To understand Vice President Robredo’s apprehension, it is inevitable that we have to start from the place where the ending may happen. And that place is the Supreme Court.
Under the Constitution, only the Supreme Court, as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, can oust Leni Robredo from the vice presidency on the basis of the votes obtained in the election. Section 4 Article 7 of the 1987 Constitution provides that “the Supreme Court, sitting en banc, shall be the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of the President or Vice-President, and may promulgate its rules for the purpose.”
And it is quite reasonable to believe that one of the “events of the recent days” referred to by the Vice President may have been the promulgation of the Supreme Court -- through Associate Justices Peralta, Bersamin, Velasco, Brion, De Castro, Bernabe, Del Castillo, Mendoza and Perez – of that horrible decision allowing the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani -- a decision which gave imprimatur to one of President Duterte’s campaign promises.
Now, the dictator’s son Ferdinand (Bongbong) R. Marcos Jr. is banking on this same Supreme Court -- or at least a majority of its members -- to oust Vice President Leni Robredo and proclaim him as the winner for the position.
This is not to say that he has no right to file an election protest. But the incoherence of his position – the rejection of the result generated by the machine based on the people’s votes as to the vice presidency but acceptance of the same machine’s result insofar as the presidency is concerned, on the same ballot -- betrays its weakness.
And, without the case still being heard on its merits, Bongbong smugly declared, “I will eventually take my seat that is being kept warm for me.”
He should not have said that because it generated so many speculations. For instance, one wonders: does this arrogance come from Bongbong’s sense of entitlement because he is a Marcos, or could this possibly be coming from something deeper, a more sinister, albeit for him reassuring, plan that will soon unravel before us?
It is difficult to ignore President Duterte’s unapologetic support for the Marcoses. During his China state visit, President Duterte proudly introduced Bongbong as “the next vice-president if he wins his protest.” And this was made in the same sub-judice way the President publicly expressed his position favoring the Marcos burial even while the case was pending with the Supreme Court.
How much influence these sub-judice statements had on the majority of the Supreme Court justices in the burial-case was a serious and legitimate concern to many. Will it happen again in this Marcos-election-protest-case in the Supreme Court if indeed such sub judice statements are a factor?
And surely, the justices of the Supreme Court are not unaware of the friendship between President Duterte and Bongbong.
In fact, just after the election, President Duterte admitted that he offered Bongbong a cabinet position. “I promised him” President Duterte said in one encounter with media. Not only that. At that time, he did not want to appoint Leni Robredo to a cabinet position because he did not wish to “hurt the feelings” of Bongbong.
It seems that the President values his ties with the Marcoses over and above the prospects of fostering reconciliation, cooperation and inclusivity during his term.
One other thing. The Supreme Court’s track record in cases involving high-profile political personalities appears to be ominous for Vice President Leni Robredo.
This is the Supreme Court whose majority members are perceived -- rightly or wrongly -- to be always siding with the “elite,” the rich, the privileged, and/or people highly placed in the political ladder. And this perception has basis.
It acquitted former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and former First Lady Imelda Marcos, granted bail to Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, adjudged absolute pardon for former President Joseph Estrada, excused Mayor Junjun Binay from sanction despite abandonment of the “Condonation doctrine,” and decided that Congressman Ronald Singson cannot be ousted as a representative because his drug-related-conviction did not concern a crime involving moral turpitude.
This is also the Supreme Court whose majority ruled against the coconut farmers and in favor of Danding Cojuangco in the coco-levy case because, among others, there was no showing that the latter was one of the “close associates of President Marcos” -- prompting former Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, now the Ombudsman, to say that “the argument that Cojuangco was not the subordinate or close associate of the Marcoses is the biggest joke to hit the country.”
And more recently, it is the Supreme Court which decided that the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, whose regime looted our national treasury and ushered in a period of summary execution, forced disappearance, torture and gross violation of human rights against the Filipino people, be buried in theLibingan ng mga Bayani.
Vice President Leni Robredo does not belong to the “elite,” the rich, or the powerful. She only has the people who voted for her as the source of her power. Given this Supreme Court perception, is it totally unjustified for people to be apprehensive as regards how the Supreme Court, sitting as an electoral tribunal, will decide the Vice Presidency and Leni’s fate?
I truly hope that the Supreme Court will come out with a decision truly uplifting our national spirit and affirming the sovereignty that resides on the people.
In the meantime, we seem to be paralyzed again by these latest developments, and the need to process everything never appears to be fast enough for our brains to comprehend. We find ourselves asking once more, “what now” and “what next”? Well, we should not hold our breaths till we turn blue. We must think and act fast because eventually, it will affect us and the country. Yes, it is exhausting, and heaven knows it can be very frustrating. But at the end of the day, there are things which we simply cannot allow to happen again. So it is up to us to make sure that they do not.
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Tuesday, December 6, 2016
MEL STA. MARIA_After VP Robredo's resignation, watch the Supreme Court
