ABS-CBNNews Online (with SC rules Arroyo-Neri talks on NBN are secret ) and GMANews.tv (with It’s 9 vs 6: SC favors Neri’s plea vs ZTE probe – sources ) out scooped Inquirer.net on the Supreme Court’s decision on the Neri case. The GMANews.tv report boils down the case as follows:
Neri, who filed the suit in his capacity as former director of the National Economic Development Authority, claimed that the three questions posed to him during his first and only Senate appearance last year were privileged communications covered by the principle of executive privilege and which can only be divulged during an executive session.
The three questions are whether the President followed up the NBN-ZTE project with Neri; whether he was told by the President to prioritize the NBN-ZTE project; and whether the President told him to go ahead with the project after learning of the massive bribe offer.
Neri’s invocation of executive privilege on these questions had prompted senators to cite him for contempt. The Senate also issued an arrest warrant against Neri after he refused to attend the inquiry into the NBN-ZTE deal.
Inquirer.net’s report, SC: Neri can invoke executive privilege, summarizes the decision as follows:
Commission on Higher Education chairman Romulo Neri can invoke executive privilege and cannot be compelled to answer three questions the Senate feels is crucial to getting to the bottom of the scandal-tainted national broadband network (NBN) deal, the Supreme Court has ruled.
Voting 6-9, the justices also ruled that the Senate cannot cite Neri or anyone in contempt because the rules of procedure of the 14th Congress had not been published, Supreme Court spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said.
The breakdown (according ABS-CBNNews’s report), the ponente and the voting was as follows:
The majority ruling was penned by SC Associate Justice Teresita de Castro.
She was supported in her decision by Associate Justices Renato Corona, Minita Chico-Nazario, Presbitero Velasco, Antonio Nachura, Dante Tinga, Arturo Brion, Leonardo Quisumbing, and Ruben Reyes.
The six who dissented were: Chief Justice Reynato Puno; Associate Justices Antonio Carpio, Adolfo Azcuna, Conchita Carpio-Morales, Alicia Martinez, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago.
Associate Justice Ynares-Santiago was actually on leave during today’s deliberations, but she left her dissenting vote.
It’s interesting to note that the the ponente wasn’t Justice Velasco, as originally reported; and that the freshly-appointed Justice, Brion, voted -and in favor of the government. In his blog, lawyer Teddy Te, Vincula, has something to say about the voting:
There is an unsurprising lack of shame in Brion voting on a petition where he did not participate and where popular sentiment held that his appointment was precisely to forestall the effects of a Velasco inhibition. There is also an uncharacteristic lack of delicadeza in De Castro writing for the majority, where her appointment was clearly seen as a reward for convicting Estrada.
This vote, coming on the heels of the 10-4 vote in the Chavez decision, shows just how much headway the Gloria appointees are making in controlling the court. If she lasts until 2010, Gloria Arroyo would have appointed all but one of the Justices (Puno is the exception; but since she appointed Puno Chief Justice, technically she could be considered to have appointed all the Justices).
How’s that for separation of powers? Checks and balances, anyone?
Both parts of the decision, are possibly highly controversial. The reasons why can be gleaned from the March 10 column Fr. Joaquin Bernas wrote, Anatomy of a rejected compromise,
But from the way the Puno Court has been waging a campaign for the protection of rights through the writ of habeas corpus, the writ of amparo and the writ of habeas data, I should not see the Court as being willing to be an instrument for the enfeeblement of democratic institutions.
What then do I hope to see?
I hope to see witnesses coming forward when summoned as witnesses and answering questions asked and, where proper, claiming that the President has instructed them to claim executive privilege.
I hope to see such witnesses being required to elucidate on what privilege they are claiming and submitting such claim for judgment by the Court, if need be, in chambers.
I am confident that the Court will be able to examine the claims presented before it and sift what is truly privileged and what is an attempt to hide wrongdoing.
Among the roles of the judiciary is the exercise of the power of judicial review. The power is a two-edged sword. It can either legitimize or exorcise. Thus in the current controversy the Court will either legitimize the power of the Senate to compel a witness who refuses to heed a subpoena and in the process rebuff Neri and his superior’s resistance to the Senate; or it will legitimize Neri’s refusal to testify and in the process clip the power of the Senate to compel defiant witnesses.
