Update: ABSCBN ANC reports that former President Fidel V. Ramos has just called upon backers of Charter Change should "MOVE ON" because the elections must now go on as scheduled by law in May, 2007. (Oh to be fly on the wall right now within the bickering Inner Circle!)

The silence of the Constitution is for the Congress to fill.

I'm having a nice lil laugh with myself now that I think I've found a really powerful way to think of the "voting separately" or "voting jointly" conundrum allegedly posed by the ambiguities in Article XVII Section 1 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution:

Any amendment to, or revision of this Constitution, may be proposed by (1) the Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or (2) a Constitutional Convention.

It's very simple really.

The ambiguity is for the Congress to resolve by adopting its "Implementing Rules and Regulations" for whenever the Congress works on amendments to, or revision of the Constitution. I think it is beyond the ability, the power and the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to decide for the Congress in an "advisory opinion" which rule is "Constitutional" because either rule could be constitutional. It is to the Congress, not the Supreme Court, that the Constitution gives the power to propose changes to the Constitution. "Voting separately" or "voting jointly" are merely two different modes of implementing the required three fourths majority rule.

When the Congress, acting as a Constituent Assembly, adopts its Rules for the purpose of creating, deliberating, refining and proposing amendments to or revision of the Constitution, both Houses of the Congress must concur in what those Rules are, even if one of those Rules is that they will vote jointly when it comes to debating and approving proposed amendments and revisions. But metaphysically speaking, there is no way, for the Congress to adopt the Rules by which they will operate as a Constituent Assembly other than with the concurrence of both Houses voting separately to adopt such Rules.

Just as any Constitutional Convention would be expected to remedy the obvious and complete silence of the Constitution on its operations by adopting its Rules for the purpose of deliberating and voting upon proposed amendments or revision, so too, the Congress can and should remedy the silence and ambiguity of the Constitution on the matter of voting separately or voting jointly.

The matter of "voting separately" or "voting jointly" does not have to be settled by the Supreme Court. In fact, it should NOT be settled by the Supreme Court, but by the Congress. Since the Constitution indubitably endows the Congress with the power to propose amendments to or revision of the Constitution, it also empowers the Congress to do all things necessary and sufficient in the exercise of this power, including the adoption of the Rules that govern the Congress when it does exercise this power. Notice that even the Supreme Court does not have this power!

I assert that the Congress can decide, as a matter of its Rules, HOW the Congress shall exercise this power which is explicitly granted to it by the Constitution, including whether both Houses of the Congress should vote separately or jointly when approving the same, as long as the Congress complies with the three-fourths majority rule.

To prove this assertion, merely consider two questions:

Q1: Would it be unconstitutional if both the House and the Senate passed Joint and Concurrent Resolutions adopting the rule "voting jointly" when it proposed amendment or revision?

Q2: Would it be unconstitutional if both the House and the Senate passed Joint and Concurrent Resolutions adopting the rule "voting separately" when it proposed amendment or revision?

The answer to both Questions is indubitably NO since the Constitution is completely silent on which way the Congress should vote, separately or jointly. Even if the Constitution requires that the arithmetic requirement of three-fourths majority rule must apply, the Congress can comply with this numerical requirement of the Constitution whether it votes separately OR jointly.

ERGO, it would be a grave abuse of the Supreme Court's discretion, amounting to an unconstitutional excess and/or lack of jurisdiction, for it to dictate to the Congress a priori whether it is jointly or separately. That choice, in my opinion, is purely the prerogative of the Congress. The most I think that the Supreme Court can do, if and when a real case and controversy should arise, is to decide whether or not the Congress has complied with the Constitution.

For example, if a mere House Resolution is submitted to the Comelec for plebiscite, such a Resolution is obviously and trivially insufficient in form to qualify as an Act of the Congress proposing amendments to or revision of the Constitution. Even if a House Resolution is signed unanimously by all the Members of the Lower House, it will only ever be an ACT of the Lower House and not an ACT of the Congress.

The ACT of proposing amendments to or revision of the Constitution for ratification at plebiscite is granted to only two very specific entities whose Members or Delegates are all democratically elected representatives of the people --- the Congress or a Constitutional Convention.

It is not for the Supreme Court to tell the Congress what Rules it must adopt since the Constitution actually allows either voting rule -- voting jointly or separately, to be adopted by the Congress.

Now it may not seem equally remarkable, but there is an even muter Constitutional silence and ambiguity in the matter of how a Constitutional Convention is supposed to approve proposed amendments or revision. But no one worries about this other ambiguity because we assume, if a ConCon is ever elected and convened, that the elected Delegates of the Convention will organize themselves as a collegial body and adopt RULES by which they agree to operate. Since all the Delegates are equal upon election to the ConCon, the principle of "One Delegate, One Vote" means that the Rules of the Convention will themselves first be approved by a simple majority rule of 50% plus one Delegate. Note that the contents of the Rules themselves are entirely up to the Convention. It can adopt a rule which says that the Convention will approve amendments or revisions only upon a simple majority vote, or two-thirds majority, or three-fourths, or four-fifths of all its Delegates. Or the Convention can decide that all votes must be unanimous. Since the Constitution empowers ConCon to amend or revise the Constitution, it certainly also grants the ConCon the power to adopt such Rules and operating policies and procedures as are necessary for it to exercise such power.

In other words, the Constitution expects a Constitutional Convention to resolve the total ambiguity which exists in the Constitution itself as regards to the ConCon's workings.

I think the same principle applies exactly to the controversial ambiguity over voting separately or jointly in Section 1(1) when the Congress proposes amendments or revisions. It is the Congress itself, acting as a Constituent Assembly (ConAss), which can swiftly, easily and completely resolve and remove the AMBIGUITY in the provision, simply by adopting the Rules to be enforced when the Congress proposes amendments to or revision of the Constitution.

It is entirely conceivable and permissible that the Senate and the House would both CONCUR on "voting jointly" as the rule to approve amendments or revisions. It is equally conceivable and permissible that they would adopt the very different rule of "voting separately."

But it is inconceivable and impermissible that EITHER rule could be adopted by the Congress for the exercise of its right to amend or revise the Constitution, without both Houses of the Congress concurring to adopt such Rule.

In other words, there is no possible exception to "voting separately" when the Congress, acting as a Constituent Assembly, adopts its Rules for the purpose, even if one of those Rules is that they will vote jointly when it comes to approving proposed amendments and revisions!

The Judicial and Bar Council is holding a public interview of the six candidates for Chief Justice today: Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago; Senior Associate Justice Reynato Puno; Associate Justices Leonardo Quisumbing, Antonio Carpio, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, and Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez. An eight man panel of the JBC headed by Sen. Kiko Pangilinan will nominate between three and six of these candidates from which list the President will make a final choice. The majority of pundits seem to think Reynato Puno is a shoe-in because of his dissenting opinion on People's Initiative. Former Sen. Rene Saguisag, "is sure" the President will appoint Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago. My guess: ANTONIO CARPIO.

RICKY CARANDANG has the big story from resigned Defense Secretary Nonong Cruz about the sudden visit to Manila of John Negroponte, US Director of National Intelligence last December. Turns out he was here to register strong US opposition to a plan by the Palace to impose martial law late last year. Cruz cites Don Rumsfeld's admonition that the Philippines should uphold democracy and not return to dictatorship. Nonong Cruz declared his own firm opposition to such a plan or intention.

Manolo Quezon scared me last night with a scenario that could unfold as follows...

(1) Jose de Venecia and at least 195 Members of the House of Representatives ("the Lower House") will constitute themselves into an assembly and sign a Piece of Paper proposing amendment and revision of the 1987 Philippine Constitution of Government from Bicameral-Presidential to Unicameral-Parliamentary. (This assumes that the House Speaker can actually assemble a Quorum of at least that many Members of the Lower House.)

(2) Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban retires. The President appoints "Mr. or Ms. XYZ" as Chief Justice, but does not appoint a fifteenth Justice, leaving fourteen (14) incumbent Justices of the Supreme Court.

(3) The Congress submits the Piece of Paper to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for ratification or rejection by plebiscite of the people under the following provisions of the Constitution--

Article XVII - Amendments Or Revisions - Section 1.

Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by:

(1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or

(2) A constitutional convention.

(4) The Comelec will rule that a plain reading of the 1987 provisions does not allow the Comelec to question the power of the Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of the all its Members, to propose any change to the Constitution. Noting also that there is no precedent or prohibition against Comelec approving such petitions, Comelec will indeed schedule a Plebiscite sixty days thence. (And throw the country into a nice little Christmas Turmoil!)

(5) A large contingent of oppositors, led by the Senate and One Voice will immediately file a motion with the Supreme Court for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to stop the Comelec and the Lower House.

(6) But with only fourteen Justices sitting in the High Court, a TRO is not granted because of a 7-7 TIE, leaving the door open for a Plebiscite and the possibility that by Valentines Day 2007, we shall have a newly ratified Unicameral Parliamentary Government. Now what was it they said in Javellana? That the greatest power of the Supreme Court lies in choosing what NOT to do!

Most important of all, the 2007 Midterm Elections will have to be postponed ...

CAVEATS:

That I suppose is the point of the whole CON-ASS exercise: to junk the 2007 Midterm Elections which looks for all the world like the Palace's worst Nightmare coming to life. But the nice thing about the above scenario is that is about to be put to the test by the inexorable logic and unfolding of real events.


I still think they are out of time. Simple as that. There is not a moment to lose for the Con-Ass pushers however because they pretty much have to have a ratified new Constitution before February 13, 2007, when the campaign period for Senate and party list groups begins. That date is sixty days and less than two weeks away. The Constitution requires a minimum of sixty days before a plebiscite after the Comelec finds a proposal for amendment or revision to be sufficient in form and substance.

Too much to pull off, too little time to do it in before the election fever sets it.

I have been disdainful of the Lower House's pathetic attempts to unilaterally amend and revise the Constitution without the concurrence of the Senate. My view is that even if unanimously signed by all the Members of the Lower House, a House Resolution submitted to the Comelec is obviously Insufficient In Form to qualify as an Act of the Congress, for it is clearly an Act of the Lower House, which is a different animal all together. This point is so clear in my mind, that any Comelec or Supreme Court that would ignore it will suffer history's opprobrium.

