Philippine Commentary

Oh English, How Do We Mangle Thee? Let Me Count The Ways

2013-06-23T18:49:00.003+08:00

hat follows is a verbatim transcription of the Reading Text beginning on Page 3 of an instruction module handed out to University of Makati Grade 11 students this past week identified as ENGLISH FOR GRADE 11 WITH FILIPINO LEGACY INTEGRATION. I have taken the liberty however, of marking in red passages that, in my opinion, represent erroneous, deficient or unsatisfactory English instruction--for being negative examples.

[My own interspersed comments are in aqua. --DJB]

A RECONSTRUCTED PORTRAIT OF JUAN DE LA CRUZ

By Roger Don S.J. Cerda

How do we describe today's Filipino? What are the qualities or physical attributes that make us stand out among all the races in the world? What distinguishing marks do we have? Is it our nose that is as big and wide as the gorilla's? Is it our fair skin? Is it our round brown eyes? Is it our moderate height? Is it our unique black hair? Is it our proficiency in the Filipino language? Is it our conservative way of dressing or the barely naked one? Is it because we live in the 7,107 islands of the Philippines whether it's low tide or high tide? Is it because we eat street food like fish ball, squid ball, and chicken feet? Or none of the above?

["Conservative" dressing and "barely naked" dressing seem to belong in the same category to me though I'm mystified by the second term, which maybe should read "almost naked"]

Even before the intrusion of the Spaniards, the Americans, and the Japanese, we Filipinos already have atypical and unexplainable personalities that set us apart from other races. Aside from our physical attributes, we unveil an individuality that depicts a Filipino today. But honestly, we show a lot of ironies and paradoxes in our lifestyles that at times, we, ourselves, are confused about our true identity, as if we do not know who we truly are.

[Above should say, "Even before the intrusion...we Filipinos already HAD..." Also the writer doesn't seem to appreciate the difference, subtle though it be, between being different and being unique.]

Because of rapid technological advancement and the unstable conditions of our lives, we have evolved making ourselves famous in one way or another -- good or bad.

[Preceding is an utterly senseless statement]

At this juncture, I may say that we typify the following traits:

[A shy person does not typify shyness. Such a person is typified by shyness. Adjectives modify nouns--not vice versa. Defining traits apply to those that possess those traits--not vice versa.]

First, We Filipinos have a Remarkable Sense of Humor. [inline capitalized words are in the original.] Where in this world (aside from the mental hospital), do we see people laughing for no reason at all? Where do you see people smiling even in the most disheartening situation? Where do we see people making fun of their own mistakes? Where do we see people discussing trivia at the height of a clear and present danger?

[I'd say every country in the world displays these traits that the author suggests is unique to Filipinos.]

When I saw the television footage of typhoon Reming in Bicol, I felt sad for the people who lost their houses and other important properties. However, I felt slightly appeased when those typhoon victims smiled and waved as if nothing cataclysmic happened when they saw the lights of roving cameras. Well, it's only in the Philippines where people do not take serious matters seriously.

[First the author feels sad for the people's loss then claims to be "slightly appeased" by their smiles and waves. Better would be to use the word "glad"as the opposite of "sad" to make the contrast sensible.]

I remember the president of the Philippine Normal University when he narrated his childhood experience with his English teacher during my week-long seminar in English Language Teaching and Testing in April of 2007. His teacher brought apples, oranges, and mangoes to make their lesson on nouns understandable and memorable, and so the teacher started teaching..."This is an apple and this is a noun, use nouns in a sentence?" His classmate seated at the back raised his hand to answer, soothe [typo?] teacher called him and said, "Ok, use nouns in a sentence."His classmate stood straight and confidently said, Ï want to eat those nouns." And everyone burst into laughter. I realized that laughter is indeed the best medicine because you feel good every time someone makes you titter.

Still others, because of technological advancement, are contented to express their whimsical hilarity through through text messaging. A friend of mine sent the following messages: [Three inane text messages follow labelled Message 1, Message 3, and Message 5. Some are erroneous but that isn't the author's fault so I'll skip these.]

We Filipinos never run out of jokes. We are very resourceful in creating shaggy dog stories despite the burden we carry on our shoulders and the preoccupations that we have. We always find time to make other people chuckle, as the saying goes, "The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer other people up." It's ironic because we appreciate and desire funny and sometimes ribald text messages than the inspirational and religious ones. Well, it's only in the Philippines.

Second, we Filipinos Have Incomparable Sense of Hospitality. We always offer the best we have to our visitors without any reservation. Even with foreigners, when they visit the Philippines for a vacation, we still speak their language to accomodate them because we regard them so much; on the contrary, when we go to a foreign land as tourists, they do not speak our language, so, we do not have a choice but to speak their language to facilitate effective communication. We do not always find this incredible trait from other people herein the Philippines.

Third, We Filipinos are very Creative and Inventive most especially during the most unthinkable situation.

[Latter should be plural: situations and the double "most" is well, too much. The use of the adjective unthinkable is well, unthinkable!]

Nobody can deny that we are ingenious especially when the situation calls for it.

[Which nonsensically suggests that we are ingenious even when the situation does not call for it?]

Whenever Metro Manila is flooded, people make small wooden bridges for the stranded pedestrians to cross the flooded part of the street so as not to get wet. In exchange, the "owners" of the wooden bridges ask for "voluntary contribution." Instant money, isn't it? It's only in the Philippines.

[The use of small wooden bridges during a flood for a small fee is considered ingenious by the author and asserted to be unique to the Philippines.]

In the provinces, when there is a big flood, they take it to their advantage to go up on the roofs of their houses to fish tilapia for their dinner. Others would row boats filled with the things they would like to sell to other flood victims. It's only in the Philippines.

[It seems to me people run up to their roofs in a big flood to save their lives, not catch tilapia for their dinner!]

These do not imply, however, that we are so puerile; it only shows that we have the knack for turning something bad into something good for we believe that there is light in total darkness.

[Come again...!? He must mean "light at the end of the tunnel" or some such cliche which was ill-advisedly avoided and replaced with a senseless claim. Next, that making the best of difficult situations is childish or puerile is nowhere implied. Thus, it is needlessly denied. It's use is apparently for sheer value in vocabulary enrichment. This penchant for the superfluous or illogical use of certain nice-sounding words is often resorted to in the rest of the reading.]

Our creativity is revealed when we are able to generate something from seemingly useless things. Some Filipinos became popular because they were able to make an artwork, a bag, or an apparel from the disposables and sold them for thousands of pesos. It proves that there is money in garbage for people who have the right mental attitude.

Fourth, we Filipinos are Great Violators. In Metro Manila, it's typical to see big warning signs saying, "Walang Tawiran, Nakamamatay." But still, we don't follow the city ordinance even though there is an overpass or underpass nearby for safe street crossing. Maybe we are either tired of going up and down or we are just too lazy that we would rather take the risk of and sometimes enjoy, crossing the highway.

In the same way, we throw our garbage in places where there are signs: "Bawal Magtapon ng Basura Dito." The same is true with "Bawal Umihi Dito" for we are like dogs urinating anywhere we please. We are repulsive at times for we spit almost anywhere. We even abuse ourselves by eating foods that are forbidden by the doctors for we imbibe the idea: "Life is short, so make the most of it." We also patronize pirated cassette discs in Quiapo and Greenhills for practical reasons. It is ironic that we do uncivilized things for we are civilized people. As Manuel L. Quezon said, "Our greatest fear is not that of doing wrong, but that of being caught doing wrong." That's why we always get in trouble. Walang ganyan sa States. It's only in the Philippines.

[Another false claim of uniqueness, this time thoroughly insulting to the Filipino. That these traits (unsanitary habits and garbage disposal, buying of pirated goods, eating unhealthy foods, etc.) are not exhibited in America is a false claim and a useless comparison worthy of the old term "colonial mentality."]

Fifth, We Filipinos are Professional Crammers. In the antediluvian story of Juan Tamad, he waited for the guava fruit to fall down from the tree to his mouth. There was also an instance when he bought crabs and asked them to go home on their own. Since then, Juan has been used to name an idle Filipino.

[How "cramming" relates to indolence is difficult to fathom, unless you need to insert the fancy term antediluvian instead of using the simple word OLD.]

Based on my personal experience both as high school and college literature teacher, I notice that when I give a requirement a month or so before the deadline, students do not mind at all. They procrastinate. They do it a day or two before the deadline. Well that's the type of students that we have today, whether we admit it or not.

Sixth, We Filipinos are so Superficial. When a person is confronted with the question, "how do you define beauty?" Common answer is "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"or "beauty is not seen by the eyes, it is felt by the heart"for the most imporant things in life are then things that we do not see. Bravo! I'm impressed!

We always underscore that the true beauty of a person is what 's inside, for the physical beauty fades but virtue lasts. Am I right or left? So why is it that we are still so superficial? When we ask: "Who would you choose: a beautiful but dull girl or an intelligent but ugly girl?" We will certainly take the first option because we believe that the intellectual inferiority of a person can still be improved, isn't it? Although the physical look of a person can be enhanced nowadays, through modern technology and with the help fo Dr. Vicky Bello and Dr. Manny Calayan, we would still opt for natural beauty. Do you honestly want to be with someone who looks like Bakekang for the rest of your life? Who could endure to be with someone who looks like a living monster?

[I feel like kicking this author in the teeth! The mentions of Bello and Calayan are entirely superfluous, and unprofessional in this context, as is the entirely baduy attempt to inject Erap-like humor with: "Am I right or left? In the end he simply insists that we ARE superficial by suggesting Filipino men only fall in love with dumb, beautiful women over smart, ugly and possibly kind women. I find this utterly insulting. Honestly! ]

There are very few men who would subscribe to the idea of Andrew E's song, "Humanap Ka ng Panget" to be certain that they would not be left by their partners. We really want someone whom we can display in public, someone who exudes an angelic face with a flawless body. On the contrary, most women would subscribe to DJ Alvaro's song: "Ang Tipo KOng Lalake ay Maginoo Pero Medyo Bastos" someone decent, but passionate and sexually aggressive.

[Okay, okay, a double kick in the teeth--for stereotyping BOTH Filipino men and women, possibly according to his own puerile prejudices.]

Seventh, We Filipinos are so Judgmental. We constantly see the flaws in other people whether we accept it or not. It becomes automatic that we criticize them without examining ourselves first. When we see a good-looking foreigner with a not so good-looking Pinay, we always conclude that foreigners are fond of Pinays who look like "kasambahay" (housemaid)...that they are continuously searching for Pinays with exotic beauty not present in other Asians. No wonder because Pinay is an "endangered species!" Well it's only in the Philippines.

[This illogical use of "endangered species" is again apparently intended merely for its inclusion as vocabulary enrichment. The example does not prove to me that Filipinos are "judgmental" either. ]

Eight, We Filipinos do not Provide an Exact Answer. We may not be sensitive about it, but when someone inquires, we do not give a precise answer. For example, if someone asks:

"Kumain ka na ba?" we usually say "busog pa ako" instead of saying oo or hindi;

"Anong oras na?" we usually say, "maaga pa!" instead of giving the exact time;

"San ka na?" we usually say, "malapit na" instead of saying our exact location.

or "Maganda ba GF nya?" or "Guwapo ba BF nya?" we usually say "mabait" or "okay naman" instead of telling the truth because we do not want to offend anyone.

This manner has become part of our consciousness. Well, it's only in the Philippines.

Ninth, We Filipinos have a Strong Sense of Volunteerism." Have you celebrated your birthday and you came across attendees or visitors that you are not personally acquainted with or never have met before? Have you felt alienated while asking yourself, ïs this my birthday?" Have you formed any suspicion wondering where those people are coming from?

If your answer is yes, the [typo] you should not wonder why. It's because we Filipinos have as [typo] strong sense of "volunteerism," We attend birthdays, weddings, town fiestas, baptisms, anniversaries, victory parties, and the likes, even though we are not invited at all. Well, that's Filipino Courage! So when someone congratulates you on your wedding with matching embrace even to the groom instead of just holding hands, you know that they are "volunteers" which make your budget collapse.

[Clearly trying to be humorous with the tongue-in-cheek use of "volunteerism" and "volunteers" the author only succeeds at degrading the socially useful real meaning of volunteerism and loses the opportunity to illustrate "gate-crashing" or even "gregariousness".

However, even though we have unexpected visitors, it is our hospitality that prevails to accomodate them. Just think that you are helping our less fortunate brothers and sisters! (Just kidding!) So the next time you celebrate an important decision, remember what the Boy Scouts say, "prepared".

[The Boy Scout motto is "Be Prepared". But I wonder what would prepare the students for the superfluous flippancy of "Just kidding!"? I mean, is he, or isn't he? How do they decide without running into a conundrum of comprehension? ]

Tenth, We Filipinos are so Complaining. I just noticed that we become so cranky. We have not started doing what is expected of us and we are already dissenting. We often try to bargain and meet halfway. We are disinclined to carry on an arduous task because we want everything spic and span.

[To use context as a means of teaching a special vocabulary word like "arduous" one could write "We are disinclined to carry on an arduous task because we want everything EASY." In this way, if the student doesn't already know "arduous" he can infer that it is the opposite of "easy". But that technique fails with "spic and span" which really means "neat and clean" -- which is NOT the opposite of arduous.]

We seldom appreciate the good intention of our superiors or elders. I personally experience this is [typo] school when I give a requirement or project to my students. Even in government, we are known worldwide for overthrowing our President through mass rallies or demonstrations. We create our own policy, Military officers say, "Obey first before you complain." We say, "Complain first before you obey."

[Triple kick in the teeth for portraying the Edsa Revolutions as mere "complaining"!]

Eleventh, We Filipinos are so Pretentious. Where there is a conflagration, for example, we show our sense of "bayanihan" by helping our neighbors put out the fire, but in reality, we take this as an opportunity to rob them. We make it appear that we are saving their properties, but we are actually stealing them. We become so insensitive that we don't bother what our neighbors go through during that depressing incident. So sad...Walang ganyan sa States. It's only in the Philippines.

[This is not an example that illustrates PRETENTIOUSNESS at all, but CHICANERY and DUPLICITOUSNESS. It insults the real bayanihan spirit that still exists in many Filipino hearts and denies that all these traits, including our claimed insensitivity to others, exist even in "the States" and other places.]