The Senate had occasion in 1950 to detain an uncooperative witness in Arnault v. Nazareno. But in that case Arnault was already before the Senate.
The Neri case now is different. The Senate already had him the first time, but they let him go, and Neri now is saying “Catch me, if you can.” Will the Court help the Senate?
Apparently not. In his blog, Philippine Commentary was predicting a decision in favor of Neri, but doesn’t mince words as to the implications of such a decision:
I cannot imagine a more compleat and disastrous demolition of the Separtion of Powers and a curtailment of the Public’s Very Right to Know what their government is doing than this 9-6 decision of the Supreme Court. We are now under an effective Dictatorship of Judicial and Executive Privilege in which the principle of Checks and Balances is no more.
Philippine Commentary supports new legislation patterned after American whistleblower laws, for the following reasons as he explained iin a previous entry.
The decision hasn’t been published on line, yet, so it remains to be seen whether it will go down as one of those decisions that maintain “a color of constitutionality” but which ends up placing the high court in disrepute. For now, The Mount Balatucan Monitor may be premature but not necessarily wrong.
It all hinges on whether the Supremes have enabled executive privilege to help cover up crimes, something that past jurisprudence was held to forbid (see my columns, A color of constitutionality and It’s how you play the game). Up to today, it was a given that the ultimate veto on executive privilege was that in matters involving crimes, executive privilege couldn’t be invoked.
It will be interesting to see what the Supreme Court’s arguments in its decision will be. I understand that the decision is over 100 pages! Anyway, Phoenix Eyrie, Reloaded finds it interesting.
Here is the decision and the dissenting opinions: Index of G.R. No. 180643, Romulo L. Neri Vs. Senate Committee, et al.
Meanwhile, an indication of where public opinion lies, is Arroyo trust, approval ratings down while Opposition senators top latest Pulse Asia survey.
@UP n
“when quality assurance fails, then the fire sale follows (or as magdiwang said, huge bargains as blood flows in the streets)”
Exactamento. That is why it’s better to do proper QA before it reaches that point. “Accept GMA, move on to 2010” is for lazy myopic people.
“the supreme court has spoken. winners MUST win, losers must obey (and weep, if he/she wants to). let’s try to develop a habit of obedience…….”
Eh? That’s it? That’s our legal advice from our resident counsel for the day?
And I was hoping for an educational and illuminating exchange of law and jurisprudence between you and DJB.
😀
@justice scalia
I was just wondering if you were from the school of ‘pwede na yan’….
what’s QA got to do with the judicial system?
Gloria Arroyo is not just a lucky bitch, she’s also a brilliant economist…
“Our government has been importing rice from Thailand, not because there was a rice shortage, but merely to stabilize the price of rice at a lower rate, since production costs are still a little too high for the ordinary Filipino to afford,†Mrs. Arroyo said.
Can the resident economists please explain this statement???
Bencard, eloquent piece of blasphemy.
@mindanaoan
Yes, we must now accept the SC decision….the votes have been counted…’we’ lost. That’s it.
The QA reference was for the general picture – determining the complicity of GMA in the Neri-ZTE affair and why do we put up with such a shitty president who is mired in all sorts of shenanigans
But as you ask, what does QA have to do with anything?
Everything! and in all branches of government. You need to QA the president, the senators, the congressmen, the justices, the MMDA traffic aide…
as DJB points out, justices are unelected (and difficult to impeach), the more you have to QA those appointments.
In so many ways, the Philippine Constitution and government were patterned after the U.S. models.
It is good to know why Presidential appointments of justices to the Supreme Court are not subject to confirmation by the Commission on Appointments, as in the American system?
Kinda allow for stacking the deck, doesn’t it?
nash, it’s a poor metaphor. QA is from manufacturing but what we have here are cases where one is different from the next. a better paradigm would be ‘checks and balances’.
and if your approach to good governance includes citizen’s participation in everything, QAing the president, senators,…,traffic aide, it’s like going back to the time when everyone has to hunt for his own food! progress came about from systematic ways of doing things. if we want to improve our government, it’s the system we need to improve.
don’t start with your usual nonsensical one-liner, cvj. say what you mean. i’m not a mind reader!
well said mindanaoan.
