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I am not embarrassed to tell you that I believe in miracles.

-    CORAZON C. AQUINO

Have we forgotten?


… that we were once the masters of democracy?


… that in 1986, long before anyone had even heard of Barack Obama, there was a more pronounced and dynamic miracle here in our very own islands?


… that we were the envy of the world for our singular display of peace, reconciliation and true power?


Back in the day when power was yielded by the vicious, it was unthinkable that a housewife with no political ambition could topple down a twenty-year-old empire. The proud few fell under the furious voice of the humble in glorious unison. 


“No more”, they said. 


“Not in my country”, they said even louder.


To avoid falling into the trap of romanticizing the past too much, understand that it was no secret that Tita Cory had her share of failures and frustrations. As her administration was cursed by violent coups, natural disasters, and economic ruin, she had an army of critics that watched her every move. This forced her team to be dynamic in both composition and strategy. In the end, she never really settled in. There was no calm -- no settling of the dust from the aftershock of Marcosian and natural devastation. She sat at the edge of her seat during her entire service.


President Aquino was not your typical idealized hero. She was not one who rose from the masses to become a champion of the people. She was never in war, or tortured, or humiliated. She was part of the elite Cojuangco family that had much in life. She had everything she ever needed, including a US education, a secure family and a fount of inexhaustible finances. 


She could easily have sat back to watch the wicked and the greedy devour each other while keeping her family safe, not losing a single night’s rest. But she chose a difficult life. She chose to jump into the fray and serve her God and her people. 


It was her great personal sacrifice that won for us a sustained increase in national hope. It was this -- her resolve to abandon the quiet life that she craved in exchange for a life lived for everyone else -- that made the Filipino people feel even human again.


The years when she was in the Palace were not the most productive years for the Philippines… they were not the happiest years… they weren’t even the most peaceful years… 


… but they were certainly the most hopeful years.


And we lost this because we have forgotten that it's not what you have or what you've been through that defines you as a true leader… It’s how much you’re willing to give up.


That is the story of Corazon C. Aquino.


And it is a story we must constantly revisit and learn from.


Because certain great sacrifices have to be made in the months to come… and we shall see who will finally step up to take the challenge head-on.


Rest in peace, Madame President.

Check and Balance

Published in Cebu Gold Star Daily


A recent Pulse Asia survey regarding the Filipino opinion about charter change shows that about 42% reject it. But the more alarming finding is that 57% of Filipinos know little to nothing about the Constitution. Although I have this inherent distrust for survey results, experientially, this figure seems to be true. Even I knew very little about our most basic law before entering law school. I just never bothered to learn it back then. And like so many of our Filipino youth, I just didn’t care.


Now that I work for the Filipino people, I have no choice but to do care. So allow me to explain our system of government and how it is supposed to work. 


Our government is composed of three parts or branches. 


We have the Legislative Branch or the people who make the laws. These are the House of Representatives and the Senate. Legislative Power is otherwise known as the Power of the Purse because it is the lawmakers who design the national budget.


We have the Executive Branch or the people who implement the law. These are the President, the Cabinet members and everyone else working under the different departments. Executive Power is also called the Power of the Sword because it is the Executive that imposes the law and controls the police and the military.


Finally, we have the Judicial Branch or the people who interpret the law in actual cases. These are the Supreme Court justices and the justices and judges of the lower courts. Judicial Power is sometimes referred to as the Power of the Scales because it is the courts that have the final word on actual cases or controversies. 


Power is spread out among these three branches because of a long history of world experience that if power belonged only to one person or to a single family, there will be tyranny. By giving specific groups specific powers and duties, they are able to check and balance each other’s actions so that minimal damage will arise out of any fault or error by any individual person in government. In other words, our system essentially is a result of a well-placed mistrust in human nature. This is called the Separation of Powers.


How do these checks and balances work? In several ways:

1. If Legislature approves a bad law, the Executive can veto it. If the Executive abuses his veto, the Legislature can, in turn, override it by getting a higher vote.
2. If the Judiciary makes a bad decision in a criminal case, the Executive can pardon the convicted person and set him free.
3. If the Executive assigns unworthy or questionable persons to the Cabinet or to certain key government positions, this decision can be rejected by the Commission on Appointments under the Legislative Branch of government.
4. If certain government officials, namely the President, the Vice-President, the Supreme Court Justices, the Commissioners of the Commission on Elections, Audit and Civil Service, and the Ombudsman prove to be unworthy of their positions, they can be impeached with the initiative of the Legislative Branch.
5. Finally, if any person in government exercises his or her power with grave abuse of discretion, the Judiciary can reverse, modify or set aside that abusive exercise of power and order that person to behave properly.

All these are designed to keep power in its proper place.


Sadly, these checks and balances have mostly been illusory in recent years. The Supreme Court Justices, Members of Congress and even the Ombudsman are either friends or family of the President. There exists a personal touch that contorts the entire system into something no longer recognizable as a democracy. The Philippines has been disfigured under the rule of pakikisama. What we used to consider as a value is now proving to be a serious liability and a blockade against national unity and freedom. 