Twelfth, we Filipinos are so Resilient. We have endured all the tragedies in life from Herculean typhoons such as Milenyo, Ondoy, and Pepeng to civil war, crimes, hunger, scarcity of rice, mounting prices of commodities, corruption,climate change, global warming, name it, we all have it, but have surpassed them all. We are true Survivors. Wherever we go, whatever the situation, it is never excessively alarming or disorienting. We can always adapt to the fast-changing environment to make the difference. Hurray!

[The author says we "have endured all the tragedies...but have surpassed them all" which is a curious kind of redundancy that I'm not so sure how to take. He probably meant "suffered" rather than "endured" Then there is the very curious use of the word Herculean as an adjective for typhoon. Only in da Pilipins! -- as the author is fond of saying throughout.]

This is the moment when we need to acknowledge our own imperfections and insecurities. The challenge now is to create a portrait that is worth praising and emulating -- a portrait that is truly inspiring.

[This English Module is full of problems in form and content. it is worth criticizing and not emulating for it is utterly depressing as an example of the supposedly new and improved Senior High School curriculum instruction material. The exercises that surround the essay have their own grammatical and other language flaws, for a subsequent article here.]

Whither Pugad Baboy? Whither PDI?

2013-06-16T05:19:00.000+08:00

In today's Publisher's Note, Philippine Daily Inquirer's Raul C. Pangalangan takes a "Serious Look at Cartoons" and tackles the Pugad Baboy-Saint Scholastica-PDI-Pol Medina brouhaha, which RCP summarizes succinctly thus:

Pugad Baboy’s strip on June 4 spoke of religious hypocrisy toward gays and lesbians. It singled out St. Scholastica’s College for purportedly tolerating lesbian relationships among its students, suggesting that the nuns themselves might be lesbians. On June 6, the Inquirer apologized for the derogatory cartoon that imputed to the nuns policies, practices and sexual preferences inconsistent with their faith.

Reassured by an internal inquiry, RCP lays the predicate for a defense...

Our Reader’s Advocate, Elena E. Pernia, has conducted an inquiry and her findings are most assuring. She found that the comic strip was rejected by the art section precisely for insensitivity when it was first submitted last April. It was a sound exercise of editorial discretion within the art section, and the author accepted it. The strip was published on June 4 by mistake—a technical mix-up in the art section—showing that there was no intent to malign, that editorial judgment had been exercised responsibly, and that the author himself, to his credit, had accepted that editorial decision.

...but immediately confesses to oral or printed defamation:

Indeed, after the offending strip was inadvertently published, Pol Medina apologized to the St. Scholastica sisters and admitted that the cartoon had crossed the line. In constitutional law, cartoon art is protected speech, but when it becomes defamatory, it loses its constitutional protection especially when the victim is a private person and not a public figure. That is why defamatory speech is punished under the Revised Penal Code.

Still the old passion for reason runs strong in Raul Pangalangan and so he stares at the scales of Justice:

Since the defamatory nature of the cartoon was admitted by the author himself, one would have to be more popish than the pope to say it ain’t so. On the other hand, I can actually imagine a number of defenses. There was no malicious intent, as shown earlier. It was a cartoon, not a news item that purports to state facts. And—while truth is no defense and malice is assumed in every defamatory imputation—some readers have pointed out that Pugad Baboy merely speaks of a practice rather widespread in many same-sex schools. But the fact remains that St. Scholastica’s College was singled out for ridicule even if it hadn’t provoked or invited such attention. The slur was gratuitous. The situation called for an apology.

...concluding that the gratuitousness of singling out St. Scholastica "called for an apology" while mentioning Readers' comments that Pugad Baboy merely spoke of "a practice rather widespread in many same-sex schools."

Well then. Many PDI Readers may now note that the rumored widespread and possibly condoned gay and lesbian homosexuality in private Catholic schools such as St. Scholastica, had not hitherto been confirmed, in a perhaps unintended but unmistakable a manner and in so authoritative a space as the Philippine Daily Inquirer's Publisher's Note!

PDI: 'It's a Misconception that Pol Medina was fired.'

Another misconception is that Medina was fired. This is not true, and the Inquirer categorically stated on June 6 that he remained a contributor. It further announced: “Pugad Baboy will not appear in the Inquirer, however, pending further investigation.” This was a reasonable measure while the Reader’s Advocate was still ascertaining the facts.

On the morning of June 8, the Reader’s Advocate concluded that the entire problem stemmed from the erroneous uploading of an already rejected file, recognized Medina’s forthright apology for the injury it had caused, and unqualifiedly recommended the resumption of Pugad Baboy’s publication. However, Medina soon after announced that he was resigning from the Inquirer for having “dishonored” it.

PDI: 'It's not Pol Medina's anti-Church or anti-Marcos stance.'

In interviews and online posts, Medina contends that his anti-Church and anti-Marcos stance is why he is in Dutch with this newspaper that began running his comic strip in May 1988. This is absolutely false.

Even he will acknowledge that the Inquirer upholds free and responsible expression, and that censorship of political views is not part of its policies. (And this controversy would have been avoided had Medina responded to the calls of his Inquirer colleagues instead of putting himself out of reach.)

On the first issue, various Inquirer columnists have been similarly critical of the Church in the Philippines. They have defended the artist Mideo Cruz for his irreverent collage “Politeismo” and Carlos Celdran for the “Damaso” incident in the Manila Cathedral. Medina’s strip on gay love in Catholic girls’ schools takes the same critical stance, but what made it objectionable was that it crossed the line by singling out by name a specific group.

On the second issue, suffice it to say that Medina’s anti-Marcos strips should also place him in the same camp as many Inquirer columnists who opposed the dictator during those days when doing so entailed risking life and limb.

But even if Medina deviates from the editorial position of the Inquirer, he has no reason to fret. The dean of the Inquirer’s corps of cartoonists, Jess Abrera, has differed fundamentally with many of us in the Inquirer on the issue of reproductive health, and to this day continues to draw his anti-RH editorial cartoons even while the editorial and certain columns cheer the passage of the RH Law!

The cartoon medium works by being bold and irreverent, and by pushing the outer limits of public discourse within the bounds of decency. The Inquirer will continue to support Filipino cartoonists the way it discovered Medina and featured his work through the years. Aspiring Filipino cartoon artists are invited to send samples of their work (e-mail to arts@inquirer.com.ph under the heading: “comics contribution”).

RAUL PANGALANGAN ends with this:

We are prepared to nurture the next generation of cartoon artists who will engage this democratic space, who will make us both laugh and think.

BOLD PREDICTION: Pol Medina and PDI will kiss and make up!

My Commentary:

First some definitions:

Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, or traducement—is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation. Most jurisdictions allow legal action to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism.
Under common law, to constitute defamation, a claim must generally be false and have been made to someone other than the person defamed.^[1] Some common law jurisdictions also distinguish between spoken defamation, called slander, and defamation in other media such as printed words or images, called libel.^[2]
Similar to defamation is public disclosure of private facts, which arises where one person reveals information that is not of public concern, and the release of which would offend a reasonable person. "Unlike [with] libel, truth is not a defense for invasion of privacy."^[3]^{[not verified in body]}. False light laws protect against statements which are not technically false but misleading.^[4]
In some civil law jurisdictions, defamation is treated as a crime rather than a civil wrong.^[5] The United Nations Commission on Human Rights ruled in 2012 that the criminalization of libel violates freedom of expression and is inconsistent with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.^[6]
A person who defames another may be called a "famacide", "defamer", or "slanderer".

Was Pol Medina acting as a "famacide, defamer or slanderer" by causing the "communication of a false statement" that perhaps "harms the reputation" of St. Scholastica by imputing to it (and other private Catholic schools) HYPOCRISY?

For some reason, the PDI Publisher's Note gives me to understand that the basic accusation contained in the cartoon is true, or that it is believed by so many people to BE true, as to be called "common knowledge"? Though I or you may not have personally KNOWN the accusation to be true when the cartoon was published is irrelevant to its alleged or even apparent truth, which no one has yet DENIED, not even the St. Scholastica nuns.

I do not agree with the PDI Publisher in concluding that (a) the cartoon was DEFAMATORY or that (b) it had lost its Constitutional protection as free speech.

I also do not agree with the PDI Publisher that "St. Scholastica" is the equivalent of a private person. PDI editorials of recent vintage have amply criticized the Catholic Church for political meddling and even political blackmail of civic leaders to exert pressure on key issues of interest such as the RH Law and other progressive social measures in Congress and the government.

I think the Pugad Baboy Cartoon legitimate raises the issue of HYPOCRISY on the part of such private religious institutions. While the Organized Religion buggers Congress over legislation on reproductive health, women's rights, divorce, violence against women and children, etc. it has many skeletons in it's own Closets!

With a former Dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law as its Publisher, the Philippine Daily Inquirer is more than capable of defending itself legally in this, and any of the other thousand LIBEL and DEFAMATION cases that PDI eats for breakfast.

Maxwell's Equations

2013-06-02T19:51:00.002+08:00

Maxwell's Equations of Electromagnetism:

Gauss' Law for Electrical Charge

\nabla \cdot \vec{E} = 4 π ρ

Gauss' Law for Magnetism

\nabla \cdot \vec{B} = 0

Faraday's Law

\nabla \times \vec{E} = - \frac{1}{c} \frac{\partial \vec{B}}{\partial t}

Ampere's Law

\nabla \times \vec{B} = \frac{1}{c} (4 π \vec{J} + \frac{\partial \vec{E}}{\partial t})

See! The Supreme Court Is Listening to Twitter

2013-06-01T06:59:00.002+08:00

Last night, I had a very interesting short session on Twitter with these fine folks: @bvergara @bethangsioco @cocoy @SagadaSun @jesterinexile about this web page on the RHLAW at the Philippine Supreme Court website, of which I luckily snapped a SCREENSHOT:

This morning the same web page looks like this!

So here are the two screenshots of the Supreme Court's MICROSITE on the Reproductive Health Law.

Comparison of the Final SWS Pre-Election Survey and the Official Tally

2013-05-24T08:48:00.002+08:00

Strictly Speaking, the Social Weather Stations Survey of 2-3 May 2013--its Final Pre-election survey of 2400 randomly sampled registered voters--correctly predicted the final RANKING of only 3 out of the 33 Senatorial Candidates (though it correctly predicted the composition of the Magic 12).

SWS SURVEY	SWS RANKING	HITS	COMELEC RANKING	VOTES FOR SENATOR
57	LEGARDA	0	POE	20147423
50	CAYETANO	0	LEGARDA	18482961
48	BINAY	0	CAYETANO	17408543
48	ESCUDERO	1	ESCUDERO	17332952
45	POE	0	BINAY	16645515
44	EJERCITO	0	ANGARA	15858995
44	VILLAR	0	AQUINO	15388992
43	PIMENTEL	1	PIMENTEL	14584612
41	AQUINO	0	TRILLANES	13995603
38	ANGARA	0	VILLAR	13696120
38	TRILLANES	0	EJERCITO	13552991
37	HONASAN	1	HONASAN	13070031
35	ENRILE	0	GORDON	12364091
33	JMAGSAYSAY	0	ZUBIRI	11707146
33	ZUBIRI	0	ENRILE	11419246
29	HONTIVEROS	0	MAGSAYSAY	11252335
27	GORDON	0	HONTIVEROS	10840047
25	MADRIGAL	0	HAGEDORN	8323835
16	HAGEDORN	0	VILLANUEVA	6868774
15	VILLANUEVA	0	MADRIGAL	6727877
14	MACEDA	0	MAGSAYSAY	5569077
13	MMAGSAYSAY	0	CASINO	4254245
11	COJUANGCO	0	MACEDA	3388936
9	CASINO	0	COJUANGCO	3091642
4	MONTANO	0	ALCANTARA	1227521
3	ALCANTARA	0	DELOS REYES	1226470
3	DELOSREYES	0	BELGICA	1118829
3	DAVID	0	PENSON	1030107
2	PENSON	0	MONTANO	1029439
2	FALCONE	0	DAVID	1026096
2	LLASOS	0	SENERES	698440
2	BELGICA	0	LLASOS	695260
1	SENERES	0	FALCONE	659073
SWS SURVEY of 2400 voters 2,3 May	HIT RATIO	3/33	COMELEC CANVAS #16	ACTUAL VOTES WON

Did Comelec Use SWS Survey Results To Proclaim Winning Senators?

2013-05-23T09:09:00.002+08:00

On May 2-3, 2013, the world renowned public opinion pollster, Social Weather Stations, conducted Random Sampling Survey as SWS Final Pre-Election Survey for Senators.

The main results of the SWS survey above can be seen in the following tables:

On May 13, 2013, some 39 million votes cast a total of 294,683,224 votes for one or more of 33 Senatorial Candidates, which was the TOTAL NUMBER OF VOTES canvassed by the Commission on Elections in its sixteenth and Comelec Final Official Canvas for Senators

One of the most serious accusations hurled against the Commission on Elections during the post-Election post mortem (still ongoing!) is that it actually used SURVEY RESULTS of the Social Weather Stations to decide on the RANKINGS of the candidates in the Senate Race.

In order to test the veracity of this allegation, I performed the following steps on the DATA that anyone can access from the above links to check my computations.

(1) I typed into an Excel File the SWS MEASURED STATISTIC published in the Final PreElection Survey linked above as a percentage of the 2400 respondents that indicated they would vote for a given senatorial candidate. This data can only be READ MANUALLY from the JPEGS in the SWS detailed report, although I assume it can be had electronically at SWS Offices in Manila.

(2) The highest ranked candidate according to the SWS survey was Loren Legarda with 57% so I NORMALIZED all the other values as a fraction of 57%.

(3) From the Official Tally of the Comelec Canvas #16 (the last and final official canvass) I took the equivalent data for each of the 33 Senators and inserted them into the Excel File beside that of SWS. I also NORMALIZED all the data to the No.1 ranking Senator in the Comelec Canvas, who was Grace Poe with over 20 million votes, or 6.8% of the 294 million cast for senators.

I then plotted the two NORMALIZED CURVES for comparison.

No matter how I look at this plot, I cannot help but see an UNCANNY RELATIONSHIP

But I shall let you the readers of Philippine Commentary DECIDE. What do you think??

