Manny Villar’s allies in the senate pulled off a smooth parliamentary maneuver today by boycotting the expected vote to censure Villar over the C-5 road diversion.  Ed Angara, Joker Arroyo,  Alan and Pia Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Loren Legarda, Nene Pimentel, Bong Revilla, Miriam Santiago, and Villar himself were absent at the last day of the senate’s session. The absence of a quorum made it impossible for the chamber to conduct business, including to take up the expected vote on the senate resolution on Villar.

As majority senators pointed out, it made not only a vote on Villar impossible, it also made any other votes on any other pending bills impossible.  Now tied with Noynoy Aquino in the surveys for the top spot among presidential candidates, Villar probably calculated that his absence would not make enough of a dent on his numbers as much as a censure by his peers would.  Future surveys will tell if this calculation was correct, but from a procedural point of view, this boycott was completely unnecessary.

First of all, the majority did not have the numbers to pass the censure motion.

Lets do the math.

The senators who would have voted to censure Villar are Enrile, Honasan, Aquino, Roxas, Gordon, Madrigal, Lacson, Pangilinan, Estrada, Escudero, Biazon, and Zubiri.  Twelve senators that would have been just enough for a simple majority to “convict” Villar, assuming that a simple majority was all it takes, as Enrile says, and not a two thirds majority as Santiago claims.  Nevertheless, Lacson is out of the country and would not have been able to vote.  In short, with Lacson absent, the majority did not have the numbers to pass the censure motion against Villar, making the boycott unnecessary.

Unfortunately, the boycott also made it impossible for the senate to do its job–to pass bills on the last day of the session. Partisan politics has once again trumped  legislation.  Its not only the bills that are the casualty here.  The senate, who spent months fighting over the Villar C-5 issue only to fail to resolve it one way or another, now looks diminished.

The plane was built in Australia in the 1970s for short trips..production was discountined in 1995 after numerous reports that the plane was unsafe because of  design flaws..including a tendency to develop stress cracks when flying.  Only 172 of these Nomads were made.  These are not the same Nomads that are now being manufactured by Gippsland Aeronautics, another Aussie company that is redeveloping the plane.

The problems were detailed in a 2004 report by the Australian Broadcasting Company.

According to ABC…the plane was nicknamed “the Widowmaker” after 19 of them crashed over a 20 year period, causing 56 deaths.

The ABC report told the story of an Australian aircraft fitter named Michael Paul who discovered the design flaws as far back as 1989. But when he reported the problems to his superiors, he was threatened with disciplnary action.

Paul kept quiet until 1991 when a Nomad carrying a friend crashed in Australia.  Paul committed suicide in 2004.

The ABC story became known in Australia as the Nomad scandal.

As recently as November 2009, a Nomad owned by the Indonesian navy crashed in East Kalimantan province. The Air Force had four Nomands in operation including the one that crashed today.  They were acquierd in 1975. The question now is if the plane had been known to have so many design flaws that its production had to be discontinued..why were the Philippine Air Force and Indonesian Navy still using it?

Ivler was subdued and he and his mother were rushed to the hospital. 

Ivler was unshaven, his hair had grown longer than in those videos you see on the news and he has tatoos all over his arm.  Blood dripped from his abdomen, but his wounds did not appear to be life threatening.

The mother had claimed that he was out of the country and even pleaded tearfully in a video for him to give up.   Guess that was all bullshit.

Good thing Maan and Rollie are unhurt. Looks like the NBI did a good job.

The things we do for a story.

Here’s the link to some of the video.

By Frank Drilon

The forthcoming retirement of Chief Justice Reynato Puno and President Arroyo’s impending exit from power presents an interesting legal question that will have an impact not only on our Supreme Court, but on our country’s future as well.

It will also provide the answers to persistent questions whether the Arroyo administration will leave behind a Supreme Court that will continue to enjoy a perception of judicial independence.

Chief Justice Puno retires in four months, on May 17, 2010, after the country had elected a new President, and 45 days before the constitutionally-mandated transfer of presidential power from President Arroyo to her successor on June 30, 2010 had transpired.

