Blogger Not Yet Sikat very kindly linked to The Philippine Diary Project. Just last night, I posted the December 23, 1938 entry from the diary of Francis Burton Harrison, which contained a passage that struck me:
At dinner that night, the President developed a theory in favor of representative democracy instead of “mob democratic rule.” “The people care more for good government than they do for self-government,” he asserted, adding that “the fear is that the Head of State may either exceed his powers, or abuse them by improprieties. To keep order is his main purpose.”
I bring this up because today’s Inquirer editorial, Non-negotiables, endorses the Guidelines for Communal Discernment and Action to Address the National Crisis released by the Jesuit Province. It seems to me that the Jesuits are mainly concerned with how “to keep order.” They are not alone in this.
There are those who have been critics of the Jesuit guidelines. Filomeno Sta. Ana III, in The Black Priests, goes through the pros and then conclude with the cons of the guidelines:
The S.J. Commission fears people power because it “creates a dynamic where crisis situations continue to be resolved through extra-constitutional means.” Likewise, it believes that extra-constitutional means may harm democratic institutions in the long term.
The best response to this comes from a professor in a university that is a neighbor of the S.J. headquarters. Economics professor Raul Fabella (by the way, an ex-seminarian but not of the Jesuit variety) wrote an essay titled “The Constitutional Comfort for Impunity.” Its penultimate statement: “Whether for outright deposal or for defanging, these Filipinos now believe, rather as did the English barons at Runnymede, that only mounting direct action, increasing if it must the risk of extra-constitutional tectonics, is the only language Malacañang now understands and which alone can force it to come clean on truth and justice.” Its conclusion: “Waiting for the 2010 that will be forthwith stolen is ‘waiting for Godot.'”
(You can -and should- read Fabella’s piece, in full, here: The Constitutional Comfort for Impunity).
Manuel Buencamino, in his Response to the Jesuits’ Guidelines, says the guidelines promotes an independent counsel and impeachment, both of which he characterizes as distractions (personally, I believe the former is necessary and the latter is a worthy fight that will only engage a large group of previously indifferent people now -and is only as far as they will ever go, unless the President sends a clear signal she’s not stepping down in 2010). There is one passage by Buencamino with which I wholeheartedly agree:
Section g. “Prioritize the poor.” reinforces a mistaken belief that justice etc. are luxuries only the well-fed can value: “If many Filipinos seem to be uninvolved or uninterested, it is primarily because of an overriding concern for economic survival during very hard times.”
Filipinos have become apathetic not because they are more concerned about feeding themselves but because the system is unresponsive. They have given up on beating a dead horse. But that’s just me and that’s just them.
There is one criticism of his,
Section f (“Champion active nonviolence and protect human rights…”) shackles the opposition more than it does the administration. It allows the “State” to defend itself through whatever legitimate means necessary. But if you believe the administration is illegitimate then no self-defensive action other than preventing wanton vandalism and violence is permissible.
-Which points to something I’ve noticed before, and which I addressed in a column back in December, 2007 in A limited and limiting consensus (in this passage):
If this means essentially participating in a fight with one hand tied behind your back, because the public wills it and doesn’t care if the government not only fights with both gloves on but horseshoes in its gloves, then so be it. You’re after the long term and that means recognizing that eventually, all the excuses of the tacit and overt supporters of the administration will be proven false. For example, all the yammering to “give her until 2010.” Well, you can’t rush it until 2008, 2009 or early 2010 rolls around, and they have no choice but to see that oops, she isn’t operating by that deadline, is she? This is the clear signal being sent by the revival of Charter change, after all.
At which point you have to bear in mind that people will be even more hostile because they were proven wrong, but it would be nice to be able not to wave fingers at them but to embrace them, even belatedly, as they join the fight.
And even if she steps down, at least you kept her on her toes until then, and who knows, it might just be that keeping her off balance prevented her exploring extension options. So, no regrets, either.
Therefore the Jesuit guidelines are useful in that they reveal how far a significant group are prepared to go -but also, however reluctantly, how far they are being pushed. Because while the Jesuit guidelines are addressed, it seems to me, to those who are fearful of the consequences of action, they have been made possible by those getting fed up with the inactivity that serves as a form of tacit support for the administration, on the part of the senior hierarchy or school officials. Critics of the statement focus on the guidelines being a delaying tactic: they will move the goal posts, time and again, until the magic date of June 30, 2010 has been reached, when they can then shrug and say that they had to do nothing, because things sorted themselves out.
But in the meantime, the feelings of a significant chunk of people have been soothed. The target audience of the Jesuits doesn’t involve those already in the fight, only those who are irritated but who would rather not go that extra step further: this entry by karlvendell, I think sums up the views of the constituency the Jesuits are cultivating, quite well.
My column today is A manufactured privilege.