Here is the data used to make the plot above:

CANDIDATE	CANVAS#16 VOTES	RATIO TO POE	CANDIDATE	SWS%MAY2-3	RATIO TO LEGARDA
. "POE, Grace"	20147423	1	LEGARDA	57	1
. "LEGARDA, Loren"	18482961	0.917385861	CAYETANO	50	0.877192982
. "CAYETANO, Alan"	17408543	0.864058049	BINAY	48	0.842105263
. "ESCUDERO, Chiz"	17332952	0.860306154	ESCUDERO	48	0.842105263
. "BINAY, Nancy"	16645515	0.82618581	POE	45	0.789473684
. "ANGARA, Sonny"	15858995	0.787147567	EJERCITO	44	0.771929825
. "AQUINO, Bam"	15388992	0.763819373	VILLAR	44	0.771929825
. "PIMENTEL, Koko"	14584612	0.723894664	PIMENTEL	43	0.754385965
. "TRILLANES, Sonny"	13995603	0.694659709	AQUINO	41	0.719298246
. "VILLAR, Cynthia"	13696120	0.679795128	ANGARA	38	0.666666667
. "EJERCITO, JV"	13552991	0.672691043	TRILLANES	38	0.666666667
. "HONASAN, Gringo"	13070031	0.648719739	HONASAN	37	0.649122807
. "GORDON, Dick"	12364091	0.613681015	ENRILE	35	0.614035088
. "ZUBIRI, Migz"	11707146	0.581074116	JMAGSAYSAY	33	0.578947368
. "ENRILE, Jack"	11419246	0.566784447	ZUBIRI	33	0.578947368
. "MAGSAYSAY, Ramon"	11252335	0.558499963	HONTIVEROS	29	0.50877193
. "HONTIVEROS, Risa"	10840047	0.538036403	GORDON	27	0.473684211
. "HAGEDORN, Ed"	8323835	0.413146386	MADRIGAL	25	0.438596491
. "VILLANUEVA, Eddie"	6868774	0.340925686	HAGEDORN	16	0.280701754
. "MADRIGAL, Jamby"	6727877	0.333932384	VILLANUEVA	15	0.263157895
. "MAGSAYSAY, Mitos"	5569077	0.276416344	MACEDA	14	0.245614035
. "CASINO, Teddy"	4254245	0.211155789	MMAGSAYSAY	13	0.228070175
. "MACEDA, Ernie"	3388936	0.168206922	COJUANGCO	11	0.192982456
. "COJUANGCO, Tingting"	3091642	0.15345099	CASINO	9	0.157894737
. "ALCANTARA, Samson"	1227521	0.060926948	MONTANO	4	0.070175439
. "DELOS REYES, JC"	1226470	0.060874783	ALCANTARA	3	0.052631579
. "BELGICA, Greco"	1118829	0.055532114	DELOSREYES	3	0.052631579
. "PENSON, Dick"	1030107	0.051128474	DAVID	3	0.052631579
. "MONTANO, Mon"	1029439	0.051095319	PENSON	2	0.035087719
. "DAVID, Lito"	1026096	0.050929392	FALCONE	2	0.035087719
. "SENERES, Christian"	698440	0.034666468	LLASOS	2	0.035087719
. "LLASOS, Marwil"	695260	0.034508632	BELGICA	2	0.035087719
. "FALCONE, Baldomero"	659073	0.032712521	SENERES	1	0.01754386
.

Was the Vote Share of Team PNOY Constant? Mining the Election Data (Part 2 of 4)

2013-05-21T09:44:00.000+08:00

Let me turn now to the more serious accusation posed by several quarters that the VOTE SHARE of TEAM PNOY and therefore of the non-Team PNOY candidates was "CONSTANT" throughout the Canvassing stages 1-16 conducted by Comelec.

Rene Azurin in his article mentioned in Part 1 yesterday quotes two "experts":

As first pointed out by political activist Ado Paglinawan, the way the 2013 election results came in was "highly suspicious." He correctly observed that, "from the smallest count to the biggest count, there is consistency in the space between the first 15 senatorial candidates…. The progression through the night is mathematically predictable, and is a statistical improbability." The nationwide trend observed by Mr. Paglinawan in the senatorial tally indicated to him that the count "was following a pre-programmed formula based on earlier pre-paid surveys, rather than the actual vote." It was clear to him, he wrote, "that an earlier decision of ranking had been predetermined and the proportion of votes had been pre-designated from a national perspective, with a total disregard for provincial and regional nuances…. From 10% of the vote to 60%, the tally has been running a consistent vote share. As the votes from different provinces came in, the voting pattern was identical for the senatorial positions, something contrary to historical experience in Philippine politics."

Former Comelec IT director Ernie del Rosario adds: "The progressive tallies follow some sort of deterministic linear equation devoid of the influence of any probabilistic parameter or variable. This can only mean one thing -- it is a pre-designed results reporting mechanism that fits the 9-3 survey instead of a tally of the actual votes. I will call it the 9-3 Formula. Notice that the rankings of the candidates in the entire tally (1st to 33rd place) from the time the first report was published to subsequent ones are practically unchanged. What happened to the individual candidates’ known bailiwicks that should have caused some ranking movements in the tallied results? Smoothened by the 9-3 linear formula?" Mr. del Rosario then wryly remarks, "Magdadaya rin lang ang mga ito, medyo sana lagyan nila ng konting pag-iisip [These guys who planned to cheat should have maybe put a little more thought into it]."

Is it literally true, as Mr. Paglinawan claims that, " From 10% of the vote to 60%, the tally has been running a consistent vote share" ?

The simple yet rigorously true answer to this question is NO! as a clear-eyed examination of the raw official tally data below would easily show -- although it would seem that careless or intentionally deceptive GRAPHING and TABULATING of the data has confirmed the bias of many that a "linear equation" determined the results resulting in a CONSTANT share of the vote for Team PNoy throughout the 16 Comelec Canvasses. The table below is from Rappler's Official Tally Page

POE, Grace	6.408= 176	6.481= 729	6.646= 866	6.696= 251	6.737= 401	6.726= 848	6.739= 432	6.823= 043	6.791= 939	6.849= 068	6.845= 406	6.851= 528	6.827= 111	6.825= 845	6.833= 469	6.836= 977
LEGARDA, Loren	6.289209	6.052085	5.995208	6.054241	6.186465	6.171682	6.186527	6.229455	6.222154	6.285388	6.299719	6.288226	6.268697	6.26446	6.273427	6.272146
CAYETANO, Alan	5.759226	5.632376	5.707426	5.715334	5.768305	5.789212	5.784509	5.837116	5.829217	5.906367	5.911245	5.924696	5.910071	5.905143	5.908654	5.907545
ESCUDERO, Chiz	5.787896	5.828463	5.84136	5.802596	5.793761	5.77217	5.741245	5.874194	5.923798	5.902021	5.905759	5.91766	5.890411	5.876858	5.884117	5.881893
ANGARA, Sonny	5.262514	5.329173	5.415183	5.41643	5.399872	5.412031	5.402278	5.376451	5.380348	5.374626	5.385823	5.392037	5.38607	5.379554	5.380569	5.381709
AQUINO, Bam	4.889264	5.03601	4.892162	5.085233	5.036078	5.096358	5.075429	5.084355	5.164426	5.165697	5.151384	5.161811	5.201167	5.206076	5.213128	5.222215
PIMENTEL, Koko	4.956139	5.085349	5.073804	5.026066	5.001143	4.994109	5.009129	4.980641	4.984305	4.928569	4.919514	4.934624	4.932817	4.945154	4.944408	4.949251
TRILLANES, Sonny	4.755243	4.58992	4.715206	4.722992	4.736474	4.825775	4.798255	4.819638	4.767335	4.726851	4.732401	4.748471	4.731949	4.745798	4.746317	4.749372
VILLAR, Cynthia	4.621456	4.543628	4.497219	4.544701	4.629311	4.658743	4.668389	4.62743	4.653344	4.694	4.675218	4.663274	4.653185	4.645528	4.648594	4.647743
MAGSAYSAY, Ramon	3.977589	3.951371	3.893306	3.843258	3.785981	3.80859	3.779222	3.728927	3.769574	3.796315	3.798287	3.802919	3.817896	3.813978	3.816006	3.818451
HONTIVEROS, Risa	3.491308	3.461584	3.650998	3.625094	3.598067	3.646786	3.596486	3.628285	3.690129	3.669277	3.697679	3.706785	3.68636	3.68128	3.680035	3.678542
MADRIGAL, Jamby	2.166958	2.081498	2.080517	2.089797	2.094864	2.153473	2.161967	2.191846	2.245768	2.26829	2.260171	2.2624	2.281073	2.27589	2.281109	2.283088
TOTALS	58.36498	58.07319	58.40926	58.62199	58.76772	59.05578	58.94287	59.20138	59.42234	59.56647	59.58261	59.65443	59.58681	59.56556	59.60983	59.62893

It is the TOTALS line in the table above that the critics say was rigged to give TeamPNoy a 60% share of the vote at the end. They claim that the share of Team Pnoy was "consistent" or "constant throughout the sixteen stages of canvas, a claim that gained traction, in my opinion only because the data DOES LOOK CONSTANT if you graph it a certain way or tabulate it as follows with the SIGNIFICANT FIGURES of the summation process truncated and the actual numbers rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent.

Graphed at low resolution or in a range of 0 to 100%, this data would look like this:

But compare the above to the same data plotted to see the variations in it:
.

NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THE VOTE SHARE DATA

What we are dealing with here is a set of 16 percentages representing the SUM of the votes gained by the 12 candidates running under Team PNoy divided by the running total of the votes tallied at each Canvass Stage multiplied by 100.

Whenever we are dealing with a set of numbers and someone says they look to be approximately the same, we can quantify exactly what is meant by the term "approximately" or "almost the same."

The first step is to calculate the MEAN or AVERAGE VALUE of the set which in this case happens to be

59.12838388 %

The next step is to calculate the STANDARD DEVIATION of the set, a quantity that measures the spread of the data around the mean. In this case the standard deviation happens to be

0.534782704 %

Such a Mean and Standard Deviation cannot in any way be regarded as the hallmarks of a "constant" set of numbers. To compare the spread in the vote share data with that of a standard Social Weather Stations survey of 1200 respondents, we note that the corresponding number in SWS is called the statistical error or margin of error but it is in the vicinity of 3.0 percent. In other words SWS raw statistics have an uncertainty or builty in IMPRECISION equal to plus or minus 3 percent, which must be borne in mind whenever one reads the results of those surveys.

But I shall deal with the accusation that the Senate Vote was patterned after SWS surveys in a subsequent post.

For now, the simple answer to the question of whether or not the Team PNoy share was constant is:

Mining the Election Data for Evidence of Good or Evil (Part 1 of 4)

2013-05-20T20:41:00.000+08:00

My good friend, RENE AZURIN, writes a stinging condemnation of the recent May 13 elections in Business World last week "Uncritical Media, Illegitimate Elections".

I heartily agree with his criticisms of much of the main stream media:

The problem is that many media practitioners today are not intellectually prepared to deal with complex issues and are often too lazy to put in the work needed to prepare to deal with such issues. This is evident in the quality of our talk shows where the host is content to lob superficial "gimme" questions at a guest instead of engaging him/her in serious discussions that will illuminate difficult subjects or unmask hidden agendas.

Let me just add what most people already know that that self-same media needed no more intellectual preparation--corporately or individually--to receive the BILLIONS in election campaign spending, than to know NOT to bite the generous hands that feed it.

So let me turn to the second part of the article dealing with the LEGITIMACY of the recent polls, which utilized an Automated Election System based on portable Precinct Count Optical Scanners. I shall focus mainly on the technical critique and leave Comelec's allegedly irregular deviation from various elections laws and procedures for a later piece.

Perhaps because of those irregularities, long-running suspicions and accusations have once more arisen that the Smartmatic PCOS system is hackable from within, and vulnerable to all sorts of digital legerdemain that could be used for wholesale, computerized cheating. Indeed, since the election data has become publicly available and online, many technically adept and even not-so-adept critics say there are obvious signs of such "hocus PCOS" in the election data itself.

Rene quotes two critics of the system and their observations, as follows:

As first pointed out by political activist Ado Paglinawan, the way the 2013 election results came in was "highly suspicious." He correctly observed that, "from the smallest count to the biggest count, there is consistency in the space between the first 15 senatorial candidates…. The progression through the night is mathematically predictable, and is a statistical improbability." The nationwide trend observed by Mr. Paglinawan in the senatorial tally indicated to him that the count "was following a pre-programmed formula based on earlier pre-paid surveys, rather than the actual vote." It was clear to him, he wrote, "that an earlier decision of ranking had been predetermined and the proportion of votes had been pre-designated from a national perspective, with a total disregard for provincial and regional nuances…. From 10% of the vote to 60%, the tally has been running a consistent vote share. As the votes from different provinces came in, the voting pattern was identical for the senatorial positions, something contrary to historical experience in Philippine politics."

Former Comelec IT director Ernie del Rosario adds: "The progressive tallies follow some sort of deterministic linear equation devoid of the influence of any probabilistic parameter or variable. This can only mean one thing -- it is a pre-designed results reporting mechanism that fits the 9-3 survey instead of a tally of the actual votes. I will call it the 9-3 Formula. Notice that the rankings of the candidates in the entire tally (1st to 33rd place) from the time the first report was published to subsequent ones are practically unchanged. What happened to the individual candidates’ known bailiwicks that should have caused some ranking movements in the tallied results? Smoothened by the 9-3 linear formula?" Mr. del Rosario then wryly remarks, "Magdadaya rin lang ang mga ito, medyo sana lagyan nila ng konting pag-iisip [These guys who planned to cheat should have maybe put a little more thought into it]."

Throughout the week since the election, I've been engaged with many others on Twitter and Facebook discussing and debating these very points. So I decided to look at all the data myself and decide for myself about these accusations, without any prejudices or pre-conceived notions. Luckily the data both gentlemen quoted by Rene above is contained in one compact package maintained by the superb team at Rapplerdotcom headed by Ms. Maria Ressa. The Official Tally of Votes of the 2013 Elections

A table at the above location contains the individual votes of the 33 Senatorial candidates who vied for the 12 available seats in each of 16 Canvassing Stages conducted by the Comelec last week and which resulted in the proclamation by last Friday night (in 3 separate, widely-criticized partial proclamations) of the Magic 12 winners.

It is this data that both Mr. Ado Paglinawan and Ernie del Rosario are referring to. In what follows I shall endeavour to present the actual data in a form that will allow readers of Philippine Commentary to participate with me in a thoroughgoing examination and critique of the accusations.

In this post I shall do not much more than present the information before sharing my own conclusions about them.

First to this statement from Mr. Paglinawan quoted above:

"from the smallest count to the biggest count, there is consistency in the space between the first 15 senatorial candidates….

