147. Pres. Duterte, Pope Francis, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son

"Pu__ ___ __ Pope," oh my, I can't even write it. In November 2015, then just a mere prospect of a presidential candidate Duterte uttered the equivalent of the "F" word to the head of the Catholic Church. If this were the middle ages that would have spurred a crusade. But the cursing and iconoclast-thinking candidate out to make a point that decent is overrated -- and incompetent -- would not be denied his freedom of speech. He would speak his mind, curse the traffic and  the pope who caused it, condemned to hell if he had to, but no moral code was going to make him blip what his mouth wanted to say about the hellish traffic that Pope Francis caused when he visited the Republic in January 2015. Pope Francis seemed unmindful of the raucous. And  I could imagine the humble Pope even offering an apology for the incident had he been informed about it until -- bowed by the pressure of his handlers who were probably led by what could be imagined as septuagenarian members of the Catholic Women's League -- candidate Duterte wrote an apology to the Vatican and to the Catholic Bishop of Bacolod, and vowing to donate a thousand pesos to Caritas Davao for every curse word he said as an act of contrition.  The Vatican accepted the apology and said, "The Holy Father offers the assurance of prayers for you, as he invokes upon you the divine blessings of wisdom and peace."  That was April 2016, and the matter was settled once and for all by an overwhelming vote of the Catholic and non-Catholic majority in favor of candidate Duterte in the May 2016 elections.



("Bago" by Celeste Lecaroz, acrylic on canvas, 4 feet by 4 feet)

Still, I wonder if the Pope's prayers for candidate Duterte had a  hand in the elections -- after all candidate Duterte was the only one who had the benefit of papal prayers among the presidential candidates in spite of being depicted by the other candidates as a foul-mouthed murderous man. If so, it gave a hint of how that goody-goody brother of the prodigal son felt after the rich father gave the son a feast despite living a reckless life -- a parable regularly read in Catholic churches that sidelights an earthly phenomenon in which nice guys finish last and the bad boys have all the fun.



("Viva Il Papa" by Celeste Lecaroz, acrylic on canvas, 4 feet by 4 feet)

Nonetheless, if and when Pope Francis meets Pres. Duterte, it wouldn't be just them meeting, but the Vatican and this Republic, the nation states that they represent, no cursing or crusades expected. Wouldn't that be nice? But nice, like decency, is overrated. For ultimately, as in the parable, we find out that the key to  most everything is discarding our Manichean world view about being nice, decent, or of good behavior for it simply misses the point.

146. President Rody

I have not known a 71 year old man with that much fire in the belly. Standing up to a regime whose words inspire but whose actions disappoint, he played the role of a rabble-rouser -- "Kill all drug lords" -- and the visionary -- "We'll fix this country in six months" -- thus rallying a great majority to his side on election day. He claimed he is the last card of the Philippines for true change to happen; and yet, he showed them all, he can walk away from this anytime. Upon his election, he bashed every institution in society, calling churchmen hypocrites and media corrupt, prompting an act of contrition from the church apologists and a boycott from the defiant press. But what he was really doing was horse-breaking, taming everyone of their wildness, showing everyone he was the wildest of them all, and knowing eventually what would happen to the beast once it's broken. There is no doubt he is energy, a fuel to ignite every Filipino's dream. No one can escape the polemics and apologetics that he would dictate for the next six years and beyond.  




("Bago" by Celeste Lecaroz, 4 feet x 4 feet, acrylic on canvass.)


One day we shall all be looking back to this moment: the 71 year old man with fire in the belly, rabble-rouser, visionary, horse-breaker, the energy, taking his oath to become the 16th President of the Republic, President Rody. He is the Philippines's last card  -- and we would know by then how the card turned out, maybe everything was a joke and we drew a pathetic six of flowers. But today, we trust and hope that what we have is the ace of spades. Good luck President Rody! Good luck to the Republic! 

Notes on the Comelec Omnibus Rules on Campaign Finance or Why do we love to make rules we can't follow?

When Heaven Torres, my partner in the IT firm Aceron and Torres Automated Circuits, Inc., (ATAC), and I first read the Comelec's Omnibus Rules on Campaign Finance which was promulgated in October 2015,  we knew it would be controversial. Section 2 Rule 10 of the same rules declared in clear and unequivocal terms that the filing of the Statement of Contributions and Expenses (SOCE) thirty (30) days from election day (May 19, 2016) was non-extendible. This would be a big change from the past elections in which extensions were granted. 

