A4
Opinion
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 2017
mst.daydesk@gmail.com
EDITORIAL
Adelle Chua, Editor
Look at us, Calida
S
OLICITOR General Jose Calida must have a busy schedule indeed.
In January, the government’s top lawyer—on his own initiative— filed a manifestation with the Court of Appeals recommending that it overturn the serious illegal detention conviction of alleged pork barrel queen Janet Lim Napoles. Napoles had been convicted by a Makati court and sentenced 30 years in jail for holding her employee and eventual pork barrel scam whistleblower Benhur Luy against his will. Why Calida, whose office receives about 30,000 appeals on criminal cases a year, would bother to lawyer for a woman that the state accuses of
stealing P10 billion from the government is a mystery, and his explanation about “righting an injustice” simply falls flat, when so many other injustices are crying out to be corrected. But now Calida has moved on to more important things. On Monday, he called a press conference to commend members of the Duterte Youth, who went to the Feb. 25 Edsa People Power celebration to raise their fists and hold up a tarpaulin expressing their support for the President. The move seemed designed to provoke the anti-Duterte crowd and triggered a confrontation with a visibly upset supporter of former President Benigno Aquino III, the entertainer Jim Paredes, who was caught on vid-
eo haranguing them for disrupting the celebration. “Look at me! Look at me!” Paredes said at one point, his face less than a foot away from a proDuterte supporter. “Now tell me. Do you like Duterte? He’s not responsible for 7,000 deaths?” On Monday, Calida retaliated. “Jim Paredes, look at me,” he said at his press conference. “Don’t pick a fight with these young people. Look for a person your age. You called them cowards. Try to tell me I’m a coward.” The state’s top lawyer then awarded membership pins to the Duterte Youth to a civic group called “Republic Defenders.” Calida also egged a lawyer present to offer his services for free to the Duterte Youth so they could sue Pare-
des for “unjust vexation and theft” for grabbing their tarpaulins. Calida made clear the group would have his full support. “The Office of the Solicitor General is the republic’s defender and the tribune of the people,” Calida declared. “In this case, we have invited them here because we are supporting them as part of the defenders of the republic, not of a party, or of a person, but of the Philippines.” Perhaps Calida believes that no cause is small enough and no client obnoxious enough for the people’s tribune. We suggest, however, that he lawyer up, as he, too, might be charged one day for unjustly vexing us by wasting his time on all this nonsense.
The continuing lies of Edsa I
Drilon’s scam exposed THE bitterest reaction to the dismissal of Liberal Party senators from the committee chairmanships they held had to come from erstwhile Senate president pro tempore Franklin Drilon. Drilon admitted that while the majority had the numbers to remove them from their juicy, powerful posts, he pointed out that the LPs had contributed six votes to install Aquilino Pimentel III as head of the chamber. Drilon is right to accuse Pimentel of being an ingrate who, in seeking to gather up the most number of allies in a traditionally independent Senate, needed the LPs to join Pimentel in that ill-fated “supermajority” that made him Senate president. But Drilon is mistaken in suggesting that the six LP votes were really necessary for control of the chamber—or that the LPs’ brand of chameleon-like collaboration
was even good for the Senate, in the long run. In the end, the Senate majority (yes, the regular kind, not the super-sized one) agreed that if their colleagues across the political aisle are going to act like the enemy, then they shouldn’t enjoy the perks that go with being allies. It’s really that simple. But give Drilon and his fellow Yellows some credit for dreaming up this unique majority-butstill-minority solution to secure power and pelf beyond the LP’s shelf life as the affiliation in control of the Senate. It was untenable from the very beginning —and when push came to shove in the chamber as far as its legislative and oversight agenda was concerned, the ax had to fall on this misbegotten marriage of political convenience. The tipping point, I’m told, was the caucus held recently by the Senate to determine what to do with retired SPO3 Arthur Lascañas. The decision was finally made during that fateful meeting to restart the hearings where Lascañas had basically
cleared President Rodrigo Duterte of any involvement with the supposed Davao Death Squad, in order to allow the ex-cop to disavow his earlier testimony.