In the graph below, which I prepared using a spreadsheet program and the data in the Official Tally, readers will see a series of 33 curves each with 16 data points. The X-axis of this graph represents the 16 tallies performed by the National Board of Canvassers on some 304 local and overseas "Certificates of Canvass" containing some 294 million votes for the 33 candidates cast by some more than 39 million voters who turned out for the election. The Y-axis shows the PERCENTAGE of the TOTAL VOTES ALREADY CANVASSED at each stage with which each of the 33 candidates were credited.

Please examine this graphic carefully and consider the statement above of Mr. Paglinawan in the clear light of this simple plot. The 'smallest count' he speaks of is Canvas #1 and the 'biggest count' is Canvas #16 at which point some 294 million votes had been counted.

The tabulated data is prettier found at the Rappler website, but is also here as a simple listing:

ALCANTARA, Samson SJS 1,227,521 1,219,652 1,206,022 1,174,068 1,090,613 1,048,079 959,870 780,065 605,021 417,657 382,929 260,495 215,956 186,692 85,331 51,351

.
ANGARA, Sonny LDP 15,858,995 15,770,821 15,626,960 15,286,774 14,714,561 14,079,635 12,759,795 10,287,276 7,919,081 5,593,601 5,232,977 3,790,897 3,244,883 2,803,181 1,250,443 698,784

.
AQUINO, Bam LP 15,388,992 15,280,039 15,123,026 14,761,981 14,086,288 13,466,762 12,263,781 9,874,431 7,488,847 5,255,177 4,927,748 3,535,501 3,046,469 2,532,438 1,181,655 649,222

.
BELGICA, Greco DPP 1,118,829 1,113,725 1,104,566 1,083,284 1,030,445 986,686 896,573 745,918 592,252 419,104 396,543 286,000 253,021 225,203 87,520 54,430

.
BINAY, Nancy UNA 16,645,515 16,554,119 16,399,739 15,997,420 15,358,420 14,725,283 13,525,314 10,802,550 8,329,945 5,787,423 5,315,184 3,825,405 3,181,537 2,724,274 1,341,777 750,816

.
CASINO, Teddy Makabayan 4,254,245 4,242,259 4,203,937 4,093,259 3,930,504 3,748,036 3,339,166 2,806,706 2,151,295 1,549,394 1,449,793 1,063,605 921,212 812,330 337,732 182,651

.
CAYETANO, Alan NP 17,408,543 17,318,674 17,153,733 16,773,997 16,168,156 15,453,195 14,022,191 11,145,518 8,597,603 5,989,369 5,597,679 4,049,550 3,423,951 2,954,461 1,321,587 764,740

.
COJUANGCO, Tingting UNA 3,091,642 3,080,639 3,057,518 2,991,871 2,847,173 2,755,337 2,559,892 2,102,359 1,650,075 1,210,914 1,156,801 922,370 753,688 552,396 270,442 149,116

.
DAVID, Lito Kapatiran 1,026,096 1,020,879 1,012,215 983,718 927,379 892,476 814,936 651,555 487,883 337,831 315,428 229,612 200,547 173,925 78,781 47,584

.
DELOS REYES, JC Kapatiran 1,226,470 1,221,045 1,210,298 1,178,654 1,108,529 1,063,738 962,319 785,224 577,663 411,082 388,969 286,015 252,545 222,073 96,466 55,679

.
EJERCITO, JV UNA 13,552,991 13,476,446 13,360,579 12,999,725 12,566,069 12,026,870 10,950,878 8,877,587 7,044,012 4,939,197 4,602,150 3,319,079 2,846,576 2,485,370 1,131,921 620,151

.
ENRILE, Jack NPC 11,419,246 11,346,552 11,253,382 10,994,555 10,575,933 10,160,318 9,354,186 7,374,497 5,796,044 4,125,323 3,686,140 2,704,522 2,231,785 1,917,484 912,764 527,218

.
ESCUDERO, Chiz independent 17,332,952 17,246,756 17,071,568 16,718,197 16,148,955 15,438,853 14,011,873 11,326,358 8,652,216 5,944,573 5,581,201 4,067,421 3,476,228 3,023,792 1,367,597 768,547

.
FALCONE, Baldomero DPP 659,073 654,576 646,870 631,217 592,909 569,099 523,901 419,062 319,184 220,572 203,432 142,560 121,084 104,033 47,167 29,669

.
GORDON, Dick UNA 12,364,091 12,324,291 12,252,317 12,048,097 11,673,359 11,261,192 10,172,274 8,194,864 6,235,930 4,479,287 4,254,472 3,177,270 2,798,395 2,441,159 1,081,080 584,822

.
HAGEDORN, Ed independent 8,323,835 8,305,240 8,249,271 8,133,173 7,901,113 7,582,899 6,561,396 5,387,475 4,203,297 3,032,770 2,935,767 2,178,915 1,964,644 1,780,551 728,735 448,544

.
HONASAN, Gringo UNA 13,070,031 13,019,299 12,909,206 12,569,266 12,153,688 11,669,991 10,634,845 8,543,963 6,730,774 4,667,276 4,335,339 3,191,420 2,701,796 2,339,377 1,028,376 600,326

.
HONTIVEROS, Risa Akbayan 10,840,047 10,786,438 10,693,676 10,462,646 10,115,604 9,666,484 8,711,159 7,055,561 5,344,173 3,723,857 3,526,134 2,525,968 2,171,727 1,889,947 812,230 463,594

.
LEGARDA, Loren NPC 18,482,961 18,387,850 18,197,504 17,791,849 17,160,208 16,468,744 14,922,018 11,896,817 9,175,488 6,405,625 5,967,495 4,343,113 3,626,984 3,103,432 1,420,068 835,114

.
LLASOS, Marwil Kapatiran 695,260 692,371 687,252 667,132 629,789 601,039 548,277 458,725 349,850 236,675 223,233 160,766 145,303 130,177 51,043 30,541

.
MACEDA, Ernie UNA 3,388,936 3,376,159 3,353,442 3,286,111 3,170,748 3,052,521 2,770,465 2,269,605 1,776,549 1,295,902 1,216,797 931,610 767,289 686,409 311,907 167,272

.
MADRIGAL, Jamby LP 6,727,877 6,686,088 6,611,189 6,474,155 6,173,959 5,908,546 5,385,103 4,293,929 3,228,413 2,238,534 2,082,226 1,470,667 1,251,959 1,076,984 488,405 287,740

.
MAGSAYSAY, Mitos UNA 5,569,077 5,534,697 5,492,306 5,354,545 5,115,384 4,887,849 4,490,187 3,541,173 2,677,457 1,874,627 1,755,815 1,277,692 1,101,619 967,269 484,364 266,221

.
MAGSAYSAY, Ramon LP 11,252,335 11,184,979 11,079,149 10,835,974 10,377,948 9,929,494 9,012,758 7,207,461 5,492,410 3,913,064 3,682,585 2,657,890 2,302,425 2,015,378 927,154 528,165

.
MONTANO, Mon independent 1,029,439 1,022,853 1,012,475 985,743 902,787 867,213 792,362 608,672 466,688 333,514 309,177 210,762 177,611 154,701 68,548 44,650

.
PENSON, Dick independent 1,030,107 1,024,739 1,015,097 993,195 947,431 906,543 821,812 669,039 520,659 367,963 345,938 258,867 224,329 199,030 83,849 52,263

.
PIMENTEL, Koko PDP-Laban 14,584,612 14,492,401 14,365,080 14,000,348 13,466,306 12,860,609 11,700,820 9,530,039 7,336,084 5,186,529 4,828,881 3,510,976 3,011,023 2,626,465 1,193,232 658,102

.
POE, Grace independent 20,147,423 20,029,370 19,828,262 19,376,744 18,697,429 17,895,281 16,260,239 12,986,253 10,049,795 6,978,111 6,504,294 4,729,889 4,011,600 3,440,764 1,520,880 850,911

.
SENERES, Christian DPP 698,440 694,770 689,671 663,322 625,781 597,128 539,761 442,083 331,665 235,004 222,477 161,070 141,095 125,288 53,555 30,757

.
TRILLANES, Sonny NP 13,995,603 13,911,783 13,785,975 13,430,245 12,958,307 12,371,458 11,221,926 9,115,190 7,098,940 4,968,187 4,666,117 3,325,169 2,829,457 2,440,836 1,076,984 631,426

.
VILLANUEVA, Eddie Bangon Pilipinas 6,868,774 6,844,731 6,796,369 6,681,232 6,446,252 6,210,511 5,589,056 4,597,592 3,549,486 2,405,127 2,254,514 1,660,673 1,473,986 1,278,655 557,457 321,880

.
VILLAR, Cynthia NP 13,696,120 13,625,351 13,494,702 13,206,695 12,725,809 12,221,970 11,143,934 8,897,239 6,815,833 4,833,722 4,504,611 3,249,937 2,722,646 2,327,995 1,066,122 613,661

.
ZUBIRI, Migz UNA 11,707,146 11,617,336 11,544,658 11,191,359 10,506,446 10,046,457 9,184,995 7,526,167 5,697,367 4,164,541 3,838,705 2,697,780 2,314,780 2,023,140 998,939 512,574

COMMENT LINES ARE OPEN and I shall reserve my own for that venue. I shall continue an examination of the other allegations quoted by Rene Azurin later tonight or tomorrow. THANKS for slogging through this if you have gotten this far.

Comelec's 16-Stage Senate Canvas

2013-05-20T06:24:00.004+08:00

The May 2013 Philippine Midterm Elections are now a week-old. But the age-old questions about all Philippine elections remain as may be gleaned from this article by Raissa Robles, Did the Comelec Just Go Rogue?

To help in answering these questions and promote continuous improvement for future elections, I am writing this series of blog posts in which I am analyzing the Official tally of votes for the 2013 senatorial race as recorded by the superb new-media enterprise, Rapplerdotcom, led by veteran journalist Ms. Maria Ressa.

As in the 2010 National Elections, the Smartmatic Precinct Count Optical Scanners, or PCOS machines were used to record the votes of 39,898,232 voters out of some 52 million registered, a 75% turnout. A major source of discomfort and skepticism is the manner by which Comelec CANVASSED 304 Certificates of Canvas (COCs) from Municipal and Provincial Boards of Canvas. It did so in 16 Canvassing Sessions of the National Board of Canvassers. Based on the published Rappler Tally, here is a snapshot of the Comelec Canvassing process:

By my count, 294,683,224 votes were cast by 39 million voters for Senator.

The x-axis represents the 16 Canvas Reports published by Comelec and used to proclaim 12 winning Senators.

The y-axis represents the Incremental Number of Votes tallied or added to previous canvas sessions at each of the 16 stages of canvas, shown below in tabular form as I computed them:

1:	13278521
2:	10185590
3:	28301098
4:	8142941
5:	10295316
6:	26488085
7:	6849981
8:	43750447
9:	43908974
10:	46207109
11:	24012234
12:	11473986
13:	10926269
14:	6667463
15:	2618914
16:	1576296

The National Canvassing process was marred by delays in transmission from the local boards of canvass as detailed by the article of Raissa Robles, resulting in the wide variance of votes tallied at each stage. Notice for example the large number of votes in Canvas stages 8 to 13.

Many bloggers and other analytical types (including me!) have been poring over the Official Data since the 12 winning senators were proclaimed (in 3 batches of 6+3+3) by last Friday, May 18, 2013 just to see if there is anything in the data to verify or falsify accusations and suspicions that the elections may have been rigged or programmed to achieve the final result.

I think it is important for these analyses to take into account the NON-UNIFORM vote increments at each stage of the canvas.

In the next blog post, I shall consider the time series data itself to shed further light on its provenance.

Self Determination and the Sabah Crisis

2013-03-07T01:22:00.000+08:00

I must thank a friend of mine from Sagada, Mountain Province, Mr. Steve Rogers, for calling attention to a 2001 Judgment rendered by the International Court of Justice in a Case Concerning Sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan (Indonesia v. Malaysia) Application by the Philippines for Permission to Intervene Judgment of 23 October 2001.

In denying the Philippines' motion to intervene, the Court ruled that,

"... historic title, no matter how persuasively claimed on the basis of old legal instruments and exercises of authority, cannot - except in the most extraordinary circumstances - prevail in law over the rights of non-self-governing people to claim independence and establish their sovereignty through the exercise of bona fide self-determination.

That bona fide exercise of self-determination already occurred in 1963, the Court further ruled, noting that the certification of this was done by no less than the United Nations:

14. In 1963, Britain filed its last report to the United Nations on North Borneo as an Article 73 (e) Non-Self-Governing Territory (Note by the Secretary-General, Political and Constitutional Information on Asian Territories under United Kingdom Administration, UN Doc. No. A/5402/Add.4 (4 April 1963)). Thereafter, the United Nations removed North Borneo from the list of colonial territories under its decolonization jurisdiction (see Yearbook of the United Nations, 1964, pp. 411-435, which omits North Borneo from the Committee’s list of territories), thereby accepting that the process of decolonization had been completed by a valid exercise of self-determination.

I think the salient point is simply this: Self-determination trumps any historical title, no matter how persuasive or even valid!

15. Accordingly, in light of the clear exercise by the people of North Borneo of their right to self-determination, it cannot matter whether this Court, in any interpretation it might give to any historic instrument or efficacy, sustains or not the Philippines claim to historic title. Modern international law does not recognize the survival of a right of sovereignty based solely on historic title; not, in any event, after an exercise of self-determination conducted in accordance with the requisites of international law, the bona fides of which has received international recognition by the political organs of the United Nations. Against this, historic claims and feudal pre-colonial titles are mere relics of another international legal era, one that ended with the setting of the sun on the age of colonial imperium.

16. The lands and people claimed by the Philippines formerly constituted most of an integral British dependency. In accordance with the law pertaining to decolonization, its population exercised their right of self-determination. What remains is no mere boundary dispute. It is an attempt to keep alive a right to reverse the free and fair decision taken almost 40 years ago by the people of North Borneo in the exercise of their legal right to self-determination. The Court cannot be a witting party to that.