I think people like Constantino Jaraula and Luis Villafuerte and even Jose de Venecia probably know this, which is why they have not yet filed such a proposal to amend or revise the charter. What after all, has stopped them from doing so thus far, if not the knowledge that such a House Resolution masquerading as an Act of the Congress will only the suffer the same fate of Pirma and Sigaw: insufficient in form!

By the way, I don't buy the idea that the Supreme Court's 8-7 decision in both People's Initiative cases necessarily reflects the division that would obtain should a Con-Ass resolution reach the High Court. I think the jurisprudence both here and abroad would make it difficult to rule peremptorily that the Senate had a built in disadvantage relative to the House when it comes to charter change proposals. Accepting the idea that it is "voting jointly" means that the Senate is largely irrelevant because of its numerical inferiority.

WHY has Mike Arroyo, with seeming loss of coolant, charged 43 of his biggest media critics with libel? This is just pure speculation but...I think that after the Garci scandal over a year and half ago, the FG realized a virulent media campaign against him was gathering force and it reminded him of how he himself had worked with Big Media and many of the same people now attacking him, to bring down Erap in 2000-2001 using every trick in the book against a culpable and vulnerable target. The FG's motto? Only the Paranoid Survive. I guess he figures that even if he doesn't win the criminal cases, he will have headed off the Bum's Rush the Media had planned for him. But he may only have set up a more cataclysmic collision yet to come. Thus does familiarity breed contempt. And catastrophe.

DONG PUNO (All Purpose vs. Vortex Public Figures) does a masterful job of summarizing the central legal issues involved in the libel suits filed by First Gentleman Juan Miguel "Mike" Arroyo against some 43 editors, reporters, columnists and broadcast journalists. He was talking to lawyers of the First Gent this week, as well as Prof. Harry Roque of the UP Law School who is filing a class action suit against Mike Arroyo for "abuse of right" under the Civil Code. Reading Dong's piece, one easily catches the suggestion that the First Gentleman is at least a "vortex public figure" for having thrust himself into the cat-and-dog fight ("the vortex") over cheating during the 2004 elections. The issue is over whether the FG is a public figure or a private figure because the latter category of maligned persons can prove an accusation of libel using a lower quantum of evidence than a public figure. Read it all from Dong Puno to get the fine distinctions.

CAVEAT However, I think that there is more to the issue than this. At bottom is the eternal struggle between the Mass Media and the Government over Press Freedom and what journalists can or cannot say in the practice of their profession -- which is the incessant and persistent endeavour to discover and make bold headlines of the deepest and most embarrassing secrets held by the most powerful persons in the Republic.

Not only incessant and persistent, the Media is also self-righteous and jealously guards its Rights to do all things it deems necessary in "the Search for the Truth". The Mass Media, in one particularly radical view, may mix truths and falsehoods much as police interrogators do with criminal suspects -- to catch them in some damning or revealing lie and pry loose that elusive Truth. As long as they call it Opinion or Commentary and liberally use the word "alleged" and quote someone else who is only doing the same thing, the defenders of Press Freedom aver there is nothing unethical even in a little published white lying, all for the sake of getting at the Bigger Truth, of course.

They point to something called the Public's Right to Know as the touchstone of Press Freedom, perhaps its entire raison d'etre.

It is undoubtedly a fine, fine end, that the Public come to know about its leaders and their secrets, if any, through a Responsible Media. But what limits are there to this impressive right, this press freedom?

I think the answer is contained in the following dictum--

The right of the public to know ends where the private right against self-incrimination begins.

Therefore, Journalism cannot set itself up as a permanent Moral Inquisition. Much as it sometimes imagines itself in that role, Mass Media are NOT the official guardians of our public morals and have no primacy over the merest barbero or tricycle driver, nor better insight into such matters as imperialism, rape, chacha, election cheating or even poverty and hunger. In fact, since much of Mass Media is in the control of Filipinos, and not exposed to international media competition, I am eternally suspicious of their motives. skeptical of their methods, and aghast at how low the Media will stoop for a scoop or a sensation.

Journalists and columnists loudly demand that every person in which they take an interest -- whether he or she is a public figure or not -- must dignify with a defense any arbitrary charge or accusation just because it is made in the form of a stunning front page news headline or a niggling opinion column.

It is certainly beyond the realm of Press Freedom, and Common Sense, to expect that even public figures must incriminate themselves. Yet that seems to be part of the hand-wringing that goes on when it comes to complaints of a Chilling Effect due to the First Gentleman's libel suit barrage.

But one might ask, what chilling effect? Surely the atmosphere and the weather come with the turf. But Paranoia can be self-fulfilling, it turns out, because now the Media ARE busily sharpening their knives and battle-axes in the red-hot forges of the Presses and incandescent Broadcast Stations. He has lost the benefit of the Doubt and cannot claim any Margin of Error.

NOW, Mike should be paranoid.

Or, How a Survey Question Becomes Unscientific

To be called "scientific" a public opinion poll should have all scientific parts: (1) the random sampling technique must be used to select the respondents, no matter how few or many; (2) valid logic and reasoning must be used to arrive at the generalization from the random sample to the total population that will become headlines in the media; and (3) the survey question itself must be scientific. Huh? What does it mean for a survey question to be "scientific"? It must be well posed, unambiguously answerable, ideally with a Yes or No, with few if any modifying clauses, adjectives or adverbs that may introduce bias or color to the respondents' appreciation of the question being asked.

A little understood aspect of SWS and Pulse Asia public opinion polls is the design and exact phrasing of the survey questions that are presented to the random sample of respondents. Generally speaking, the subject matter of survey questions are of two types: those that will be borne out by subsequent events, like an election, plebiscite or other objective, independent process (like measureable market share or popularity), and those that won't be put to such a test. Check out my previous post, Ponnuru's Puzzle, for an example on abortion polling showing how one word can drastically change a survey result. Most people do not realize that the generalizations to the entire population made by the pollsters and the Mass Media into headlines after the survey data is analysed, are based purely and rhetorically on the survey questions asked.

Third Quarter 2006 Social Weather Survey: General Vote on Cha-Cha still 67% "NO"; Opposition to Specific Amendments Grows

The Social Weather Stations Media Bureau Headline above was echoed by the Mainstream media today. It was based the following survey question in the SWS Third Quarter questionnaire presented to 1200 respondents:

In English: If a plebiscite is held today, would you vote FOR or AGAINST the Constitution that PGMA wants?

In Pilipino: Kung gaganapin po ngayon ang plebisito para sa pag-aapruba ng isang panukalang bagong Konstitusyon na gusto ni Pangulong Arroyo, kayo po ba ay boboto ng OO SA BAGONG KONSTITUSYON NA GUSTO NG PANGULO o kayo po ba ay boboto ng HINDI SA BAGONG KONSTITUSYON NA GUSTO NG PANGULO?

Please notice that in the Pilipino version of the question, the phrase "na gusto ng pangulo" ("that PGMA wants") appears three times and is ALL CAPS in the original SWS questionnaire.

I think I have to agree with Administration Congressman Constantino Jaraula that there is something wrong with this survey question. It is what I call a "loaded question."

The emphasis upon and repetition of the phrase "that the President wants" is what loads this loaded question with a sly suggestion--As Rep. Jaraula pointed out--that ONLY the President supports the proposed new charter and because of that the President must want it for some selfish, illegitimate or hidden reason. Else why don't others want it too? The proposed Constitution is not described in any other way than that the President wants it. In effect, the Survey Question as most of the respondents probably took it to mean, would read as follows:

If a plebiscite is held today, would you vote FOR or AGAINST a Constitution just because PGMA wants it?

I'm surprised only 67% disapprove of such a dastardly and monstrous proposed Constitution "that the President wants."

Was this a "scientific survey question"? NO. Because it will never be put to the test of an actual plebiscite or election. It can never be proven to be RIGHT or WRONG because we are not having a plebiscite today, nor any time in the future so far as any of the respondents knew at the time they answered this purely hypothetical but loaded survey question.

Of course the headline is not implausible, given the highly charged political atmosphere over chacha. Although it is a loaded question, its subject matter is not obscure and many people have taken definite positions on it. The single digit undecided percentage on this question is evidence of that. Never mind if it's worthless as scientific DATA. All that matters is that it makes for wonderful propaganda, or entertainment. If you think about it, this matter of not being able to ever find out if SWS was right or wrong on this, if its 67% or 51% that would vote down chacha, --is the same thing that happens with the cheapest call-in poll on AM radio, which are usually derided as "unscientific". Et tu, SWS?

Nothing makes it more crystal clear that Public Opinion Polling is Genre of Journalism.

Whenever the pollsters trot out the results of their surveys on such questions, they are actually trading on their own good reputation and credibility from when they do the good scientific work they are capable of.

As an example of the latter, here is the 2007 Senate Horse Race culled from recent surveys of Pulse Asia, Inc. which will be validated by the 2007 Midterm elections in May next year.

Rank	July, 2006	% of Voters	Nov, 2006	% of Voters
1	Loren Legarda	48.6%	Loren Legarda	52.9%
2	Kiko Pangilinan	39.0%	Ping Lacson	41.1%
3	Ping Lacson	34.9%	Kiko Pangilinan	36.6%
4	Manny Villar	34.2%	Manny Villar	31.4%
5	Ralph Recto	33.1%	Alan Cayetano	30.5%
6	Tito Sotto	31.0%	Tito Sotto	30.3%
7	Koko Pimentel	29.9%	Ralph Recto	28.7%
8	Alan Cayetano	29.5%	Korina Sanchez	27.0%
9	Gringo Honasan	27.7%	Koko Pimentel	24.8%
10	JV Ejercito	23.8%	Gringo Honasan	24.1%
11	Imee Marcos	23.1%	JV Ejercito	22.1%
12	John Osmena	22.7%	Ed Angara	20.3%
13	NoyNoy Aquino	21.8%	Noynoy Aquino	19.3%
14	Loi Estrada	21.7%	Chiz Escudero	19.3%
15	Joker Arroyo	21.0%	John Osmena	17.8%
16	Ed Angara	20.9%	Rufino Biazon	17.8%
17	Chiz Escudero	20.2%	Imee Marcos	17.6%
18	Kit Tatad	18.9%	Joker Arroyo	17.0%
19	Mike Defensor	18.7%	Loi Estrada	16.9%
20	Rufino Biazon	18.5%	Mike Defensor	15.7%

JAMES USSHER, the 16th Century Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland-- in a stupendous article of Faith and Science, Annales Veteris et Novi Tentamenti -- is famous for proving that God created the Universe on 23 October, 4004 BC, based on the Biblical enumeration of the generations of the ancient Israelites back to Adam and Eve and a vast erudition of Bible history. Even Jose Rizal was aware of this work and wrote about it in his epistolary from Dapitan with Pablo Pastells, SJ.

