Talking peace in the Philippines

Benigno Aquino III, the newly-installed president of the Philippines, won the office by the largest plurality in the nation’s history.

Inconsistency is their name

FRONTLINE 03/19/2010 Funny thing about these civil socialites and politicos who now suddenly claim to be opposition figures: They keep silent when the high court issues a ruling favorable to whoever they support politically, but rant and throw tantrums when the ruling goes against those whom they support. A case in point: When the high court ruled favorably on the legitimacy of Gloria Arroyo’s assumption to Malacañang, even when clearly it was done through a naked power grab, and that there was clearly no vacancy in the presidency at the time the disgraceful Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., swore her in, her civil socialites were over the moon at the ruling — and never…

A tale of two central bank governors

ZOOMING IN 03/19/2010 To be able to do a good job of making its monetary policies, the members of a country’s monetary policymaking authority, or central bank, must not be subservient to the political leadership of the nation and must be immune from dictation by any quarter. This prohibition applies particularly to the governor of a country’s central bank, who is the head of what I regard as the fourth branch of government and personifies the institution that is the sole banknote-issuing authority of every territory in the world except the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. From time to time, central bank governors are subjected to pressure, undue influence, intimidation or outright…

Kicking Gloria

(Leandro V. Coronel, a former Washington D.C. and now Manila commentator, writes about the last few months in office of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Coronel, like Mrs. Arroyo, is from the same province of Pampanga, Philippines. The President said she will step down when her term ends in June, 2010. This is the [...]

Arroyo in DC meet April 11-12

WASHINGTON D.C. – President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will be in Washington D.C. on April 11-12 to attend a Nuclear Security Summit to be hosted by President Barack Obama. The nuclear summit aims at pushing forward a counter-proliferation agenda, National Security Council Spokesman Mike Hammed told reporters in a briefing held at the Foreign Press Center.
Hammer [...]

Probables

FRONTLINE 03/03/2010 Win or lose their senatorial seats, chances are high that the next president, whoever he will be, will either pardon the military rebels running for elective positions facing cases in the civilian courts and the military court or even better for them, the new president will seek from Congress an amnesty for these rebels.

New wave of balimbings risking

ZOOMING IN 02/24/2010 At the outset, the opposition to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo consisted of partisans of the man she succeeded as President and those who did not like the manner in which she obtained the highest position in the land. The latter group of Filipinos was not necessarily pro-Joseph Estrada, but because of the highly unconstitutional nature of the Jan

Enough of Gloria?

HE SAYS 02/22/2010 The script called for a few tears to fall but Mikey Arroyo could not deliver. He is, after all, a bad actor, and his past forays in the movies (even when he was paired, for a fee of course, with a very fine actress like Judy Ann Santos) can attest to that. He could not deliver believable lines, he could not deliver even crocodile tears.

Unrealistic

FRONTLINE 02/20/2010 Can an incumbent president bind her successor to what she agrees to with an Islamic secessionist group, by way of a “package of obligations?” The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has nixed a peace accord with Gloria Arroyo, apparently thinks so, as the rebel group is now saying that the peace deal it seeks with the government can push through with the incoming government as long as whatever is promised by Arroyo to them before she leaves Malacañang, will be binding on the next president.

An unconstitutional peace pact again?

FRONTLINE 01/29/2010 With some five months to go before she departs Malacañang, Gloria Arroyo is still pushing through with a peace pact with the Moro secessionists, which will still give them the so-called “ancestral homeland” they have been demanding from this government. Malacañang says that the new peace pact, or the second Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) for the Bangsa Moro people, which is really the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels, will follow the constitutional path, unlike the first one, which was struck down by the high court for being unconstitutional. The idea apparently is to divide…

Passion and mitigation

By Ronald RoyCOMMENT 01/28/2010 I agree that “it’s nice to have our streets back, clean and quiet,” but I disagree because the militants have given up their cause.

Options

NO HOLDS BARRED 01/22/2010 It’s the talk of the town, these various scenarios: There’s no way automated elections will push through, we’ll be back to the manual system that takes days and days on end to count so there’ll be cheating, the voting may not even take place so by June 30 we’ll find out that Gloria Arroyo is still president and will be forever and ever, amen. Activists say this, but it would first do us good to realize there are activists and there are activists

Holding the aces

FRONTLINE 01/13/2010 It won’t be admitted publicly by opposing camps, but the issue of who should appoint the next chief justice is all about politics, not only being played by those opposing the move for Gloria Arroyo to name Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno, but also within, and among the SC justices. The highest ambition of an SC associate justice is to become the chief justice. That’s normal, by the way, and no one should begrudge any justice in the high court for aiming for that position

Khmer Rouge Clone

By Juan Mercado
CEBU
President Gloria Macapagal -Arroyo’s legacy has been indelibly stained by a bucolic Maguindanao hillside turned into Khmer Rouge-style killing field.
In Amaptuan town, 64 (official tally is 57) bodies — civilians, journalists and passer-bys — were exhumed from mass graves. Genitals of 22 women-were shattered by gunshots, Justice Secretary Agnes Denavadera revealed. Some were [...]

All eyes on the Supreme Court

FRONTLINE 12/11/2009 There is hardly any doubt that the Congress, filled with Gloria Arroyo’s allies, will uphold her martial law (ML) proclamation for the given 60 days. This was never in question, despite the fact that there are really no constitutional and legal grounds for such a declaration, since the Constitution is clear on a declaration of ML ground on an actual rebellion, which was clearly absent when Gloria imposed martial rule. Filipinos now look to the high court to rule on this issue, hoping against hope that the high court will not let them down and for once, have the majority of the Supreme Court justices — most of whom are beholden to Gloria — do…

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