Further, amendments were not allowed, and filings which contained errors would be considered as not filed. Already, I thought the Comelec was even stricter than the BIR, which allowed amendments within three (3) years from filing of a tax return or before a BIR audit takes place whichever came first. But the Comelec in promulgating these rules appeared to be trying to exercise its plenary powers in a grand manner (shades of Malcolm fans in there probably), and cared not for precedents of filings from other agencies like the BIR and the SEC, such that it ignored the possibility of anyone missing the deadline or filing an erroneous SOCE.

This became the premise of our software project,  Fearless Election Finance Software (EFS) that we designed (actually Heaven did the design by longhand and passed  it on to a programmer) -- to help candidates hurdle the rigid requirements of the rules and submit their reports within the deadline. To market the software, we embarked on a seminar roadshow in Luzon and Cebu,  and we realized that the rules had more serious problems than just the deadline and its prohibition on amendments.

First, the spending limits were too low. A candidate was only allowed to spend three pesos per registered voter. Yet, the average town had about 15,000 voters, so a Mayor, for example, could only spend Php 45,000 for the entire campaign. Anyone who would dare follow it would never win. For those without political parties, the limit was five pesos, and political parties had an additional five pesos. Still, the amount could hardly even cover the cost of gasoline or cellphone load for the entire campaign. 

Second, some provisions were impossible to enforce. Section  4 of Rule 6 provided that all campaign materials even those donated by voters should be authorized by the candidiate and would be counted against the expenditure limit. This was the offshoot from Ejercito vs Comelec GR No. 212398 (http://www.chanrobles.com/cralaw/2014novemberdecisions.php?id=977) in which a campaign donor of the Laguna governor   bought   airtime from a TV network amounting to more than five times the  expenditure  limit, thereby causing the ouster of Ejercito from the seat of the Province of Laguna. While clearly media expenditure was severely limited by the rules, other campaign propaganda like billboards, stickers, posters, and give-aways would be impossible to monitor not just for the candidate but also for the Comelec. How could they be counted against the expenditure limit then? Further, with the advent of social media (which carried the Duterte campaign), how could the Comelec quantify the money being spent on status messages, memes, tweets, and comments? And we're not even talking about illegal expenditures, such as money used to buy votes. The Comelec hardly spent time monitoring and catching vote-buying, which was a more serious and prevalent election offense, why would it spend time counting election expenses? Indeed, the Comelec was setting itself up for failure by raising the bar so high on this aspect of campaign finance.

Third, a lot of candidates did not care. They would do their reports the old way, cram, falsify, and challenge the Comelec's resolve to enforce its rules. While the Ejercito case set an unusual precedent of unseating an incumbent governor for violation of a Comelec rule, nothing else came out of the 785 cases on election finance pending with the Comelec from the 2013 elections. We wrote the Campaign Finance Office to clarify some matters on rules and we never got an answer, because none of its lawyers were available. It seemed, therefore, that Comelec's posturing on this grand rules to govern campaign finance would be melted by the realities of governance, the tyranny of the urgent and the overbearing demands of duty and the scarcity of time and resources to fulfill these duties. No wonder old time politicians would be the least bothered by the rules.

Thus, when the news broke out that the Liberal Party (LP), the party of the outgoing President, missed the deadline and asked for an extension, we were aghast at the incompetence of the LP leadership,  which jeopardized all its winning candidates as the same rules provided that the failure of the winning candidate or the party which nominated the winning candidate would result in the candidate not being allowed to assume office. The implications were disastrous: the Vice-President, five senators, hundreds of congressmen and local officials were LP candidates. If the Comelec rule would be followed, they would be barred from assuming office; and following the Maquiling ruling, their runner-ups would assume their offices. 

Yet, Romulo Makalintal and Sixto Brilliantes, two of the leading election lawyers in the country who should take credit (or be blamed) for the quality of elected officials we have, dismissed this view on the ground that the rules of the Comelec were unconstitutional. I told my friends that we got to hand it to these guys for playing with the hand dealt to their clients. To say it in the vernacular, "kung baga sa pusoy, buhaw na akala mo naka full house pa." (If this were poker, they have bad cards, but they're playing it as if they have full houses.) If the rules didn't work for their clients, the Constitution did. Well, these statements should have been uttered in October when the rules came out. The two gentlemen were just using the Constitution as an afterthought. 