There would be numerous excommunications, book burnings, and burnings-at-the-stake, and lifetime house arrests for obstinate heliocentrists, to enforce the established religious and political correctness of Ussher's arithmetic about the age of the Universe and other related doctrines.

Ironically Ussher had actually sown the seed's of Medieval Religion's humiliation with this numerology. You see, Ussher's conclusion that God created everything all at once at some particular moment in 4004 BC, was a testable proposition about the Age of the Universe and life on earth being just a few thousand years old. It was a scientific hypothesis that could be proven to be false by observable facts.

And it was. The Earth and the Universe are undoubtedly far older than six thousand years old, a fact already suspected in the time of Ussher. Safe in the 21st Century, even here in very Roman Catholic Manila, it is of course easy for us to scoff at the good Archbishop's naive adherence to some Hebrew Creation Myth and First Century Greek Gospel writings. After all, we have had the benefit of five centuries of modern Astronomy, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Paleontology and Archaeology, whose very existence is partly due to the need of curious and persistent persons to see if Ussher was right or wrong. He was wrong.

The facts as we know them today are these. The planet Earth is about four billion years old and orbits an ordinary yellow star, one of some 250 billion stars, belonging to a spiral galaxy called the Milky Way. Life, in the form of microscopic, bacteria, has existed on Earth for at least two billion years, and more complex plant and animal life for at least 500 million years, on both land and sea, as well as the air. There were large predators, the dinosaurs by 200 million years ago. But the human species, Homo sapiens, has been around only for about 130,000 years!

So today, we ask the question:

What was God doing before Man invented Religion?

Some people may prefer to approach this question in a form that James Ussher might have appreciated after being confronted with the evidence that Man and Beasts and Stars were not contemporaneously originated as claimed in Genesis or his own works:

What was God doing during the two billion years of Life on Earth, before He created the species Homo Sapiens, 130,000 years ago?

Cosmic Log points to the NOVA Science Now series from the US Public Broadcasting Service(PBS). An episode on one of my favorite Big Topics-- Mass Extinctions --aired just a few days ago. (Click on the link and watch it for an entertaining summary of the last 250 million years.) I don't know if there will ever be another Carl Sagan on television, but astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson hosts what may be a worthy successor to the fabled Cosmos series in Science Now.

MASS EXTINCTIONS are a way of life and death on the planet Earth (this Space.com post lists the five most significant ones of the last half billion years). Even here in the far-off Philippine Archipelago, many have heard of the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago when an asteroid or comet the size of Mount Everest evidently slammed into the earth and triggered a 5000 year long Global Winter as billions of tons of the collision ejecta went into orbit and shut out the sun for a couple of millennia. Fortunately for us, the ancestor of what would become the modern mammals, and Homo Sapiens, survived that mass extinction event, mute but eloquent evidence of which is the ancient 200-mile wide Chixulub Crater in the Gulf of Mexico, discovered in the 1990s as proof of the Impact Extinction theory.
Billions upon billions of living creatures, predators, prey, living, breathing, breeding, bleeding animals, died in an unimaginably horrible Holocaust a quarter of a billion years ago.

One of the most awesome scientific graphs I've ever seen is the one below produced by David Raup and John Sepkoski of the University of Chicago, which diagrammatically shows the history of life on earth during the last 250 million years as revealed by their analysis of the geological fossil record, discussed here in a Lawrence Berkeley Lab Review. Please realize that each peak in the plot below represents a mass extinction event in which 10 to 90 per cent of all life on earth goes extinct. Shown at 65 million years ago is the event that wiped out the dinosaurs. But less known is the mass extinction event 250 million years ago (to the far left of the graph below) in which 90% of all life on earth died and many whole branches of the Tree of Life were cut off. This event, was however, not due to asteroid impact, but may have been a global warming catastrophe involving a gigantic Siberian volcano system in which the oceans lost their oxygen and bacteria took over! Various causes have now been hypothesized for these mass extinction events of the Very Distant Past.


I think this graph shows what God was doing for a quarter of a billion years before he invented Homo sapiens. He was designing millions of different species and families of life forms and calling to life uncountable trillions upon trillions of living creatures--googols of them-- from trilobytes to dinosaurs to mammals to insects to bacteria, to live upon the earth. Then killing them off, as a Great Artificer might take an eraser and obliterate some drawing or sketch.

What was God doing before he invented Man? Perhaps He was just practicing to be Eternity's greatest biocidal Maniac. Or perhaps, it was really Man who created God, around the time Ussher claims vice versa.

Max has checked out of the Manila Hotel.

Now it seems the 20th Century really is over.
Do you miss it very much, as I do, my Precious?

No more is that atmosphere which he created
in the telling and retelling of its events.

Now his stories will be that of a dead man,
and the true test of time begins.

No more amendments or revisions to the text,
no more editions or deadlines to meet,

Save Judgment Day,
as the vast audience of History awaits.

And How the Supreme Court Has Left the Door Ajar

There have been two attempts to use the People's Initiative provision to propose amendments to the 1987 Constitution.

Article XVII - Amendments Or Revisions - Section 2. Amendments to this Constitution may likewise be directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition of at least twelve per centum of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the registered voters therein. No amendment under this section shall be authorized within five years following the ratification of this Constitution nor oftener than once every five years thereafter. The Congress shall provide for the implementation of the exercise of this right.

(1) The first one in 1997 may be identified as the Pirma People's Initiative to lift the term limits on national officials and would have directly benefited its principal architect and sponsor, then President Fidel V. Ramos.

(2) The second one in 2006, as we know is the Sigaw ng Bayan People's Initiative to switch to a Unicameral parliamentary system from the present Bicameral presidential system, which would benefit the incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, House Speaker Jose de Venecia, and the aforementioned FVR.

Both were struck down by the Supreme Court for being INSUFFICIENT IN FORM after they were submitted to Comelec for ratification in a Plebiscite.

(1) Santiago v. Comelec The Pirma initiative petition contained a succinct statement of the proposed amendment, but it did not have the required number of 12% of the voters signatures upon that initiative petition. Thus the Pirma initiative had the amendments proposed by the initiative but not the signatures.

(2) Lambino v. Comelec The Sigaw initiative petition contained more than the required number of 12% of the voters signatures but the Court could not find evidence that the proponents had ever "shown to the people" the complete text of the Unicameral Parliamentary proposal. In effect, the Sigaw petition was insufficient in form because it had the signatures but not the proposed amendments!
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 'NECESSARY & SUFFICIENT' AND 'TOO MUCH'

The two Supreme Court Decisions could've stopped right here and voided each attempt just upon their self-evident noncompliance with the plain requirements of the Constitution for amending the Constitution by People's Initiative. But I guess a finding of an insufficiency in form might be criticized as a mere "technicality" so that in both cases the Supreme Court went further in its demolition of the two People's Initiative campaigns.

It found in both cases that the proposed "amendments" actually amounted to REVISIONS of the Constitution. In other words, that these proposed changes to the Constitution by People's Initiative (lifting term limits and switching to Unicameral Parliamentary) are unconstitutional because they are overly sufficient in substance, being tantamount to a wholesale revision of the 1987 Constitution. Thus the Court ruled that these changes may not be proposed by the people's initiative mode.

BUT The Supreme Court Minute Resolution denying the Sigaw ng Bayan Petition with finality ends with the following beguiling statement--

Ten (10) Members of the Court reiterate their position, as shown by their various opinions already given when the Decision herein was promulgated, that Republic Act No. 6735 is sufficient and adequate to amend the Constitution thru a people's initiative."

So, is this an Implied Reversal of --?

Santiago v. Comelec (1997)

CONCLUSION: This petition must then be granted, and the COMELEC should be permanently enjoined from entertaining or taking cognizance of any petition for initiative on amendments on the Constitution until a sufficient law shall have been validly enacted to provide for the implementation of the system.

We feel, however, that the system of initiative to propose amendments to the Constitution should no longer be kept in the cold; it should be given flesh and blood, energy and strength. Congress should not tarry any longer in complying with the constitutional mandate to provide for the implementation of the right of the people under that system.

WHEREFORE, judgment is h[e]reby rendered

a) GRANTING the instant petition;

b) DECLARING R.A. No. 6735 inadequate to cover the system of initiative on amendments to the Constitution, and to have failed to provide sufficient standard for subordinate legislation;

c) DECLARING void those parts of Resolutions No. 2300 of the Commission on Elections prescribing rules and regulations on the conduct of initiative or amendments to the Constitution; and

d) ORDERING the Commission on Elections to forthwith DISMISS the DELFIN petition (UND-96-037).

The Temporary Restraining Order issued on 18 December 1996 is made permanent as against the Commission on Elections, but is LIFTED against private respondents.

Resolution on the matter of contempt is hereby reserved.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., Regalado, Romero, Bellosillo,Kapunan, Hermosisima, Jr. and Torres Jr., JJ., concur. Padilla, J., took no part; related to a co-petitioner and co-counsel of the petitioners. Melo and Mendoza, JJ., joins the separate, concurring opinions of Justices Puno, Francisco and Panganiban. Puno, Vitug, , Francisco and Panganiban, JJ., has separate opinions.

