Senator Miriam Santiago is intellectually dishonest, and a bad mouth too. But she is a very lucky damsel — she can spew the most blatant legal rubbish on the floor of the Senate and afterwards savors her ignorant bliss in her seat massaging her vanity thinking perhaps that among the Senators assembled, she was the only one…
The Corona Dilemma I am writing a book about the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona because this historical political exercise effectively divides the nation between those who believe in the myth that there is nothing wrong with the judiciary and those who believe that there is something wrong with it and CJ Corona represents everything…
Last clear chance is a doctrine in torts law wherein a plaintiff can recover damages from defendant even if the plaintiff was the one negligent if he can show that the defendant had the last clear opportunity to avoid the accident. Example: Driver ‘A’ was drunk and was zigzagging on the road. Driver ‘B’ was on the same…
Defense lawyer Serafin Cuevas, my venerable professor in civil procedure described the position of Senator Frank Drilon that the impeachment body was beyond the reach of the Supreme Court as “bankrupt” and without jurisprudential support. He gloated over the Francisco v. House of Representatives as an authority to the proposition that the Court has an oversight function…
A week before the impeachment trial of CJ Renato Corona, I emailed Congressman Neil Tupas, Jr., through his House website. My email could have been routed to his “spam” folder because I have not received any response; or simply, the team thought that they have every base already covered hence an outside help is not needed. But…
Nothing much can be achieved in the impeachment of CJ Corona even if successful in the Senate except to sear in the public memory that a radical change in the leadership of the Supreme Court, touted before as the “untouchable” branch of the government is but a myth. But surely, it will not alter the present dynamics…
Honorable Senators sitting as impeachment court, ladies and gentlemen in the galleries, citizens of the republic and friends. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, and President of Pixar, in 2005, five years before he died said: “Don’t be trapped with dogma, which is living with the results of others’ thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’…
The battlefield had been drawn, the war drums tapped; and swords unsheathed. An epic battle between a corrupt Supreme Court with a very low public rating and a very popular president is unfolding. You can predict the outcome. But victory will come only if the jurists whose reputations had been tarnished by injudicious partisan rulings, resign…
Today, Friday, an arrest warrant was served on the former President, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for electoral fraud, which is a non-bailable offense – while she was confined in a hospital in Taguig. Two policemen were assigned to watch her ward and to monitor her visitors. Photo-op and fingerprinting, the police said, would be made when she is ready. If her…
The Supreme Court has zero public approval that even if it is right, it is still wrong from their perception. The analogy with the flippant boy who cries wolf often is apt. The accusation that Justice Mariano Del Castillo is a “plagiarist” taints the entire Court, or at least the majority that signed the decision.…
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