcomers Nancy Binay, Cynthia Villar and Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino, first cousin to President B. S. Aquino 3rd. The old-timers have yet to wash the grime off their hands or face from the Corona impeachment scandal.

Except for Binay, who voted with the SET chairman Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Justices Arturo Brion and Teresita Leonardo de Castro, who found Mrs. Llamanzares ineligible to sit in the Senate for not being a natural-born Filipino and not having lived in the country as such Filipino for at least two years before the 2013 election, the five other senators voted not according to the Constitution and the law and the documented facts of the case, but for reasons known only to themselves and having nothing to do with the merits of the case.

They acted as a cabal. There is no evidence, so far, that anyone got paid for their vote. So until the evidence presents itself, or surfaces from a credible source, we must reject any precocious suggestion that one well-known CEO of a conglomerate who seems determined to own the next president bankrolled Mrs. Llamanzares’s paper-thin temporary victory.

I say “temporary” because the SET ruling suffers from an obvious “grave abuse of discretion” on the part of the five senators who chose to “politicize” what is indisputably a constitutional issue. The existing jurisprudence tells us that the Supreme Court will not countenance this kind of political mumbo-jumbo. I expect petitioner Rizalito David to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, after filing a Motion for Reconsideration, which the SET majority will most likely deny.

I do not want to second-guess the Court, but it cannot possibly stray from the constitutional parameters of the case. The issues are simple enough. Under Article VI, Section 3 of the Constitution, no person shall be a Senator unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, and, on the day of the election, is at least thirty-five years of age, able to read and write, a registered voter, and a resident of the Philippines for not less than two years immediately preceding the day of the election.

The provision is written in simple elementary English. Anyone who understands every word in it should be able to understand the whole provision itself. You don’t need a degree in law or in English from anywhere to understand it. Now, in how many opposite ways can two opposing lawyers, or a cabal of senators, understand this very clear provision which does not need to be interpreted?

Only one, it appears. The provision says “no person shall be a Senator unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines…” What does this mean, and how are we to understand it? This is what it means: “No person shall be a Senator unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines.” But what is a natural-born Filipino citizen? That is what we have to find out.

But Section 2 Article IV of the Constitution tells us what it means: “Natural-born citizens are those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. Those born before January 17, 1973 of Filipino mothers, who elect Philippine citizenship upon reaching the age of majority, shall be deemed natural-born citizens.”

In how many different ways can we understand what this section means? Only one, it appears. The law is clear, it’s only a question of facts. Mrs. Llamanzares offers two certificates of live birth, two sets of facts. One contradicts the other, both are technically defective.

The first certificate, dated Nov. 27, 1968, and with heavy intercalactions, says a foundling named Mary Grace Natividad Contreras Militar was found in the premises of the parish church of Jaro, Iloilo City on Sept. 3, 1968. Its parents were unknown. Therefore their citizenship was unknown, and the foundling’s citizenship was unknown. In other words, stateless. On the right hand side of the certificate is a notation by hand which says, “Adopted child by the spouses Ronald Allan Poe and Jesusa Sonora Poe as per Court Order, Mun. Court, San Juan, Rizal by …Judge Alfredo U. Gorgonio dated May 13, 1974 under Sp. Proc. 138.”

The document is obviously falsified. If it was executed on Nov. 27, 1968, how could it possibly carry a notation about Mary Grace’s alleged adoption on May 13, 1974? The document speaks for itself.

The second certificate, dated May 4, 2006, was executed by Mrs. Jesusa Sonora Poe, who is identified in the Nov. 27, 1968 document as the spouse of Ronald Allan Poe, who adopted Mary Grace in 1974. But this 2006 certificate says Mary Grace was born to Jesusa Sonora Poe and Ronald Allan Poe on Sept. 3, 1968. The couple were married on Dec. 25, 1968, and Mrs. Poe was never known to have borne a child nor carried a pregnancy all her life.

