SHOOTING STRAIGHT

SHOOTING STRAIGHT

Convict Corona equals constitutional crisis
By Bobit S. Avila

I fully support Earth Hour (my niece Angela “Gia” Ibay is the national director for Earth Hour Philippines, she’s the daughter of Gen. Jun and Ronnie Segura Ibay), which I did last year in my house. However it is quite difficult to convince the people in many parts of Mindanao to join the Earth Hour as they are already experiencing Earth Hour not just for one hour… but many succeeding pesky hours all because our government has focused its attention on the political revenge events in the nation’s capital… and yes I mean the impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Until now, the propaganda machinery of President Aquino continues to churn its misleading surveys; the latest one showing that the Filipino people no longer trust CJ Corona. Yet as the report goes, this survey was taken at the height of the Prosecution’s offense, which we all know ended up with nothing but bare lies and highly-questionable or probably ill-gotten documents. If SWS or Pulse Asia are fair to the Filipino people, they should have conducted their surveys after the prosecution and the defense have completed their presentations. But like what I wrote long ago, both SWS and Pulse Asia as former Sen. Kit Tatad pointed out are close relatives of P-Noy and someday, they will get their “karma!”

Last March 17, we wrote about a serious flaw in our Constitution, particularly the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) from information I got from author Cecilio Arillo, PhD. Let me reprint that part.

“Supposed, for the sake of argument, Chief Justice Corona resigns, dies, is removed by the senator-judges or is incapacitated, how will he be replaced without first convening the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), the body explicitly mandated by the Constitution (Sections 8 & 9, Article VIII) to nominate to the President his successor?

As it is, the JBC cannot convene and nominate by itself to the President a successor in the absence of the CJ as ex officio chairman of the council. The council has eight members and it has no vice chairman or deputy chairman to act if the chairman is gone. This is the defect in the Constitution and the only way to correct it is to amend it. Neither the President nor the Supreme Court Justices can appoint from among its 14 remaining members an acting Chief Justice because it is only the JBC that can do that as ordained by the Constitution.” But apparently no one seems to this problem any serious thought.

Mind you, I already had this portion in the Constitution double-checked and indeed this Constitution is seriously flawed. So go ahead Mr. and Ms. Senator/Judges, do your thing and convict CJ Corona and let’s see you smart guys plunge this nation into a worse constitutional crisis! Come to think of it, since P-Noy came into power, this country has only seen crisis, after crisis after crisis… gads when will all this madness end?

* * *

I got a reply regarding our last column about the problems plaguing the airline and the tourism industry. This is quite interesting.

“Dear Mr. Avila, Read your article today, I thought KLM was just bluffing, everytime I took their flight from Manila and back it was not only full, it was jam-packed. The last time I took KLM was May of last year and returned middle of June. Both flights were full and even my connecting flight to Rome also a KLM was full. There were few tourists though most of the passengers were Filipino workers or seamen. The only foreigners were executives probably working for multinational companies in Manila, these were the only ones wearing suits. I also took their connecting flight from Madrid to Amsterdam on my return to Manila and it was also full.

KLM from Manila is the fastest way to Europe something like 14 hours, though a decade or so ago, I took the Air France flight from Manila to Paris and if I remember right it is only a little over 11 hours. Air France stopped their flights from Manila some time ago. I guess now we have to fly to Hongkong or Singapore to take a connecting flight to Europe, it is not only much longer flight but also more expensive especially for our OFW workers. I don’t think we can build a tourism industry as big as our neighbors if we insist on taxing foreign carriers. I don’t know how many airlines fly to Bangkok but more than 50 airlines fly to Phuket alone…. Jimmy Morelos.”

Right now, we don’t see the Aquino Regime pushing the panic button. They seem so nonchalant about the problems that many OFW’s would suffer, especially when they have to take connecting flights, which takes the flight home longer than those direct flights by KLM. But then, what does Pres. PNoy care? He always can count on the propaganda support of SWS and Pulse Asia to prop up his sagging image, while the tourism industry edges closer to the precipice. Just wait what will happen next year.

* * *

For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mo-pzcom.comor vsbobita@gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through http://www.philstar.com.