I WAS told that when a US publishing company proposed to publish President Cory’s memoirs for a fat fee, she was properly advised, in my view, that the Constitution forbids her from receiving “during her tenure any other emolument from the government or any other source.” (1987 Const., Art. VI, Sec. 6.) She backed off.

“Any other source” has a plain meaning, to me anyway. Same wording in Art. VII, Sec. 8 of the 1973 Constitution. Dura lex, sed lex. The law is harsh but so it is written. The 1935 Constitution referred only to public money, Art. VII, Sec. 9.





President Duterte has to settle for his monthly salary of P399,739, the Constitution interdicting receiving additional income from “any other source.”

I don’t know if the reports are correct that the rise in assets is due to sources other than his salary (which he says would not suffice for his two families).

I am incredulous that he and his mouthpieces do not seem to know or care either that under Sec. 13 of Art. VII of the 1987 Constitution, he may not, “during [his] tenure, directly or indirectly, practice any other profession, participate in any business,…” Even indirectly. And appearances, perceptions do matter. “The President sent me…” Ang lakas po nang “arrive” o dating. Tapos na po boksing.

It is the Palace which should clarify, not ask one to sue it.

President Jimmy Carter, whose interference on human rights — which are universal, knowing no boundaries — we, human rights advocates, welcomed and cheered, put his peanut farm business in a blind trust, during his incumbency; it went south. Here, any law firm or business openly advertising a direct magical Duterte connection can only go north.

Not a level playing field, I fear.

Delicadeza

It is amazing that Digong “described as `garbage’ the efforts to question him and his family’s businesses, including his law office.” He has a law office? Or he misspoke? Or was misquoted? Did Presidents Marcos, Macapagal, Roxas, Osmeña, Laurel and Quezon have law offices during their presidencies? (At a lower level, I liquidated my practice when I was in government from 1986 to 1992, as Cory Aquino Jr., settling for a take-home P14,612.50 a month as senator, even less in the Cabinet; my wife supported the family with her good income from Mondragon, and our children did not have to walk around shirtless and barefooted, unable to go to school. And I became Super-Takusa as her Star Boarder, utterly unable even to provide the family a home.)

No matter that the Constitution and the statutes may be shoehorned by an amiable judiciary, there is the matter of delicadeza. Do we have today a young Municipal Judge Elo Santiago of Makati of 1981-1982 who acquitted Anding Roces, or a young Regional Trial Court Judge Joselito de la Rosa of Calamba of 1983? Defiant, on principle. How independent was our judiciary then? In mid-1983, what gave a mere presidential assistant the right to lecture Lito on a pending case (People v. Hurtada, Crim. Case No. 194-83-C, 4th JR-RTC-37, Calamba, Laguna) and scare him with dire disciplinary measures for deciding in a way that displeased the Palace. Could there be anything more contemptuous?

Living with one’s mother is not a defense for not complying with the requirement to file one’s SAL under RA 3019, and SALN, under RA 6713. Both should be complied with, but absolutely no one bothers with the former in our scofflaw society, not even Digong or the Solicitor General. I have seen their SALNs which do not mention “the amounts and sources of [their] income, the amounts of [their] personal and family expenses and the amount of income taxes paid for the next preceding calendar year,” required in Sec. 7 of RA 3019 of Sen. Turing Tolentino, hammered on by the Solicitor General in going after Chief Justice Meilou Sereno, a martyr for judicial independence.

Digong cannot forever hide behind admirable and heroic Nanay Soling’s skirt.

Yet he growls: “Our law firms and what happened to our business partnership, it’s not your goddamn business. For as long as it’s not the people’s money.” But, what about said Sec. 7? And the Macoy and Cory Constitutions say “from any other source,” not only from the people. It is questionable whether “whatever his family earned outside of politics was nobody’s business.” From where I sit, it is everybody’s business. Our Prez talks too much. We simply cannot have another some-are-smarter-than-others situation of Marcosian abusive acquisitive appetites. If not a question of law, which may be read to favor him, if judicially tested, there is prudence or self-restraint. ‘Di po magandang tingnan.

He has to answer to his people now, and to history, later.

Midterm course corrections

Then Digong defames the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism for the exposé: “Pera-pera lang lang. Binabayaran yan kung ganoon kalalaki.” No fair to Malou Mangahas, et al. (Full disclosure: Malou was my client when she was a Camp Crame detainee. Told that her case had been dismissed and her release ordered, she didn’t really thank me, but like Digong or a drunken sailor blurted: “PI!” At the time, she was with Ka Bert Olalia, Doris Baffrey, Tony Nieva, et al.)

Malou was among the brave souls who stood at the ramparts of a battered alternative press under siege. Along with Joe Burgos (whose We Forum, we first heard of in 1977 from Gerry Roxas, in the home of Eva Estrada-Kalaw; and Reuben Canoy, Amante Bigornia, Dick Pascual, et al.) and many, many others Ceres that Doyo honors in her latest book (Press Under Siege). A number of them were aided by FLAG, of course, and MABINI, our lawyers’ group, which counts me as among the remaining few, cane-carrying, wobbling relics today. Old fire gone with but a few sparks and smoldering embers, if that, remaining. No sense in rattling the bones of a skeleton from which all semblance of life may have long departed.(?) Mga yumao o laos na po yata kami talaga.

Ceres includes in her magnificent book intrepid Arlene Babst and Ninez Cacho-Olivares, among the first to visit me as a candidate Batang City Jail member, when I was detained in Quezon City for calling Macoy a “super-subversive.” When my ever-loving Dulce came, after work, to visit, the guards scratched their heads as Arlene and Ninez got in on the pretext that one was my wife or kulasisi.

As we approach the second half of Digong’s term, he should really step back and make midterm course corrections to arrest the deterioration in our values, institutions and processes. Again, I do not want him to fail as his failure is also yours and mine.

It warms the heart that he now joins us on the West Philippine Sea dispute, for which we have demoed and marched in front of the Chinese Consulate (why no upgrade to an Embassy?) on Gil Puyat Avenue (Buendia, another senator) for years, before proceeding to the US Embassy (not a mere Consulate, which it has in Cebu).

Digong may well say: “There go my people, I will follow them, for I am their leader” — attributed to Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin.

In early 1983, Ka Celing Muñoz-Palma exhorted that we should work together “so that we may not incur the ire of posterity that we remained silent and indifferent at a time when our national survival was on the brink of collapse.” Today, our national values, institutions and processes are.

On Aug. 8, 1982, Macoy, 66 (not 67, I have a copy of his birth certificate showing that he was born in 1916, not 1917, another gross falsification) blurted: “Pagsisipain natin ang mga lintik in iyan,” sounding malo, not mellow. Digong’s role model.

Here’s hoping that by midterm, Digong will mellow and follow the people, for he is their leader, on the West Philippine Sea dispute. And stop receiving income from sources other than his salary. A blind trust should meet the intent of the Constitution. Who will dare fight the President in business and law practice? But, “[w]e must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding,” boomed Chief Justice John Marshall.

And when will Palace Spokesman Sal Fun-nelo stop speaking or misspeaking or vouching for China in the midst of an increasingly inane and arguably insane campaign period? Also trying to be funny is Bong Go, yielding to cries of “take it off! take it off! “ unwittingly putting Polong Duterte on the griddle. Bong says “[i]t is Polong’s right not to show his tattoo.” Confirming that totoo po palang may tattoo si Polong na may karapatan namang huwag ilantad.