But today, the Comelec blinked. Voting 3-4, the Comelec extended the deadline to June 30, 2016 and disregarded Section 2 of Rule 10 of their own Omnibus Rules on Campaign Finance, which stated, 

"Section 2. When and how to file the SOCE and its supporting documents. - Not later than thirty (30) days after the day of election, or by 08 June 2016, Wednesday, all candidates and parties who participated in the 09 May 2016 National and Local Elections, regardless of whether they won or lost, must file their Statements of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCEs) and the relevant Schedules and supporting documents. Filing of these campaign finance disclosure reports and statements must be done in person, whether by the candidates and/or party treasurers personally, or through their duly authorized representatives, before the offices listed in Section 3 of this Rules. Duly authorized representatives of candidates and parties must present a written authorization from their principals, using Form SPA-C in the case of candidates and Form SPA-P in the case of parties, before they can submit the campaign finance disclosure statements and reports of their principals. Submissions via registered mail, courier or messenger services shall not be accepted.

"The 08 June 2016 deadline shall be final and non-extendible. Submissions beyond this period shall not be accepted. COMELEC Resolutions Nos. 9849 and 9873, Minute Resolutions Nos. 13-0775 and 13-0823 are hereby repealed, insofar as they allowed the belated submission, amendmentand/or correction of campaign finance disclosure statements and reports and the imposition of late penalties for the 2013 National and Local Elections. [n]"

The Commissioners who voted to grant the extension might as well have eaten the paper on which their rules were printed. The question is which other provisions of this rule could be changed? The no amendment rule? The spending limit rule? They should change them now before another case lands on their desk that would force them to amend the rules again. 

I think it was President-elect Duterte who declared that the laws in this country are mere suggestions. He might as well be talking about the Comelec rules which governed the elections that he won. This might not be the first time that the Comelec reversed itself, especially in the enforcement of its own rules. And they could not be faulted or be singled out as the only agency which did  (think  of the Supreme Court and its flip-flopping in the cityhood cases) but the other question is why did they have to make their rules so hard in the first place? They only made it difficult for those who complied and submitted on time, and made it easy for those who failed, crammed, and challenged the Comelec's resolve to enforce its own rules. It's like being up early for the plane only to find out that some children of god who partied all night would be late and make everyone wait, the pilot gladly obliging a reprieve. Somehow one imagines those who benefitted from Comelec's reversal of their own rules are mocking everyone concerned about this fiasco of the SOCE,  and are saying to themselves, "What are we in power for?".

The Commissioners who voted for the extension claimed that they did not want their rules to have absurd consequences such that those voted in office would not be able to assume their functions. And I gave a deep bass guffaw as I heard the quote from the radio. Tell that to ER Ejercito,  I said. And I decided that all is well in this corrupt republic.

135. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: Struggling with the Zeros

Duterte has backtracked on his initial denial of the allegations made by Sen. Trillanes about his Php 211M  deposit in his BPI bank account and has said that the account exists and it has about a little less than Php 200 M. When asked to explain about his initial statement that the account had barely Php 50,000, he said he was confused with the zeros. This curious incident highlights a potential problem in the event that Duterte is elected President. He probably needs to attend a math seminar to re-orient him about the  zeros, considering that the annual budget is PHP 3 trillion which has  twelve zeros, the national debt is 77 Billion USD which has nine zeros in US dollars and more in pesos, and the population is 100 million which has eight zeros. Thus, the problem would be how to help him cope with zeros. Should we call his former math teacher from the Ateneo de Davao for him to teach the president about something the president should have learned in grade three? Should the better option be making custom made  calculators with keys shaped like women's lips for him to get the hang of it easily? Shall we order instead an abacus with bullets as beads or will it be better to appoint to the cabinet his seatmates from grade school math so they can make the calculations for him and he can just copy from them like the old days. Another proposal on the table is to ask him to imagine the zeros as corpses of the people he has killed, which might actually be a good idea. Whatever the solution is, come June 30, 2016, the math educators of the Republic are going to be in a crisis as the people have elected a president who gets confused with zeros.

134. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: Finding the best excuse for the Php 211M

The timing couldn't be more right. Less than two weeks before the election and Trillianes pops the Php 211M expose. Somebody deposited Php 500  in the bank account, and Banco de Oro accepted it with the names of D30 and his 'drama queen' daughter on the deposit slip. Trillanes has proven half of his allegation, that the bank account exists; the other half, which  is the Php 211 M deposit, may be proven in just a matter of time. The Duterte crisis team faces the toughest hurdle yet. The spin doctors have successfully navigated through the Pope curse incident and the rape joke, but now, it's about the money deposited in an account which is not declared in the SALN. What are the options for Duterte? Let us count them all from the inventory of past spins and excuses:

1. The Corona excuse - "Inipon ko yan since grade school."

2. The 5-6 excuse - "Hiniram ko sa bumbay."

3.  The Chavit Gambit - "Payag ako makulong basta kasama si Erap."

4. The Erap excuse - "Kay Jose Velarde yan!"

5. The Arroyo excuse -  "Kay Jose Pidal yan!"

6. The Cito Lorenzo excuse - "Kasalanan ni Joc-Joc!"

7. The Joc-Joc Bolante excuse - "May sakit ako."

8. The Joey Marquez excuse after being caught by his wife in bed with another woman - "Hindi ako 'to!"

9. The Kim Wong style - "Isoli ko na lang yung natira."

10. The Flaminiano style - "Objection your honor!"

11. The Classic Duterte style - "Putang ina mo Trillanes, barilan na lang tayo!"

133. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: Looking for the Hollywood Script for the Presidency

The Duterte election story is a narrative straight out of Hollywood. I told a friend of mine every episode of this Duterte phenomenon follows Joseph Campbell's Hero of Thousand Faces in which Campbell described the template of the monomyth or the hero's journey. From the time Duterte's name was floated around as a possible presidential timber (this is called, "the call to adventure"), to his initial decision to refuse the nomination (there I recognized it immediately as the part called "refusal of the call"), to the seemingly overwhelming clamor for him to heed the call (where the call is heeded and the formal adventure story begins), to the early days of the campaign where he took pot shots at Mar Roxas and his Wharton degree (a sort of the hero slaying the dragon there), and to his climactic ascent to the top of the polls (the recovery of the treasure in the cave). This is Hollywood.  It's the essence of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter,  and yes, Batman. It is why in spite of his crass language, off beat self-deprecating if not idiotic sense of humor, and the limited focus on crime prevention as a campaign platform,  Duterte is a hit. Duterte's handlers sold us an old script and most of us fell for it. Yet,  come June 30, 2016, when the adventure story ends, and Duterte is sworn into office, there is no Hollywood script. As the late comedy king, Dolphy, used to say when he refused to run for public office (in spite of the popular clamor),  "Eh paano kung manalo?" But Duterte brushed it all off during the last debate by saying he'll just copy from the others as he's been copying from others since grade one anyway. Somebody please give him a DVD on the life of Churchill, before somebody sneaks him a video on the Nazi's. 

132. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: 8. Marcos is buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani

I once met a guy who claimed he was Marcos's illegitimate child and that the real Marcos didn't leave for Hawaii and stayed in obscurity in the Philippines for years until he died and got buried in a cemetery in Posadas Village. He showed me a picture of the tomb where the words Ferdinand E. Marcos were written. I felt amused in a weird kind of way as I showed the man the door. Indeed, in death as in life, Marcos Sr. is the stuff of myths and legends and controversy as well.  I recalled that PNoy once toyed with  the idea of Marcos being buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, until Commissioner Etta Rosales, then Chair of the Commission of Human Rights, lobbied hard against it by claiming she herself was raped while in detention during Martial Law. Erap and Arroyo also thought about it, but due to popular opposition against the burial, Marcos remained frozen in a crypt in Ilocos. Duterte seems to be the man who would put the end to this debate as he vowed to bury Marcos in the Libingan once elected. This long standing national debate reminds me of the  story  of Antigone who sought to give his brother Polynices a decent burial in spite of King Creon's orders that Polynices should not be buried or mourned for on the pain of stoning. Antigone defied the order, got caught, and was locked in a tomb where she hanged herself to death. But Haemon, King Creon's dear son, turned out to be Antigone's lover, and upon seeing Antigone's grim end, Haemon killed himself as well.  As Jorge Luis Borges said, "Destiny takes pleasure in repetitions, variations, symmetries."  On first impression, it seems what we are seeing in the Marcos burial debate is  a simple variation of the Antigone story, which did not end well for King Creon and the powers that be of Ancient Greece.  Duterte is poised to bury Marcos once and for all at the Libingan ng mga Bayani,  but I suspect this is still not going to end easily even if he succeeds. Marcos's enemies and the people Marcos once caused to suffer would come in the dead of the night with their spades, picks, and shovels for one solitary barbaric/heroic purpose: to unearth his rotting corpse from the resting place of heroes. It's the Antigone story in reverse. 

131. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: 7. Joma Returns

Duterte has not been apologetic with his friendship with the New People's Army (NPA) and its founding father, Joma Sison. Joma himself has floated the thought balloon of his return if Duterte wins. I'm pretty sure Gen. Palparan, the erstwhile red hunter and congressman, would not be amused. What a curious turn of events it would be when Joma visits Palparan in jail. Even more curious is when Joma visits Malacanang, the palace of the "naghaharing uri" the destruction and fall of which Joma has committed his life to pursue. How would Joma's jailers, Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel V. Ramos, feel? I'm half-guessing hundreds of rebellion and murder charges have been filed  and archived in various courts against Joma, but would the Department of Justice under Duterte's term even lift a finger to reactivate them? I have once tried to read  Joma's treatise on national democracy, but I was too much of a 'dem-soc' to go pass the first page. And today, the Maoist ideology is bankrupt.  If Joma returns, all I have for him is an old copy of his poetry and a question I once inscribed on the margin, "Are you a guerrilla first and a poet second or the other way around?"

130. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: Playing Cat and Mouse with the Smokers

The story goes that Duterte once pressed his gun against the crotch of a defiant smoker who challenged a restaurant owner to ask the Mayor to stop the smoker from getting his post dinner nicotine fix. Duterte gave the smoker two choices, to eat the stick of cigarette or have the smoker's balls blown off. To the anti-smokers among us, myself included, this sounds like a great prospect for 2016 -- finally a dead serious campaign against the smoking tyranny in the entire country. But I doubt it if this hardballing style against the smokers can be replicated in the entire country. I don't think there would even be enough bullets for all those balls. Besides, playing Russian Roulette with smokers' balls is sadistic and illegal. Instead, I see the future of smoking as the new form of protest under a Duterte Presidency, similar to Noynoying -- activists converging in Mendiola each with a stick of cigarette, their balls showing, and the protesters chanting in unison, "Kalayaan para sa yosi at betlog!"

129. Problems and Prospects of D30 Presidency: 5. Life at 30 kph

One of the things Davao City is proud of is the speed limit of 30 kph on its roads. Months ago, even the Mayor's daughter, 'drama queen' Sarah Duterte, was caught  overspeeding and it made the headlines. The idea behind slowing down vehicles is the prevention of accidents, albeit I haven't seen any serious study which proves that slow vehicles cause far fewer road accidents. But Newton's Law of Motion gives us the equation F/M=A from which we can derive M(A)= F. Such that a lower acceleration will produce a weaker force and probably cause less damage in the event of a mishap. Yet, it still depends on how the accidents go. A car moving  at 10 kph and running over a stray dog would still kill the dog as a car running at 100 kph, but Duterte would not mind any one running over a stray dog -- they shoot stray dogs after catching them in Davao. Yet, how will this speed limit apply to the millions of cars in other cities of the country, such as Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Cagayan de Oro? Imagine the stretch of Katipunan with its parade of trucks everyday running at 30 kph. My son, Juancho, would probably take ten years to finish from UP as he would always be late for his classes and those trucks are going to stall traffic in that area. How long would it take to go to Tagaytay or Baguio City? Lawyers would probably camp out of the courts on the eve of their hearings to make sure they arrive on time. I would also surmise that it would be the final blow to the newspaper business as they would arrive one day late. On the positive side, it would rid our roads of big American trucks and cars in favor of Asian made 1.1 cc vehicles as people would have no use for gas gusslers if they can drive them up only to 30 kph. And the jeepney drivers, some of whom gear up to second gear from a stop, would be dismayed to find out the second gear is the highest gear they could go. Ayos ba bay?

128. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: 4. The Death of the Dress Code

In the 1990's, our moot court professor Judge Oscar Pimentel used to berate us for folding the sleeves of our Barong. Young and impressionable law students that we were, we couldn't understand why Judge Pimentel disapproved of such fashion sense among the male would-be lawyers when then Pres. Ramos himself was going around his official functions in long sleeves Barong with the sleeves folded up to the elbow. Apparently, Pres. Ramos's handlers thought it was a symbolic way of showing that the President was hands on with his job and his official wardrobe's formality was getting in the way of his work. With Duterte, however, it seems the entire Barong, not just the sleeves, is on its way out. I haven't seen Duterte in any official wear, and his wardrobe appears to be composed mostly of jeans and sports shirts. This reinforces Duterte's image of being a man of the ordinary people as indeed, it is easy to alienate others if one comes in a Barong or even a coat and tie. Thus, much to the dismay of  Judge Oscar Pimentel, the entire Barong, not just the long sleeves, would be retired during the Duterte Presidency, assuming it happens. As in the Ramos era,  the Barong's formality would also get in the way of work as it can be easily soiled by stains of blood. Pesteng yawa.

127. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: 3. Middle Kingdom Woes

We all heard it last night: Duterte is going on a jet ski to the Spartlys to plant the Philippine flag and dare the Chinese navy to shoot him. It sounds like a joke, but I think it's cryptic. What he is actually saying is there is nothing he can do about it. On other occasions he floated the idea of a joint venture with China, yet I think he missed the fact that there are other countries fighting over the islands, including Vietnam, which planted a cell site on one of them and offered a better signal than Smart. So, a joint venture with China might actually cause us to fall from  grace with other southeast asian countries interested in the islands. We become friendly with China and become enemies with other neighbors.  It only shows Duterte has no plan yet for the Spratlys issue, and all he is trying to do is use the issue to promote his tough guy image. But come June 30, 2016, all we can do is follow up on his pledge to go on a jet ski to the Spartlys with the Philippine flag, and dare the Chinese navy to shoot him. And if they do? Well, I hope Leni Robredo is the vice-president then. 

126. Problems and Prospects of D30D in 2016: 2. Following through theFederalism Promise

2. Duterte promised federalism and I'm sure to the average Juan the big "F" sounds like a good idea. But are we going to break up the Republic into federal states like the US of A, and are we thinking that automatically we'll have prosperity like the US of A? The most immediate impact of federalism to this country is that it will increase the number of elective and appointive positions in government. It is going to create redundancies in order to give the federal states autonomy. The model is the ARMM where they have secretaries of departments over the ARMM region and the local secretaries appear to have more power than the secretary in Manila. So, if we have federal states, then we will have as many sets of cabinet secretaries as there are federal states. Are we going to have as many sets of congressmen and senators too? What happens to the judiciary? Are we going to have little supreme courts too and one big super supreme court in Padre Faura? How long will it take for my little ejectment case to finish from the Municipal Trial Court to the final Supreme Court when as it is it already takes six years to finish. We might end up having more public officials than ordinary citizens. Somebody please do the staff work on this federalism shit.

to be continued

125. Problems and Prospects of a Duterte Presidency 1. Adjusting to Life with the DDS

The signs are all over. Duterte rallies have been well-attended. Carlos Celdran has been praising the Liberal Party (in spite of Proceso Alcala) to argue the case for program continuity. Meanwhile, Poe's team has been brandishing the ho-hum news of the solitary defection of Joey Salceda to GP's  team while Binay is saying Duterte should have a psyche test from Makati. Yet, all I can imagine is Edwin Lacierda raging live on ABS CBN on Guido Delgado's similar suggestion for PNoy in the 2010 campaign.  What can you say people of Daang Matuwid? A friend of mine said the Mar campaign committee has released an email to adherrents persuading them about the nine or so reasons why Mar will win. In other words, every non-Duterte fan is desperate. While I am not about to concede that Duterte is going to win, I would like to be prepared when it happens. So, here are my key problems and prospects in the event that the Duterte  dream (or disaster, however you want to look at it) comes upon the Republic on June 30, 2016. 

1. Adjusting to life with the DDS (aka Davao/Duterte Death Squad)

Everybody seems to be focused on the resulting peace and comfort that is expected to come with the promised elimination of criminal elements in three to six months. But how are we going to live with the DDS? Am I postponing dieting for a good six years because the criminogenic profile of a drug pusher/addict resembles the stick thin Joey Pepe Smith? If we all start to get thin, the DDS might mistake us for drug pushers/addicts and put us on the hot list for elimination. And are drug dealers the only criminals on the hotlist? What about the smugglers, tax evaders, adulterers, concubines, stock market manipulators, money launderers, SALN falsifiers, check bouncers, estafadores, facebook hackers, pornographers, trespassers, forgers, mambobosos, and the like? Can the DDS even tell which criminal should go? Is the punishment for all crimes death? What if you just snorted a molecule of cocaine? I'm preparing my resume so I can apply for slot as a consiglieri of the DDS. Maybe they need some guidelines, a lesson on mala in se and mala prohibita, culpa, culpa aquilana,   a lecture on the classic Lecaroz v Sandiganbayan, and dare I say --  DP as in "d.u.e. p.r.o.c.e.s.s."?   I'd do it for free as long as they keep me out of that list. 