On the Appointment of Chief Justice by the President

2012-08-22T05:38:00.000+08:00

NOTE: The following article was written by Prof. Alan F. Paguia on a topic that has been active on Twitter and social media ever since Chief Justice of the supreme Court Renato J. Corona was appointed by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to that position and subsequently removed by impeachment and trial in the House and Senate of the Congress of the Philippines. -- DJB

Presidential appointment of the Chief Justice is unconstitutional

by Alan F. Paguia

Professor of Constitutional Law
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee Professorial Chair in Constitutional Law and Human Rights Ateneo Law School alanpaguia@yahoo.com
August 21, 2012

Does President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III have constitutional authority to appoint the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

It is respectfully submitted the proper answer is NO. The Law

1. The 1987 Philippine Constitution materially provides that:

“The Supreme Court shall be composed of a Chief Justice and fourteen Associate Justices. It may sit en banc or, in its discretion, in divisions of three, five, or seven Members. Any vacancy shall be filled within ninety days from the occurrence thereof.” (Sec. 4 (1), ART. VIII)
“The Members of the Supreme Court and judges of lower courts shall be appointed by the President from a list of at least three nominees prepared by the Judicial and Bar Council for every vacancy. Such appointments need no confirmation.

For the lower courts, the President shall issue the appointments within ninety days from the submission of the list.” (Sec. 9, ibid. Underscoring supplied.)
“The President shall nominate and, with the consent of the Commission on Appointments, appoint the heads of the executive department, ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, or officers of the armed forces from the rank of colonel or naval captain, and other officers whose appointments are vested in him in this Constitution. He shall also appoint all other officers of the Government whose appointments are not otherwise provided for, by law, and those whom he may be authorised by law to appoint. The Congress may, by law vest the appointment of other officers lower in rank in the President alone, in the courts, or in the heads of departments, agencies, commissions, or boards.
The President shall have the power to make appointments during the recess of the Congress, whether voluntary or involuntary, but such appointments shall be effective only until after disapproval by the Commission on Appointments or until the next adjournment of the Congress.” (Sec. 16, ART VII)

Comments

2. The law is clear. The appointing power of the President vis-à-vis the Supreme Court is categorically LIMITED to the MEMBERS.

3. There are 15 MEMBERS who may sit altogether en banc or in divisions of 3, 5, or 7 MEMBERS. One of the fifteen is designated as Chief Justice and the rest are designated as Associate Justices. The Chief, as leader, is not necessarily superior to the Associates. Such leadership is dictated by the logical requirements of administrative order and convenience in collegial bodies. Thus, he is known as primus inter pares, or first among equals.

4. When a MEMBER - whether Chief or Associate Justice - dies, retires, resigns, is permanently incapacitated, or is removed by conviction in a valid impeachment proceeding, a VACANCY naturally arises in the 15-MEMBER Court.

5. Who has the authority to appoint the person who shall fill up such vacancy? The President. According to the Constitution, the “Members of the Supreme Court (and judges of lower courts) shall be appointed by the President.”

6. When Chief Justice Renato C. Corona was removed through impeachment proceedings, he VACATED two (2) positions – as:
(a) Member, and as (b) Chief Justice.

7. With respect to the VACANCY pertaining to the position of Member, it is CLEAR that the same shall be filled by the APPOINTEE of the President. This is expressly provided by Sec. 9, ART. VIII

8. With respect to the VACANCY pertaining to the position of Chief Justice, it is NOT CLEAR whether the same shall be filled by the APPOINTEE of the President. The Constitution is SILENT as to how such VACANCY shall be filled.

9. The rule is - where the law is NOT CLEAR, it must be CONSTRUED and APPLIED accordingly.

10. Considering that the position of Chief Justice refers to the leadership of a co-equal branch of the tripartite system of government, it ought to follow that a reasonable CONSTRUCTION must observe the principle of SEPARATION OF POWERS between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Their INSTITUTIONAL INDEPENDENCE with respect to each other must be maintained in order to keep the principle of CHECKS AND BALANCE alive and effective.

11. It thus becomes significant to observe how the Constitution determines the leadership of the two Houses of Congress – the Senate and the House of Representatives. The first has the Senate President; the second has the Speaker of the House. These two leaders are:
(a) NOT APPOINTEES of the Chief Executive.
(b) ELECTED by their colleagues from among themselves. (c) CHOSEN to strengthen their respective INSTITUTIONAL INDEPENDENCE.

12. Thus, it would not seem reasonable to have the leadership of the Supreme Court be determined differently. In other words, the logic of the Constitution would appear to indicate that the Chief Justice MUST:
(a) NOT BE AN APPOINTEE of the Chief Executive.
(b) BE ELECTED by the 15 Magistrates from among themselves. (c) BE CHOSEN to strengthen the High Court’s INSTITUTIONAL
INDEPENDENCE.
(d) NOT BE SUBJECT to any sense of POLITICAL DEBT OF
GRATITUDE.

13. To rule otherwise would:
(a) WEAKEN the High Court’s INSTITUTIONAL INDEPENDENCE. (b) SUBJECT the Chief Justice to a sense of POLITICAL DEBT OF GRATITUDE.

14. The Constitution of the United States of America materially provides that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the Advise and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint... Judges of the Supreme Court...” (Clause 2, Sec. 2, ART. II). Does the 1987 Philippine Constitution have a substantially identical equivalent provision? NO. The Philippine President’s power to appoint the Members of the Supreme Court does not require the approval of the Philippine Senate. Thus, while the US President’s power to appoint is subject to the check and balance by the US Senate, the Philippine President’s power to appoint is NOT subject to the check and balance by the Philippine Senate. In other words, such power to appoint on the part of the Philippine President - while apparently limited to the shortlist of nominees screened by the Judicial and Bar Council - appears to be ABSOLUTE, that is, NOT subject to any legal restriction. The constitutional objection is, therefore, grounded upon the UTTER DISREGARD for the principle of checks and balance, which is the indispensable twin of the principle of separation of powers.

15. May tradition be properly invoked to justify the presidential, albeit unconstitutional, practice of appointing the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? NO. The Constitution and the laws are repealed only by subsequent ones, and their violation or non-observance shall not be excused by disuse, or custom or practice to the contrary (Art. 7, CIVIL CODE).

16. Even the Magistrates of the Supreme Court seem inclined to take the view that the Chief Justice ought to be elected from among themselves. Why? Because if they truly believe it is the President who has the authority to appoint the Chief Justice, they should have – to be consistent - asked the President to appoint the Acting Chief Justice to fill up in the meantime the vacancy created by the removal of Chief Justice Corona. They did not. Instead, they elected from among themselves Associate Justice Antonio Carpio as such Acting Chief Justice. And President Aquino did not object.

Conclusion

17. Whoever shall be appointed Chief Justice by President Aquino would be working under a dark constitutional cloud of doubt. The same may be said of the rest of the Magistrates who, with their silence on the matter, would appear to leave to the present and future generations of Filipino legal scholars a legacy of dubious acquiescence.

The Verdict of Juan Ponce Enrile Convicting Chief Justice Corona

2012-06-09T07:50:00.000+08:00

Following is the verdict pronounced by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Presiding Officer of the Senate sitting as an Impeachment Court during the trial of Chief Justice Renato C. Corona, who had been impeached for various offenses against the 1987 Constitution by the House of Representatives on December 12, 2011, led by House Speaker Sonny Belmonte. I had the great privilege of interviewing JPE immediately after the trial and recorded our short meeting in the video above as well as his signing of the historic judgment of the Senate rendered on Tuesday 29 May 2012.