It extensively quotes the following: “Executive Privilege,” in historian David Kaiser’s blog, History Unfolding. And Congressional Oversight: Rules of the Road Less Traveled, by Donald R. Wolfensberger. And this handy-dandy extract from the conclusion of Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government.
A cornucopia of readings is also available in History News Network: Executive Privilege. In particular, see What Is Executive Privilege and Why Do Presidents Like to Invoke It? by David Greenberg:
Dwight Eisenhower, despite his famous valedictory warnings against the military-industrial complex, did as much as any president to nourish this national security state. Before Ike, presidents had compiled a long list of reasons for refusing congressional requests: the safeguarding of secret foreign policy deliberations; the protection of confidences; the fear that innocents would be unfairly impugned; the need to resist partisan harassment. But they had always conceded, at least tacitly, that sometimes such requests were justified. Ike, on the other hand, sought to radically expand the purview of what his attorney general William Rogers labeled, for the first time, “executive privilege.”
In 1954, fending off one of Joe McCarthy’s fishing expeditions, Eisenhower insisted that “it is not in the public interest that any… conversations or communications, or any documents or reproductions” concerning advice from any executive branch official whatsoever be disclosed. Because he was stiffing McCarthy, most liberal opinion-makers cheered his resolve. Emboldened, the administration continued to deny congressional requests, at least 44 times from June 1955 to June 1960-more often than all other presidents combined. It was a dangerous precedent, but because of the political atmosphere, there was little outcry.
As the imperial presidency grew under John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon, however, outcry arose. Nixon, the first president in 120 years to face a Congress controlled wholly by the opposition, fought continually with Congress over matters of constitutional power, from his impoundment of congressionally allocated funds to his invasion of Cambodia. After the Senate began investigating Watergate, Nixon’s promiscuous use of executive privilege as a stonewalling technique became a chief point of contention. Nixon-who had earlier in his career attacked Harry Truman and Kennedy for invoking presidential prerogatives-himself used the claim to prevent his aides from testifying before Congress and then to withhold the tapes he made of his White House conversations. In an argument not heard since Jackson’s day, Nixon’s lawyers suggested that the courts had no power to compel the president to do anything at all. The president alone, they wrote, “must weigh the interest in prosecuting a wrongdoer against the interest in keeping all presidential conversations confidential.”
It’s interesting to note that Kaiser thinks the U.S. Supreme Court did the presidency an institutional favor by adopting executive privilege as a legal doctrine; Greenberg seems to think so, too:
Nixon often used to couch his defiance of Congress as a defense of “the presidency,” so as to suggest he was not just protecting his own hide. Ironically, United States v. Nixon, though it sealed Nixon’s fate, did shore up the presidency’s power in a significant way, because the court held-erroneously, it seems in retrospect-that the notion of executive privilege was “Constitutionally based.” As a result, the squabbles over executive privilege have continued, with Bill Clinton, during the Starr prosecution, invoking it with all of his delightful creativity.
What’s interesting to me is that William Rhenquist, recently appointed to the court by Nixon, abstained in the voting. In his column Motion for reconsideration yesterday, Justice Isagani Cruz points to one Justice who ought to have abstained, too:
All that is needed to change the majority ruling is to reduce it by only two votes in favor of the right side. Brion, who attended his first en banc session of the Supreme Court only on March 17, could not have participated in its deliberation on the Neri decision; hence, his concurrence should not have been counted at all. As for the other needed vote, I hope it will come from a conscientious justice who will realize that his or her allegiance is not to President Arroyo but to the Constitution.
Incidentally, in the same column, Justice Cruz says the high court has reversed itself upon a motion for reconsideration before:
In the present Neri case, the Senate will file a motion for reconsideration, which the administration even now haughtily dismisses as a useless pro forma effort that is sure to be denied. This brings to mind another case which did not follow the usual practice.
This is the case of Secretary of Justice v. Lantion, 322 SCRA 160; 343 SCRA 377, where the United States requested the extradition of Mark Jimenez, who asked the Department of Justice for information regarding the criminal charges against him. When that information was withheld, he went to the lower court, which sustained him. The Secretary of Justice then appealed to the Supreme Court, which affirmed Judge Lantion’s decision by an 8-7 vote.
The majority ruling was penned by Justice Jose Melo, with seven other justices concurring. It was received with much public outcry in support of the dissenting opinion of six other justices led by Justice Reynato Puno. When the government filed the expected motion for reconsideration, it was not denied but readily granted, to much public acclaim.
The resolution of the Court, which held that Jimenez’s right to information had to wait while the Department of Justice was still evaluating the charges against him, was supported by a 9-6 vote. Two justices of the erstwhile majority had recognized the error of their original votes and shifted them to the new majority.
More curious is former Chief Justice Panganiban’s assertion in Are the Senate investigation rules valid? that unlike the premartial law Senate, the present Senate can’t be considered a continuing :
The Senate however argues that there is no need to republish, because “Nazareno vs Arnault” (July 18, 1950) has held that, unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate was a continuing body.