(to be continued) 

121. Every Massacre is a Repetition of Another

Line art by Celeste Lecaroz. Coloring by Teresa Regina Aceron Copyright 2016

I was inside the San Beda College compound when they shot the farmers in January 1987. We were told not to leave the campus until around 8pm, and what I saw afterwards in Mendiola was the big mountain of slippers and other belongings that were gathered after the crowd was dispersed. Thirteen people died and a lot more were injured in that incident. Jose Diokno was supposed to speak in the San Beda auditorium the following day,  but because of the heartbreaking event, he cancelled his engagement. The goverment was saying it was the fault of the leftists for having agitated the farmers to proceed to Mendiola after their week stay in the compound of the Department of Agrarian Reform where their demand for an immediate land reform program became futile. And I can't help to see the parallelism between Mendiola and Kidapawan, which happened on April 1, 2016: an Aquino in power; farmers demanding something immediate to them, land and food; the red scare, the blame being put in Leftist/NPA, and most importantly, the injured and the dead. Jose Diokno, one of the greatest figures in Philippine legal history, resigned from the Aquino government then in 1987 in disgust. According to her daughter, Dr. Maris Serena Diokno, "It was the only time we saw him in tears." So far, this is the only thing not repeating itself in this massacre, a man of honor in an Aquino government condemning the massacre and resigning from it. Every one else is saying, "Let's wait for an investigation." Some are even saying, this is a set up for Duterte. Well, at least, we know Nietzsche's Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence has a crack. When events repeat themselves, there are variations. Yet, the crack on the Kidapawan Massacre is on the heads of those Aquino sycophants.

120. Open Notes

When I used to teach in a law school, I had a policy of open notes during exams.  I guess my students loved me for it, but soon they realized that the answers to my questions are not in any book. My theory is that the true measure of learning is in the ability of the students to determine the relevance of available legal information given a particular problem and the ability to apply the legal information to the problem. This process presupposes that the student has read through the material, determined the important matters, synthesized the lessons, and has found their connection to real life scenarios. So the students who have not been doing their homework will never pass the exam even if I allow them to open their notes during exams. They would more likely than not miss the point, fail to spot the relevant issues, and cite the wrong law.  This is the same view I have for the presidential debates. It doesn't matter if they have open notes.  If they don't know their stuff, they would be muttering irrelevant information and they would miss the point of every question. Besides, intelligence is less about data, but more about disciplined thinking, just like the presidency being less about debates but more about leadership. Incidentally, the candidate -- who claimed to be unaware of the no notes policy and insisted on a compromise where everyone is not allowed to have notes except him -- has already shown the brand of self-entitled idiotic leadership he brings. Heaven forbid that he wins. 

110. Debates are useless

The logic of adversity is the logic of deceit. That's why debates hardly ferret out the truth. Candidates put in adversarial positions are going to slug it out like roosters in a cockfight, each one vying to be the best in sync with the metrics set by the organizers of the debate. The casualty is the truth. Let's have a dialogue instead. Put the candidates in their most relaxed state, tell them there are no grades, no one gets credit for anything, let them put their best ideas on the table, and let them decide which ideas the winners of this elections would push. It's one country after all. No more debates. Let's have a dialogue. 

100. Campaign Finance Issues: Why no independent election expense?

In Ejercito v. COMELEC (G.R. No.212398 November 25, 2014), Ejercito argued that an election borne by a political supporter without the knowledge and consent of the candidate should not be counted against the candidate's expense limit. The Supreme Court said, however, that in this jurisdiction the concept of independent election expense is not applicable. Thus, a political advertisement worth more than Php 23 M, which Ejercito claimed was paid for by a supporter, was deemed as overspending against Ejercito's limit of barely Php 4.5 Million, leading to his disqualification. As a matter of fact, Section 4 Rule V of Comelec Resolution No. 9991 known as the Omnibus Rules on Campaign Finance, requires all political expenditures to bear the written consent of the candidate or the political party. What is the implication? If, for example, I print on my own volition my advocacy for the presidency of Allan Carreon, the intergalactic ambassador, I would need Allan Carreon to sign off on it, otherwise I have just committed an election offense. Further, whatever money I spent on the sticker is charged to Allan Carreon's election expense limit. Poor guy. If the Martians decide to bankroll his campaign without his knowledge, he could be disqualified not as a nuisance but as an election overspender, like Ejercito in 2013. 