The Presiding Officer.
Thank you.
Magandang hapon po sa inyong lahat. Unang-una, gusto kong pasalamatan ang aking mga Kasama sa Senado na ngayon ay ginagampanan ang katungkulan bilang Hukom dito sa paglilitis na ito sa Kataas-taasang Mahistrado ng Kataas-taasang Hukuman sa ating bansa, na siyang tinatawag na guardian ng ating Saligang Batas at ang kalayaan ng ating mamamayang Pilipino.
                Gusto ko ring pasalamatan ang mga abogado ng dalawang panig na nandito ngayon, the Prosecution Panel, as well as the Defense Panel, for their untiring effort in participating, in ferreting out the truth in this trial in order to arrive at a just resolution of the case before us. In the entire course of this Impeachment Trial, I have faced many difficult challenges to my own and the Court’s collective wisdom, our sense of justice and fairness, the delicate balancing act that we must perform to ensure that we do not stray from the strictures of the Constitution, the laws and our rules. This trial began and unfolded against the backdrop of a highly charged and emotional atmosphere, acrimonious debates in and out of the confines of this Court and a deep political fissure which threatened the stability of our democratic institutions.
But the impact of the many events that transpired since December 12 last year to this very day, taken together, cannot compare to the sense of heaviness that I feel at this very moment. The culmination of this national drama is at hand. And the time has come for me to render judgment on the person before whom I took my oath of office as a Senator of this Republic, no less than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Renato C. Corona. The Respondent Chief Justice and his family understandably feel deeply hurt, pained and aggrieved.
                As a lawyer, I must confess that I was personally frustrated, really frustrated by the loose and hasty crafting and preparation that characterized the presentation of the charges contained in the Articles of Impeachment. It seems that the case was being built up only after the charges were actually filed. The repeated recourse to this Court’s compulsory processes to obtain evidence which normally should have formed the factual basis of the charges in the first place further burdened and, at times, taxed the patience of this Court.
                We have witnessed with disdain the indiscriminate, deliberate and illegal machinations of some parties who have been less than forthright with this Court and its Members in presenting dubiously procured and misleading documents which were spread to the media obviously to influence this Court and the public’s opinion.
                The letter of the Land Registration Authority which contained, as an attachment, a list of 45 properties supposedly owned by the Respondent Chief Justice was fed to the media even before we could begin the actual trial of the case.
                                Even before the Honorable Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales was called to testify before this Court, her letter to the Chief Justice requiring him to explain in 72 hours an alleged aggregate amount of $10 million in several dollar accounts was leaked to the media right before the resumption of this trial last May 7.
                We have sternly cautioned against any unethical and unprofessional conduct; the penchant to engage in trial by publicity; to use the media to disseminate and advance so-called information or evidence to provoke and disrespect this Court and its Members; and to irresponsibly hurl disparaging insinuations and accusations. We have tried to impress upon everyone who may be similarly motivated and inclined to test our will that this Court means serious business and would not succumb to or allow such under- handed tactics and gimmickry to deter this Court from our task.
                Prudence and justice dictate that in determining the guilt or innocence of the Chief Justice, we must try our best to confine ourselves to the pieces of testimonial and documentary evidence that have been presented to this Court to pass upon their relevance and to measure and weigh their value in the light of the charges before us.
                After all the accusations levelled against the Chief Justice, eight (8) charges in all, comprising the Articles of Impeachment, the Prosecution chose to present evidence only on three (3) articles, namely, Article II, Article III and Article VII, and then abruptly rested its case. I always believed that of these three, the case for the Prosecution and the Defense will rise or fall on Article II which is now the subject of our vote.
                This Court, at one point, had extensive discussions and differences of opinion, to be sure, regarding the charge contained in Paragraph 2.4 of Article II that the Chief Justice was “suspected and accused of having accumulated ill-gotten wealth, acquiring assets of high values and keeping bank accounts with huge deposits.” We ruled to disallow the introduction of evidence in support of Paragraph 2.4 which, to this day, I strongly maintain, as I am sure my colleagues in this Court strongly maintain, was an invalid charge, it being based on mere suspicion on so-called “reports” rather than on factual allegations.
                The Defense and the Chief Justice himself, unhappily, somehow revived this issue of the nature of his assets by introducing evidence to prove that his income and assets were legitimate and by testimony to show how he and his wife have saved and invested these savings in foreign currency over so many decades. At this moment, I wish to reiterate, for the record, that the Chief Justice does not stand accused of having amassed any illegal wealth before this Impeachment Court.
                Paragraph 2.2 of Article II of the Articles of Impeachment accuses the Respondent Chief Justice of failing to disclose to the public his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth as required by the Constitution. I submit that the Chief Justice had justifiable and legal grounds to rely on the Supreme Court’s procedural and policy guidelines governing such disclosure as embodied in a resolution promulgated way back in 1989 when the Respondent was not yet a member of the Supreme Court. Under the said guidelines, the Clerk of Court of the Supreme Court, who is the repository of the SALNs submitted by all the members of that High Court, may furnish copies of the SALNs in his or her custody to any person upon request and upon a showing that there is a legitimate reason for the same.
                The Constitution in Article XI, Section 17 states that, “In the case of the President, the Vice- President,…the Members of the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Commissions and other Constitutional Offices, and officers of the armed forces with general or flag rank, the declaration shall be disclosed to the public in the manner provided by law.”
                RA 6713, known as the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, recognizes the public’s right to information on the assets, liabilities and net worth, financial and business interests of public servants. But, it likewise declares it unlawful for any person—and I would like to quote the provision: “To obtain or use the same for purposes contrary to morals or public policy or for any commercial purpose other than by news and communications media for dissemination to the general public.”
                Whether, the said guidelines violate the letter and spirit of Republic Act 6713 and the principle of public accountability is not, I repeat, is not for this Court to pass upon. I grant that the Chief Justice believed in good faith that after periodically filing his sworn Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court were sufficient to allow the Clerk of Court to comply with the Constitution and the law.
                We cannot ignore the fact that the failure or refusal, particularly of public officials in high government positions, to provide the public or the media with copies of the SALNs continues to be a raging issue to this day. In fact, some, if not most of the members of the Prosecution panel itself, the Members of the Supreme Court, Members of the Congress and other high officials of the government have been challenged by media organizations and others to make their SALNs available to the public and to the media.
                Paragraph 2.3 of Article II further accuses the Respondent Chief Justice, based on reports, of not including some properties in his declaration of his assets, liabilities and net worth in violation of the Anti- Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. The Prosecution, based on the list it procured from the Land Registration Authority, claims that the Chief Justice owned and failed to fully disclose in his SALN 45 real estate assets. Based on the evidence, I am convinced that the Defense has presented credible evidence to refute this charge and to explain the exclusion in the Respondent Chief Justice’s SALN of certain properties which have either been sold or legally transferred; properties which are actually owned by his children and/or third parties; and properties which were never owned by the Respondent Chief Justice in the first place.
                I am likewise convinced that the Defense has sufficiently established that there was no ill-intention on the part of the Respondent Chief Justice to understate or misrepresent the value of his real properties.
                Proceeding now to the most significant charge involving the nondisclosure of the Respondent Chief Justice’s cash assets, the Ombudsman, at the instance of the Defense, testified with a presentation of a report from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) showing 82 bank accounts allegedly belonging to the Respondent. She further testified that based on her analysis of the report aided by the Commission on Audit, the Chief Justice had cash assets in the examined bank accounts of anywhere from $10 million to $12 million. Even if we grant the existence of these 82 accounts, the amount of deposits corresponding to each of these could not just easily, fairly or logically be summed up to arrive at exactly how much cash assets or deposits in actuality and in totality the Respondent Chief Justice had or has at any given point of time. Hence, the Ombudsman’s reference to the transactional balance of about $12 million should not mislead this Court in its appreciation of the facts.
                Regrettably, both the Prosecution and the Defense panels decided not to present the concerned bank officers or the AMLC to ascertain the veracity of the data allegedly provided by the AMLC to the Office of the Ombudsman despite the Respondent’s submission to this Court of a written waiver to cause the opening of all his bank accounts. Laudable as this belated act on the part of the Respondent Chief Justice may be, it would have served him better if he had just presented bank documents as evidence to either confirm or refute the documents showing his bank transactions as presented by the Ombudsman.
                It has not escaped this Presiding Officer that initially, last May 22nd to be exact, before he walked out of this Court, the Chief Justice signed the said waiver in open court but made the release of the same conditional, that is, after all the 188 signatories to the Articles of Impeachment and Senator-Judge Franklin Drilon have signed a similar waiver. It was only during the hearing last May 25 that the Chief Justice decided finally to submit a waiver to this Court without any preconditions.
                Moreover, even as the Chief Justice had full access to his own bank accounts and all the opportunity to introduce evidence to disprove the data, findings and analyses presented by the Ombudsman or the report of the AMLC, the Defense did not introduce any such evidence. As it is, the Impeachment Court could only rely on the documents supplied by the Ombudsman which showed the Respondent’s bank transactions but which do not show the actual bank balances of Respondent’s bank accounts.
                Instead, the Defense presented the Chief Justice himself as its last witness and pleaded for the Court’s permission to allow the Respondent Chief Justice to deliver an opening statement. This Court out of courtesy to the Chief Justice, as the highest magistrate of the land, decided to extend that courtesy to him its understanding, and to exercise utmost liberality in granting the request for him to speak before us.
                The long narration where the Chief Justice touched on a wide range of issues, assertions of facts, accusations, opinions and personal sentiments where the Respondent said he found necessary to narrate in order to clear his and his family’s name, was later adopted by the Defense as the direct testimony of the Respondent Chief Justice. The Prosecution, on the other hand, waived its rights to cross-examine the Chief Justice provided the Defense would not conduct any further direct examination. Nevertheless, the Respondent Chief Justice testified and admitted, in answer to questions from a Member of this Court, that he had around P80 million in three (3) peso accounts and $2.4 million in four (4) US dollar accounts, but that he had purposely not declared these assets for two reasons: One, that his peso accounts represented commingled funds; and two, that he was not required to report or declare his foreign currency deposits in his SALN because they were, according to him, absolutely confidential under RA 6426.
                Ladies and gentlemen of this Court, aking mga kababayan, I disagree on both counts. If, indeed, any of the Respondent’s cash deposits were commingled with the funds belonging to other parties such as the Basa-Guidote Enterprise Inc. or his children, the Respondent was still duty- bound under our laws to declare these deposits in his SALN, they being admittedly under his name by his own very declaration.
                The evidence is devoid of any indication that the Chief Justice was holding these funds in trust for or that they were actually beneficially owned by anyone other than himself or his wife. Assuming that any part of such deposits in truth belong to third parties, the Respondent could have indicated such third party funds as corresponding liabilities in his SALN. That would have reflected his true and real net worth.
                With all due respect, I believe that the Respondent Chief Justice’s reliance on the absolute confidentiality accorded to foreign currency deposits under Section 8 of Republic Act No. 6426 is grossly misplaced. The Constitution, in Article XI, Section 17, provides that, and I would like to quote it: “A public officer or employee shall, upon assumption of office and as often as may be required by law, submit a declaration under oath of his assets, liabilities and net worth.” The oath required him to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. So help him, God.
                Are we now to say that this constitutional command, mandatory as it is, is limited to public officials, assets or deposits in local currency? If so, would we not be saying, in effect, that the Constitution allows something less than a full, honest and complete disclosure under the first sentence of Section 17 of Article XI?
                It bears noting that the prescribed form of the SALN quite simply requires public officers and employees to declare their assets, real and personal, the latter to include cash and bank deposits, bonds and others. It does not require the public officer or employee to indicate whether or not he or she has foreign currency notes or deposits. Neither does it require details such as account numbers, account names, bank identities, nor any branch addresses. All that it requires is a declaration under oath of the total amount of funds deposited in any bank account or accounts maintained by the public official or employee concerned.
                Surely, the Chief Justice knows the equivalent value in local currency of his foreign currency deposits to be able to declare the same as part of his assets, especially since the aggregate amount of this foreign currency deposits by his own account under oath amounts to US$2.4 million. The nondisclosure of these deposits in both local and foreign currency would naturally result in a corresponding distortion of the Chief Justice’s real net worth.
                Consistent with the position taken by this Court in the case filed by the Philippine Savings Bank before the Supreme Court last February, pursuant to which the Supreme Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order, I maintain that the constitutional principle of public accountability under Article XI of the Constitution overrides the absolute confidentiality of foreign currency deposits. The provision of RA 6426 cannot be interpreted as an exception to the unequivocal command and tenor of Article XI, Section 17 of the 1987 Constitution. And I regret that the highest magistrate of the land no less would think otherwise.
                Section 8 of RA 6426 provides that, “except with the written permission of the depositor” —I would repeat—”except with the written permission of the depositor”—and I quote, “in no instance shall foreign currency deposits can be examined, inquired or looked into by any person, government official, bureau or office whether judicial or administrative or legislative or any other entity whether public or private.”
                Any other interpretation of this provision would be unwarranted and the term “any person” would not include the depositor. The so-called conflict of laws between RA Nos. 6713 and 6426 is more illusory than real to me. Section 8 of RA No. 6426 merely prohibits the examination, inquiry or looking into a foreign currency deposit account by an entity or person other than the depositor himself, because that depositor knows his deposit and he can reveal it, if he wants to, without any penalty or punitive sanction against him, unlike others who would reveal it. But there is nothing in RA No. 6426 which prohibits the depositor from making a declaration on his own of such foreign currency funds, especially in this case where the Constitution mandates the depositor who is a public officer to declare, under the Constitution itself, all assets owned by him or his family under oath.
                Some have raised the question: Why should the Chief Justice be held accountable for an offense which many, if not most others in government are guilty of, perhaps even more guilty than he is? They say that hardly anyone declares his true net worth anyway.
                Here lies what many have posited as a moral dilemma. I believe it is our duty to resolve this “dilemma” in favor of upholding the law and sound public policy in this country. If we were to agree with the Respondent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that he was correct in not disclosing the value of his foreign currency deposits because they are absolutely confidential, can we ever expect any SALN to be filed by public officials, no matter how high and no matter how low, from hereon to be more accurate and true than they are today? I do not think so.
                I am not oblivious to the possible political repercussions of the final verdict we are called upon to render today. I am deeply concerned that the people may just so easily ignore, may forget, if not completely miss out, the hard lessons we all must learn from this episode, instead of grow and mature as citizens of a democratic nation.
                Those whose intentions and motivations may be farthest from the lofty ideals of truth and justice are wont to feast upon this man’s downfall should this Court render a guilty verdict, as I think it would. I am quite equally aware of the tremendous pressures weighing heavily upon each and all of the Members of this Court as we had to come to a decision on this case, one way or the other. But to render a just verdict according to my best lights and my own conscience is a sacred duty that I have taken on myself that I have sworn to perform.
                As one who has been through many personal upheavals through all of my 88 years, I, too, have been judged, often unfairly and harshly. But I have constantly held that those who face the judgment of imperfect and fallible mortals like us have recourse to the judgment of history, and, ultimately of God. And so, with full trust that the Almighty will see us through the aftermath of this chapter in our nation’s history, I vote to hold the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Renato C. Corona, guilty as charged under Article II, paragraph 2.3 and that his deliberate act of excluding substantial assets from his sworn Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth constitutes in my humble view as a member of this Court, a culpable violation of the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines.
                Thank you.

Noli Me Tangere: The Opera Kicks Off Dulaang UP Season

2012-06-01T13:32:00.000+08:00

Dulaang UP opens its 37th season with the restaging ofNoli Me Tangere: The Opera, the critically-acclaimed operatic retellingby National Artist Felipe Padilla de Leon of Jose Rizal’sNoli Me Tangere with libretto by fellow National Artist Guillermo Tolentino.This restaging is also part of the celebration of the birth centennial of Padilla de Leon.Touted by critics as the musical treat of 2011, the production had a successful, sold-out four-week run last November.

Noli Me Tangere: The Opera is directed by DUP Artistic Director Alexander Cortez (Cayabyab/ Asensio’s Spoliarium, Lumbera/Letaba’s Hibik at Himagsik nina Victoria Lactao, Quintos/De Guzman’s Atang: A Play with Music, Quintos/ Africa’s St. Louis Loves dem Filipinos: The Musical). It is a testament to the ingenuity of the Filipino artist. With two pianos providing the accompaniment to the performances of some of the country’s finest classically-trained singers, the production welds energy and fresh insight together with tradition to breathe life into Rizal’s timeless opus through the transcending power of music.

Under the vocal coaching and music supervision of Camille Lopez Molina,young opera singers Myramae Meneses, Ivan Nery, Antonio Ferrer, Elainne Vibal, Frederick Hipol, Mark Queddeng, and veterans Jonathan Velasco, Pablo Molina, Jean Judith Javier, Joy Abalon-Tamayo, Cynthia Guico, Greg De Leon and Tanya Corcuera among many others from UP and other music conservatories interpret memorable songs from the opera. Child actors/singers Matthew Anenias and Jhizelei Deocareza play the roles of Basilio and Crispin, respectively. Critics lauded the performances of the cast. Amadís Ma. Guerrero of the Philippine Daily Inquirer described Ferrer (Ibarra) and Vibal (Maria Clara) as, “an appealing couple, visually and vocally.” He also considered Hipol’s Elias as “convincing” and Javier’s Sisa as “spellbinding”.

Among the songs included are Maria Clara’s Kay Tamis ng Buhay, Maria Clara and Ibarra’s duet Sa Lupang Pangako, Sisa’s haunting aria Awit ng Gabi, and Ibarra’s Aking Isinangguni to name but a few. Talented actors from the Dulaang UP ensemble complete the cast. Accompanists are pianists Noel dela Rosa, Daphne Jocson, Jesper Mercado and flutist Dante Lipana.

Production designer Gino Gonzales puts to good use Philippine indigenous materials for the sets and the inabel cloth from the Ilocos region for the costumes. Lighting designer Jon Jon Villareal, sound designer Jethro Joaquin, and choreographer Dexter Santos collaborate to create an all-Filipino ambience fitting for the production. Winter David provides the video support with special props designed and executed by John Gaerlan. Pow Santillan renders the graphics design with photos by Jojit Lorenzo and Dino Dimar.

Noli Me Tangere: The Opera is made possible by the UP Office of the President, UP Diliman Office of the Chancellor, Office of the Dean College of Arts and Letters, UP Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts, Day by Day Christian Ministries, Ms. Irene M. Araneta, Dr. Joven Cuanang and NCCA Chairman Jun de Leon.

Noli Me Tangere: The Opera runs fromJuly 18-22,25-29; August 1 & 2, 8-12 (Wednesday to Friday, 7pm; Saturday and Sunday, 10 am and 3pm. Due to the UPCAT exams on Aug 4 & 5, there will be no performances from Aug 3 -5. Noli resumes Aug 8)at the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater, Palma Hall, University of the Philippines Diliman. For sponsorship and ticket inquiries, please contact the Dulaang UP Office at 926-1349, 981-8500 local 2449 or 433-7840.

Meta Mon Apton! (Noli Me Tangere!)

2012-04-04T06:27:00.000+08:00

REMBRANDT's famous painting portrays the moment Jesus Christ utters that famous phrase in the Gospel of John 20:17 and is the very moment of Christianity's birth, for it is His first appearance in the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)--after the Resurrection. Mary Magdalene is the first human being to see Him alive after the Crucifixion. Here it is from the Latin Vulgate Bible:

15. dicit ei Iesus mulier quid ploras quem quaeris illa existimans quia hortulanus esset dicit ei domine si tu sustulisti eum dicito mihi ubi posuisti eum et ego eum tollam
16. dicit ei Iesus Maria conversa illa dicit ei rabboni quod dicitur magister
17. dicit ei Iesus noli me tangere nondum enim ascendi ad Patrem meum vade autem ad fratres meos et dic eis ascendo ad Patrem meum et Patrem vestrum et Deum meum et Deum vestrum
18. venit Maria Magdalene adnuntians discipulis quia vidi Dominum et haec dixit mihi

The King James Version (1611) has it in English:

15. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
16. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
17. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
18. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the LORD, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

Now of course, it is always a surprise, especially for incredulous Catolicos cerrados to discover that the original Gospels were written in Greek but that circumstance and its implications would be tangential to my purpose today, which is actually to give some background for some younger relatives of mine, on the Noli Me Tangere of José Rizál, which they are studying this year in high school.

Why did Rizál choose this title, which was quite famous in his day in the 19th century and even before that? Wikipedia traces the phrase in many other historical and rhetorical contexts. But in his Dedication of the novel, Rizal gives a clue regarding his own usage of it. Here is and English Translation of the Dedication of the Noli Me Tangere, from the 1956 Unexpurgated Noli Me Tangere by Jorge Cleofas Bocobo:

To My Country
The story of human sufferings records a cancer of such malignant character that the slightest contact irritates it and stirs up therein the most acute pains. Now then; whenever in the midst of modern civilizations I wished to evoke thee, either to cherish the remembrances or to compare thee with other countries, thy beloved image appeared before me with a similar social cancer.

Wishing thy health which is ours, and in search of the best treatment, I shall do for thee which the ancients did for their sick: they exposed them on the steps of the temple, in order that every person who had just invoked the Divinity might propose a remedy for them.

And for this purpose, I shall try faithfully to reproduce thy condition without fear or favor; I shall raise a part of the veil that covers the malady, sacrificing all for the sake of truth, even personal pride, for, being the son, I also suffer from thy defects and weaknesses.

The Author, Europe, 1886

It has been suggested that the title dovetails quite well with the sentiments expressed above and stated methodology of the novel, which is to expose the malady so that every person with a conscience might propose some remedy.

Aside from the above interpretation, often seen in Rizal Day essays in December, just before we execute and murder the author for the Nth time, I suppose Rizál also had a flare for the psychological in titling his novel, for who can resist a package that says "DO NOT OPEN!"I guess that would be my translation of "Noli Me Tangere!"