The "Ten (10) Members of the Court" who are merely "reiterating their opinion" in various separate concurring and dissenting opinions are Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban and Justices Consuelo Ynares-Santiago and Adolfo S. Azcuna joined their dissenting colleagues, namely, Senior Associate Justice Reynato S. Puno and Justices Leonardo A. Quisumbing, Renato C. Corona, Dante O. Tinga, Minita V. Chico-Nazario, Cancio C. Garcia and Presbitero J. Velasco Jr.

CAVEATS:

The Reversal is not implied. The Ten Minute Resolution is a direct contradiction of Santiago v. Comelec, if you look at the red-bolded words above.

There may be a clue to the Court's apparently vacillating stance in this now suggestive passage from Santiago v. Comelec--

Even if it be conceded ex gratia that R.A. No. 6735 is a full compliance with the power of Congress to implement the right to initiate constitutional amendments, or that it has validly vested upon the COMELEC the power of subordinate legislation and that COMELEC Resolution No. 2300 is valid, the COMELEC acted without jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion in entertaining the Delfin Petition.

Under Section 2 of Article XVII of the Constitution and Section 5(b) of R.A. No. 6735, a petition for initiative on the Constitution must be signed by at least 12% of the total number of registered voters of which every legislative district is represented by at least 3% of the registered voters therein. The Delfin Petition does not contain signatures of the required number of voters. Delfin himself admits that he has not yet gathered signatures and that the purpose of his petition is primarily to obtain assistance in his drive to gather signatures. Without the required signatures, the petition cannot be deemed validly initiated.

In effect, that was all there was to Santiago v. Comelec--a defective petition that did not meet the Constitution's requirements on the numbers and signatures of the petitioners that Comelec had no business entertaining. Meanwhile in Lambino v. Comelec, all there is to it is also a defective petition with the required numbers of voters and signatures, but no proper proposal attached to them.

In a some sense, the matter of "revision or amendment" and the matter of a "sufficient enabling law" are in and of themselves, superfluous matters with respect to the decision facing the Supreme Court in each case, which was whether to allow either of these to proceed to plebiscite. I, for one, don't agree that the term limits change is a Revision, fer Chrisakes!

They did not have to rule that RA 6735 was "inadequate" to implement People's Initiative in Santiago v. Comelec, and did not even address it in Lambino v. Comelec. Even if they were to reverse that dictum now, it would not reverse the practical effect of the Conclusions of either Decision, which was to stop the Pirma and Sigaw initiatives.

Perhaps, the Supreme has suddenly realized it had overstepped its bounds by ruling upon the sufficiency in substance of the enabling law of Congress on initiative and referendum.

But what a niggardly apology this one sentence is at the end of a mere Minute Resolution of the God Almighty Supreme Court!

They have left the door ajar though!

...and I am actually glad this is happening. Because there should be a People's Initiative mode for amending the Constitution. It should NOT be limited to once every five years. Instead it should be permitted when some percentage of the voters sign upon a proper initiative petition and be put up for plebiscite in regular elections as Propositions, to be ratified or rejected by the People.

The worst thing about the current provision is it is not self-executory and requires that Congress provide for the implementation of the people's initiative. How can it be the People's Initiative when the Twin Houses of the Politicians gets to define and provide for its implementation?

OR, Why the Survey Firms Invented the Net Satisfaction Rating

PULSE ASIA reports on a year's worth of polling on the Performance and Trust ratings of the President from October 2005 to November 2006 (Ulat ng Bayan surveys)...

...President Arroyo’s overall performance ratings are not significantly different from those recorded in July 2006 ...

...There is hardly any change – positive or negative – in the President’s overall trust ratings between July and November 2006...

I must say, they try harder nowadays at the Avis of Public Opinion Pollsters. The statistical parameters of the survey are clearly laid out in the beginning of the Press Release, namely the number of respondents (1200) and the built-in statistical margins of error for national results (+/-3%) and sub-national results (NCR, Luzviminda +/-6%). Even the Confidence Level (95%) is mentioned, but let's ignore what that is for now. The beginning of the Pulse Asia Press Release reads like the label on a Medicine Bottle, which is the way it should be.

---

A point worth clarifying for Philippine Commentary readers is this: the Statistical Margin of Error is present even if the survey is conducted perfectly from a clerical and mechanical point of view. In other words, the Statistical Margin of Error is in addition to any "mistakes" that the survey personnel and data collectors might actually make in polling, counting, recording or otherwise processing the statistical raw data. The reason of course is that the Statistical Margin of Error is not due to "mistakes" or "sloppiness" but merely reflect the innate imprecision created by a RANDOM SAMPLE based survey.

---

Armed with this information, any intelligent layman can completely understand the two Tables containing, in a neat and compact format, the data from a whole year's worth of Pulse Asia's polling on the "Performance" (Table 1) and "Trust" (Table 2) Ratings of the President.

I must congratulate Pulse Asia for including a column in their Tables showing the CHANGE in the survey statistic from the last survey period. This helps the intelligent survey peruser to decide what level of significance or importance to put on result. If the change is less than or about equal to the relevant Margin of Error, then the apparent change may only be due to the expected fluctuations induced by the finite Random Sample Size. This format makes it easy to see that there is remarkable stability to the Performance and Trust Ratings as measured by the pollster.

I have very little to gripe about this time on the way Pulse Asia reported on its survey quarter. We must however bear in mind that the actual distribution of public opinion on the two Questions posed, (whether respondents approved of the President's performance and the amount of trust they put in her) are NEVER going to be measured directly and objectively in some independent process like an election or plebiscite. Therefore the results of these polls will never actually be put to some kind of verification test, unlike for example, exit polls or voter preference polls during the campaign period.

Why Net Satisfaction Rating Was Invented It may also be useful Philippine Commentary readers to see how the "Performance Ratings" such as above, are related to something called the Net Satisfaction Rating or Net Approval Rating, a calculated statistic that is equal to the DIFFERENCE between the percentage that approves and the percentage that disapproves of the President's performance. I have calculated what the Net Satisfaction Rating of the President would be based on the data in Table 1 of the Pulse Asia Survey. What happens is that a new statistic is created that looks like things are CHANGING a lot from one Quarter to the next, but it's all an illusion because it's the same data.

Pulse Asia Ulat ng Bayan Survey Time Series Data	Oct 2005	Mar 2006	Jul 2006	Nov 2006
Approve	24%	26%	26%	25%
Undecided	24%	24%	29%	26%
Disapprove	52%	50%	44%	48%
Approve Minus Disapprove "Net Approval Rating" "Net Satisfaction Rating" "Net Performance Rating"	-28%	-24%	-18%	-23%

Now do you see why the survey outfits invented the Net Satisfaction Rating? It's because NO NEWS doesn't sell, whereas the NSR has more of a built in variation because it contains the variations in the two quantities being subtracted from one another. It's hard to turn the status quo into a headline, but since the pollsters don't usually tell you that the Margin of Error in the NSR is actually twice what the normal margin of error is, and the Media have refused to understand it, we get sensational reports of "plunging" ratings, or "suddenly soaring" ratings.

I bet you if you check the newspaper headlines around last July, some of them probably said something like: President's Net Performance Rating Jumps by 6% from March.

The Net Satisfaction Rating is a product of the public opinion pollsters Media Bureau, designed for the Art of Making Up Headlines even when No News is No News!

But to its credit, Pulse Asia chose not to stoop to that cheap arithmetic trick called the Net Satisfaction Rating this time and stuck to its raw data, which is illuminating in its own right, as all scientific data should be. It is a cardinal rule of Science to try as much as possible to let the data speak for itself.

I believe Rep. Butch Pichay when he says that he and Speaker Jose de Venecia have 195 Congressmen willing to back a switch to a Unicameral Parliament under the "Con-Ass" mode of chacha. He says he already has the House Resolution proposing the change all ready to go. So why don't they?

Pichay says they are standing on firm ground with the Constitution:

Article XVII - Amendments Or Revisions - Section 1.

Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by:

(1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or

(2) A constitutional convention.

Since they have the numbers WHY NOT file the threatened House Resolution proposing a revision of the Constitution and submit it to the Comelec for Plebiscite to be synchronized with the 2007 Midterm Elections? (There are 236 House Members and 23 Senate Members there are a total of 259 Members of Congress. The smallest whole number that just exceeds three-fourths of 259 is 195, said to be the Magic Number for Unicameral Con-Ass.)

Why don't the Con-Ass proponents just file a House Resolution with Comelec if they "have the numbers" (which I believe they do)?

I think it is because even if a House Resolution proposing amendments to or revision of the charter were to be signed unanimously by ALL the Members of the Lower House, it would only still add up to an ACT of the Lower House, not an ACT of the Congress.

Without looking at the substance at all, it is therefore obvious that a House Resolution is insufficient in form to qualify as an Act of The Congress.

That is why there has been no House Resolution filed with Comelec for the purpose of proposing any amendment to or revision of the Constitution. They don't want an historic Supreme Court ruling striking down the House as an impostor of The Congress and their House Resolution as woefully insufficient in form and thus failing the Constitution's most direct and simple demand that any amendment to or revision of the Constitution may be proposed by The Congress.

It is not "the three fourths of all the Members of Congress" that propose amendments or revision, it is The Congress that does so. One thing for sure, even if unanimous, a House Resolution is not an Act of The Congress. And it is certainly not the Lower House of Representatives that the Constitution empowers to amend or revise it.

Postscript on P.I.

Lawyer Marichu Lambino is the newest BLAWGER in my Blogroll. (via MLQ3)

Just in time too -- as she weighs right in on that beguiling Supreme Court Minute Resolution denying the Sigaw ng Bayan Petition with finality but ending with the following statement:

Ten (10) Members of the Court reiterate their position, as shown by their various opinions already given when the Decision herein was promulgated, that Republic Act No. 6735 is sufficient and adequate to amend the Constitution thru a people's initiative."

Like a chicken bone flung out from the sorry remains of some fowl's carcass for the dogs to chew on and possibly choke on, this little morsel has been hungrily seized upon by Raul Lambino and Butch Pichay, who are determined to read into it a glimmer of hope, a hint of possible victory. But it is of as much consequence as if the Court had solemnly declared: "On the day before yesterday, the Sun rose in the East and set in the West."