>>>>>
DAY 26
maginoo, we used to have the justices confirmed by the CA but the 1987 constitution adopted a system of nomination using the judicial and bar council, an innovation made “to eliminate politics from the appointment of judges.” [from the JBC webpage]
Thanks Mindanaoan. Maybe, the JBC should only nominate one (instead of five?) to eliminate possible utang na loob.
Maybe our resident political economy commentator could help us. So, mr. hvrds what is your take on this SC decision on political economic terms?.
Is it gratitude, power, money, the ‘greater good,’ or all of the above.
What seems to be at play in the SC decision is the usual utang na loob paid to a master. The yes votes clearly show the outrageous correlation. DJB is right.
since almost everyone now knows how the unbridled exercise of the senate’s power of inquiry “in aid of legislation”, or pursuant to “oversight” powers, can be abused to irrational proportions, the s.c. ruling is a breath of fresh air that provides a respite from the polluted atmosphere of philippine politics. it defines, once and for all, the parameters of checks and balances and separation of powers among the three branches of our government. this landmark decision enriches our existing jurisprudence, and should guide present and future generations in avoiding costly conflicts that get in the way of national progress.
legal scholars from both sides of the ideological divide will certainly dice, dissect, analyze, and criticize the decision. senators who got the better of it will continue attributing wrongful motivations on the part of the justices voting to uphold executive privilege. but one thing is irrefutable. the principles addressing each of the issues of the case are now part of the law of the land and may be disobeyed only at one’s peril.
i think the real winner is not neri nor the administration. it is the people of the philippines whose wishes, as enshirned in their constitution, has been given effect. all of us shall pass away, but our institutions must remain strong, untrammeled, obeyed and respected by everyone within or without our realm, if our nation must endure.
@mindanoan
I submit, it a poor metaphor for the process of checks and balances.
it’s really more for the “let’s wait till 2010 and live with GMA.” she’s defective goods and must be recalled.
…but our institutions must remain strong, untrammeled, obeyed and respected by everyone within or without our realm, if our nation must endure. – Bencard
Quite a statesman’s affirmation. I believe in the statement.
But, Bencard, don’t you think that there was more judicial activism instead of judicial restraint?
Judicial politics?
maginoo, this is a case of first impression, i.e., no precedent to uphold or use as a guide except, i believe, a u.s. court of appeals decision. either way, it requires some measure of judicial activism to arrive at a solomonic resolution. c.j. puno is a gma appointee but voted with the losing side. j. quisumbing was not appointed by gma but he voted with the majority. the chief justice apparently knew the outcome at the time he proposed the “deal” which the senators rejected.
the entire decision teaches us all about both the arrogance and the limitations of power. only the people, as a whole, has absolute authority as expressed in its laws and carried out by its chosen representatives.
@ Bencard,
Many thanks for the enlightenment! Mabuhay ka!
This only shows the effectiveness of the administration in……. digging their own grave deeper, hahaha. Heck, I say ridicule the injustices of the supreme cover up eer court to show our disgust in rejecting the rubbish they throw on us. Toilet presidency indeed………… just go flush her out please…. anyone, lol.
What do we expect from Gloria Arroyo’s Supreme Court? Majority of the magistrates are GMA’s appointees. I believe it’s repaying their debt of gratitude or ‘utang na loob’ prevails over the rule of law. The SC ruling on executive privilege can be abused by kleptocrats, future government looters-thieves, and Jose Pidal mafia cronies to hide their criminal activities. God save our motherland from kleptomaniacs!
“Our government has been importing rice from Thailand, not because there was a rice shortage, but merely to stabilize the price of rice at a lower rate, since production costs are still a little too high for the ordinary Filipino to afford,†Mrs. Arroyo said.
TRANSLATION using PhD curriculum – University of Philippines School of Economics:
1. This country Pinas sucks. (You don’t need a PhD to conclude this). Pinas cost to produce rice is even higher than the cost for Pinas to buy the rice from Thailand.
2. This country Pinas is good. We produce all the rice we need.
3. This country Pinas sucks. A lot of Pinoys can not afford to buy rice at the cost that Pinoys “manufacture” rice. (You don’t need a PhD to conclude this, either.)
4. I am the greatest!!! I order lower-cost rice from Thailand, so that they can buy Thai rice these Pinoys who can’t afford the rice produced by their fellow Pinoys.