96. A vote for Mar Roxas is not a referendum on Aquino

Unless the Aquino fans want to break their hearts or their political strategists think people are really stupid, the idea that a vote for Mar Roxas is a referendum on the Aquino Presidency should be thrashed. It is not true. The PNoy magic is non-transferrable. The approval ratings and the polls have it. This is like the Ramos endorsement of Joe De Venecia in the 1998 elections. Ramos and JDV were called the jumping twins as they went around the country jumping together on stage in an attempt to share Ramos's winning moment with Joe during the early days of the Edsa Revolt when Ramos jumped for joy amidst the initially false information that Marcos has left. Bad myth, bad execution. JDV was an unknown in 1986 and people were more enamored with the idea that Erap would be president. Thus, whoever thought  Mar would be benefitted if they peddle around the idea that a vote for him is an affirmation of the PNoy Presidency should be sent his walking papers and  learn from the writers of Kalyeserye. As a matter of fact, people are suspicious that he may be leveraging government assets for his campaign. Further, people are not entirely happy with the  Aquino Presidency. Nobody is ecstatic about PNoy anymore. If you're Mar Roxas enjoying the President's endorsement, you're handicapped, because you're not expected to criticize the administration. But people want to hear criticism. They want change, they're tired of the finger-pointing system of PNoy. They want to hear somebody speak and say this is where PNoy made a mistake, so this is what should be fixed. If you can't do that, then you are nothing but a power-hungry sycophant. In Tagalog, sipsip. In my entire life electing people from grade school  elections, PTAs, political parties, local and national elections, the sipsips never win. So, bust the idea. PNoy is not equal to Mar. Mar is not equal to PNoy. 

94. #1 Defining Moment of the PNoy Administration: PNoy appoints J.Sereno as Chief Justice

I don't remember the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court being ever immune from politics. Teehankee wouldn't get appointed by Marcos despite his seniority. Cory Aquino would appoint him eventually after he administered her oath in one of the rare occasions that the republic had two presidents. Marcelo Fernan got appointed in exchange for his political work for Cory in Cebu. Narvasa got appointed for his work in the Agrava Commission. Erap appointed Davide as a favor to Lucio Tan. Panganiban was appointed by Gloria Arroyo for his active role in EDSA Dos and installing the acting President GMA. I'm still figuring out the story about CJ Reynato Puno, and I'm betting it's through his freemason connection as the freemasons led by then DPWH Sec. and former General Hermogenes Ebdane wielded considerable power and influence during the GMA years. When Puno retired, the post of chief justice was contested between J. Carpio and J. Corona, and GMA appointed J. Corona during the period in which midnight appointments were banned. The story is Carpio was punished, as it were, for that stinging ponencia in that PIRMA decision, which permanently shut down GMA's hopes of perpetuating herself to power. So, when Corona was impeached the big question was would the President appoint Carpio? There is no question Carpio had more gravitas. Carpio was in the mainstream pack of the legal profession. He was the founder of Carpio Villaraza and Cruz, which I would liken to the Bulls and Lakers dynasties combined in the NBA, having been plucked from obscurity by Fidel V. Ramos, leading the Estrada impeachment as well as prosecution, and having powerful government posts in the GMA era like the Department  of National Defense, Ombudsman and justice of the Supreme Court. Justice Sereno had a stellar career as well, albeit none in the judiciary. Unlike J. Carpio, she had no powerful organization backing her up like masons or a latin sounding fraternity or a law firm. All she had was a small religious organization. But Aquino appointed J. Sereno, a young jurist with no political or commercial backers. It's like one of those classic chess games in which Kasparov would offer a rook in exchange for apparently nothing and Topalov's jaw would drop. I'm still making sense of it, but one thing is sure, the appointment insulated the Supreme Court from the power brokers that dominated the judiciary for the last forty years. It's a shot to the future. Finally, no single law firm, lawyer, or litigant, can command an en banc review of settled cases at the whim of a single handwritten note, as Estelito Mendoza used to do. This is the single long lasting legacy of the PNoy Administration, a Supreme Court that would not be a rubber stamp for powerful competing interests in the republic. And Aquino would get what he wish for when the Sereno-led Supreme Court would overrule his Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) as unconstitutional. So stung was Aquino with the defeat that he went on a media rampage assailing the Supreme Court, but the deed is done. As CJ Sereno once said, "Excuse me, I don't serve Presidents."