After all, what is a "Reiteration" by Ten (10) Members of the Court of certain things they said in various concurring and dissenting opinions recently? Is it a Decision or a Resolution of the Court? No. Is it a Reversal of any previous Decision or Resolution of the Court? No.

A vacillation or inconsistency perhaps, as Butch Pichay claims? Maybe. It could be seen as an admission of embarrassment over that ruling in Santiago vs. Comelec (1997) which found Republic Act No. 6735 "inadequate" to implement people's initiatives, but not "unconstitutional" or the more definite "insufficient in form and substance." Well par for the course for the Court that invented "constructive resignation" and made a euphemism for coup d'etat ("withdrawal of support") an accepted Principle of Regime Change (just get the Supreme Court Chief Justice to swear you in!)

Anyway, Welcome to the local scene online, Marichu Lambino! Move over Ed Lacierda, Fred Pamaos, Connie Veneracion. There's a new Blawger in town.

Updates:

Voting Separately or Voting Jointly?

It has been publicly admitted by the Founding Father Joaquin Bernas, S.J., that the framers of the 1987 should really have put one of the two phrases "voting separately" or "voting jointly" into the provision that empowers The Congress to propose any amendment to or revision of the Constitution--that there is an unavoidable ambiguity in the provision that needs disambiguating (a Wiki word).

But WHO can actually settle this issue? Does the nation have to go through another submission to Comelec followed by a Supreme Court ruling to do so? That would be par for the course around here, which is to say, insane. But there is actually a simpler way...

The Congress itself can settle the issue by a simple Act of the Congress adopting the Rules of the Congress when it invokes Article XVII Sec.1(1) to propose amendments or revisions of the Charter.

Of course, such Rules can only be adopted in the usual manner of The Congress, by a simple majority of both Houses of the Congress (i.e., voting separately!).

Democrats Could Put a Chill on Outsourcing The Manila Bulletin reports on the remarks of William Padfield, CEO of Datacraft Asia who worries that the anti-outsourcing policies of Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party could reduce business going to call centers here and elsewhere.

"The Democrats believed in keeping the jobs in the US, while the Republicans are more pro-business. This could impact on the call center business in the Philippines, India and other countries."

The New York Sun uncovers the reason for the Democratic Party's anti-outsourcing stance: Shrinking Labor Unions Push for Protectionism.

And guess who campaigned as "the Anti-Outsourcing Candidate" from Virginia: Jim Webb, with whose victory the Democratic Party took control of the US Senate 51-49. I'm pretty sure Nancy Pelosi would rather have Call Centers in San Francisco, California than San Francisco del Monte. They're anti-imperialists you see and don't want Filipino college students to be oppressed working long hours for the monopoly capitalist call center operators exploiting the Philippines cheap labor.

Strange, but the Philippine Left really hasn't heard the news and Conrado de Quiros probably doesn't read the Bulletin or the New York Sun, so he cheers --

I’m especially elated that this comes in the heels of another momentous event, which is the Democratic victory in the United States. Which bodes well for the advancement—or never mind advancement, just mere observance—of human rights across the world.

Whoa! Is that a teensy-weensy note of skepticism showing there? And check out the hyperbole...

What can I say? I wouldn’t mind wearing Gap, Polo, or Ralph Lauren shirts in days to come. I don’t know that they’ve been charged with turning a blind eye to child labor in sweatshops in Asia, like Nike, but if only for their speaking out against the horrendous atrocity that is the open, brazen and near-genocidal decimation of journalists and political activists in this country, I’m all for giving them their due.

Near genocidal decimation. I wonder if he means like Saddam Hussein? Oh and yeah those wonderful apparel makers "speaking out against the horrible atrocity..." Like Nike, like Polo, like Gap...

So, who is the Muslim Magellan? Noralyn Mustafa (Kris-Krossing Mindanao) fumes at the history books for teaching Filipinos that Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippines in 1521. She assures us Magellan's voyages were all a part of the West's Crusades against Islam. But I wish she would tell us who discovered the Philippines for the Muslims before Magellan. I'd really like to know, but she doesn't really say and instead reviews a thousand years of Islamic history and makes a long detour back to the year 718. (Anno Domine?)

Manny Pacquiao Stung Morales Like a Swarm of Bees They sang three national anthems in Las Vegas: Mexico's, the United States and the Philippine National Anthem, which Sarah Geronomo performed a capella and with a grand and soaring solemnity. From the opening bell and their first "bara-bara" tussle, it must have seemed to Eric Morales that he was boxing with a swarm of bees. Manny "Pac-Man" PACQUIAO was like a mean lil dancing machine as he TKO'd "El Terrible" in the third round of their third fight in Las Vegas today. The PacMan was in awesome physical shape and completely outshined the stunned Mexican boxer in all areas: speed, strength, percentage of power punches landed, and if might add from Morales column to the PacMan's: STYLE. Manny Pacquaio has developed a confident kind of control over his own amazing speed, agility and offensive accuracy--the kind of thing you see in ballet dancer like Rudolf Nuryeyev. The first time he knocked down Eric Morales, he seemed to be off-balance from a barrage of his opponent's desperate long shots, then his left hook seemed to come out of nowhere for a roundhouse rendezvous with Morales' jaw. After that first round strike, the PacMan just seemed to be shoving El Terible around the ring, surrounding him from all sides with moves people haven't seen in a Filipino boxer since Flash Elorde, or ever. I saw the fight at the Mall of Asia with a large cheering crowd. Henry Sy did a smart thing screening the fight live on HBO at some 100 theatres in SM Malls nationwide (P500 per ticket with free Jollibee Sandwich, drink and dessert). The only Fly in the Ointment was the sudden appearance at the end of Luis Chavit Singson.

The Constitutions and Laws of both the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America are quite clear about the matter of a person's citizenship at birth:

Any human being, born anywhere in the world, whose natural mother OR natural father is a Filipino citizen, automatically becomes a natural-born Filipino citizen. This is the principle of Jus Sanguinis ("Right of the Blood") by which all natural-born Filipinos become Filipino citizens. It is a biological birthright, a matter of the composition of your DNA--at least half of it must have come from a person who was a Filipino citizen when he and or she gave it to "you."

In contrast, any human being, born within the territory of the United States of America, regardless of the citizenship(s) of natural parents, automatically becomes a natural-born American citizen. This is the principle called Jus Soli ("Right of the Soil"), by which most Americans become natural-born citizens--they are born in America.

Notice that both citizenships are granted automatically at birth--the human being has no choice in the matter. Whether you like it or not, you are deemed a citizen based on the circumstances of your birth, over which you hardly have any control.

Now think about what happens when Filipinos come to live and work in the United States of America and have children. Notice that both principles, jus soli and jus sanguinis apply in full to such human beings born to Filipinos within the US homeland. This creates a very large class of natural born dual citizens of the Philippines and the United States. Every child born in America whose father OR mother is a Filipino citizen at the time of his or her birth is automatically BOTH an American AND a Filipino citizen. They really have NO choice in the matter. Human beings do not choose their original citizenship. Citizenship rights and duties are shoved upon them at birth by one or more countries, depending on the biological and geographic circumstances whether they like it or not.

Natural-born Filipino citizens often become citizens of the US by a process called NATURALIZATION, which of course is a conscious and purposeful act that normally follows from moving to the US to live and work, something we've been doing for centuries, if Rodel Rodis and various Filipino-American historians are to be believed. Simple logic and arithmetic shows however, that natural born dual citizens far outnumber those who have only recently re-acquired Filipino citizenship under RA 9225, the Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act of 2003. Natural born citizens of both countries however, do not have to do anything to perfect their citizenships, which are rights acquired at birth. They can only lose such rights by explicitly rejecting and abjuring them.

I myself was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA when both my Filipino parents were doing Master of Laws studies at not-distant Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana. ("Go Hoosiers!"). But exactly half of the more than fifty winters on my head were also spent in the summer, spring and fall of both countries. I was less than a year old when I first returned to the Philippines, where I grew up and first lived until I was eighteen, when Ferdinand Marcos arrested, then exiled me as an undesirable teenager writing nasty editorials about him in a college newspaper (The La Sallian). But I was eventually released from the custody of one Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos and our official gaoler, Juan Ponce Enrile, and thus departed the privileged company of such as Ninoy Aquino, Chino Roces, Pepe Diokno, Haydee Yorac, and many other of martial law's earliest foes, bunkmates at the Camp Crame Officers Gym. I moved to America on the strength of a letter from the US Embassy that I was protected by the laws and Constitution of the United States. (Or perhaps it was Marcos' realization that I was the least of his worries in that august company still within his detention.) With the help of many little brown brothers and sisters--and yellow, and black, and white, and red, all the technicolors of the rainbow called Humanity--I put myself and the Mrs. through college, working full time and studying full-time which only the young can do. In time I became a Harvard Physicist and General Electric Co. Scientist and before I knew it, Marcos was gone, and it was the Nineties. I came home in 1995 and have been here in the Archipelago since--writing, mainly. Observing, mostly. Other writers, especially.

And so, it is with the same spirit of ginger trepidation with which I approach a live crustacean, like a crab or lobster bristling with pincers and a spiny exoskeleton, that I comment upon Isagani Cruz's blast at Dual Citizens with Dual Allegiance in Saturday PDI.

First, Isagani Cruz argues with the 1987 Constitution, as follows:

"Art. IV, Sec. 5 of the Constitution provides, “Dual allegiance of citizens is inimical to the national interest and shall be dealt with by law.” In Mercado v. Manzano, 307 SCRA 630, the Supreme Court, citing the debates in the Constitutional Commission of 1986, distinguished between dual allegiance and dual citizenship and held that while the former was illegal the latter was allowed.

I beg to differ. Citizenship indispensably requires allegiance and dual citizenship allows dual allegiance, which the Constitution itself says is “inimical to the national interest.” Where the national interests of the countries of the dual citizen clash, which of his two countries should he support? The loyalty of the citizen should be absolute but it must be divided and diluted if he is a dual citizen."