So no evidence was presented to show that Mrs. Llamanzares was a Filipino at birth who did not have to perform any act to acquire or perfect her citizenship. Therefore the decision of the five senators to declare her qualified to sit in the Senate has no basis in law or in fact.

As to her two-year residency prior to the 2013 election, the dates could be computed using a computer or one’s fingers and toes. Whatever method is used, it doesn’t quite add up in favor of Mrs. Llamanzares. How the five senators arrived at their conclusion in her favor requires a new math.

For a while, I was thinking Tito Sotto would inhibit from the voting, having declared himself an “independent senatorial candidate” under the “independent presidential candidacy” of Mrs. Llamanzares. I was disappointed at my own naivete for having thought even for the moment that this was a remote possibility within the realm of our highly unprincipled politics.

But what’s impossible to explain was Bam Aquino’s vote. If he got to the Senate because of his cousin PNoy, and as LP titular head and chief campaigner for Mar Roxas, PNoy would like to see Mrs. Llamanzares out of the presidential race, for the same reason SET petitioner Rizalito David wants her unseated from the Senate, shouldn’t he have voted in favor of the Constitution, together with Binay and the Justices? Is it too soon to speculate that despite his open statements for Mar Roxas, PNoy is secretly playing the Grace Poe Llamanzares card?

My own fear now is that if there is any chance for the May 2016 elections to become a legitimate and honest process, and for our voters to begin to understand the implications of the SET vote to the integrity of the senators who took part in it, Sotto’s chances of being returned to the Senate may have been completely vaporized, despite any effort to connect to AlDub’s popularity at the noontime TV variety show, Eat Bulaga.

To those who have sent queries, I would like to say the SET ruling has nothing at all to do with my petition before the Commission on Elections for Mrs. Llamanzares’s disqualification as presidential candidate, as well as the two other petitions seeking the cancellation of her certificate of candidacy. So it’s too early for Mrs. Llamanzares to jump for joy or uncork the champagne or open the San Mig, and for the campaign donors to rush to the aid and comfort of the American husband, Mr Llamanzares.

fstatad@gmail.com

source:  Manila Times

CJ Panganiban: Realities of victory

The Arbitral Tribunal, as I wrote last Sunday, ruled on Oct. 29, 2015, that it had jurisdiction over the maritime dispute between the Philippines and China, and will decide the substantive issues early next year. But even if it wins “on the merit,” our country will still face at least two grim realities: enforcement and standoff.

Neither Itlos nor PCA. Before going any further, let me correct a glaring error. In the early days, the media reported that the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (or Itlos) based in Hamburg was hearing the case. Two weeks ago until yesterday, the media said it was the Permanent Court of Arbitration (or PCA) based in The Hague.

Well, it was neither. According to the Oct. 29 decision itself, the adjudicating body is an ad hoc (temporary) “Arbitral Tribunal Constituted Under Annex VII of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).”

When a state signs, ratifies, or accedes to the Unclos, it must choose one of four tribunals to settle the disputes it brings: 1) the Itlos, 2) the International Court of Justice, 3) “an ad hoc arbitration (in accordance with Annex VII of Unclos),” or (4) a “special tribunal constituted for certain categories of disputes.” Since the Philippines did not choose any, it is deemed under Unclos to have chosen Item 3.

This Tribunal is constituted case by case and is composed of five members. Judge Rudiger Wolfrum, a German, was named by the Philippines. A second member was to be chosen by China. Since China opted not to participate, the president of Itlos—pursuant to the provisions of Unclos—appointed Judge Stanislaw Pawlak, a Pole.

Thereafter, the president of Itlos named three more—Judge Jean-Pierre Cot, a Frenchman; Prof. Alfred H. A. Soons, a Dutch; and Judge Thomas A. Mensah of Ghana, as the presiding arbitrator.