A son’s delusions
 Mr. Lee wrote: “The Philippines was a world apart from us, running a different style of politics and government under an American military umbrella. It was not until January 1974 that I visited President Marcos in Manila. When my Singapore Airlines plane flew into Philippine airspace, a small squadron of Philippine Air Force jet fighters escorted it to Manila Airport. There Marcos received me in great style -- the Filipino way. I was put up at the guest wing of Malacañang Palace in lavishly furnished rooms, valuable objects of art bought in Europe strewn all over. Our hosts were gracious, extravagant in hospitality, flamboyant. “His (Marcos’) foreign minister, Carlos P. Romulo, was a small man... some 20 years my senior, with a ready wit and a self-deprecating manner about his size and other limitations... His good standing with ASEAN leaders and with Americans increased the prestige of the Marcos administration. Marcos had in Romulo a man of honor and integrity who helped give a gloss of respectability to his regime as it fell into disrepute in the 1980s. “In Bali in 1976, at the first ASEAN summit held after the fall of Saigon, I found Marcos keen to push for greater economic cooperation in ASEAN. Marcos and I agreed to implement a bilateral Philippines-Singapore across-the-board 10 percent reduction of existing tariffs on all products and to promote intra-ASEAN trade. We also agreed to lay a Philippines-Singapore submarine cable. I was to discover that for him, the communiqué was the accomplishment itself; its implementation was secondary, an extra to be discussed at another conference. “We met every two to three years. He once took me on a tour of his library at Malacañang, its shelves filled with bound volumes of newspapers reporting his activities over the years since he first stood for elections. There were encyclopedia-size volumes on the history and culture of the Philippines with his name as the author. His campaign medals as an anti-Japanese guerrilla leader were displayed in glass cupboards. Imelda, his wife, had a penchant for luxury and opulence. When they visited Singapore before the Bali summit they came in stye in two DC8’s, his and hers. “International outrage over the killing (of Ninoy Aquino) resulted in foreign banks stopping all loans to the Philippines, which owed over $25 billion and could not pay the interest due. This brought Marcos to the crunch. He sent his minister for trade and industry, Bobby Ongpin, to ask me for a loan of US$300-500 million to meet the interest payments. I looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘We will never see that money back.’ “Shortly afterward, in February 1984, Marcos met me in Brunei at the sultanate’s independence celebrations. He had undergone a dramatic physical change... He looked most unhealthy... Marcos spent much of the time giving me a most improbable story of how Aquino had been shot. “As soon as all our aides left, I went straight to the point, that no bank was going to lend him any money. They wanted to know who was going to succeed him if anything were to happen to him; all the bankers could see that he no longer looked healthy. Singapore banks had lent US$8 billion of the US$25 billion owing. The hard fact was they were not likely to get repayment for some 20 years. “He countered that it would be only eight years. I said the bankers wanted to see a strong leader in the Philippines who could restore stability, and the Americans hoped the election in May would throw up someone who could be such a leader. I asked whom he would nominate for the election. He said Prime Minister Cesar Virata. “Virata replied it had to do with ‘flow of money’; she would have more money than other candidates to pay for the votes needed for nomination by the party and to win the election. He added that if she were the candidate, the opposition would put up Mrs. Cory Aquino and work up the people’s feelings. He said the economy was going down with no political stability. “...[The] culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial. Insignificant amounts of the loot have been recovered, yet his wife and children were allowed to return and engage in politics. They supported the winning presidential and congressional candidates with their considerable resources and reappeared in the political and social limelight after the 1998 election that returned President Joseph Estrada. “One Filipino newspaper, Today, wrote on 22 November 1998, ‘Ver, Marcos and the rest of the official family plunged the country into two decades of lies, torture, and plunder. Over the next decade, Marcos’s cronies and immediate family would tiptoe back into the country, one by one -- always to the public’s revulsion and disgust, though they showed that there was nothing that hidden money and thick hides could not withstand.’” I think Mr. Lee believed the writer of the Philippine newspaper, the now defunct Today, because he believed the writer was right. (I think the writer may have been Teddy Boy Locsin but I could be wrong.) There were other passages relating to the coup attempts that stunted the country’s recovery which I am reserving for a subsequent article. I decided to quote Mr. Lee extensively to inform Mr. Marcos that the very leader of the country his father was allegedly attempting to emulate did not think too highly of his father, much less his father’s ability to make the Philippines another Singapore. He should read the book. He will, perhaps, be more careful in his assertions. I quote Mr. Lee because there are people who believe the younger Marcos’s assertion that had we not rebelled against his father because of “political manipulation,” we would be a Singapore by now and so wish to put the son in grabbing distance of the presidency. They should read the book. Mario Antonio G. Lopez teaches at the Asian Institute of Management and consults for business, government and civil society maglopez@gmail.com
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KNOWLEDGE RISING IN THE PHILIPPINES
KNOWLEDGE RISING IN THE PHILIPPINES
University students on the march against Marcos burial [Photo source: Rappler]
By Joe America
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104TH PERSUASIVE APPEAL_6DEC16_TO THE SCP JUSTICES : A YEAR OF CONTINUOUS CONSPIRACY
 