In a letter dated December 22, 2009, Rep. Matias Defensor, a member of the Judicial and Bar Council, urged his colleagues in the JBC to nominate the successor of the Chief Justice even before he retires on May 17, 2010.

The paramount question is: Under the 1987 Constitution, can an outgoing President Arroyo still appoint the successor of Chief Justice Puno?

Article VIII, Section 4(1) of the Constitution provides that any vacancy in the Supreme Court shall be filled within ninety days from the occurrence thereof.

On the other hand, Article VII, Section 15 of the same Constitution provides that after two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his term, a President or Acting President shall not make appointments except temporary appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies therein will prejudice or endanger public safety.

A precedent case in this situation would be the 1998 Supreme Court case entitled In Re Appointments of Valenzuela and Vallarta, wherein the high tribunal was confronted with the question of whether, during the period when appointments are banned, the President was required to appoint a Regional Trial Court judge in view of Article VIII, Section 9, which mandates that the President shall issue the appointments within 90 days from the submission of the list by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC).

In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that during the period of the ban under Section 15, Article VII, or the prohibition against midnight appointments, the President cannot make such appointments. The Court said that the President was neither required to make appointments to the courts, nor allowed to do so during the last 90 days of the President’s term.

The court noted that the exception in Article VII, Section 15 — allowing appointments to be made during the period of the ban therein provided — was much narrower than that recognized in the 1962 case of Aytona vs Castillo.

In this case, the Supreme Court struck down as illegal the so-called midnight appointments by then outgoing President Carlos Garcia, who issued 350 appointments in one day in December 1961 and set the induction of the new officers a few hours before the inauguration of his successor, President Diosdado Macapagal.
The Supreme Court ruled that the outgoing President is no more than a caretaker administrator whose duty was to prepare for the orderly transfer of authority to the incoming President.

In the Aytona versus Castillo case, the SC took the view that the restriction on the President’s appointing power prevailed over the time frame for filling vacancies in the judiciary as the prevention of vote buying and similar evils outweighs the need for avoiding delays in filling up court vacancies or the disposition of some cases.

In the light of all these, a major role will be played by the JBC in the selection of the next Supreme Court chief. In fact, more questions are raised as far as the JBC is concerned on this matter.

Will the JBC convene before Chief Justice Puno retires in order to deliberate and submit to President Arroyo the list of nominees to succeed Puno, as suggested by President Arroyo’s ally, Rep. Matias Defensor? If the JBC, which is chaired by the Chief Justice himself, refuses to convene, can the majority of the Supreme Court compel it to do so?

It is essential to note that the JBC was created as a limitation on the President’s authority to appoint members of the judiciary and to minimize, if not totally shield, judicial appointments from political pressure.

Of late, however, media observers have noted that President Arroyo’s three most recent appointments to the Supreme Court have been non-controversial.

But questions are still being raised on the independence of the judiciary because of the dominance of the President Arroyo’s appointees in the Supreme Court.
With the appointment of Justice Jose Mendoza, the latest SC appointee, President Arroyo has named all but one of the court’s 15 magistrates. Puno, the lone holdout, was named to the high court in 1993 by President Ramos but it was President Arroyo who made him chief justice.

We live in an imperfect world and we reckon that judicial decision-making operates in a complex arena in which law and precedent are inevitably intermixed with personality, prejudice and politics.

But government cannot uphold the rule of law and institute good governance without an independent judicial system, free from external influence. That is why we have textual safeguards to minimize, if not prevent, incursions into the process of judicial decision-making.

Hence, under our Constitution, the President can only appoint from a list of nominees prepared by the JBC. Members of the judiciary are given security of tenure. Congress is banned from passing a law that reorganizes the judiciary and the judiciary enjoys fiscal autonomy.

Given these safeguards, can we say that we have a truly independent and effective justice system? Can we truly say that the toxic political environment we see today has not invaded our justice system?

We support efforts to make the JBC process more transparent and effective in the performance of its mandated constitutional duty. However, there are certain institutional constraints that must be addressed.