If Team Liberal really want their power and perks back, they can always renounce their affiliation and join the majority. The LPs, who were all in favor of listening to Lascañas perjure himself, won that battle. But the victory came at a terrible price, by way of a knockout blow from Senator Emmanuel Pacquiao, who started the process of removing the Liberals from their
chairmanships. (It is foolish to claim that Pacquiao was the instigator of the revamp; the majority merely decided, I think, that if someone had to knock the Yellows from their chairmanships, then it had to be someone who has made a career out of delivering mighty blows with his fists. The majority, in fact, held another allies-only conference right before the Pacquiao motion on Monday, during which it was decided who would replace the double-dealing Liberals.) I understand how difficult it was to make the decision to boot out Drilon and his gang of twotiming Liberals from their lucrative chairmanships. The Senate, after all, is a hyper-exclusive club of chummy-chummy politicians who have proven national constituencies and who consider each other the ultimate political elite. But this club atmosphere was exploited and abused by Drilon and his LPs, who thought that by remaining nominally in the “super majority,” they no longer had any obligation to respect the
majority’s agenda. And so, like the Yellows outside the Senate, they overstayed their welcome and even tried to find the higher moral ground after being exposed as the political opportunists that they really are. Losing a powerful Senate position or chairmanship is more than just a symbolic vote of no-confidence from one’s own peers, after all. The extra staff and allowances that go with such posts, combined with the power of oversight and investigation over key vote-rich or cash-rich industries or sectors, always come in handy for senators who need that strategic edge over their colleagues. So it did hurt, even if the LPs in the Senate can’t say that they didn’t bring it upon themselves. Especially Drilon, who knows a thing or two about remaining in power and controlling the proverbial 24 republics of the Senate. But there is a way back, even for Drilon and his Team Liberal. If they really want their Turn to A5
LAST year, Feb. 26, I wrote that 90 percent of those who were at Epifanio delos Santos Avenue the previous day, Feb. 25, 2016, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Edsa People Power were not at the original revolution. Not President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, not Senator Bam Aquino who was barely 10 when the 1986 coup erupted, and indeed, not many of those who were at the commemoration. They were either too young or too far away from the scene of 30 years ago to have influenced it. Last Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017, the same absentees from the original Edsa I were again celebrating a myth. Noynoy Aquino joined a handful of his dwindling Yellow supporters to mark the 31st anniversary of Edsa People Power I. The Cojuangco-Aquino family of now former President BS Aquino III has appropriated Edsa People Power as if it were their brand, their franchise, their business. That’s a lot of BS. Corazon Cojuangco Aquino was in Cebu hiding in a convent during the first and most dangerous night of People Power —Feb. 22, 1986. Her son was too engrossed with many other things to have participated, too. I was at People Power I as a foreign correspondent. I covered the four days of the revolt. The Aquino family has been the biggest beneficiary of People Power I. They were awarded two presidencies totaling 12 and a half years, more than enough compensation for what opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. did in his political lifetime, which was to heckle and needle President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sr., during 17 of his 20-year presidency. Ninoy died from a military bullet in August 1983. What did the people get for having two Aquino presidents? Nothing. Except political divisiveness. Vindictiveness. A worsening insurgency, by the communist New People’s Army and by the separatist Muslim rebels. Plus the worst poverty incidence in Southeast Asia, the highest unemployment, the highest inflation rate, the worst infrastructure among the major countries of Southeast Asia (the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and ThaiTurn to A5
Rolando G. Estabillo Publisher can be accessed at: thestandard.com.ph
Benjamin Philip G. Romualdez Former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno
Philippine Press Institute The National Association of Philippine Newspapers
Anita F. Grefal Baldwin R. Felipe Edgar M. Valmorida
ManilaStandard
Published Monday to Sunday by Philippine Manila Standard Publishing Inc. at 6/F Universal Re Building, 106 Paseo de Roxas, corner Perea St., Legaspi Village, Makati City. Telephone numbers 832-5554, 832-5556, 832-5558 (connecting all departments), (Editorial) 832-5554, (Advertising) 832-5550. P.O. Box 2933, Manila Central Post Office, Manila. Website: www.thestandard. com.ph; e-mail: contact@thestandard.com.ph
ONLINE MEMBER
PPI
Chairman Board Member & Chief Legal Adviser Treasury Manager OIC-Ad Solutions Circulation Manager
Ramonchito L. Tomeldan Chin Wong/Ray S. Eñano Francis Lagniton Joyce Pangco Pañares
Managing Editor Associate Editors News Editor City Editor
Emil P. Jurado
Adelle Chua Honor Blanco Cabie Romel J. Mendez Roberto Cabrera
Chairman Emeritus, Editorial Board
Opinion Editor Night Editor Art Director Chief Photographer