CAVEATS:

(1) This is called ZERO-SUM thinking because Isagani Cruz studiously ignores the very reason why both the US and the Philippines and most other civilized countries allow dual citizenship, which is that the "national interests of the countries of the dual citizen" COINCIDE much more than they CLASH.

(2) Isagani Cruz also ignores the basic humanitarian motivation behind dual citizenship, which is that there are unavoidable biological, cultural and historical ties that bind persons to families and communities and places that have nothing to do with the legalities of Constitutions and the perorations of former Supreme Court Justices.

(3) Loyalty and allegiance are however not zero-sum quantities. For loyalty and allegiance are akin to the emotion called Love, which is not zero-sum quantity. The fact that I have two parents, a mother and a father, does not mean I can be loyal to, or love, only one of them. Though my Love and Loyalty ARE divided between them, neither my Love nor Loyalty is diluted by such a division!

(4) Both zero sum thinking and the disregard for the human conditions that accompany a world of international immigration and travel, are clear symptoms of CRUSTACEANITIS, that crab-like syndrome which further motivates Isagani Cruz to say things like this:

I.C.: "I am reminded of what Jesus said in Luke 16:9-15: “No servant can serve two masters. Either he does not like the one and is fond of the other, or he regards one highly and the other with contempt. You cannot give yourself both to God and to Money.”

Cruz is actually grousing about OFWs having their cake and eating it too, perhaps after himself imbibing too much of Conrado de Quiros' bitter bile against the emigrants.

The cloying sentimentality of sob sisters in Congress now allows undeserved privileges to former Filipinos who have abandoned this country for the greener pastures of other lands. The dual citizen is like a man who abandons the wife he loves to marry another woman he needs. As “This country of ours, for all its difficulties and limitations, is like a jealous and possessive mother,” I had written earlier. “Once it is rejected, it is not quick to welcome back with open arms its prodigal and repentant children.” The dual citizens are not even repentant children.

Oh Repent Ye Disloyal Dual Citizens You!

ABSCBN News: SC orders Ombudsman to explain ACM ruling

The Supreme Court (SC) has ordered the Office of the Ombudsman to respond to the petition filed by opposition lawmakers seeking to nullify its decision clearing Commission on Elections (COMELEC) officials of any criminal liability over the voided P1.3-billion automated counting machines (ACMs) contract. The High Court has given Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez 10 days to answer the petition filed by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. Pimentel led other senators in filing the petition questioning the decision of the Ombudsman absolving the COMELEC led by its chairman Benjamin Abalos and officials of MegaPacific in connection with the purchase of the 1,991 ACMs amounting to P1.3 billion.

It certainly appears that the "Ombudsgirl" (in Sen. Joker Arroyo's colorful characterization) has plenty of explaining to do to the Supreme Court.

But one of the more interesting scientific aspects of this case is the matter of the ACCURACY RATING of the ACMs and the manner by which the Dept. of Science and Technology is alleged to have certified them.

From Ombudsman's Supplemental Resolution on MegaPacific Contract: The report shows that the failures on six (6) items, were not defects attributable to the machines. DOST after analyzing the causes of non-conforming accuracy rating using statistical analysis and investigation on the so called assignable causes of variation, concluded that the discrepancy was due to improper shading of ballots resulting to the failed marks obtained by the machines of Mega Pacific. More, in the same report of DOST, it is categorically stated that the results of the verification tests on the machines of Mega Pacific in fact yielded a one hundred percent (100%) accuracy rating for all three environment conditions.

I have previously pointed out that the ability to read shaded marks under a wide variety of conditions is surely the central point of testing an Optical Mark Reader, so the first part of above statement is beguiling and mystifying to say the least. But let me concentrate on the point about accuracy rating.

The Ombudsman's assailed Supplemental Resolution contains the following testimony in this regard from from the Science & Technology Dept. Secretary Estrella Alabastro--

From Ombudsman's Supplemental Resolution on MegaPacific Contract: "Secretary Alabastro testified that she was one of the members of the Advisory Council and the Technical Ad Hoc Evaluation Committee (TAHEC) who formulated the policies relating to the technical aspect of the automated election system. That when she was furnished with the list of twenty seven (27) key requirements to be used in the evaluation of the automated counting machines (ACMs) she noted that the accuracy rating that was required is 99.995%, whereas the Request for Proposal (RFP) had a higher accuracy rating of 99.9995%. She said however, that what was adopted in the meetings she had with the COMELEC and the Advisory Council is a 99.995% accuracy level and not the 99.9995% since the ACMs will be tested to read only 20,000 marks and not 200,000 marks."

What exactly did Sec. Alabastro mean when she said "the ACMs will be tested to read only 20,000 marks and not 200,000 marks."?

This has to do with the fact that an accuracy rating of 99.9995% given to an optical mark reader (OMR) means that it NEVER produces MORE THAN ONE erroneous reading for every 200,000 test marks fed for it to read. By the same simple decimal arithmetic, an accuracy rating of 99.995% means the OMR NEVER produces MORE THAN ONE erroneous reading for every 20,000 marks read. Sec. Alabastro was merely stating that their tests on the ACMs accuracy were based on the lower accuracy rating of 99.995%.

But suppose one feeds an ACM 20,000 test marks and it reads every single one of them (100%) correctly, does it logically follow that the ACM has been shown to have an accuracy rating of at least 99.995%?

NO! It only shows that the machine could have an accuracy rating as good as 100% or as low as 99.3%.

The 20,000 test marks fed to an ACM by DOST to estimate its Accuracy Rating, is entirely analogous to a random sample of 1200 respondents in an SWS or Pulse Asia public opinion survey, to estimate how public opinion is divided on a given question! Just as a finite random sample size of 1200 respondents results in a Margin of Error or statistical uncertainty of plus or minus 3 percent (actually 2.89%) in any generalization we care to make about the entire population, a sample size of 20,000 test marks also has an easily calculable Margin of Error of plus or minus 0.707%.

The secret formula for computing the Margin of Error in any Random Sampling process as a plus or minus percentage is simple. Just take 100 and divide it by the square root of the Number of Respondents or Test Marks.

Thus when the DOST fed a given ACM 20,000 optical test marks to read and it read all of them correctly, the DOST may only claim that the ACM has an apparent accuracy rating of 100% plus or minus 0.707%. In other words, the DOST had only tested the ACMs for an accuracy rating of 99.3% not 99.995%.

How many test marks should DOST have fed into an ACM in order to scientifically and statistically prove that it has an accuracy rating of 99.995%? This depends on what accuracy rating would cause the testing agency to reject a given ACM. Suppose Comelec decides that if a given ACM is tested by DOST and found to have an accuracy rating of 99.985% the DOST must reject the ACM. This means that the statistical precision or Margin of Error in the DOST test should be plus or minus 0.01% if the DOST will have a chance of detecting the difference between 99.995% and 99.985% accuracy rating required for such a Pass-Fail Test.

Now we can work the Secret Formula backward to get the required number of Test Marks! It is equal to 1 divided by the Square of the Margin of Error or 1/(0.01%)(0.01%) which comes out to 100 million test marks. In other words, to prove statistically that a given ACM has an accuracy rating of 99.995% it must not produce more than one error in a test involving 100 million test marks. That may seem like a lot of test marks, but there is no free lunch when it comes to statistical quality control.

But for the purposes of the intelligent layman confronted by statistical tests involving random samples, the important thing to remember is this. The size of the random sample--i.e., the number of respondents in an SWS survey or the number of optical test marks for an ACM--determines a Margin of Error in any measured statistic. This Margin of Error or Statistical Uncertainty in the data is actually the smallest real difference that can be detected by the statistical test. It is also called the statistical precision of the test. For SWS surveys of 1200 respondents the corresponding "tickmarks" are separated by 6% (Plus or Minus 3%). For 10,000 respondents or optical test marks the precision is 2% (Plus or minus 1%). For 20,000 optical test marks the statistical precision is 1.4% (Plus or Minus 0.707%).

I repeat: if you feed an ACM 20,000 ballots and it reads them all correctly, all you have proven, at 95% confidence level, is that the ACM has an accuracy rating as high as 100% or as low as 99.3% because the margin of error associated with a random sample of 20,000 is plus or minus 0.707%. The DOST needs to feed an ACM 100 million test marks and observe not more than one error to conclude that it passes the 99.995% accuracy rating.

Please read the previous post on the novel Constitutional issues that arise from a careful consideration of ACM Accuracy Ratings: ACM Accuracy Ratings and One-Man-One-Vote Suffrage.

UPDATES:

The short answer to Jose de Venecia on Con-Ass is this: A House Resolution is NOT an Act of the Congress. Even if it is signed by all 235 Members of the Lower House, ANY House Resolution is a mere Act of the Lower House of Congress. A mere House Resolution, even if unanimous, does not satisfy the basic requirement of the Constitution which plainly states:

Art XVII Section 1 Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by: (1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or(2) A constitutional convention.

A House Resolution submitted to Comelec under this provision would be insufficient in form.

LIBEL was Ricky Carandang's subject on the Big Picture this week. Ricky was certainly a paragon of equanimity on ANC's Thursday night show while interviewing one of Mike Arroyo's many lawyers in the fourteen cases filed against 43 of Manila's top editors, columnists and reporters, himself among them. The Lawyer said they were filing libel charges only against persons who were wrongfully accusing the First Gentleman of crimes but not "responsible critics" like Conrado de Quiros [sic!] or even Federico Pascual, whom he said called the First Gent "juvenile." The Consigliere was saying it was OK to insult the hypocritical fat-headedness of the First Gent (I am paraphrasing!), but that anyone accusing the First Saint, err, Gent of a crime without proof would be hit with a charge of libel. Hmm, since being stupid is not a crime, some might prefer to ridicule Him for that.

Tonight Dong Puno's Viewpoint had yet a second of the First Gentleman's most eloquent consiglieri whose main point was that the suits were being mounted both for their punitive as well as deterrent effect. Ellen Tordesillas, a columnist and blogger also on the First Gent's Libel List complained to Dong Puno about the "chilling effect" of the legal offensive mounted by an obviously resource-rich plaintiff like Mike Arroyo. But were these 43 "chilled" into submission by the lawsuits? I doubt that very much. I know it's Ellen's first time to be charged with libel and I wouldn't really wish it on anyone. But I also think that Mike Arroyo has picked a fight he just cannot win short of getting his wife to declare martial law.