The membership of the JBC must be revisited. For one, we must remove the Justice Secretary and the two Congress representatives from its roster to insulate the nominating process from political influence. Moreover, the regular members of the JBC should not be eligible to any reappointment. A JBC, independent of the Supreme Court, is a concept worth considering, we believe.

Under the institutional concept of judicial independence, the insulation of the courts from external influence is the central element of a judiciary in a society that upholds the rule of law.

The importance of the judiciary as an institution of democracy should never be compromised. As guardians of the system of justice and advocates for the rule of law, the people must ensure that the allegiance of our judiciary is only to the law.
The people’s faith in our democracy depends on a judicial system that is free to dispense justice without fear or favor.

END

Note: The writer, Frank Drilon, served as Senate President, Justice Secretary, Labor Secretary and Executive Secretary, spanning 32 years in public service. He was a bar top notcher and a staunch advocate of reforms in the judiciary. He is the national chairman of the Liberal Party (LP) and its leading senatorial candidate in the May elections.

Its hard to watch the first video without choking back a tear. Its just as hard to watch the other two videos without your blood starting to boil.
Maybe those people cheering and that priest pontificating should be made to watch the bloodied bodies being pulled out of shallow graves. They should be made to hear the cries of the families of the murdered journalists and lawyers, and even the Mangudadatus. Do they still have the capacity to care? Or have they managed to convince themselves that what happened in Maguindanao has nothing to do with their support for the Ampatuans and the Arroyos?
Don’t kid yourselves folks. The rise of the Ampatuans is inextricably linked to the rise of the Arroyos.
When she assumed the presidency in 2001, she was a ware that she had no mandate quickly had to secure the support of local politicians both in the provinces and in Congress. She cultivated and enabled the Ampatuans and they delivered in 2004 when she “beat” Fernando Poe Jr., in ARMM and Maguindanao and in 2007 when the 12 administration senatorial candidates managed a not-so-clean 12-0 sweep in Maguindanao.
And she repaid them by turning a blind eye to their abuses. So when public school teachers in the province complained that their GSIS contributions over the years had never been paid to the GSIS and therefore they were ineligible for their pensions, nobody did anything. When witnesses to cheating in the 2007 election just disappeared off the face of the Earth, nobody did anything. In fact the Ampatuans were rewarded with an executive order that effectively enabled them to legally build their own private army; the same one apparently that massacred those 59 people in the video.
And while this was going on the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police did absolutely nothing about it, in part because the Ampatuans were also an instrument of their counter insurgency policy. The Ampatuans and their private army were also being used as an augmentation force against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The Ampatuans were, in effect, subsidizing the operations of the AFP against the MILF.

The massacre has forced even some of the Ampatuan’s allies to throw them to the dogs. PaLaKa CMD has expelled them from the party and Local Government Secretary Ronnie Puno has supposedly suspended ARMM governor Zaldy Ampatuan and Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan. Even the Palace’s most rabid apologists in the media have chosen to shut up about the massacre and are keeping their word processors silent instead defending the Ampatuans as they normally would (you know who I’m talking about).

Still, I guess there’s no atrocity so heinous that you can’t find at least some people who will defend it.

Randy David (who is not making good on his threat to run against her) says she will use the vast resources accumulated over her term as president to buy control of the Lower House and make herself Speaker.  Being speaker is a way to protect herself against prosecution by an unfriendly administration and to continue to wield influence over national politics.

Imagine a Lower House under the control of Arroyo. The threat of impeachment  against an unfriendly government should be enough to stop an investigation of  her (alleged) wrongdoing.  A Lower House under Arroyo could also presumably move to revise the Constitution to engineer a shift to a parliamentary form of government.  Does that sound far out?  History shows us that its not as unlikely as it looks.

Jose P. Laurel was president under the second republic under the Japanese occupation.  After the war, Laurel became a senator.  In the United States, John Quincy Adams became a congressman after losing a bid to be reelected president.  And in Russia, Vladimir Putin was prevented by the constitution from seeking another term as president, so he made himself prime minister and  engineered the election of Dmitri Medyedev as a malleable president.  There is little doubt that it is Putin who calls the shots in Russia today.