The PCA is not a “court.” However, it acted as the Tribunal’s “Registry,” the rough equivalent of the Office of the Clerk of Court of our Supreme Court. The PCA has acted as Registry in 11 out of 12 arbitration cases filed under Annex VII of Unclos.

Enforcement. The award on jurisdiction, dated Oct. 29, 2015, held that despite its nonparticipation, China “is bound by any award the Tribunal issues.”

However, the Tribunal has no power to enforce its awards. It does not have any sheriff, policeman, or soldier to compel obedience to its orders. Neither does the Philippines have the military, political and economic muscle to force China to obey the Tribunal.

In several e-mails, Mario E. Valderrama, a Filipino international arbitrator, explained that the “U.S., in a dispute with Nicaragua in the International Court of Justice, already did what China is doing—refuse to participate. And what China is expected to do—ignore the award—was already done by the U.S. which even refused to negotiate with the winner, Nicaragua. Being an ICJ case, there were possible mechanisms for enforcement, including recourse to the Security Council. None succeeded.”

Standoff. On the merit, the Philippines is essentially asking the Tribunal to invalidate China’s nine-dash line for being inconsistent with the Unclos, and to determine whether the disputed “maritime features” in the South China Sea are “islands, rocks, low-tide elevations or submerged banks,” regardless of who owns or occupies them.

Specifically, the Philippines is asking that Scarborough Shoal, and eight maritime features in the “Spratly Island Group” be declared mere “rocks or low-tide elevations or submerged banks” that do not generate any exclusive economic zones (EEZ) or continental shelf (CS).

A Philippine victory would allow our country to explore and develop the mineral, oil and other natural resources around and within these maritime features because they lie within 200 nautical miles from the coasts of Zambales and Palawan, respectively, that, under the Unclos, are unquestionably entitled to an EEZ or CS.

On the other hand, China maintains that, historically, these features fall inside its nine-dash line. Hence, it claims “unquestioned” ownership and sovereignty over them, thereby justifying its construction of lighthouses, buildings and airports on some of them.

In short, the standoff would be between the Tribunal’s award of maritime entitlements to the Philippines and China’s unresolved claim of ownership over these features.

What now? As the second largest economy in the world, China can use its economic tentacles to secure international support for its claims. Its military is far, far superior than ours. As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, it can veto any enforcement measure. Truly, China possesses the economic, military and political clout to back its claims.

Given these realities of enforcement and standoff, the Philippines—even assuming it wins on the merit—cannot rest on its legal laurels. It must continue to use diplomacy, negotiation, back-door channeling and other peaceful modes of settling disputes.

Will an on-the-merit win solve our maritime dispute? Or will it just incense China and complicate the problem further? Meanwhile, credit for opting to arbitrate goes to President Aquino, Foreign Secretary Albert F. del Rosario, Solicitor General Florin T. Hilbay (the official Philippine “agent”), our international counsels led by Paul S. Reichler, who interestingly was Nicaragua’s lawyer in that battle with the United States, and to several advisers of our legal team, notably Justices Antonio T. Carpio and Francis H. Jardeleza.

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Comments to chiefjusticepanganiban@hotmail.com

source:  Philippine Daily Inquirer

Bulgarian and Romanian parliaments ratified their ‘EDCAs’ Our Senate can’t be an inferior body

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, the Senate chairman of the foreign relations committee, is right.  The “Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement” (EDCA) that President Benigno Aquino 3rd entered into with the United States last year is a treaty, which under our Constitution, categorically requires to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate.

EDCA: Copied from Bulgarian and Romanian agreements.

The overwhelming majority of our senators proved to be independent of President Aquino and patriotic enough to sign a resolution that Sen. Santiago drafted: that the EDCA must be ratified by the Senate. Only Senator Antonio Trillanes 4th opposed it, while Senate President Franklin Drilon and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile abstained. And this megalomaniac wants to be vice president?

The EDCA isn’t a novel agreement. It implements the US’ new strategy for the global projection of its military power: Less permanent bases, and more “forward operating sites,” as Pentagon jargon calls these, which could rapidly be transformed into bases when needed.

