Population from a global long-range perspective

By RENE SAGUISAG

We hail and welcome back Nonito Donaire. Mixed feelings. I happen to agree with W. McGeehan who calls boxing the Manly Art of Modified Murder and the Cauliflower Industry.

Manny Pacquiao had an unplanned siesta of two minutes in his bout with JMMarquez. As one’s brain gets damaged with every hard blow, would it be five minutes next time? Manny will be more tentative then in leading with his face as another unseen blow and that might be it. Good night.

We give Nonito the unsolicited advice to exit the stage while the audience is still applauding, a lesson totally lost on Manny, who continues to disrespect the House, where the likes of Congressmen Jovy Salonga, Gerry Roxas and Manny Pelaez once worked, with focus. Manny even wants a brother to join him there as another Non-Performing Liability and wife Jinkee to run for Vice Guv. If Manny himself would run for Vice Guv, maybe no further criticism from me. 

To show the abyss to which the House has fallen, some “solons” even want to go after Justin Bieber for being critical of Manny, who I have lambasted for years, for multi-tasking and downgrading the House where he had even wanted to train! No respect for a hallowed institution, the legislature, where I once worked. Manong Ernie Maceda and I attended every Senate session, in the service of our people. Leading absentees are not to be admired.

I admire Grace Padaca but she may be well-advised not to raise the defense of imagined immunity in the Sandiganbayan. No such animal. Immunity relates to official acts but does not cover non-official ones, as Jefferson, Kennedy, Nixon and Clinton found out. 

Sexual harassment is not part of the job description in any government position. Let us say a President, Veep, Senate Prez, Speaker or Chief Justice (CJ) rapes. He will be laughed out of his office were he to say “I am immune because I performed an official act.” 

As much as anyone, I was responsible for mothballing the Bataan nuclear power plant, in my time in the Palace and in the Senate. I could not be sued for my judgment call even if a horde of experts testify that I was wrong. I had done my homework and benefited from deus ex machina of Chernobyl right after we took power in 1986. A judge whose judgment is reversed by the Supreme Court, without more, cannot be sued.

Of course there is no viable, realistic basis to charge the Supreme Court (SC) Justices with violating the Flag Law even if they disrespect CJ Meilou and the flag. But, are they setting a good example to the youth? If the senior narcissistic Justices did not mind having been bypassed, it would have been easy to paper over the matter of creating an office in the South. Meilou did not gain a single red cent for what is arguably for the public good. When six Court of Appeals Justices were named by FVR in 1998 during the bawal period the system quietly resolved the issue. After all the appointees were qualified. Here loyalty to the flag arguably ends where loyalty to oneself begins. Amor prio, not amor por la patria y bandera seems to carry the day. As to Meilou, it seems to me basta la intencion, to exculpate her.

Seniority is a tradition or a social vice that may have become incurable here. Such tradition does not exist in the country we aped the SC from. Meilou was not my nominee. But, she being appointed in a thoroughly constitutional manner, I want her to succeed. The sad rift would not have lasted so long if the fault were only on one side, so they should exert what is needed to work things out, in the public interest.

On RH (for Reproductive Health, not Raging Hormones), the Star’s Dick Pascual says our recent growth rate is 1.9 percent. Singapore worries about the lack of young people. Quebec encourages couple to have four children (one fewer than PNoy’s desideratum of five kids). Let’s encourage entire families to move to Canada. Populations drop in many countries, such as Japan and Europe. 

In the US, Howard Unruh, started a sad trend in a single episode mass murder in 1949, when I was in Makati Elem and the population-reducing tragedy bit deeply into my memory. The RH issue is bound for the SC, which issues secret rulings and is playing hardball on SALNs. Pinamamarisan tuloy.

Gov. Amado Espino should show his SALN, voluntarily. But going after jueteng per se is questionable, while we allow casinos, cockpit derbies, and horse racing. The gambling laws and policies are anti-poor and the law is seen to represent the biases of the ruling class. Impossible to outlaw gambling so let’s legalize it, create jobs, and reduce corruption; money is earned by government to boot. No gambling is out in our culture where one would bet on anything that moves. Prohibition failed in the US. Same in regulating firearms. We completely outlaw gun possession, only the outlaws will have guns. But, assault weapons in homes? Doesn’t make sense at all. 

If our growth rate is under 2 percent, the RH measure would not make sense, either. Nietszche said that forgetting purposes is the commonest form of innocence. No public servant is to surrender his conscience to the state to be on the right side of eternity, not only of history.