But the Greek, sounds more defiant to me: "Meta mon apton!" which somehow sounds to me more like "Touch me and I'll kick you in the ass!"

FIFTY YEARS OF THE RIZAL LAW: Paradoxically, the Roman Catholic Church, which did indeed get its frailocratic theocracy's comeuppance from Rizal, BANNED his novels for over half a century. I am not completely sure in fact, whether they've actually been removed officially from the Index Prohibitorum Librorum of the Catholic Church. I still remember the admonition of my sainted mother to me as a young boy that it was a mortal sin to read the Noli and the Fili, followed with the delicious intimation that she and her sisters, my Catolico cerrado aunts, had secretly read them anyway, despite similar warnings of "Verboten" from the St. Scholastica nuns. Actually it's too bad they made it mandatory in 1956 for Filipinos to read the novel, a legal curricular requirement that was probably the end of much interest in them by the young! The Rizal Law is now in its 50th year:

Republic Act No. 1425 THE RIZAL LAW
June 12, 1956

An Act to Include in the Curricula of All Public and Private Schools, Colleges and Universities courses on the Life Works and Writings of JOSE RIZAL, particularly his novels NOLI ME TANGERE and EL FILIBUSTERISMO, Authorizing the Printing and Distribution Thereof, and for Other Purposes.

Whereas, today, more than other period of our history, there is a need for a re-dedication to the ideals of freedom and nationalism for which our heroes lived and died.

Whereas, it is meet that in honoring them, particularly the national hero and patriot, Jose Rizal, we remember with special fondness and devotion their lives and works that have shaped the national character;

Whereas, the life, works and writings of Jose Rizal particularly his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, are a constant and inspiring source of patriotism with which the minds of the youth, especially during their formative and decisive years in school, should be suffused.

Whereas, all educational institutions are under the supervision of, and subject to regulation by the State, and all schools are enjoined to develop moral character, personal discipline, civic conscience, and to teach the duties of citizenship; Now therefore,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled

SEC.1
Courses on the life, works and writings of Jose Rizal, particularly his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, shall be included in the curricula of all schools, colleges and universities, public or private; Provided, That in the collegiate courses, the original or unexpurgated editions of the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo or their English translations shall be used as basic texts.

The Board of National Education is hereby authorized and directed to adopt forthwith measures to implement and carry out the provisions of this Section, including the writing and printing of appropriate primers, readers and textbooks. The Board shall, within sixty (60) days from the effectivity of this Act promulgate rules and regulations, including those of a disciplinary nature, to carry out and enforce the regulations of this Act. The Board shall promulgate rules and regulations providing for the exemption of students for reason of religious belief stated in a sworn written statement, from the requirement of the provision contained in the second part of the first paragraph of this section; but not from taking the course provided for in the first part of said paragraph. Said rules and regulations shall take effect thirty (30) days after their publication in the Official Gazette.

SEC.2
It shall be obligatory on all schools, colleges and universities to keep in their libraries an adequate number of copies of the original and unexpurgated editions of the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, as well as Rizal’s other works and biography. The said unexpurgated editions of the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo or their translations in English as well as other writings of Rizal shall be included in the list of approved books for required reading in all public or private schools, colleges and universities.

The Board of National Education shall determine the adequacy of the number of books, depending upon the enrollment of the school, college or university.

SEC.3
The Board of National education shall cause the translation of the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, as well as other writings of Jose Rizal into English, Tagalog and the principal Philippine dialects; cause them to be printed in cheap, popular editions; and cause them to be distributed, free of charge, to persons desiring to read them, through the Purok organizations and the Barrio Councils throughout the country.

SEC.4
Nothing in this Act shall be construed as amending or repealing section nine hundred twenty-seven of the Administrative Code, prohibiting the discussion of religious doctrines by public school teachers and other persons engaged in any public school.

SEC.5
The sum of three hundred thousand pesos is hereby authorized to be appropriated out of any fund not otherwise appropriated in the National Treasury to carry out the purposes of this Act.

SEC.6
This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

I think the Rizal Law should be repealed when Glorial Macapagal Arroyo finally declares Martial Law. Let it be again FORBIDDEN to think, to expose, to propose remedies. Let us return to theocracy and cant, to Talibanism and authoritarianism. Let us descend once more into Oblivion! But...

META MON APTON!

Maybe that's the message Jesus wanted to send the Sanhedrin and the Romans too. Touch me not or I'll destabilize you and take over your Empire.

UPDATES:

Why Do Loan Sharks Love The Teachers? In this Inquirer news story, the Deped is warning some of its own employees against acting as loan collection agents for money lending agencies. Well, It's no secret really, that the nearly half million government employees of the Department of Education are among the most debt-ridden sectors of society. But that is not necessarily because they aren't paid enough. Although no one is going get rich being a public school teacher, their soaring levels of indebtedness are at least partly due to the overly generous and accomodating ways of the folks lending them money. And why is that? Well take a look again at how the DepEd budget is divvied up. Notice that 100-Billion Peso Chunk of Change called "Salaries"? That is 100 Billion Pesos in cold hard cash that gets doled out as Blue Chip Government Checks every week, year in and year out since Mahoma lived and died and probably till he comes back! As a loan shark, you've gotta respect such a cash flow.

By the way, I cannot overemphasize a perhaps obscure connection. But how that 100 billion pesos in Salaries is actually spent is determined principally by the Curriculum which has Five Subjects: Math, Science, English, Pilipino and Classrooms-for-the-Students -- err --- Makabayan (Values Education).

What I'm really trying to say here is that there is PLENTY OF MONEY for school buildings, computers and textbooks, except we are currently spending it on a congested curriculum with too many unnecessary subjects and too many teachers in them, teaching an unconstitutional curriculum full of religious mumbo jumbo and post-modern psychobabble. I say, the facilities and instructional materials that the 20 million basic education sector needs are tied up in the government employee salaries that also end up as indentured servants of the corrupt electoral system.,

Rizalist and I

2012-03-24T05:06:00.001+08:00

With apologies to JORGE LUIS BORGES.

Philippine Commentary is now a podcast.
Dean Jorge Bocobo.

(BTW here is the original post of this item.)

Strong Words from Juan Ponce Enrile to Justice Serafin Cuevas

2012-03-12T15:03:00.001+08:00

At the end of a long colloquy between presiding Senator Juror Juan Ponce Enrile and Lead Defense Counsel Justice Serafin Cuevas, the above statement was made by the Presiding Officer, in effect over ruling the Defense Motion and position on PROBABLE CAUSE in the impeachment case presently being tried by the Senate Impeachment Court.

Juan Ponce Enrile read substantial portions of Article 11 of the 1987 Constitution while Justice Cuevas relied on the Supreme Court's FRANCISCO DECISION

But here is the whole remarkable colloquy:

Corona Claims Hacienda Luisita Decision is Reason for Impeachment Against Him

2012-03-07T19:14:00.001+08:00

Suggesting he singlehandedly prevented the payment of TEN BILLION PESOS to the owners of Hacienda Luisita, the Chief Justice Renato Corona claims in this part of an exclusive interview with Arnold Clavio just this morning, that this is the root and reason for the impeachment move against him.

Corona Wanted To Prove Justice Sereno a Liar in the Impeachment Court

2012-03-07T17:48:00.000+08:00

The impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona had some remarks about Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno during his interview with GMANews' Arnold Clavio broadcast on television this morning. I shall leave it to the readers of Philippine Commentary to decide what to make out of all these remarkable statements.

Chief Justice Corona Says Associate Justice Antonio Carpio Wants His Job

2012-03-07T17:00:00.000+08:00

In an exclusive interview broadcast on GMANews this morning, the impeached Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines went on the offensive as the Senate Impeachment Court decided to accept certain potentially damaging pieces of evidence against him. But he had some interesting things to say about his fellow Justice on the High Court, Antonio Carpio. Corona claims Carpio wants to be Chief Justice and broadly hints the latter is behind "black propaganda" against him. (Corona spoke to Arnold Clavio of GMANews directly to the Public, in an apparent nod that the Court of Public Opinion is also trying his case!))

The cutting remarks of the Chief Justice against Justice Carpio give us a RARE GLIMPSE into Supreme Court in-fighting.

Impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona Speaks Out (on TV!)

2012-03-07T11:54:00.000+08:00

The impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona on trial in the Senate Impeachment Court, has given an exclusive interview to Arnold Clavio of GMANews television, aired earlier today by the nationwide network. In the following segment, listen to the Chief Justice explaining WHY he and his wife Christina suddenly closed several bank accounts in the Philippine Savings Bank on December 12, 2011, the day the House of Representatives impeached him.

The Oath of the Senator Judges

2012-03-01T12:42:00.001+08:00

Senate Resolution 39 prescribes the OATH or AFFIRMATION taken by Senators-Judges when the Senate is sitting as an Impeachment Court:

“I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of ______ ______, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws of the Philippines: (So help me God).”

This oath certainly does not create any impression in me that Miriam Defensor Santiago, after having sworn the same, could be excused for culpable violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct Rule 3.04.

"Gago!"

2012-02-29T22:17:00.001+08:00

MIRIAM DEFENSOR SANTIAGO today hurled this peculiarly Pinoy insult at the House Prosecution Panel today at the trial of the impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona. This was in the midst of a long harangue and lecture, complete with obscure judicial citations. But take a look at the Code of Judicial Conduct:

RULE 3.04 - A judge should be patient, attentive, and courteous to lawyers, especially the inexperienced, to litigants, witnesses, and others appearing before the court. A judge should avoid unconsciously falling into the attitude of mind that the litigants are made for the courts, instead of the courts for the litigants.

Was Miriam patient, attentive and courteous when she called the House panel "GAGO?" I think it's a culpable violation on national television. Boooooo! Miriam. What private prosecutor Aguirre did was certainly contemptuous as JPE and the Senate Impeachment Court ruled, but what Miriam did was contemptibly unethical.

Hasn't the Senate just demonstrated the same self-preserving bullshit that the Supreme Court just did unto their subpoena?

Enrile on Impeachment: A Line in the Sand?

2012-02-16T05:34:00.003+08:00

Below is Juan Ponce Enrile's Opinion on Impeachment delivered in the course of heated debates over a Supreme Court TRO on a subpoena by the Senate Court to the Philippine Savings to produce bank records of what have turned out to be foreign currency deposits (dollar accounts) of the accused Chief Justice Renato C. Corona:
(via @rapplerdotcom):

"May I now state the position of this humble presiding officer. And this position is subject to the opinion of the court, of the Senate sitting as an impeachment court.

"In the humble view of the presiding officer, the Senate as an impeachment court must at all times observe the rule of law.

"It cannot transgress any of the applicable provisions of the bill of rights. It must be guided by the presumption of innocence, before the pronouncement of guilt. It must at all times observe the principle of procedural and substantial due process.

"It cannot use its power to issue compulsory process or processes to compel any witness to appear and testify and in testifying is forced to commit a crime. It cannot compel a witness to testify against himself.

"It cannot arbitrarily declare a person guilty of contempt and deprive of that person his or her liberty.

"It cannot violate the laws passed by Congress of which it is an integral part.

"That is the humble position of this presiding officer of this Senate sitting as an impeachment court.

"Now, as far as the subpoena duces tecum involved, which was issued by this presiding officer upon the behest of the prosecution, this presiding officer assumes full responsibility for issuing that subpoena. And is ready to defend his position in any court of law if there is a need for that.

"I will not pass the buck to the Senate sitting as an impeachment court. It was my decision as the presiding officer and I am personally bound to assume the consequences of my action as a presiding officer.

"Having said that, I do not wish to delve on the issue [on the] exercise to issue compulsory processes by this court in this particular instance involving Republic Acts 1405 and 6426.

"I do not want to make any pronouncement on that because precisely this court, through this presiding officer, exercised the discretion to heed the request of the prosecution to issue a subpoena duces tecum to help them obtain the evidence they wanted in the face of proscriptions by laws of the land passed by Congress.

"And that is the subject matter now of the case before the Supreme Court filed by a private party asserting its rights under the laws of this country and under the Constitution to be protected from any liability, and that is the reason for which the Supreme Court issued a TRO.

"And that is the reason why this court, or a majority of this court, yesterday ruled, in an open, uninfluenced voting that the court must respect the order of the Supreme Court to issue its temporary restraining order.

"Whether or not in the end this court abused its discretion or committed a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of or excess of jurisdiction will be decided...by the Supreme Court being the highest court of the land and the final arbiter and interpreter of the Constitution of this country.

"For no one else was given by the sovereign people in their Constitution the power to make a final determination or interpretation of what the Constitution ought to be or what a law ought to be except the Supreme Court.

"Not the executive. Not congress. But only the Supreme Court.

"And so it is my bounded duty as the presiding officer of this impeachment court to respect the authority, the power of the Supreme Court to review acts of this impeachment court, in interlocutory matters, meaning, matters bearing on the manner which this court will conduct the trial of this particular impeachment case.

"But it is my humble view that the Supreme Court, in spite of the fact that it has the power of judicial review, cannot assume jurisdiction over the power, the sole power of this Senate sitting as an impeachment court to try and decide this impeachment case.

"That is the position of this humble presiding officer."

As the Senate President says at the outset, this opinion is yet to be discussed by the Senate Court. Doubtless it will be debated at length and modified somewhat, but I expect its most durable features to survive into the Majority view.

The most important of these may be the distinction JPE draws between a POWER and a JURISDICTION, between the Supreme Court's power of Judicial Review and the Senate's sole power as Impeachment Court to TRY and DECIDE all cases of impeachment and the JURISDICTION in which each power is applicable under the 1987 Constitution.

In particular, JPE believes the Supreme Court may exercise judicial review over INTERLOCUTORY MATTERS, by which he means the "manner" by which the Senate Impeachment Court conducts the trial, but draws a Line in the Sand beyond which not even the Supreme Court may cross: it may not take jurisdiction over "the power, the sole power of the Senate to try and decide this case." which is explicitly stated in the 1987 Constitution's Article 11 Section 3.6-8:

(6) The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment. When sitting for that purpose, the Senators shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the Philippines is on trial, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside, but shall not vote. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.

(7) Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than removal from office and disqualification to hold any office under the Republic of the Philippines, but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to prosecution, trial, and punishment, according to law.

(8) The Congress shall promulgate its rules on impeachment to effectively carry out the purpose of this section.