After all is said and done, the ultimate check and balance comes from us – the common people. We vote for our leaders, their policies, attitudes, experience, education, faith, prejudices, mistakes, triumphs and yes… their families. Our collective decision will form our collective destiny. 


I hope we can all remember this next year.


Register. Vote. And use nothing less than your very best judgment.

Death of a Taxman

Published in Cebu Gold Star Daily




Taxation is perhaps the most boring subject matter I can think of to write about (and the most detested subject for those who ever took the bar exams). But taxation remains, or at least it ought to be, the most effective tool for social justice. 


Long before agrarian reform, welfare and socialized housing, there was taxation. Taxes are nothing more than enforced contributions to society, where people give a certain percentage of their earnings to fund State services. It is clearly designed as form of socialism or equalizing device to shrink the gap between the rich and the poor. 


Here are the basic premises for taxation: 

1. People gain wealth by using State services and systems (e.g. land, business grants, government contracts, etc…). 
2. The more wealth you gain from this system, the more you have to contribute to keep that system running.
3. If you are poor, you need help, so you are exempted from giving your contribution to the State until you can rise to a level where you can support yourself and those who depend on you.

From this, we formed a system where the fortunate support the unfortunate to a certain extent so that the latter are given enough breathing space to improve their lot in life. Progressive taxation means that those who have more must give more, while those who have less are given assistance. 


In its proper sense, taxation ought to be taken from income – money that is gained. This ensures that taxes do not cut deep into the resources needed by people to survive. This ideal has been mangled because the rich find ways to avoid paying their rightful contributions to society. Those who ought to be supporting society are the hiding behind tax shelters and offshore dummy corporations. They avoid their social responsibility and make all these fancy legal excuses to justify greed.


So how does the government respond? By creating non-progressive fixed taxes, like the misleadingly named value-added taxes, that burden everyone equally, rich or poor. This painfully upsets the balance. After all, equal treatment of unequal people is inequality. The purpose of taxation is mangled, and people don’t know why they are suddenly paying 12% more for something that they’ve been consuming for a very long time.


On the other hand, people are quite justified in refusing to hand out their hard-earned money without seeing concrete results. Massive corruption and incompetence of government have left us a cynical people. Angry. Restless. Our taxes do not seem to be making more schools. They do not seem to stop the violence in our streets. They do not give us clean air or water. They do not seal the cracks on our roads or provide enough supplies to our hospitals. They do not seem to provide health, safety, justice, education, convenience or even access to state services.


The nasty people from both the business sector and government have turned us into this nation of whining idiots, always complaining about things we think we cannot control. They have transformed us into people who would rather ignore the difficult reality than actively steer it towards a better place. The greed of the few has virtually doomed us all… all because of money… all because our best defense against greed and inequality also involves money.


In spite of all this, I believe that a tight, disciplined and brutal taxation system managed by people with the same qualities is one of the keys to moving forward. Obliterate all the fixed taxes and optimize progressive income tax collection. This is the surest way to swell our middle class and give a fighting chance to our poor. 


The wealthy support the poor. 


That is the design. 


That is the way it should be.

The Human Security Act: A Dangerous Euphemism for State Terrorism

by Kazimir K. Ang and Mark Robert A. Dy

Originally published in ThePalladium December 2007 (Vol. 4, Issue 3), released on December 17, 2007.


Both terrorism and anti-terrorism are nothing new. As early as the 1200’s, the common law of England allowed the King and his lords and sheriffs to declare any person or group of persons as outlaws (think Robin Hood and the Merry Men). These outlaws would be stripped of the right to use the law in their favor, thereby exposing themselves to mob violence, swift justice or conviction without trial. They were summarily sentenced with civil death, stripping them of their properties, titles and rights. Outlaws were entitled to none of the basic needs and any person who would give them support in any form (food, shelter, clothing) was considered aiding and abetting outlawry or banditry and would be flogged, tortured or hanged. Much later, this practice would be brought to the New World, influencing much of the Western movies people love so much.


Sans the romanticism of it all, there is nothing exciting about losing your rights by a declaration of a monarch or a president or any of his/her minions. The legislative history of the U.S. has shown many grants of government power that border on the tyrannical. The most prominent among them are the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) of 1970, which was used to quickly hunt down and scatter the Mafia and more recently, the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism), which was an immediate legislative response to coordinated 9/11 attacks on American soil. All these laws are characterized by the weakening of civil liberties, harsh punishments and an overhaul of existing procedural rules on custody and evidence. 


Now, here comes their distant Filipino cousin, RA 9372 or the Human Security Act (HSA) of 2007, which has brought about hostile criticisms and verbal missiles in full spates. The protagonists of this piece of legislation, now commonly referred to as the anti-terrorism law, should not be surprised that they’re drawing blood instead of plaudits from concerned citizens and legal practitioners. While this act’s policy states that the thrust of RA 9372 is to protect life, liberty, and property of persons from terrorism and protect humanity as a whole, this valiant policy is but a flimsy stab at covering up many of the insidious manners by which this law may be subject to abuse and to undermine several constitutionally protected human rights. 