PDI's Amando Doronila thinks the Opposition is being overconfident about 2007 on top of which they are fighting amongst each other, they can't get their act together, they have run out of "patronage resources" -- so he advises them to commit hari-kiri instead, by mounting a full frontal attack on the Palace's strong side (where of course they would be slaughtered) --

Doro: "If the aim of the opposition is to destroy Ms Arroyo's power base, the House should be the target of the opposition. The congressional races are the decisive battleground for a tectonic shift of power in May. It's the outcome of elections for the House seats that will decide whether the Arroyo presidency will be a dead duck after May and not just a lame duck."

That's what the Palace wants the Opposition to do. There is nothing that matters more to the Palace now than the 2007 midterms. Everything it does can be understood in relation to that, and the nightmare they are trying to prevent. The whole nexus of worry is the Senate race and a Hanging Jury of Senator Judges from the Opposition.

Here is a new theorem about impeachment under the 1987 Constitution. The Lower House will never again attempt an impeachment like Erap’s -- where the Senate would NOT have convicted the President in a trial anyway. That was the lesson of the Second Envelope. That was the lesson of 2005 and 2006 impeachment attempts.

Only the people may impeach and convict the President in this realpolitik. By first electing a Hanging Senate--16 out of the 24, the two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate, sitting as Senator Judges, required to convict the President in an Impeachment Trial. It’s the only way to remove the hanging sword of Damocles over the required eighty necks in the Lower House, where not all of them are brave or moral or foolish enough to vote impeachment in the face of certain Doom from the Palace in the event of an acquittal. Next year there will be eight incumbents ready to convict. The Opposition only needs to win 8-4 in 2007 and we shall have the 2/3 in the Senate needed for conviction at trial. When that happens in the Senate, the House will become a house of full of suddenly courageous hammers, and guess who will look like the Hangnail?

MLQ3 believes that the real message to the Opposition ought to be that they better go after the undecideds -- a constituency he estimates from doing his own analysis of several past public opinion surveys on several large issues to be as large as 25% of the electorate. It seems there are a lot of Bong Austeros out there!. MLQ3's suggested strategy of reaching out to, and winning over the "Middle Forces" is far sounder than Doronila's Charge of the Light Brigade assault on Fortress Batasang Pambansa.

But let me also say something about undecideds in a public opinion survey. Getting any double digit percentage of undecideds in a survey is a sure sign that the Question or Issue put to the respondents is either not yet ripe for decision (say because the election or plebiscite is still far away) or because the Question or Issue itself will NEVER be decided in any future objective test like a plebiscite or election. It is a readily observable fact that as Election Day approaches, most election races "tighten" or "firm up" as the undecideds indeed, begin to decide. But "unscientific" questions or issues, those that will never be put to an objective test, will always have a very different behavior in the undecideds. A classic example of this was also mentioned by MLQ3 today -- the SWS survey on whether people doubted the fairness of an upcoming Supreme Court decision. That SWS poll was unscientific and deviously tricky because its question was loaded and ambiguous; its answers were scientifically collected but the interpretation of the data and the resulting headlines were fallaciously arrived at.

The SWS Media Release and the PDI headline that a majority of Filipinos were unsure of or doubted the fairness of the Supreme Court WAS true. But it was equally true that a majority of Filipinos doubted the UNfairness of the Supreme Court, because they were undecided HOW the Court would rule and whether the decision would be fair OR unfair.

Here is what basically happened in that poll. There is a Random Sampling Crystal Bowl like we had on the Explainer. But there are Red, Blue AND White Balls. The Red Balls are those who are sure the Supreme will be fair, the Blue Balls are those who are sure the Supreme Court will be unfair, the white balls are those who are unsure if the Court will be fair OR unfair, they are UNDECIDED either way.

The claim in the SWS Media Release and PDI headlines are decidedly DECEPTIVE because even though the SWS pulled a majority of white balls (undecided), what their Media Release and the PDI headline said was:

MAJORITY OF BALLS PULLED WERE NOT RED!

Haha! This was a case where SWS and PDI ended up putting words in the mouths of the Undecideds! (previous post on this topic).

Thanks MLQ3--for the opportunity to explain this in such a simple and direct way.

The exact question SWS asked in the poll was:

“Recently the Sigaw ng Bayan and ULAP raised their petition to the Supreme Court. Do you have much trust, are unsure, or have little trust that the Supreme Court would make a fair decision as to whether or not to grant the petition of Sigaw ng Bayan and ULAP regarding people’s initiative?”

The results were: 13% (much trust); 62% (unsure); 24% (little trust)

This is equivalent to a crystal bowl with 13% red balls, 62% white balls and 24% blue balls.

Now if SWS pulls mostly white balls, it is a true statement to say that a majority of the balls are "NOT RED." But that would be deviously disingenuous, just like the question itself. This is not a proper "binary" question because the creation of a category called "unsure" as part of the question itself is a self-referential flaw. There is no way to deduce why any respondent might answer "unsure". He could be unsure the SC will be fair, or unsure it will be unfair, or unsure what the question means at all, or unsure of how much trust or distrust he has for the Supreme Court! It might even mean a respondent was unsure what Sigaw or Ulap or people's initiative was. We are simply unsure what "unsure" could possibly have meant to the respondents when the survey was taken. But one thing for sure the Media Release and PDI Headline did not properly interpret the statistical data!

The PDI headline was: “62% of Filipinos doubt fairness of SC, says poll” while the SWS Media Release misrepresented its own data with, “62% unsure if SC will rule fairly on people’s initiative.”

This was a really sneaky way of putting words in the mouth of the undecided, because it is literally also true from the data that 62% were unsure if SC would rule UNFAIRLY on people’s initiative. This is an example of a loaded ambiguous question that makes a survey unscientific and propagandistic.

Correct Dates of relevance to 2007 elections ( Thanks to Postigo Luna of Comelec Ako):
January 15, 2007 (MON) to February 12, 2007 (MON): Period to file certificate of candidacy for Senators;
January 15, 2007 (MON) to March 29, 2007 (THU): Period to file certificate of candidacy for local elective positions.

---

(So far as I know what follows is a novel Constitutional issue that has not yet been publicly discussed.)

Automating elections involves the notion of having machines perform the functions done by human beings. For example, in 2004 the Comelec wanted to use Automated Counting Machines (ACMs) to do the work of counting and tallying the votes at the precinct level, usually done by teachers and other election day workers. It was natural to stipulate an ACCURACY RATING on the ACMs, as a means of qualifying proposed systems, which was eventually set at 99.995 percent, Now, 99.995% accuracy is the same as saying the ACMs must never make more than one erroneous reading for ever 20,000 ballots read. It also means that if there were 50 million voters in an election using those ACMs, there could be as many as 2500 erroneously read ballots.

But, the 1987 Constitution declares--

Art VII Section 4 (On Presidential elections): The person having the highest number of votes shall be proclaimed elected, but in case two or more shall have an equal and highest number of votes, one of them shall forthwith be chosen by the vote of a majority of all the Members of both Houses of the Congress, voting separately.

Clearly the Constitution contemplates the possibility of a TIE in a national election and makes provision for the Congress to break it. Just as clearly, any election may be won by a margin of just one vote. I think this presents an important constitutional issue with respect to election automation that cannot easily be ignored.

There is no way for Comelec, using these ACMs, to guarantee that it can detect a TIE in the vote count, or any difference that is less than 2500 or so. Indeed, the existence of ANY Accuracy Rating requirement that is less than 100% would seem to be unconstitutional on the face of its since it violates the most basic democratic right--to have one's vote counted so it matters. No matter how improbable these two situations are, it is an unavoidable and germane issue as we wrestle with the problem of modernizing the conduct of elections in the Philippines. The one "strength" of the manual election system is that Comelec does not enforce an official "Accuracy Rating" on the Human Ballot Readers it now uses to count the vote. There is all kinds of irony in the idea that a manual count does not require an accuracy rating. But now that we are contemplating using machines instead of human beings, we are forced to impose an accuracy rating. And thus create a novel Constitutional issue.

In the year 2000, George W. Bush won the US Presidency after Florida's electoral college votes were awarded to him -- on the strength of a popular vote margin in the State of Florida of a little over 500 votes out of 2 million! An election involving nearly 100 million voters turned on 500 votes. Although such close elections are rare, they are not THAT rare.

GRINGO CAUGHT: Gringo Honasan is a Jekyll-and-Hyde kind of character. He is both Putschistenfuhrer as well as an elected Senator with a proven constituency. Gringo's arrest is largely a good thing, to me, because now he is forced to be the latter and not the former. Unless charged and convicted with finality before then, he will likely run for, and win a Senate seat in the May, 2007 election. Note that Lt.Sg. Antonio Trillanes III of the Oakwood Mutiny has also announced he will be running for the Senate. I think Danilo Lim, Archie Segumalian, and Angel Querubin should now resign their commissions and join Gringo and Trillanes in politics, to help root out corruption and politics in the Military. I don't see why these bright young men should suffer through the Kangaroo Courts-Martial of the Philippine Military, when they could easily bust out and be Mayors, Congressmen, Senators. As long as they don't run and hide and play lil tin Gringos at night, the People will protect them with their votes. They would not be any different than the CPP-NPA if they insist on violent methods to bring about reform in the military. I guess I must repeat my old stand on this. If you are a loyal solider but want to "withdraw support" for the Military Chain of Command, you must resign your commission first, become an "ordinary citizen," and thence exercise the civil and political rights needed to effect the desired reforms. Then you cannot be accused of "coup d'etat."