The Supreme Court's judicial powers are in the 1987 Constitution Article VIII, in particular, for the purposes of this discussion:

Section 1. The judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such lower courts as may be established by law. Judicial power includes [1] the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable, and [2] to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.

Above is a much quoted and discussed provision of 1987. So Manolo Quezon's recent links to the sponsorship speech of Justice Roberto Concepcion before the 1986 Constitutional Commission is worth reviewing. In that speech, one discovers the intent of the Framers of 1987 to give the courts of justice an EXPANDED CERTIORARI POWER, a special power of judicial review not given even to the United States Supreme Court.

Notice that Judicial Power includes two DUTIES of the courts of justice:

(1) to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable.
(2) to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.

The first duty is "conventional" and is the usual definition of what Judiciaries do, such as those in the Western traditions of America and England from which our own justice system is largely derived. Courts of justice SETTLE cases of controversy among persons based on the laws.

The second duty is the much ballyhooed EXPANDED CERTIORARI POWER granted in 1987, which obliges courts of justice, as their duty, to determine the existence of something called grave abuse of discretion by "any branch or instrumentality of the Government" in a quantity or degree that "amounts" to a violation of JURISDICTION.

Now look at the very last point Enrile makes:

"But it is my humble view that the Supreme Court, in spite of the fact that it has the power of judicial review, cannot assume jurisdiction over the power, the sole power of this Senate sitting as an impeachment court to try and decide this impeachment case.

If the Supreme Court is supreme, why can it not assume jurisdiction over the Corona Trial? Because it would be grave abuse of its discretion! ("except for interlocutory matters--so ordered!"-JPE)

I think it is a line in the sand.

((February 14 Valentines Day was Juan Ponce Enrile's 88th birthday. Happy Birthday!))

Enrile Doctrine on Supreme Court and Senate Impeachment Court

2012-02-15T06:53:00.005+08:00

Senate President JUAN PONCE ENRILE speaks on the central and most germane topic of the Supreme Court and the Senate Impeachment Court here in Rappler Dot Com. Since everything that comes before is a gimme, the take away line for me is at the end where JPE says in the clearest possible way.

Look at the very last declarative sentence in JPE peroration on Impeachment:

JPE: "But it is my humble view that the Supreme Court, in spite of the fact that it has the power of judicial review, cannot assume jurisdiction over the power, the sole power of this Senate sitting as an impeachment court to try and decide this impeachment case."

In other words, the Senate Impeachment Court will obey the Law and the laws (of course!) But it will NOT surrender the "JURISDICTION over the sole power" given to it by the 1987 Constitution in Article XI Sec 3.6 to TRY and DECIDE all cases of impeachment (now and until the Constitution is amended!)

This means to me that IF the Supreme Court should attempt to "assume JURISDICTION over the power, the solve power of this Senate sitting as an impeachment court" then the Supreme Court itself could be deemed to be in GRAVE ABUSE of its DISCRETION amounting to what JPE and SIC and the People would deem to be an UTTER LACK of JURISDICTION under the 1987 Constitution!

Therefore, the Supreme Court CAN be found guilty of Grave Abuse of Discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction should it try to assume the Senate's sole power over impeachment cases under the Constitution under the very Article VIII that it currently uses against the political departments. Everyone should read the EXACT TEXT and not what others say the Constitution says:

Section 1. The judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such lower courts as may be established by law.

Judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable, and to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.

The Senate Impeachment Court can make such a finding of Grave Abuse against the Supreme Court itself because it is indubitably a "Court of Justice" as the entirety of the Enrile Doctrine definitely proclaims and upholds.

JPE's lasting contribution to impeachment-related jurisprudence is the establishment of the principle that even Article VIII Section 1 can be made to apply to the grave abuses of discretion by the Supreme Court itself, at least under the auspices of a competent, coordinate, Constitutional Court, like the Senate Impeachment Court! (So ordered!)

Carpio's Dissent on Supreme Court TRO for PSBank

2012-02-14T13:35:00.002+08:00

Below is the dissent of Justice Antonio Carpio in the suit of Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) for certiorari and prohibition against the Senate Impeachment Court's subpoena for bank records covering foreign currency deposits of the accused Chief Justice Renato Corona. The voting in the Supreme Court was 8-5 in favor of granting the TRO, which was announced during the Senate impeachment trial last Thursday. In Monday's Senate caucus, the Senator-Judges voted 13-10 to submit to the Supreme Court's TRO of Corona's foreign currency deposits.

EN BANC

G.R. No. 200238 - PHILIPPINE SAVINGS BANK and PASCUAL M. GARCIA III, as representative of Philippine Savings Bank and in his personal capacity, Petitioners, - versus – SENATE IMPEACHMENT COURT, consisting of the Senators of the Republic of the Philippines, acting as Senator Judges, namely: Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada, Vicente C. Sotto III, Alan Peter S. Cayetano, Edgardo J. Angara, Joker P. Arroyo, Pia S. Cayetano, Franklin M. Drilon, Francis G. Escudero,Teofisto Guingona III, Gregorio B. Honasan II, Panfilo M. Lacson, Manuel M. Lapid, Loren B. Legarda, Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., Sergio R. Osmena III, Kiko Pangilinan, Aquilino Pimentel III, Ralph G. Recto, Ramon Revilla, Jr., Antonio F.Trillanes IV, Manny Villar, and the Honorable Members of the Prosecution Panel of the House of Representatives, Respondents.

Promulgated:

February 9, 2012
x-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------x

DISSENTING OPINION

CARPIO, J.:

I dissent because the majority ruling makes a mockery of all existing laws designed to insure transparency and good governance in public service.

The majority ruling in effect advises all government officials and employees that they can legally evade reporting their actual assets in their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, which is required by the Constitution ¹ and RA Nos. 3019 ² and 6713,³ by simply opening foreign currency deposit accounts with local banks. The majority holds that under Section 8 of RA No. 6426,⁴ foreign currency deposits of government officials and employees are absolutely confidential, even in impeachment or bribery cases filed against them. The majority declares that foreign currency deposit accounts can be opened in any judicial, administrative, legislative, or impeachment inquiry only if the account owner himself consents in writing to open his account to his prosecutors or investigators.

The world will now know that Philippine foreign currency deposit accounts provide a much better safe haven for ill-gotten wealth than Swiss bank accounts. Former President Ferdinand Marcos was wrong in depositing hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in Swiss bank accounts.⁵ Had he deposited, even in his own name, the money in foreign currency accounts with local banks under RA No. 6426, as amended by his three Presidential Decrees,⁶ he would have gotten away with his loot under this ruling of the majority.

Is this the intention of Section 8 of RA No. 6426 when it mandates the secrecy of foreign currency deposits? The answer is clearly no. Section 8 was inserted by PD No. 1246, whose last two Whereas clauses provide:

Whereas, in order to insure the development and speedy growth of the Foreign Currency Deposit System and the Offshore Banking System in the Philippines, certain incentives were provided for under the two Systems such as confidentiality of deposits subject to certain exceptions and tax exemptions on the interest income of depositors who are non-residents and are not engaged in trade or business in the Philippines;

Whereas, making absolute the protective cloak of confidentiality over such foreign currency deposits, exempting such deposits from tax, and guaranteeing the vested rights of depositors would better encourage the inflow of foreign currency deposits into the banking institutions authorized to accept such deposits in the Philippines thereby placing such institutions more in a position to properly channel the same to loans and investments in the Philippines, thus directly contributing to the economic development of the country. (Emphasis supplied)

Thus, PD No. 1246 expressly declares that the secrecy of foreign currency deposits under Section 8 of RA No. 6426 is intended to protect “depositors who are non-residents” because the purpose of the secrecy is to “encourage the inflow of foreign currency deposits” to Philippine banks from such “depositors who are non-residents.”

This express intent of PD No. 1246 was affirmed by the Supreme Court in several cases. In Salvacion v. Central Bank,⁷ decided in 1997, this Court ruled:

In his Comment, the Solicitor General correctly opined, thus:

x x x

It is evident from the above [Whereas clauses] that the Offshore Banking system and the Foreign Currency Deposit System were designed to draw deposits from foreign lenders and investors (Vide second whereas of PD No. 1034; third whereas of PD No. 1035). It is these deposits that are induced by the two laws and given protection and incentives by them. (Emphasis supplied)

In Salvacion, the Court emphatically stressed that the deposits protected under the Foreign Currency Deposit System are “deposits from foreign lenders and investors.”

Likewise, in China Banking Corporation v. Court of Appeals,⁸ decided in 2006, the Court declared:

It must be remembered that under the whereas clause of Presidential Decree No. 1246 which amended Sec. 8 of Republic Act No. 6426, the Foreign Currency Deposit System including the Offshore Banking System under Presidential Decree 1034 were intended to draw deposits fromforeign lenders and investors, and we quote:

Whereas, in order to assure the development and speedy growth of the Foreign Currency Deposit System and the Offshore Banking System in the Philippines, certain incentives were provided for under the two Systems such as confidentiality of deposits subject to certain exceptions and tax exemptions on the interest income of depositors who are nonresidents and are not engaged in trade or business in the Philippines;

Whereas, making absolute the protective cloak of confidentiality over such foreign currency deposits, exempting such deposits from tax, and guaranteeing the vested rights of depositors would better encourage the inflow of foreign currency deposits into the banking institutions authorized to accept such deposits in the Philippines thereby placing such institutions more in a position to properly channel the same to loans and investments in the Philippines, thus directly contributing to the economic development of the country. (Emphasis supplied)

Thus, in China Banking Corporation, the Court again stressed that “the Foreign Currency Deposit System including the Offshore Banking System under Presidential Decree 1034 were intended to draw deposits from foreign lenders and investors.”

Even GSIS v. Court of Appeals,⁹ decided in 2011, which the majority cites in its ruling, also declared that “Republic Act No. 6426 was intended to encourage deposits from foreign lenders and investors.” Clearly, the secrecy of foreign currency deposits in Section 8 of RA No. 6426, a special law, applies only to “foreign depositors and investors.”

What secrecy then applies to Philippine citizens who hold foreign currency deposits with local banks? Such deposits of Philippine citizens are governed by RA No. 1405,¹⁰ the general law on secrecy of bank deposits, which provides:

Section 2. All deposits of whatever nature with banks or banking institutions in the Philippines including investments in bonds issued by the Government of the Philippines, its political subdivisions and its instrumentalities, are hereby considered as of an absolutely confidential nature and may not be examined, inquired or looked into by any person, government official, bureau or office, except upon written permission of the depositor, or in cases of impeachment, or upon order of a competent court in cases of bribery or dereliction of duty of public officials, or in cases where the money deposited or invested is the subject matter of the litigation. (Emphasis supplied)

Under Section 2 of RA No. 1405, “all deposits of whatever nature with banks xxx may be examined, inquired or looked into xxx in cases of impeachment.” Thus, there is no question that the impeachment court can pry open the foreign currency accounts of impeachable officers.

There is even a more compelling legal ground why the foreign currency accounts in question are not confidential. Section 8 of RA No. 6713, as amended, mandates the disclosure of the assets of government officials and employees who “have an obligation” to disclose their assets. Moreover, Section 8 expressly states that “the public has the right to know the assets” of government officials and employees. Section 8 of RA No. 6713 provides:

Sec. 8. Statements and Disclosure. Public officials and employees have an obligation to accomplish and submit declarations under oath of, and the public has the right to know, the assets, liabilities, net worth and financial and business interests including those of their spouses and of unmarried children under eighteen (18) years of age and living in their households. (Emphasis supplied)

Thus, government officials and employees have the “obligation” to disclose their assets to the public, and the public has “the right to know” the assets of government officials and employees. This “obligation” of government officials and employees to disclose all their assets is absolute and has no exception. The right of the public to know the assets of government officials and employees is also absolute and has no exception.

What the majority has ruled is that government officials and employees have no obligation to disclose their foreign currency accounts, and that the public has no right to know such foreign currency accounts. This completely violates Section 8 of RA No. 6713. The majority ruling invents an exception that is not found in Section 8 of RA 6713. This exception renders Section 8 of RA 6713 useless. Government officials and employees can simply open foreign currency accounts and deposit all their cash in such accounts. Then they no longer have the “obligation” to disclose their cash assets, and the public no longer has “the right to know” such assets.

Section 8 of RA No. 6713 ¹¹ is a much later law than Section 8 of RA No. 6426.¹² The repealing clause of RA No. 6713 states that “all laws, decrees and orders or parts thereof inconsistent herewith, are deemed repealed or modified accordingly, unless the same provide for a heavier penalty.”¹³ Since there is an irreconcilable inconsistency between Section 8 of RA No. 6713 and Section 8 of RA No. 6426, the later law, which is RA No. 6713, prevails. In short, the government officials and employees’ “obligation” to disclose their assets, and the people’s “right to know” such assets, as expressly mandated by Section 8 of RA No. 6713, prevails over the secrecy of foreign currency deposits under Section 8 of RA No. 6426, granting that such secrecy applies to Philippine citizens.

Incidentally, Chief Justice Renato C. Corona has publicly admitted that he owns the foreign currency accounts in question. ThePhilippine Star news report entitled “Disclosure in Due Time, Says CJ”, written by Perseus Escheminada on 11 February 2012, states in part:

MANILA, Philippines - Chief Justice Renato Corona yesterday admitted having dollar accounts and vowed to disclose them in due time.

Corona belied insinuations that his bid in the Supreme Court to stop the subpoena of the Senate impeachment court on his foreign currency accounts in Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) was a sign of guilt or obvious move to conceal the truth.

“I will make the disclosure in due time,” the Chief Justice told The STAR in a text message.

He explained that he filed an urgent petition seeking the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the impeachment trial, including the subpoena on his dollar accounts, because his rights were being violated in the proceedings.

Corona said he just wanted legal issues to be resolved first before the disclosure of his dollar accounts.

With this admission that he owns the foreign currency accounts in question, Chief Justice Corona has the “obligation” to disclose these foreign currency assets to the people, who have “the right to know” his assets.

The Constitution mandates that “public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people.”¹⁴ A government official or employee who refuses to be accountable to the people by not disclosing assets he admittedly owns, despite his “obligation” to so disclose to the people, who have “the right to know” his assets, puts himself beyond accountability to the people.

Accordingly, since the foreign currency accounts in question are not covered by Section 8 of RA No. 6426, and petitioners will not suffer grave and irreparable injury, I vote to DENY petitioners’ prayer for a Temporary Restraining Order.