EXHIBIT 1
EXHIBIT 2
EXHIBIT 3
EXHIBIT 4
EXCERPTED FROM
NUMBERS 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26
   
EXHIBIT 5
EXHIBIT 6
photos of the defense lawyers and prticulars
   COPY RECIPIENTS Copies for Atty. Raul Quiroz and his counsels was sent through his counsels'  Atty.Emiterio C. Manibog Jr.
and
  e-mail addresses and copies  for PILIPINAS SHELL PETROLEUM CORPORATION, STOCKHOLDERS, DIRECTORS, OFFICERS and Mr. Eduard Geus was sent through
Mr. Eduard Geus e-mail
for the Third Division Deputy Clerk of Court, Wilfredo V. Lapitan
AND
for Honorable Chief Justice
Ma. Lourdes Sereno
is coursed through
Atty. Theodore Te, PIO Chief, Supreme Court of the Philippines
on
December 4, 2015
The following Justices of
the Supreme Court of the
Philippines are DEEMED provided with copy STARTING FROM the "16TH FOLLOW UP_REITERATION OF DEMAND PAYMENT OF RETIREMENT PAY" through
Atty. Theodore Te's PIO
e-mail address on
January 4, 2016
to the present
and prayers for
corrective administrative
and/or judicial
and/or disciplinary actions
be instituted in due time.
        
RETIRED FEBRUARY 2016
      
E-MAIL DEEMED SENT THROUGH
PIO CHIEF E-MAIL ADDRESS
BEGINNING 1 MARCH 2016 AFTER
JUSTICE MARTIN VILLARAMA RETIRES
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SYNDICATED ESTAFA
MY QUEST FOR SWINDLED
RETIREMENT PAY BY SHELL
 
SWINDLING ITO, SYNDICATED ESTAFA
HOT PURSUIT
DUTY OF LAW ENFORCEMENT ENTITIES
SHELL SWINDLING OF RETIREMENT PAY 5TH YEAR
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