Our EDCA is almost entirely copied from the military treaties the US entered into with two Balkan countries, Romania in 2005 and Bulgaria in 2006. The US had become worried that if conflicts in Eastern and Central Europe erupted, its military would be too far to be quickly and effectively deployed, leaving Russia as the unchallenged superpower in that region.

Unlike our dummy of a President, though, the two countries’ prime ministers asked their Parliaments to ratify it right after the treaties were signed. Their Supreme Courts didn’t waste their time and energy to rule whether the treaties needed their parliaments’ ratification.

The unicameral Bulgarian National Assembly ratified the pact a month after it was signed in April 2006. However, in the case of Romania, its bicameral parliament approved the country’s defense agreement 17 months after US State Secretary Condoleeza Rice and her Romanian counterpart signed the pact in December 2005.

Romania and Bulgaria are small countries, having 20 million and 7 million populations, respectively. Will we, with a 100 million population, be so wimpy as not to require our Senators to rule whether EDCA is good or not for our nation?

The EDCA, whether we like or not, is the modern counterpart of the US bases agreement during the Cold War. The difference is that EDCA allows access for the US military to foreign soil, without the hundreds of billions of dollars permanent bases require.

Drawing lessons from its invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, during which its supply lines were dangerously thinly stretched, the Pentagon had developed its new concept of “forward operating sites” (FOS) for wars and low-intensity conflicts in which it may be involved in the future. This was, as one study pointed out, America’s new, cost-effective “(military) basing paradigm” in the 21st century

Russia there, China here?

Russia was the obvious “target” for the Bulgarian and Romanian FOS made possible through their EDCAs. Who the target is for the Philippine FOS, which our EDCA will allow, is a no-brainer: China. Our EDCA, therefore, would be another factor besides the case we filed against it involving its South China Sea territorial claims, which could worsen our relationship with our second biggest trading partner (2013 and 2014 data).

Informally dubbed ‘lily pads,’ the FOS would allow rotational or periodic access for training purposes (for the US military), while also providing readily ‘expandable’ facilities with pre-positioned equipment, a study of the European Center for Security Studies explained. [Moldovan, D. et. al. “Joint Task Force East and Shared Military Basing in Romania and Bulgaria,” Occasional Paper Series, George C. Marshall Center For Security Studies 2009.]

With EDCA, the US will be making the Philippines its FOS laboratory in East Asia, using the Bulgarian and Romanian experiences as its template.

I hope the Supreme Court didn’t go along with Aquino’s argument that EDCA is merely part of the Visiting Forces Agreement. That argument is absurd.

The VFA merely provides the legal framework (visa requirements, tax-free status of US forces’ imports, and, mainly, jurisdiction over US personnel committing crimes) for US armed forces personnel participating in joint military exercises with the Philippine military in our territory.

This is so different from the new pact’s main provisions, which will convert parts of our military bases into American military forward operating sites for pre-positioning its war material.

Our Constitution is even more categorical than the Bulgarian and Romanian Constitutions, because of the strong anti-American sentiment among the framers of the Constitution, partly because the US, concerned about its bases, had propped up the Marcos dictatorship.

Section 25, Article XVIII of our Constitution says: “Foreign military bases, troops, or facilities shall not be allowed in the Philippines except under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate and, when the Congress so requires, ratified by a majority of the votes cast by the people in a national referendum held for that purpose, and recognized as a treaty by the other contracting State.”

Categorical provisions

I can’t see how this government can stretch logic and language that it could skirt such very categorical provisions of the Constitution. How can it claim that US military structures built to house American pre-positioned war materiel aren’t “foreign military facilities,” or that the American troops manning them aren’t “foreign military troops” on Philippine soil?

If you read the two Balkan treaties and then the recently signed EDCA, you’d strongly suspect that the Americans simply pulled out of their computer files the Bulgarian and Romanian treaties, and simply inserted the word “Philippines” into the relevant portions.