5. I am an economist (PhD – University Philippines Diliman) The lowered cost of rice means some Pinoys who need to charge a higher-price for their rice can’t make enough money. The inefficient Pinoys, they do not survive. They will be among the Pinoys who can’t afford to pay rice at the cost that their fellow Pinoys produce rice. Next year, we’ll need more imported rice.
6. cvj: stop mumbling “smuggling” like smuggling is a bad thing. Smuggling just means Thai rice gets into Pinas without having to pay taxes. No taxes means the rice-in-question is cheaper. And I have a pro-business administration. The smugglers can charge anything they want for the rice they smuggled in. Like these foreign banks can charge as much interest rate they want on credit cards.
UP n curriculum, not a doctorate-in-economics: So why doesn’t GMA, instead of using P10-million to buy Thai rice, distribute the ten-mil to the Pinoy farmers so that the Pinoy farmers don’t have to charge their fellow Pinoys as high a price for made-in-Pinas rice? cvj: stop mumbling “smuggling” is a business opportunity.
Your forefathers were men of peace; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forebearance but they knew its limits. They believed in order but not the order of tyranny. With them nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final” — but not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men, for they seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them.
djb, not to rain on your parade but can you name one of our forefathers who had “settled” anything on his own that was right and with finality? more than 200 years of foreign domination plus more than seven decades of self-government – where did they get us?
Side-topic: US Supreme Court to Bush — NO!!!!
———————
Supreme Court rules against Bush in death-row case
A 6-to-3 majority said the president can’t order a state court to abide by an international court ruling
The Christian Science Monitor Mar 26, 2008
Washington
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a setback to President Bush’s expansive vision of presidential power, ruling that a unilateral attempt by Mr. Bush to order state courts to comply with an international treaty violated “first principles” of constitutional government.
“The President’s authority to act, as with the exercise of any governmental power, must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion.
The court ruled 6 to 3 that the president overstepped his authority when he ordered the Texas judiciary to abide by a 2004 ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) mandating a new hearing for a Texas death row inmate and 50 other Mexican nationals.
…
“Nothing in the text, background, negotiating and drafting history, or practice among signatory nations suggests that the President or Senate intended the improbable result of giving the judgments of an international tribunal a higher status than that employed by many of our fundamental constitutional protections,” Roberts wrote.
But the high court didn’t stop there. The majority justices also took issue with Bush’s assertion of unilateral presidential power to trump state-court objections.
“The President has an array of political and diplomatic means available to enforce international obligations,” Roberts wrote, “but unilaterally converting a non-self-executing treaty into a self-executing treaty is not among them.”
Abe: There it is. Recent US Supreme Court ruling.
Quote: Nothing in the text, background, negotiating and drafting history, or practice among signatory nations suggests that the President or Senate intended the improbable result of
…giving the judgments of an international tribunal a higher status than that employed by many of our fundamental constitutional protections Close-quote
So why doesn’t GMA, instead of using P10-million to buy Thai rice, distribute the ten-mil to the Pinoy farmers so that the Pinoy farmers don’t have to charge their fellow Pinoys as high a price for made-in-Pinas rice?
Because my dear child in the rice trade business, it is not the farmers which dictate the price and control the supply.
It is the middlemen. And I am not taking about the cartel yet. I am talking about the loan sharks who lend money to farmers during planting season or supply the farmers’ family with imported stuff or ukay-ukay payable on the harvest season, 5/6 term.
Have you heard about economies of scale?
Reply from wannabe economist is going to be ignored. I rather read the sins of the high society people.
For Bencard:
King Solomon and King David
Led merry, merry lives,
With many, many lady friends,
and many, many wives
But when old age crept over them,
with many, many qualms
King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
and King David wrote the Psalms.
In the long run, it is change that occurs, to men and to institutions, for it is self-discovery and wisdom that endure, not ignorance or indifference.
Stasis, as an ideology, is for the dead or dying, and becomes a largely self-fulfilling prophecy.
I choose institutions over insurgencies, but not acquiescence to inferior or mediocre thinking, even if it comes from the Supreme Court.
My vanity is greater than yours!
Ca t, do you statistics on farmers still producing rice using money from lenders?
I know of this too, it results to about 20% in interest in 3 months (from field preparation to harvest). But I thought that many farmers has gone to their OFW relatives for interest-free loans.
