"INVESTIGATIONS in aid of reelection" has been a longstanding joke about inquiries and probes launched by Congress committees. That joke refers to the fact that such investigations very rarely result…
WELL-KNOWN in leftist circles, lawyer Kristina Conti is unarguably among the highest-paid attorneys in the country, making at least P8 million yearly.
For doing what? Gathering evidence, I suspect even concocted testimonies and mere media reports, against former president Rodrigo Duterte and his two police chiefs, Ronald de la Rosa and Oscar Albayalde, for alleged murders committed in the former president’s war against drugs, from July 2016 to March 2019.
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THE Chinese Embassy the other day confirmed that the People’s Republic of China and former president Rodrigo Duterte agreed on a “temporary special arrangement” to allow small-scale fishing around the disputed Spratly Islands, but restricted access for military, coast guard and other official planes and ships to the 12-nautical-mile limit of its occupied island’s territorial waters.
This agreement rectifies, at least to some extent, the past Benigno Aquino III regime’s loss of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island to the Chinese) in 2012.
The agreement is also a template for peace in the disputed islands and reefs in the Spratlys archipelago. It shows how stupid and leading-nowhere is the incumbent administration’s belligerent “what-is-ours-is-ours” policy toward China. Vietnam informally has had a similar agreement for years.
The de facto agreement puts aside the issue of what country legitimately controls a particular feature in the Spratlys but allows fishermen from a claimant country to fish within the other claimant nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
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IT is so despicable for the President of the Republic to distort and use an important issue that would have shed light on this government’s quarrel with China over a part of the Spratlys (Kalayaan Islands to us) to portray former president Rodrigo Duterte, whose political clout was crucial in getting him the presidency, as having betrayed his country to China.
I am referring to the controversy over the agreement between the Philippines and China made in 1999 over the handling of the removal of the BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal. The landing ship was grounded there in May 1999 by the Philippine Navy, reportedly without President Estrada’s approval, on the justification that the ship stranded there as listed Philippine assets “represented the Philippines” over a disputed territory.
That was, of course, a birdbrained idea, as any international law expert will tell you, with the status of shipwrecks not even mentioned in the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (Unclos). Even the US State Department doesn’t list Ayungin Shoal as having a Philippine outpost. The 2007 Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks even requires owners of shipwrecks to remove them as soon as possible.
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COLUMNIST Francisco Tatad the other day reported that the Supreme Court had ruled that the International Criminal Court (ICC) can investigate former president Rodrigo Duterte for alleged “crimes against humanity” in his anti-drug war.
The report is totally, scandalously and indubitably false. There is no such SC decision, obvious in that Tatad couldn’t even give his readers the number of the decision (called “General Resolution”) and the date when it was promulgated). Tatad based his entire column — to the point of shameless plagiarism — on a fake report written by one Marlon Ramos titled “Duterte can’t evade ICC, end treaty on his own.” It was published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer on July 22, 2021, which falsely reported on the decision of the SC four months after it was handed down.
That article maliciously selected several arguments in the decision in the course of its discussion, but which the SC eventually rejected.
That the PDI fake news appeared four months after the SC decision was made (and reported the same day by several international and local media), and knowing the dynamics of media corruption, I highly suspect the article was commissioned by the opposition.
Contrary to what Tatad and Ramos reported — that the SC ruled that the ICC may investigate Duterte — the high court upheld Duterte’s order for the government to withdraw from the ICC. This is contained in General Resolution 23887/General Resolution 240954 issued on March 16, 2021, which quite obviously Tatad didn’t bother, or was too lazy to read.
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SPEAKER Ferdinand Martin Romualdez’s sacking of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as senior deputy speaker has revealed what could be the likely political landscape in the coming years, to be resolved in 2028: Romualdez versus Sara Duterte in the contest to become the next Philippine president, or the first prime minister of the land.
The only logical explanation for Romualdez’s paranoia — enough to throw under the bus his political mentor Arroyo, most probably without getting the permission of his cousin President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — is the lesson from the fate of former speaker Pantaleon Alvarez during President Duterte’s term.
Who? That’s exactly the lesson. Alvarez, one of the closest confidantes of then-President Duterte, almost totally vanished from the political firmament, when 180 of the then 292 representatives voted to remove him as speaker of the House in July 2018. Alvarez didn’t know what hit him.
The claim that only one vote is necessary to be speaker — that of the President — is hogwash, perhaps true only in a remote way if a candidate is perceived to be able to give the congressmen enough funds because of the President’s support for him. Duterte isn’t known to betray a longtime friend, but he had to respect the wishes of the independent House of Representatives. Alvarez was removed, as far as I know, not because Duterte ordered it but because 180 out of 292 congressmen were dissatisfied with his leadership and the very unequal distribution of funds under the control of Alvarez. He was also viewed as giving so much power to his friend, Ilocos congressman Rodolfo Fariñas, whom many in the House disliked, Leaders
Who were the leaders of the 180 representatives that removed Alvarez? Arroyo who replaced him as speaker, Sara, and then representative and current senator Imee Marcos. Now the three are not known to like Romualdez.
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RODRIGO Duterte hasn't lost his penchant for telling it like it is, even beating this professional writer in crafting a precise, vivid term for our military camps that the former…
First of 2 Parts
THE International Criminal Court’s demand for an investigation of alleged widespread extrajudicial killings (EJKs) during President Duterte’s war against illegal drugs (WoD) is not only an intrusion into our sovereignty. If you read the two prosecutors’ June 2021 report* recommending the probe, you will be shocked:
It is totally based on biased media reports — legally hearsay in the justice system of civilized countries.
Indeed, in its September reply to the ICC prosecutors’ report, the Office of the Solicitor General pointed out: “The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) predominantly relied on media reports… and failed to explain its lack of consideration for government’s explanations.”
The OSG argued that this violated a provision of the Rome Statute that created the ICC, which requires the OPT to “investigate incriminating and exonerating circumstances equally.”
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THAT’s the tack that President Marcos Jr.’s airport officials, particularly his Transport Secretary Jaime Bautista, are using to explain the unprecedented shutdown of the Philippines’ airspace on New Year’s Day, which resulted in the cancellation of flights to and from Manila, stranding 60,000 passengers.
They claimed that the country’s Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Systems for Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) system conked out because its two power supplies failed, that it was an old system.
What really happened was an unbelievable howler: airport technicians plugged the 220-volt system to a 380-volt power line, damaging it.
Yet Bautista’s explanation was preposterous; he claimed the CNS/ATM system that the previous Duterte administration bought and installed was outdated.
(more…) PRESIDENT Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. should seek the advice and counsel of former presidents Rodrigo Duterte and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. After all, they led successful presidencies, with Duterte’s satisfaction rating, based on a June 26 to 29, 2022 poll by the Social Weather Station at 88 percent, the highest ever recorded by the pollster.
Arroyo’s ratings were low, but as I have argued in several columns, and provided empirical data for, this was due to the massive black propaganda undertaken against her, as it was the Yellows’ last chance to regain power and what was at stake was Hacienda Luisita. A bad economy, even if caused by global developments as it was during Arroyo’s term, always pulls down a president’s popularity.
The proof of the pudding though is in the eating, and Arroyo, even with her weak political base, undertook unpopular tax reforms and a comprehensive program to address the global economic crisis from 2008 to 2009. It was Arroyo’s economic management that was responsible for the robust economy during her successor Benigno Aquino 3rd’s term.
With their track record, it is a mystery to me why Marcos doesn’t seek their counsel, especially since after four months, his presidency seems to be adrift, or even stalling
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