They were rushing at the time. Aquino approved the pact on April 28, 2014 as the government was secretly told that without the EDCA, “there was no point for US President Obama to visit the Philippines.”

Aquino was desperate at that time. By then, Obama had visited Indonesia (twice), Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma—countries with which the US doesn’t even have any of that “special relationship” the Philippines is proud of. The window was fast closing: it was already 2014 and the US President hadn’t visited the Philippines under Aquino’s term.

Worse, Obama was scheduled to visit Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia during that month. It would certainly appear that the head of the most powerful nation on earth snubbed the Philippines if Obama didn’t visit the country in that Asian tour. And he could have done that for the flimsiest of reasons, if the EDCA wasn’t signed.

So Aquino ordered it signed, telling the US to go ahead, implement it, no need for a Senate concurrence. Two former senators who, 24 years ago, fought for the removal of US military bases from the Philippines asked the High Court to strike it down.

There is a very important difference in the Philippines’ military pact with the US compared with those of Romania and Bulgaria.

The treaties of the two Balkan countries specify that only 2,500 US military personnel may be deployed in each of their countries at any time. In case of an overlap of two deployments, a maximum of 5,000 US troops may stay in their countries, but only for three months.

In our case, there is no such limit to how many US troops the treaty allows to be deployed in “agreed locations” in our military camps.

They could even deploy a US Special Forces division of 25,000 troops—which could certainly be accommodated in their former bases in Clark and Subic—and Aquino’s treaty would allow that.

What a political manservant to Aquino our Senate president Franklin Drilon has become when he said last year: “The Senate cannot compel Malacañang to submit the EDCA for ratification.”

tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
www.rigobertotiglao@gmail.com

source:  Manila Times

The woman without a country?

A petition to disqualify Grace Poe has been lodged by my pal, Dean Amado Valdez, with whom I am normally in agreement — and am I surprised when we differ. He contends that the Senator is not qualified in the 2016 presidential elections on the following grounds:

1. Assuming that Grace Poe was a natural-born citizen, she lost her status as natural-born when she

Renounced her Filipino citizenship in 2001 to become an American citizen. She never regained her natural born status. At best, she is a repatriated Filipino citizen under RA 9225.

It seems to me being a natural-born Filipino is a one-time permanent thing. As Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion taught us in senior law, a natural-born Filipino “is one born a Filipino.” One is born only once. That concept, to me, is unchanging. One is a natural-born Pinoy, Martian or Manchurian Candidate. Losing one’s natural-born status seems an impossibility, like losing my birthplace of Mauban, Quezon, my sainted mother, my birth date, etc. Immutable. We cannot square the circle.

2. She has not completed her ten-year residency reckoned, at the earliest, from july, 2006 when she re-acquired her Filipino citizenship, and at the latest on 20 october 2010 when she renounced her American citizenship.

Residence was required to make sure one was aware of what was going on in the community and the country. For a caring Pinoy, that is now the easiest thing to do, without being physically present. We are talking of only a few months and therefore the issue has de minimis significance, if at all. The intent of the law is to exclude a stranger and a newcomer, unacquainted with the conditions and needs of the community and not identified with the latter. That may well be but it represents the best thinking of a jurassic era.

When I was in Rizal High, I would walk two or three kilometers for lunch at home and to catch the one o’clock Sports Parade of Willie Hernandez, to find out how the New York Yankees had fared the day before. Today we can watch sports events world-wide, live. And edifying presidential debates.

I chat with my family at home and then I am told my daughter Lara, with a doctorate in philosophy – children’s studies, now teaching tenure-track in New York, is there, on screen, to chat with her siblings here, live. There is the I-Pod, computer, cellphones, etc.
that make it possible for concerned Pinoys abroad who care to follow daily what goes on here.