Justice Carpio, however, cogently observes that “Nazareno” was decided under the 1935 Constitution when only eight of the 24 senators were elected every two years such that 16 senators constituting two-thirds of the Senate “always continued into the next Congress.” Since only a majority or 13 of the 24 members were needed to constitute a quorum and do business, the Senate was deemed a continuing body.
In contrast, under the 1987 Constitution, the term of 12 of the 24 senators expired every three years “leaving less than a majority to continue into the next Congress.” Thus, the present Senate cannot be deemed a continuing body. Ergo, the rules must be republished after the expiration of the term of 12 senators.
But then the Senate then and now has been the only chamber not subject to the replacement of its entire membership in a general election, which is of particular interest during presidential election years when half the senate remains in office while the entire slate is wiped clean from President down to councilor. It may well be that what Panganiban points out, though, was a design flaw: the intention may have been to retain the stabilizing feature of a nationally-elected chamber capable of carrying out business even in a vacuum (when no officials have been proclaimed elected), but electing the Senate in halves, instead of thirds as from 1941-1971, represents a fatal flaw.
Which only goes to show that innovations can cause more problems than they solve: it would be interesting to see why the half-and-half system of electing the Senate was put in place when originally it was never contemplated for a nationally-elected chamber.
In the end, Red’s Herring points out,
Executive privilege encourages presidential unilateralism. When used against legislative oversight, the privilege serves to veto policymaking at its very inception. Why did the majority in Neri in the effort to uphold executive privilege choose to play blind to the clear language of accountability and transparency in the Constitution?
Amando Doronila explores the consequences of the decision further in Neri decision a rollback of Philippine democracy .
Red’s Herring’s views is along the lines of what those who will be marching from Adamson University to the Supreme Court, to accompany the lawyers submitting their motion for reconsideration to the Supreme Court, will be asking, too. See this statement:
The Ruling on Executive Privilege: A Threat to the Nation
The Supreme Court ruling on executive privilege is not only a grave threat to the Senate as a co-equal body but also to our system of government and democracy in general. This danger is most clearly seen in Malacañang’s recent pronouncement that without published rules, all Senate hearings in aid of legislation, past and present, may now be considered “null and void” and that executive officials can now ignore them.
In its ruling, the Court upheld the President’s claim of executive privilege and nullified the Senate’s order citing former NEDA chief Romulo Neri in contempt for not appearing in its hearings on anomalies concerning the NBN-ZTE project.
The decision, however, is not simply about the President being right in keeping certain information from the public. Some of the reasons used by the Court in reaching its conclusions have dangerous consequences for our nation and our people.
First, the Court’s view that existing Senate rules on legislative inquiries have not been duly published disregards Senate practice, severely limits its capacity to conduct legislative inquiries, and in Malacañang’s view, even puts into question all acts of the 14th Congress, including enacted legislation. Will Malacanang now also argue that the budget law is also “null and void”?
Second, the Court’s recognition of a presumption in favor of the confidentiality of Presidential communications places the burden of overcoming it upon those seeking disclosure. This is inconsistent with the principle that all means must be used to seek for the truth, and that those who wish an exception must show the need. It violates the constitutional mandate for transparency in government and the people’s right to information on matters of public concern.
Third, the Court has expanded the coverage of executive privilege to include not only communications directly involving the President herself, but also communications involving her close advisors. The President is given advice by many known and unknown officials close to her. How far down the chain of command does the privilege extend? This expansion effectively keeps away from public view information in many areas of governance.
Finally, the Court has made it easier for the President to invoke executive privilege, for all she needs to allege is that the information demanded involves state secrets or presidential conversations. This will allow her and other officials to use executive privilege to hide misconduct in governance, in violation of the constitutional principle of accountability of public officers.
Because the government acts in a consistent pattern of concealment, the presumption in executive privilege must remain in favor of disclosure and against secrecy. Public interest in transparency, accountability and the people’s right to information must always be strongly upheld and zealously protected. We must not allow this interpretation of executive privilege to weaken our democratic institutions. The Supreme Court must reverse itself!
April 8, 2008
Watch, Pray and Act Movement
Buong Bansa Sumisigaw: Tama Na, Itama Na!
(Busina!)
discussions on nfa brings to mind this article,
http://philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/the-hand-of-the-government-april-10-1948-2/
the 60th anniversary of which is coming up in a few days.
“the hand of the government”, april 10, 1948, by; teodoro m. locsin
amazing how an article written some 60yrs ago still rings true today. how sad and depressing though to realize that nothing has changed in the philippine government and society. absolutely no progress or change.
we are stuck and still engaged in same system of government operation and structure. we are still operating under the thinking of 1948! this is very sad! thanks for the reminder manolo.