At Itong Bagong Miembro nang SC kauupo lang sumali agad sa decision nang “majority”, di halata agad ang ‘bias’.
Wala nang pag-asa ang Korte Suprema natin, nahawa rin nang sakit yon, i pati simbahan Katoliko at manga pinuno nahawa-an rin ang iba, ang Korte Suprema pa, na mas “matalino ang naka-upo do-on”..Pareho rin yon sa halos lahat na Politikos, sa halip na kabutihan nang Bayan ang pagisipan, kabutihan nang Amo at Ama ang serbesyohan..
Tama nga si Erap, wether, wether lang Pare…Alam na niya ang gagawin sa susonod, palitan ang SC nang kanyang taohan..
Probably the more important sentence in the recent US Supreme Court decision is the reminder:
“The President’s authority to act, as with the exercise of any governmental power, must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itselfâ€Â
And any priviveles granted Politicians are just privileges, they should be abused so as to cover up wrongdoings..and the idea of having the SC is to make sure these should not happened..
meant they should NOT be abused…
Bencard,
Frederick Douglass was talking about America’s forefathers. The quotation was his reply to the Bencards of his time, which was right after a hundred years of US Supreme Court lawmaking UPHOLDING slavery.
Thus did Abe Lincoln prove them (and you wrong). Jose Rizal said the same thing many times. But it is not our forefathers themselves who settle things until they are “right”. It is we the people who do, when the Right Ideas of even one man become our own.
That is the victory of the Word that was there in the Beginning. That is the only victory of the spirit, when the heart and mind are united in agreement and all our rancor is directed at evil and wrongdoing and not at each other, when our self-confidence is inspired by the knowledge that we are better and stronger when we are RIGHT!
lol that give the 10 mil to Pinoy farmers instead of buying cheap rice from Thais..
that only goes to show how the attitude of neediness pervades in the mindset of us Pinoys..
….kitam. hehehe 🙂
Liam, i think what UPn meant was, if there is really no shortage of rice as GMA claims, why not the government, instead of importing rice, just buy the available rice from Pinoy farmers and sell it at a cheaper price to the consumer? In short, subsidize domestic rice a-la NFA. In this way, we do not waste dollars which we need to buy other stuff (like crude oil) and the Pinoy farmers get income. This, while the government and farmers work together to arrive at a more permanent solution that would reduce the cost of domestic rice production.
precisely..
the cost of rice production here is too high
that it becomes a more ‘economical’ choice
to import it from other countries than produce it here..
why?!
to start of, geographically speaking,
we do not have a reliable source of irrigation
aside from rains and one or two rivers..
unlike Thailand’s river system which gets uninterrupted
water in its rivers coming from the snow capped mountains
far north.. and our volcanos mountains cannot compare to the rich minerals and silt coming from the huge land mass that is Asia.. Being an archipelago does have its limitations, and volcanic soil can only do so much.. plus, the seasonal storms and typhoons adversely affect our agricultural productivity..
secondly, the refusal of most farmers, and of course greenpeace, to plant high yielding rice which will bring production levels down and reduce the need to use insecticides, etc..
third, subsidy is a very inefficient and ineffective way of lowering the cost of products given that we do not have the funds to do so, and we need money for other things, like corruption for example..
fourth, farm to market roads, ‘bagsakan’ centers, and farmers market are the infrastructural and operational solutions, but if we were to spend for this just for the sake of lowering rice production, the ROI (Return Of Investment) is really low, given the fact that we can import rice WAAAAAY CHEAPER, magpatong man ng 100% mas mura pa rin ang imported rice..
in short, trying to invest in endeavors towards agriculture, especially on low wielding agricultural products, is a very unwise thing to do, UNLESS, said crops produce sell really high..
^ that shouldve been ‘increasing’ rice production
oh.. and let me add..
personally knowing a rice importer,
rice from vietnam only costs around
9-12 pesos to import, depending on
the quality..
I have a question on ethics, Bencard. For example it were you appointed by GMA as a brand-spanking-new justice of the Supreme Court, and an important, ground-breaking decision is up for voting but you were never there for the oral arguments because the arguments were before you were appointed. All you have are the court transcripts. Would you still vote or would you inhibit yourself?
Liam: I do not believe the GMA statement that Pinas produces all the rice that Pinas needs. What I can believe is (because of poor infrastructure) that it is cheaper to supply Quiapo and Divisoria with rice from Thailand and Vietnam than to supply NCR-region with Pinas-rice.