Note that the law’s policy statement is a near-exact replica of the due process clause in the Bill of Rights, making it sound as if it were constitution-friendly. What people sometimes forget is that Article III actually defines and limits the powers of the government vis-à-vis civil and human rights, while the new anti-terrorism law is a whole bundle of forced legislative creases on these same rights. In other words, this law, which purports to create a massive shield against terrorism, also fractures the shield we have against government action by creating new exceptions to long-established protections for human dignity.

ter-ror-ism (tr’Y-r-z’Ym) noun


The prime source of controversy is the HSA’s broad and vague definition of what constitutes an act of terrorism. Section 3 of the HSA defines terrorism as the commission of certain crimes punishable under the Revised Penal Code “thereby sowing and creating a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand.” You would think that the additional elements of having to prove that the act is committed to sow and create fear and that the government is forced to do unlawful acts would make it harder to prosecute individuals for terrorism, until you realize that mere conspiracy to commit terrorism is punishable as well.  


This law is no toothless law or a mere declaration of a war against terrorism. The HSA contains provisions allowing the state to violate fundamental rights found in the Constitution as well as those embodied in international human rights and humanitarian law conventions, leaving one to wonder who’s terrorizing who, really. 


Section 17 bans any organization created for the purpose of espousing terrorism. It doesn’t sound too despotic until you get to the second half of the paragraph which states that an organization nevertheless may be proscribed as a terrorist organization, when the organization, though not organized for such purposes, “uses…acts to terrorize or to sow and create a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace in order to coerce the government to give into an unlawful demand.” Clearly we’re faced again with yet another vague definition, which violates our right to assemble and to organize, because with mere allegation and raw intelligence, any organization may be outlawed and any legitimate dissent or protest be proscribed as terroristic. This provision requires hardly a quantum of evidence for any assembly or association to be liable for proscription.

Section 19 provides for the indefinite detention of a suspect so long as there is an “imminent terrorist attack” and a “written approval” from an official of a human rights commission or member of the judiciary. Take cautious note that no probable cause is required to justify the suspect’s detention, only mere claim of “imminent terrorist attack.” This in effect legitimizes warrantless arrests and suspends the suspects’ privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. The Constitution requires that in suspending the privilege of the writ, no person can be detained for three days without the filing of charges against him. However, the HSA contains no such requirement – the suspect may be detained beyond three days so long as his connection to the imminent terrorist attack is alleged, without having to file the necessary charges. Also note that the written approval will come from either a judge or an official of a human rights commission under the executive branch, not the constitutionally-created and independent Commission on Human Rights.


Section 26 limits the right to travel of the accused “to within the municipality or city where he resides” and/or places the accused under house arrest, even if entitled to bail, so long as he or she is charged under the HSA but the evidence is not so strong. Not only that, he or she is also prohibited from using telephones, cellphones, e-mail, internet, and other various means of communication with people outside of his residence unless otherwise allowed by the court. 


It used to be a joke that it’s not so bad to be illegally detained, because the HSA requires the payment of P500,000.00 for each day of illegal detention. But a critical run-through of the law reveals that “The amount of damages shall be automatically charged against the appropriations of the police agency or the Anti-Terrorism Council that brought or sanctioned the filing of the charges against the accused,” which actually meant that we’d be paying ourselves, because these appropriations are public funds – in short, taxpayer’s money. The joke is over.


So many things have been said against the HSA by civil society, international organizations and even dissenting members of government. The government might try to push these suspicions away and label them as baseless exaggerated paranoia. But the collective Filipino experience and that of humanity as a whole has taught us to always remain vigilant against any threat on human dignity, never to wait until it’s too late. 


On the other hand, times are changing and we face new threats other than government abuse. This calls for a serious balancing act and a recalibration of our idea of a good society, for the sake of common security. This time, we have to ask ourselves “How much personal liberty are we are willing to give up for the sake of quick justice?” Would you have given up some of your freedoms if you knew it could have prevented the Glorietta 2 incident? 


The HSA was designed to limit rights, make no mistake about that. Legislators decided that some rights have to be limited, in certain cases, in order to quickly dispense with a terrorist threat. They needed to find a way to cripple terrorists by freezing their accounts and properties. They want the courts and the police to be able to gather evidence more quickly by allowing exceptions to the Anti-wiretapping law. They want to prevent the destruction of evidence and the prevention of coordinated movements by limiting the right of communication. Whether we agree with these methods or not is a matter of sound personal judgment. 


As legal practitioners, we often tell ourselves to first wait and see because, ultimately, the matter will have to be dealt with by the Supreme Court, if and when an actual controversy arises. But the vigilance required of us has very little to do with mere intellectual discussions and abstract exaltations. This is as real as it can get. We are dealing with real lives and real victims. And when the time comes, we, as stewards  of  justice,  must  never stand  indolently by.