That’s got to be the worst essay written by Teodoro Locsin that i’ve read although he does not have the benefit of hindsight so maybe he could be excused.
@benign-zero
“What is actually happening is this system of traders’ capital structures responding to a market condition.”
Yes, but are you CONDONING hoarding then to inflate the price and maximise profits? This is extreme capitalism.
Hoarding is a crime more than just extreme capitalism.
They create articficial shortages, to jack up prices then pag mataas na presyo sabay benta.
What is happening as of the moment is medyo nilalangaw ang mga commecial rice dahil mayaman mahirap NFA rice ang binibili (of course di lahat magtyatyaga maghanap ng nfa store kaya isali daw ang simbahan sa nfa rice distribution)
artificial shortages can jack up inflation,but unfortunately so does price stabilization or price control.price control may even cause hyperinflation.
ALthough, I’ve been pointing out to the naive people that the rice supply and price problems can’t be blamed to farmers, I am saying now that the rice shortage is not only in the Philippines.
http://www.independent-bangladesh.com/200802212190/business/worldwide-shortage-of-rice-shoots-prices-soaring.html
The global inflation in food prices and possible rice shortage may not have been this government’s fault. But talk of planning for the rainy days!
I know it’s part of the agenda of the cabinet’s national security cluster i.e. strategic stockpiling of critical materials including oil, water, vaccine, etc. In the current case, buffer stocks of rice.
Benign0 says:
———————
But these grains traders have existed since time immemorial.
Why go after them now?
They serve their purpose as efficient consolidators of commodities because they have the capital to acquire, store, and transport these in economical quantities.
———————-
Grain traders do serve an important purpose, but there comes a point when they can control or collude in the the trade and pricing of a commodity. At this point, there is a need to scrutinize their operations.
Almost every Western country/democracy has some form of antitrust, anti-cartel regulatory framework that tries to limit the ability of private actors to constrain competition. That is why cartels are not looked upon favorably. The US, EU, and even your Australia all have antitrust legislation. The economic basis for antitrust legislation is hardly ever debated, it is more how to determine if there is anticompetitive behavior and the appropriate policies that is the subject of much of the discussion.
So, yes, if we do find behavior among traders that restricts competition, then there should be the appropriate regulatory framework to prevent them from doing so.
I don’t know if “strategic stockpiling” is feasible for the Philippines. Will Filipinos pay an extra peso per liter of gasoline so that the government can dig out a mountain, pour the concrete, bring in the steel pipes, and then buy EXTRA oil from Saudi Arabia for the stockpile?
Does Pinas even have a stockpile of N95 masks (much less a stockpile of amoxicillin) for when SARS or the flu pandemic breaks out?
And furthermore, the NFA is actually an inefficient means by which to manage the situation. That agency should be abolished and a competition regulator be established and given real power. But given the corruption in the government, this would require a political system and political capabilities that will not exist for the next few years at least.
UP n says:
———–
I don’t know if “strategic stockpiling†is feasible for the Philippines. Will Filipinos pay an extra peso per liter of gasoline so that the government can dig out a mountain, pour the concrete, bring in the steel pipes, and then buy EXTRA oil from Saudi Arabia for the stockpile?
————
We should have a reasonable stockpile of oil. Will Filipinos pay? It can be done, assuming the government knows how to communicate the idea. Filipinos accepted the VAT, grudgingly, but they accepted it. It is important that the stockpiler be credible and competent as well, (when to release, when to buy, how much to store, how to trade, etc.)
“the government can dig out a mountain, pour the concrete, bring in the steel pipes, and then buy EXTRA oil from Saudi Arabia for the stockpile?” – UP n
The oil depots in Subic were very recently being offered, e.g. to Russia from Sakhalin Island, as possible strategic stockpile in this part of the world. But they were found too small; I think they went to Sinagpore.
cvj: “That’s got to be the worst essay written by Teodoro Locsin that i’ve read although he does not have the benefit of hindsight so maybe he could be excused.”
cvj, why do you think so?
Madonna: “Talk about food security. Talk about rice being our food staple. In case of war or any catalysmic world event, we will be going down immediately.
We are getting screwed by the dark underbelly of capitalism, all with the approval and encouragement of our leader in Malacanang.
And madam Gloria (smart economist kuno) had done thing but left us to the mercies of the rice cartel. Because it’s more efficient to be importing rice (more efficient nga ba?). Or is it the clear case of being more profitable for a few?”
Madonna, what do you propose should be the Philippines’ agricultural policy?
Special Prosecutor is just another name for Ombudsman, an office that didn’t even need to be created if the Department of Justice was doing its job in the first place. So it is a double redundancy. And it is insane in that doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different result is insane.
@ manuelbuencamino
Isn’t the Ombudsman specifically tasked to investigate complaints versus government officials, which the DOJ is not trusted to be impartial?
Maybe, if we could have the NBI independent from DOJ?