Economics will tell you that that the last cavan of rice costs the least amount to produce. The price of a cavan of rice is also dependent on the demand for that cavan or rice. Translation: Vietnam can sell rice to Pinas cheap because they are selling us their excess production. Either they convert their excess production to dollars by selling to GMA, or the excess production goes to waste (or goes to feed). And what is a good price for Vietnam to sell us their rice production that exceeds their own demand? At a price lower than Pinas cost-of-production!!!! Vietnam is happy, Pinas buyers are happy, Pinas farmers… trouble.
In addition, Schumey had a blogthread which mentioned NFA. The problem he pointed out is that NFA is ill-funded (lacks ten-mil, maybe more). Had NFA been better-funded (by ten-mil, maybe more) then some of the vicious-cycle issues that Ca t pointed to — farmers selling future production so the farmers can buy fertilizer and seedlings — may be solved. [Needed will be NFA or rural-bank funding and farming-technique education.]
There is another URL (I think on Malaya) which mentions that Pinas farmers are really shafted by government policy to provide cheap rice to city dwellers. During times that Pinas has good harvests (just when Pinas farmers have opportunity to “rake in the money” from the harvests), the government imports rice (and onions, garlic). The potential profits to Pinas farmers goes up in smoke as the prices drop.
In the background is this issue of Malacanang quite scared of the hakot-crowd from Payatas and other NCR areas that they sacrifice the welfare of the La Union and Cordilleras farmers. This is not rich-versus-poor; this is poor-NCR versus poor-rural.
——————
There are no successful Filipino farmers. Either a farmland-owning person is an oligarch hacendero (boo!!!!!) or the farmer is a farmer. A Filipino farmer that grows his business suddenly becomes suspect. Give me a teacher or an accountant for a neighbor anytime, right?????
Unfortunately for Filipino farmers, they are not considered heroes of the motherland. Oppressed ones, dejado…. maybe, but heroes, not at all.
Towards the dejado, the attitude is to ignore them if you can’t help them. Guilt trip —- not pleasant. Now, heroes… different story. A country becomes more than willing to offer a little concession here or there to ensure the continuance of the bloodline of the heroes of yesterday.
We can now see the trend of the Supreme Court. Its decisions are now clearly pro GMA. Who would stop the plans and acts of GMA government.
I fear that with the revival of a Charter Change initiative, there will not be enough numbers to stop the runaway GMA train. With the way they are voting, favoring Cha Cha initiatives will be trouble free.
towards the dejado, the attitudes can be:
(1) dejado? eh ang buhay, minsan, talagang ganiyan. Magpa-novena tayo para sa kanila.
(2) dejado pala, eh di lokohin pa natin, bakit hindi;
(3) dejado… kapit-patalim, madaling utuin.
(4) dejado… malas dumikit sa mga iyan, baka mahawa ka pa.
(5) dejado? siguro, may kasalanan sa diyos.
(6) dejado pala, eh ano ang maitutulong ng mga iyan?
(7) dejado? ang titigas kasi ng mga ulo eh, hindi sila mahanap ng ibang paraan. it’s simple, really!
(8) dejado dahil nagpupursigi sa negosyong walang kuwalta. Eh di iyan!!
(9) Gulong ng buhay…. Weather weather lang.
I wonder what the “I Will Wait Till 2010” crowd will say when elections don’t happen in 2010–because the Con Ass that enacts the new constitution will allow the Con Ass members (that is, the current congressmen) a free first term as Members of Parliament, in order to “ensure a smooth transition.” This free first term is important–because there won’t be any term limits, so it’ll be very cheap to maintain the advantage of the incumbent.
Shades of Erap.
From the Wikipedia entry on “Term Limits”:
(emphasis mine)
Now doesn’t that suit somebody we know just fine?
If elections dont happen, Im confident that a lot of the Wait crowd will join the Out Now crowd and the GMA administration knows this. This could mean more drastic measures are being prepared by the administration to suppress our rights even more. They will do it through the ‘institutions’ we all know and love.
What happens to an official who violates Executive Privilege? Let’s say the official decides that need for public disclosure trumps vow of silence. What are the consequences for her? I suppose she’ll get fired. Any criminal sanctions?