Art. 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees against statelessness. Art. 25 says to care for love children. In Makati Elementary, we read about Philip Nolan, The Man Without a Country. Was Grace ever The Woman Without a Country?

I may sound Emotionalized. I prefer Passionate, for all my life I have preferred to be on the side of the one being dumped on and kicked around. Do we kick around a Poe-Lot who comes to this world with two strikes against him/her? Underdogs, weeping alone, my kind of people, for whom I have worked, prayed and fought with that kind of passion that whips the blood.

I don’t want the unelected Commission on Elections and the unelected Supreme Court ruling on the tough issue. Not even the partly elected Senate Electoral Tribunal, whose widely-admired Chair, Justice Tony Carpio, inexplicably and uncharacteristically prejudged Grace’s case on Day One, without waiting for all the arguments to be in, leaving him no wiggle room. He should have waited until after all the evidence and arguments are in.

The choice of who will lead the country is the quintessential political question falling under its second kind.

The concept of “political question” is limited to two: 1) when the matter is exclusively left to a body to decide, like disorderly behavior of a member of Congress for something said say, in a privilege speech; it may be questioned there but not in any other place, such as the courts; or 2) when it is left to the people to decide in their sovereign capacity.

“But where the matter falls under the discretion of another department or especially the people themselves, the decision reached is in the category of a political question and consequently may not be the subject of judicial review.” I. Cruz and C. Cruz, Phil. Political Law 140 (2014).

I may be wrong but I should not have to be blamed for something drilled in me by Chief Justice Concepcion in San Beda and Prof. Albert Sacks in Harvard Law and adopted by Justice Isagani Cruz and his son, Carlo.

Let the sovereign people, the bosses, decide in a society that would be humane under our constitutional preamble.

Am I voting for Grace? Decency I always associate with FPJ and Susan. Osmosis should work and result in Designer Genes.

But, in fact, I have not made up my mind. It’s just that I don’t want any foundling being dumped on and kicked around. Art. 24 of the Civil Code says the system must be vigilant in protecting the handicapped, and ang putok sa buho, which Shakespeare lamented in King Lear, “Why bastard? wherefore base” – merits sympathy, understanding and compassion.

Campaign against her but let her be among the cards to be dealt our people in 2016.

source:  Manila Times Column by RENE SAGUISAG

SC justice Villarama seeks full benefits despite early retirement

Supreme Court Associate Justice Martin Villarama opts to leave his post on Jnauary 16, 2016, 3 months short of the mandatory retirement age of 70

MANILA, Philippines – Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Martin Villarama Jr, who will be leaving his post 3 months ahead of his retirement in 2016, has asked the court en banc to nevertheless grant him full benefits.

The SC justice is supposed to retire on April 14, 2016, when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70, but he has opted to retire on January 16.

In a letter to Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and associate justices, Villarama asked to be accorded longevity pay of 33% of his basic monthly salary instead of just 28%, citing Administrative Circular 58-2003.

Citing the circular, Villarama said the High Court "has allowed earned leave credits to be tacked to the length of judicial service to increase the longevity pay of justices and judges who reached the age of compulsory retirement."

The magistrate has completed 28 years, 2 months, and 8 days in the judiciary – just 2 months and 28 days short to reach the mandatory retirement age.

Villarama asked the SC en banc to apply the circular in his case, adding that his service as an examiner in the 2009 bar exams must be credited and "tacked in the computation of the longevity pay upon compulsory or optional retirement."

He noted that the Office of the Administrative Services (OAS) earlier said that the administrative circular "may not be applicable to a justice who is retiring not on compulsory basis."

"That was the OAS's position in the case of retired Justice Maria Alicia Austria-Martinez," he said.

But he added that in a resolution passed in February 2009, the High Tribunal said the circular is applicable pro hac vice (for this case only) to Martinez's case.

With Villarama's early retirement, President Benigno Aquino III can appoint another justice for the Supreme Court before his term ends on June 30, 2016. – Rappler.com