David, because it’s way ahead of its time in terms of bad economic advice i.e. ‘government should get out of business‘. All our neighbors who became NICs had their governments involved in business in one way or the other i.e. they succeeded by becoming, in his terms, ‘Maximarchists’. If South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Malaysia took Teodoro Locsin’s advice to heart and took the ‘Minimarchists’ route, none of them would have become economically successful.
On the other hand, we did follow his advice (most notable in terms of effort is the Washington Sycip-led Asset Privatization Trust) and aside from failing to industrialize, our government is now moving from one fiscal crisis to the next. It’s clear that Locsin has no concept of market failure and he is actually not that far from Benign0 who extols rice hoarders as paragons of the free market.
cvj, thanks for the clarification. So you advocate some form of socialism for the Philippines. Which industries in your view should be nationalized?
David, i don’t advocate socialism in the sense of central planning and collective ownership because it is clearly a failed experiment. However, i think we should have a more balanced view in that if there is government failure, there is also such a thing as market failure. Locsin presents a one-sided picture that seems to say that only government can fail where in reality, the market can also fail. The case of the rice cartels is an instance of market failure. There is room for the market to work and there is room for government intervention in general, particularly in the form of industrial policy.
To economist Dani Rodrik, the key to a successful industrial policy is to approach it as a ‘discovery-process’ with government and business having a relationship defined as one of ‘embedded autonomy‘.
Rodrik also cautions in terms of defining industrial policy in terms of whole industry sectors. Rather, he says the scope should be narrowed to cleary identified ‘activities’.
In the above, nationalization is just one of the options. Anyway, to answer your question, in terms of what industries should be nationalized, IMHO the wholesale market for real estate (including Church lands) is a good candidate. Our entrepreneurs and businessmen should be rewarded for actually making stuff, rather than extracting rents.
XAX,
kaya nga. the ombudsman is not immune from pressure, how will a special prosecutor be immune? And if it is at all possible to immuniza him, then why not just do it for the ombudsman instead of creating a special prosecutor’s office with its accompanying bureaucracy?
The proposal for a special prosecutor is nothing but a ploy by the 2010 Movement.
If I may advance a considered opinion, given present geo-political uncertainties (e.g. terrorism, financial meltdown, etc.), RP government should consider going back to the strategic sectors like oil, water, etc.
Admittedly, there would be inefficencies involved but better a cabinet meeting to decide the fate of millions than a board meeting.
Saxnviolins,
Your info is very much appreciated.
Mindanaoan,
I don’t think I have argued the concept of a continuing body for either the Senate or the House.
I just countered specific claims by the Justices. Justice Leonardo De Castro stated that the composition of the Senate changes by the end of each term so I gave an example where it won’t. Justice Carpio stated that the expiring term of twelve Senators every three years leaves less than a majority of Senators to continue into the next Congress yet we have a majority of Senate members of the Senate of 2006 also as Senate members as of 2008.
And the Rules of the Senate that you posted imply the continuing operation of said rules. For why should the Senate proceed with its organization in the first session following every periodic election of Senators if there are no rules that state such?
You seem to be admitting that said rules exist and operate by default (Well, at least till a new set of rules are adopted).
But if you follow what I’m implying with regards the SC’s Rule of Procedure; it would be more in line also with the default operation of rules till they are replaced, amended, revised, etc…
J. Leonardo De castro adopted the OSG’s statement in that
“The phrase ‘duly published rules of procedure’ requires the Senate of every Congress to publish its rules of procedure governing inquiries in aid of legislation because every Senate is distinct from the one before it or after it. Since Senatorial elections are held every three (3) years for one-half of the Senate’s membership, the composition of the Senate also changes by the end of each term. Each Senate may thus enact a different set of rules as it may deem fit. Not having published its Rules of Procedure, the subject hearings in aid of legislation conducted by the 14th Senate, are therefore, procedurally infirm.”
And that would impinge on all the Rules of a “new” Senate as the decision carries the weight that there seems to be no rules in default operation (Each Senate may thus enact a different set of rules as it may deem fit clause) and that each and every Senate (and House for that matter) must reiterate adoption of a set of rules.
What if by some quirk Mindanao is invaded by a large foreign army at noon of June 30th following a national election; when will the Congress be able to declare the existence of a state of war?
XAX, i would’ve agreed if the Cabinet were not allies or underlings of the Oligarchs. Sadly, that is not yet the case.
Oooppsss.
I meant SC’s Rule of Court.
justice league:
If the Supreme Court was not in existence after EDSA, and only came to existence after Executive Order 12, did they need to republish the Rules of Court as well? Does that render all their decisions invalid?