Perhaps what we are seeing today is an attempt to replicate the Russian model.  Of course it won’t be exactly the same.  Chances are Noynoy Aquino will become president in a fair election and he won’t agree to play the Medyedev role of puppet president, so Arroyo will have to find a way to outmaneuver him.

Like Fidel Ramos, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is not willing to fade away.  But unlike Ramos she has the balls to do what it takes to remain a player on the national stage even after she gives up the presidency.  Assuming she give it up.    Given how all the worst case assumptions of her critics seem to be materializing,  I wouldn’t be surprised if when the smoke clears, Arroyo will be the last one standing.  Just like Vladimir Putin.

THIS IS ONE OF THE LESS GRUESOME IMAGES FROM THE MAGUINDANAO MASSACRE

Has someone finally done it?  Has someone committed a crime so heinous, so gruesome, so heartless and brazen that even the ethically impaired  regime of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo could not ignore it?

Over the past decade, we’ve seen the same pattern of behavior when a member or ally of the regime has been caught breaking the law: stonewall, divide the public, attack the witness, make some minor concessions if necessary, wait for the public anger to blow over, but otherwise do nothing to correct the crime.

We saw that when the Hello Garci recordings came out,  when the unconstitutional Spratly exploration deal was signed with China in exchange for billions of dollars in “loans”,  in the ZTE national broadband deal, and others so numerous they now escape my memory.  All of the accused were part of the regime and today they are still living it up, unpunished, unrepentant.

But the brazen massacre of close to 60 people in Maguindanao Monday morning–apparently by a scion of the  most powerful provincial warlord–has created a firestorm of outrage around the world.  So brazen and violent was the crime that it seems even the Arroyo regime is considering throwing the Ampatuans into the wilderness.

Not that its hasn’t tried to sweep the murders under the rug.  So far none of  the Ampatuans have been questioned, no attempt has been made to disarm them, and executive secretary Ed Ermita has warned the public not to prejudge their loyal allies and Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera says the Ampatuans are not suspects yet.  But eyewitnesses  have placed Andal Ampatuan Jr at the scene of the crime, and people familar with Maguindanao will tell you that no one else in the province has the numbers of  armed militia under their control.  All of the evidence gathered so far points to the young Ampatuan one of  the warlords that did the most to deliver the ARMM to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the 2004 and 2007 elections.

But the growing crescendo of international outrage is proving too hard for Arroyo to ignore.  She now has to at least APPEAR to be doing something. So she is now going through the motions.  She has issued two (!) statements expressing her outrage, her PaLaKa political party has expelled  the Ampatuans from its ranks (they’re shocked–shocked that one of their own could be involved in any wrongdoing!) , and the Armed Forces has been ordered to take over the provincial capital but otherwise do absolutely nothing.   Meanwhile I am told that efforts are underway to placate the main victims, the Magudadatos, to get them to settle their differences with the Ampatuans in a more civilized manner (ever watch the Godfather? There’s a scene where after Sonny Corleone is killed, the heads of the families get together to try to put an end to their war, except for the life of me I can’t imagine Arroyo in the Marlon Brando role).

But  these actions are cosmetic in nature.  As we say in the finance world, its all just optics.  As of this writing, the Ampatuans still haven’t been brought in for questioning, nor has any effort been made to disarm them or the Magudadatos.   The AFP says the actual triggermen have (conveniently) escaped.

Its beginning to look like another whitewash.

But here have been times in the past when public anger has been strong enough to get the international community angry as well and it is at these time that the Arroyo Regime has been forced to act against its natural tendencies and actually do the right thing.  It happened in late 2005 to early 2006 when the Bush Administration weighed in against the Regime’s plan to declare martial law.  It happened in 2007, when the Chinese government, stung by the criticism after it was dragged into the ZTE  National Broadband deal, cancelled billions of dollars in unaccountable loans that could have been the source of unimaginable graft.

The Magudadatos were not the only victims here.  There were journalists, lawyers, and apparently innocent bystanders just walking by that were also murdered Monday. The Regime may be able to convince the Magudadatos to back off, but that would leave the others unavenged.  Not just the others who were killed Monday but the other nameless, faceless people who have died at the hands of the godfathers of Maguindanao.