J_ag, even the collective braintrust of the fed and brokerage firms in wall street are still at a lost on this rapidly deteriorating worldwide mess we are in. How can you expect our government to hedge its way out of this crisis when even the best and brightest miscalculated leading to the commodities bubble. The crisis precipitated by a falling dollar, short sellers, weather patterns, inflationary pressure from exporting countries is something that no one can prepare consistently considering the limited resources of our country.
Its so easy to cast blame on hindsight but the truth lies in the fact that market forces dictated what transpired. It will be a stretch to blame our government when any solution to the problem will entail billions of pesos in subsidies. I guess no matter where you stand on the rice issue, the fact is we cant produce the grain in a cost efficient manner thus leading to importing it. There are no easy solutions no matter who is the president.
it seems to me that the escalating price of rice is largely fueled by panic buying by a public that is being driven into a frenzy by anti-government forces, with the help of the irresponsible media. when an average family who normally buys a kilo of rice, as needed, spends its life savings to buy a sack or two of “nfa” rice to be stored “just in case”, multiplied hundreds of thousandfold, no amount of government stockpile will be enough to “stabilize” the price, and there will surely be long-term shortages in the market.
it looks like the anti-gma forces has stumbled upon a sure-fire way to stir unrest, eventually hoping to ignite thereby a revolution. it would be a sad spectacle when the people start killing each other because those who can afford to buy only a kilo of rice at a time find the rice bins empty because panic-buyers have gobbled up what is available and stored “just in case”.
edit: …HAVE stumbled…
i think i know why cvj finds teodoro m.locsin’s philippine free press essay, linked by mlq3, “the worst”. it is because he thought all along that “corruption” was the invention of gma, and that he could not accept that charges of corruption were rampant in 1948, and before. talk about being one-tracked mind.
justice league: “I don’t think I have argued the concept of a continuing body for either the Senate or the House. x x x
But if you follow what I’m implying with regards the SC’s Rule of Procedure (sic); it would be more in line also with the default operation of rules till they are replaced, amended, revised, etc.”
justice league, it was the Senate that raised the argument that it is a continuing body and, thus, its Rules of Procedure Governing Inquiries in Aid of Legislation (adopted in 1995) are still effective despite non-publication during the present Congress. Justice Carpio showed why the Senate is not a continuing body under the Constitution because as the term of 12 senators expire, the remaining 12 senators do not constitute a quorum to discharge its legislative duty.
Perhaps you can propose to the Senate that it raise the “default operation of rules” argument in its Motion for Reconsideration to justify the continuing effectiveness of its Rules of Procedure.
Saxnviolins,
I think the transitory provisions of the Charter covers that. Again thanks.
David,
They have already filed a motion for reconsideration so I hope they have or at least thought of something better.
“I think the transitory provisions of the Charter covers that.”
The Constitution took effect in 1987. What about cases decided between April 1986 to the effectivity of the Charter?
The point is, Carpio’s doctrine affects them too.
“The US is inflating its way to save its economy and this resulted in increased in price of all commodities.”
magdiwang, so the increase in prices was deliberate just to save the economy.
inflation was just incidental as a result of lowering the interst rates.The Fed never intended it to cause inflation.Reading your comment again, I guess that is also what you meant.
I think they are repeating what happenned to Japan in the nineties. lowering of rates lead yields of treasury to plummet and the economy grinding to a halt.
Saxnviolins,
I have to go to work so I have to defer an answer.
Pero naman, tanungin mo naman yung panig sa sinabi ni J. Carpio at wag naman lagi ako.
Exactly.
There are legislative steps that need to be taken before any intervention may be applied beyond measures currently available within the framework of the law.
Rather than focus on idiotic “inquiries” and inciting and participating in the street moronism that hijacks Pinoy political “wisdom”, Pinoy legislators should focus on their job of CONTINUOUSLY evaluating our legal/constitutional framework and identifying, anticipating, and mitigating risks to the future prosperity of the society that can be addressed by legislation.
Obviously food security and unfair trading practices (specially in times of crisis) were RISKS to our society that legislators failed to identify.
By the way, check out my latest short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xSTha2Y6X0
A kind of a “station ID” for my YouTube presence. 😉
Now to the SC,
Sen. Pangilinan thinks that their motion is enough to covince at least two justices to reconsider.
Re:EP
I watched agovernment channel talkshow hosted by Dong Puno and he asked the cabinet secretaries,if they are allowed to disclose converstaions with the preseident even after they are already out of thir positions.
Nandon din si Enrile kaya ang sagot nya iba daw ang case nya becasue his life depended on it.
Si Secretary Teodoro lang ang cite ng executive privilege yung iba tinira lang yung mga ibang former cabinet members.
I guess next weeks SC decision kung next week nga talaga. will either lead to more questions, or finally resolve the issue ,or as I read the headline of the INQUIRER that RP is on the road to autocracy.
@ benign0
Checked out the Get Real Philippines station ID. Its good and tight.
The voice over at the start sounds familiar. Hmmm.
Re : youtube.