I still find it hard to imagine that someone will be held accountable for this.  But hope against hope that this be another case where the anger gets so loud that Arroyo has no choice but to do the right thing.

Osmena says he could not tolerate being in the same senatorial slate as Ralph Recto.

Recto, erstwhile friend of Manny Villar and Arroyo regime ally, has flitted on over to the Liberal Party bearing gifts; namely the name and clout of his wife, Batangas governor Vilma Santos and the promise of delivering the province to the LP. Batangas has never really been a Liberal bailiwick and the chance to pick up some local leaders there could help Noynoy Aquino’s election.

The problem that Osmena had with that was that Recto, until a f ew days ago was part of the Arroyo regime, having served as loyal senator and economic planning secretary.  Osmena argues that the presence of Recto (and Caloocan mayor Recom Echeverri who has also jumped on the LP bandwagon) undermines the message that Noynoy Aquino is a nontraditional politician.  It also undermines the oppositionist credentials of Aquino and the LP (Echeverri was also a package deal with the highly regarded Quezon City mayor Sonny Belmonte).

Pragmatists in the LP say that the Recto-Santos couple give them ground troops in Batangas, something that the LP sorely lacks.  Its also gives them Vilma Santos, one of the few administration and showbiz politicians who is actually considered to have done a good job in office.   But she came with a price.  Her husband.

Thus has been the classic dilemna of the Liberal Party since I have known them.  How does a reformist party win power without resorting too much to the type of political horsetrading that kills reforms?  How far can one party use traditional political methods to attain power without being swallowed up by the traditional politicans?

There are  purists who say one must not make political compromises, must not play transactional politics, and must not be tainted with any association with traditional politicians.  Since that’s not possible in reality, most political purists–while well meaning–have by default excluded themsleves from the political process altogether and are left shouting at their TVs.

On the other extreme are the traditional politicians who view politics as a series of transactions meant to advance nothing more than the interest of the highest bidder (and themselves in the process).  To them platform is meaningless and anyone who tries to advance common good is nothing but a holier-than-thou do gooder.  You don’t have to look far to find one of them.

Both extremes are unrealistic and unacceptable.  The Liberals have tried to find the balance between the two and sometimes its not an easy task.  They have encouraged civil society and nontraditional organizations to join them and help put together an nontraditional campaign infrastructure. They have also tried to build  the traditional political machinery..the tried and tested get-out-the-vote infrastructure controlled by local politicians in exchange for patronage.  Leaning too far towards the NGOs is unlikely to get anyone elected, while doing too many deals with the pols will alienate the nontraditional forces backing the LP which are responsible for his sky high poll numbers and also essential for election victory.

The decision to bring Recto into the fold was one of those hard choices.  Many people objected to Recto for the same reason Osmena did.  Osmena is not a purist, but for him it was to much. Others argued that they were needed to win Batangas.  In the end,  Aquino decided to go with the Rectos and Osmena decided to go it alone.

Will Osmena’s departure lead to more? Will Aquino’s poll numbers take a hit from the Recto deal?

In the end, does the LP gain more than it loses by playing footsies with Recto and Echeverri?

Malacanang spokesman Lorelei Fajardo said this week that there is a clamor for Arroyo to run for Congress adding fuel to the talk that she would run in order to become speaker and maneuver a shift to a parliamentary form of government.
Randy’s thesis is a bit different. He says she will not necessarily try to change our form of government to parliamentary but working within the current form of government, dispense patronage to effectively control the House and possibly the Senate to hold the next president politically hostage. he says that if she succeeds, any attempt by the next president to make her accountable for her crimes or act against her interest would get him impeached.
It seemed a but hard to believe at first. That presumes that Arroyo has stashed away enough money to outbid the president and buy the votes of enough lawmakers to make them defy Malacanang. But David says she shouldn’t be underestimated.
Its audacious. Its out of the box. But its not impossible.
Arroyo has the guts, the savvy, and possibly the resources to make it happen.