I heard from a relative through affinity(an Indonesian) that youtube is already banned in Indonesia, together with multiply and myspace.How unfortunate!
Now watch a youtube braodcast from a country very near to Indonesia from Benign0….
done!
hindi nga lang makikita ng Indonesian neighbors natin.
Benign0,
re:message to the youth.
kaya nga minsan na address kitang mr. or ms. benign0
me nakita kasi akong comment dito na naasabing “…benign0 is a woman, siguro dahil sa video na ito.
b, the idea of the special prosecutor is modeled on ken starr, etc. neither ombudsman on doj invesitgate sitting presidents, the spec. pros. would be essentially doing the spadework for a proper impeachment.
justice league,
“And the Rules of the Senate that you posted imply the continuing operation of said rules.”
it doesn’t imply, it says so in sec. 137 “These Rules shall take effect on the date of their adoption and shall remain in force until they are amended or repealed.” but the rules of the senate is different from the rules of procedure. the constitution requires ‘duly published’ rules of procedure in relation to legislative inquiry.
re: senate as continuing body. i think it is designed to be a continuing body, and fair for the senate to assume it’s a continuing body, except it’s caught in the lack of logic of the way its currently set up.
one of my frustrattions with the present constitution is that it tinkered with all sorts of things that were well thought out in the past. don’t reinvent the wheel. the senate from 1941-1972 was nationally elected but after the first election in 1941, from 1946 onwards, a third of it was elected at any given time. that firmly left it a continuing body asd at any given time, 2/3 of the body was not up for election.
in the first post edsa senatorial election i believe 1/3 had 6 year terms, another third had 4 year terms, and another third had 2 years terms, leading to the staggered system -or maybe i’m wrong. it should have been designed that wa6y.
so what hapens now is you have a body intended to be, designed to be, and which should be, a continuing body but which is not, because of the valid argument that it never has a continuing quorum to do business.
Benign0,
pareho din pala yung reader sa message to Cory,etc.
to be honest I was expecting heavy words like small minded, moronic,asal aso and the likes.
And of course the undying catchphrase of it’s simple,really.
pero buti na lang wala, pero parang kulang.
“J_ag, even the collective braintrust of the fed and brokerage firms in wall street are still at a lost on this rapidly deteriorating worldwide mess we are in. How can you expect our government to hedge its way out of this crisis when even the best and brightest miscalculated leading to the commodities bubble. The crisis precipitated by a falling dollar, short sellers, weather patterns, inflationary pressure from exporting countries is something that no one can prepare consistently considering the limited resources of our country.”
Based on my last reading of the charter of the federal reserve, it’s charter based on their constitution was given it by the U.S. Congress.
Thier jurisdiction only applies to territories of the United States of America. U.S. fiscal and monetary policy is only applicable to the U.S. The Fed has two mandates given by law. price stability and full employment.
The ECB and other Central Banks operating under a fiat (National currency imposed by state law) fractional reserve system have their own independent fiscal and monetary policies.
Please note that the finacial markets will react to opportunties or edges in the real economy. It is called arbitrage. When there are weaknesses in a physical supply chain the market will come in formally or informally. Bubbles are a part of markets. Brokerages, investment banks live and die precisely for these kinds of markets. They are necessary evil in a market economy as they spot imbalances before the government and ordinary people do. They exist to get the edge. (Hello anyone home out there?)
So why now balme the fact that the Fed is moving to correct a amssive disequilibrum by putting the entire resources of the state to backstop the economy of the U.S. That is their reason for existence. If they are exporting inflation that is for the so called independent Central Banks of the world to counter. The ECB is doing a very good job of exactly that. It has refused to lower it’s overnite rate. In a market economy only one thing organizes human behavior. Price.
The world tarders in commodites -Cargill, Continental Adm and others are all traders. They take physical postions because they make rational educated bets in the fuitures market. They have budgets for their weather forecasting larger than the Philippines government. They also spend for satelite tracking of areas to get an edge in placing future bets.
The worlds hedge funds also do the same. They have access to this type of information.
Anyone who wishes to engae in this type of trade better have budgets for research as its costs literally thousands of dollars to get information.
Mexico went thorugh their tortilla crisis sometime back. Why is everyone surprised when markets overact. That is the nature of bubbles. This thime the bubble reached the real economy.
But who made it possible for this to happen. The domestic productive capacity for rice to meet domestic consumption needs is short some 2 million + tons of rice.
Our de facto President who claims to be an ‘uber economist’ knows this to be a fact. She approves all rice importations. We usually import rice to fill the productive gap during the lean months.
However the world market is not so cooperative this time. Timing is everything. NFA rice is imported 25% broken rice. Everyone in the rice business knew that there were price surges early on. So snart people took up contracts and created pressures on the contract price for future deliveries. Just like in the oil business whne supplies are tight for whatever reason you take positions for quick profits. When interest rates are low and you do not borrow dollars you borrow in yen before the yen got stronger. That was the yen carry trade.
So what happens when our government goes to buy on the spot market. Prices have surged and no more contracts to be bought at the old price. That information gets to the traders domestically. The speculation starts there and works its way down the supply chain. If you know that the replacemnt costs of the rice that is selling retail at Php 18.50 is close to Php 40 why should consumers not also start to accumulate more rice for future use .. If you know that the price will double you buy. Then it becomes a matter of how deep the pockets (Treasury) are of Don Miguel and Dona Gloria.
That plain and simple how price information works. It becomes just like a bull market in a stock. Only this time it hits the gut squarely.
Why do you think the government lifted all quotas on private imports. They know the informal marekts – the smugglers will come in to fill the gap and stabilize prices. But prices will still be higher than that Php 18.50 retail. There is no where on this planet as of today where Don Miguel and Dona Gloria can buy rice to sell to the people of Hacienda Filipinas without getting into the piggy bank they control and subsidize the price.
What rice is being sold today was bought at last years prices. As they buy new contracts we pay higher and the state pays more for the subsidy. Just like the price of oil at $100+. When the oil bouhgt cheaper you will see prices move higher. That is the time lag effect.
But with rice doubling in price the time lag effect is multiplied by the sight of all those lines, soldiers guarding rice trucks raids of warehouses. That will only exacerbate the price crisis. Traders will move out of the markets and the markets will stall. The NFA cannot possibly substitute the private markets.
When you know the price is to rise – you know blood in the streets —–buy buy buy buy.
But mind you what you are seeing is the effect of broad liberal interpretation of free market dogma. Our ‘uber’ economist however missed the big picture in her laser like focus on the economy. Wow Mali!!!!
Tapos titirahin mo si Bernanke. Ang layo.
In 1988, in a Philgov subject my professor said that the constution was a reactionary constitution to the 1973 constitution.Come to think of it ,madami nga silang nireinvent na di naman kailangan.
re:”protector clause (role of the military)
per annecdote of my dad,about that protector clause ,he have talked to bernas himself, and bernas said that it was just a reaction to the military abuses of the past and might as well delete it. They argued about the deletion issue,although many people agreed that it should be deleted my dad stood his ground that it should not be the case.
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personal opinion:
tulad ng sinabi ko Protector gusto palabasin na opposite ng oppressor or abuser. They were just playing with words then.
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mlq3, as i pointed above, the senate rules mandate an organization after every election. that’s not a feature of a continuing body.
mindanaoan, a mandated election of new officers after every election isn’t necessarily an argument against -it’s part and parcel of congress itself being reorganized after every election. again, if you look at the declaration of past supreme courts, that under the 1935 constitution the senate was considered a continuing body, and a continuing body despite a similar practice of reorganizing its leadership after every election, your objection doesn’t hold.
after all, the leadership of either chamber is reorganized after every election but that doesn’t mean the leadership will change. and the leadership can be replaced at any time within their terms.
panganiban’s argument is that the old view of a continuing body doesn’t hold because of a design flaw in the present structure of the senate -you could point to a continuing body in the past, because at no time did the senate lose more than 1/3 of its members while in the past, the entire composition of the house was up for election, which theoretically made it possible to change 100% of the composition of the house, which also had a term coinciding with the president’s, who could also be replaced every term. the senate was always immune to such a total change.
Bencard (5:48am), i’ve already explained why i think it was Locsin’s worst essay (that i’ve read) above (at 12:04am and 1:16 am) and it has nothing to do with the conjecture you have offered.
How will markets fill the demand for cheap rice:
Human greed will fill the gap to alleviate hunger –
35% broken rice is rice fit for lugaw.
That is the rice also bought here by lugaw shops. As of today if tariff were to be added to the price of 25% imported broken rice the price would be aorund Php 45/kg.
Thai and Vietnam 25% broken is as good as our local ordinary and that is why traders here sometimes mix the formerly cheaper imports with local.
Our domestic rice retails around Php 30- Php 40+ a kg.
Government needs cheaper rice to retail at Php 18.50
I am sure since the import trade has been opened w/o quotas but with 50% tariffs, the smugglers can start bringing in a mix of 25% and mostly 35%. There will be a wide gap in prices.
For the Philippines 35% broken could be a lifesaver. markets do not quote that standard since demand for that is weak. However this time it is valuable.
The problem is hunger and lugaw is a perfectly moral and practical option.
The market for lugaw shops would be viable.
Idea for a lugaw brand – Ate Glo’s Lugawan – The NFA could start the franchising move from their Tindahan ni Gloria……
Lugaw is great stuff!!! Seriously, lugaw is a great way to lose weight with its lower carbo content and no-cholesterol zero-fat (if you use chicken breast, not dark meat).
Should be great comfort food this time of the year in Sydney, right?