THE EXPLAINER I had a great time on MLQ3's Tuesday night show. Patricia Evangelista, his fellow PDI columnist has charming, and charmed hands, which we were using to do Random Samples on the Crystal Bowl of Public Opinion. She produced, completely by chance and the luck of the draw, two of the most improbable outcomes with my prepared Crystal Bowl...a run of 10 Blue Balls in a row and then three successive samples with 4 Red and 6 Blue Balls, representing the exact percentage of 40% red balls in the Bowl. This worked out perfectly since we were really discussing two exit polls: one with a highly accurate exit poll prediction by SWS (1998) and another where their data was probably corrupted at the point of interview (2004).

Regarding scientific public opinion polls the essential points are these:

(1) A poll cannot be scientific unless it strictly uses random sampling to select the respondents in the survey.

(2) The Statistical Margin of Error in a survey depends on the size of the random sample. Numerically, it is equal to one divided by the square root of the number of respondents. For standard surveys of 1200 respondents, plus or minus 2.89 percent; for 100 respondents, plus or minus 10%; for 10,000 respondents, plus or minus 1%; for 20,000 respondents, plus or minus 0.707%.

(3) Even IF a poll uses random sampling to acquire its raw data however, the poll results may not be considered scientific if the QUESTION itself is not scientific. Huh, you say? How can the Question asked in a survey be scientific or not scientific?? A survey question is not scientific if:

(a) it cannot be answered by a simple YES or NO;
(b) it is so complex and ambiguous that most respondents cannot sensibly answer it;
(c) it involves a subject matter that will not be put to a test like an election or plebiscite and such that the results of the survey will never be proven right or wrong.

So just because the SWS always uses random sampling techniques to select its respondents, it also asks many questions in its surveys that are unscientific. Surveys featuring questions on self-rated hunger and poverty are suspect to me because there is no way to prove the reported results right or wrong. Such survey reports are easily turned into propaganda by passing them off as "scientific surveys" just because they are done by SWS or Pulse Asia.

(4) Finally, the GENERALIZATION that is usually arrived at and turned into HEADLINES must follow logically and mathematically from the underlying questions and answers. Too often, innumerate reporters and editors licentiously "shade" or even outrightly distort what surveys actually say.

Suppose one day you receive an email from a stock broker who offers to send you every week for four weeks a prediction of whether the Dow Jones Industrial Average will go UP or DOWN during the next week. Such predictions, if they were reliably accurate could be very lucrative since people can play the market long or short depending on what they believe the market will do in that following week.

Okay. Several years ago an email scam based on this idea was discovered in the US and broken up by the FBI. Quite a large number of people from a large data base of regular investors lost money to the scammers before they were busted. But here is what happened.

One day, Mr. Jones on the list receives an email from the scammers claiming that they will send him totally for free, four weeks worth of predictions of the Dow Jones. And they say that the Dow will go UP in the coming week. Mr. Jones ignores the email as another bit of spam, but he notices a week later that indeed the Dow has gone UP. He receives that notice along with a second email that claims in the second week, the Dow will go DOWN. Sure enough it does! Still two in a row is nothing, but when a third and fourth email arrive in the succeeding weeks and after he has received four successive correct predictions of the Dow Jones he is impressed enough to send in a requested $100 for future weekly predictions. Several thousand people were induced into doing so after they too received four successive correct predictions of whether the Dow would go up or down in the following week. I might have fallen for it too.

This really happened before the scammers were caught. But how did they do it? How did they convince thousands of people that they had predicted the Dow four straight times in a row?

Here is the answer. The scam was based on something called the Fallacy of Selective Counting.

The scammers had a database with a List of regular investors numbering several hundred thousands. In Week One, they sent half of the people on the List a prediction that the Dow would go UP in the next week; the other half of the people on the List got a prediction that the Dow would go DOWN. Thus, after the first week, half the List has lost interest because they got a wrong prediction. But in Week Two those who got a correct prediction in Week One get a second prediction: half of them that the Dow will go UP, half that it will go DOWN. Thus after Week Two a quarter of the original List have received two successive correct predictions of the Dow. They are feeling sorry they didn't take advantage of the free prediction and play the market long or short. In Week Three they receive a third prediction and sure enough, at the end of the third week, an eighth of the original List have received three successive correct predictions of the Dow! In Week Four one-sixteenth of the original List of several hundred thousand, have received four successive correct predictions. A large number of them sent in their hundred dollars and in the following week bet their life savings on the Dow and the fifth prediction they just received. Half of them doubled their life savings in the fifth week, but half of them lost their shirts.

I invite Philippine Commentary readers to apply the above analysis of a real-world fallacy to the issue of "Extrajudicial Killings" in the Philippines.

There is no doubt that a large number of murders have occurred. Are they related? Do they belong to a pattern because someone is responsible for most of them? Are all those being killed leftists, journalists and church people? What about soldiers, policemen, mayors and local officials, businessmen, farmers, store operators, and others who are not on the lists one normally sees publicized in the Media? The Catholic Church, the Philippine Military and police, have other lists that do not seem to get the same publicity from the Media and the Left.

The telecommunications infrastructure of the Philippines is a favorite target of the New People's Army. The ubiquitous cell sites that serve the country's favorite utility and pastime are often attacked, burned, or otherwise damaged and destroyed as part of the NPA's extortion of "revolutionary taxes." Thus whenever you read a headline like, "NPA Attacks Cell Site" -- most likely it is because the celco refused to pay up. A frequent reader of Philippine Commentary recently emailed to tell me that there is glaring disparity in the number of times the NPA attacks Smart and Globe cell-sites. So I decided to google the search phrase NPA attack "GLOBE Cell Site" -- which yielded 242 references. Googling on NPA attack "SMART Cell Site" yields a surprising 6 references. So what's going on here? Judging by the news coverage anyway, it appears that in an overwhelming majority of the cases over the years, the NPAs attack Globe cell sites far, far more than Smart facilities. Is Smart/PLDT paying revolutionary taxes to the New People's Army to secure its cellphone transmission system? Maybe free cellphones and credits for the poor suffering comrades--the better to coordinate their attacks on...Globe!

[Via MLQ3] John Nery of the Newsstand Blog (with the help of Wendy Kaminer) discovers that there is NO right to be offended if we uphold democratic free speech--

She laments the transformation of universities and colleges from bastions of academic freedom, where free speech and the arts of argument are considered essential to education, to fortresses of political correctness, where the distinction between words and actions is fudged, and censorship trumps freedom of speech...even though some uses of language can be offensive, we shouldn't place any limits at all on free speech, that it should in fact be [a] "free for all."

Hmmm...I seem to recall a number of PDI editorials and column pieces on "responsible journalism" that bear looking at now, with irony. But I must send this to Fleming Rose and the Danish cartoonists at Jyllands Postens. They will see it as progress and perhaps even thank Benedict for the lesson of Regensberg, and its salutary libertarian effects on our responsible Media.

Oh, but poor Rina Jimenez David has had her day of sightseeing in the Khyber Pass and intense haggling at the suqs and shopping bazaars of Peshawar interrupted by a terrorist suicide bombing--

A Taste of Terror: The minute we arrived in Peshawar, on a delayed flight from Karachi, we heard the news. A total of 42 army recruits, many of them still in their teens, were killed when a suicide bomber ran into their midst in a schoolyard and detonated himself. About 20 others were injured.

That'll teach'em for wanting to become soldiers, eh Rina?

Manila Bulletin carries the approbation of US Ambassador Kirstie Kenney and Asst. Secretary Dr. John Hillen for the "legacy of reform" that resigned Sec. Nonong Cruz leaves. It is the strongest signal yet that the US wants those reforms to continue because it really is in the US national interest that the Philippine Military become professionalized and freed from the clutches of the politicians so it can do its real job: to defend the country and secure the people. For example, I think the US wants the Philippine Military to be concentrating on the joint training and planning exercises scheduled this year and next, rather than getting involved in the 2007 elections, because we are due, we are due! I notice Dulmatin and Bali Bombers have probably escaped, and the Filipino people even have to pay for the air fare of demure Mrs. Dulmatin back into the arms of the Jemaah Islamiyah. I hope the right people get the picture, like alleged Garci General Hermogenes Esperon, who was there to see Ambassador Kenney painting a clear picture for him, in case he hasn't been listening lately.

Senator-Judge Joseph Estrada? If the return of Atong Ang wearing a bullet-proof vest marked "NBI" doesn't get Joseph Estrada off his arse in Tanay, probably nothing will. Manila Times reports. But I think the Filipino people deserve liberation from the long-festering case of Erap, which the Philippine Star editorial recently called a "national embarrassment." It is a nontrivial conundrum however, because who will deny that Joseph Estrada has lost an essential element of due process because he has been denied the presumption of innocence and cannot be given a fair trial. Inasmuch as the Edsa Dos Supreme Court of Hilario Davide claimed the 2001 regime change to be "Constitutional throughout," Erap's current plunder trial cannot even be given the cover of "frontier justice" or "victor's justice" that the Iraqi court trying Saddam Hussein is accused of. Yet, even I must admit, deep in my heart, I do believe Erap Estrada WAS guilty of plunder and corruption. It is a classic case of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem apparently being applicable to the Law itself! Erap cannot get a fair final judgment from the Supreme Court that he accuses of illegally overthrowing him. In such a case, IS there a higher court than the Supreme Court? I claim there is: the Filipino people themselves. Trial by election. Joseph Estrada could legally run for the Senate in 2007, and be in time to become a Senator-Judge for GMA's impeachment trial.

Democrats Take US Congress: Lower House 229 to 196; Senate 51 to 49

I have always found the term "Western-style" democracy to be about as logical as "Western-style internal combustion" or "Western-style space exploration". I think that the term "Western-style Democracy" obscures the fact that democracy is not a style, not a custom or fashion or cultural artifact. Rather it is a technology and an invention that has been discovered and proven to enable human beings to live together in peace and prosperity without giving up their inherent rights and freedoms. "Western-style democracy" makes as much sense in a way as "Western-style scientific method." Democracy after all, is not a religion, but a method of mediating the relations of men and nations: it is a Constitution of Liberty, Sovereignty and Government. I think the term "Western-style democracy" is usually employed by those who are against its exportation and "forced establishment" in places "that don't want Western-style democracy," or "that aren't ready for Western-style politics." (In US History, such places have included the Philippines, Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq.) But democratic nations are expressions of their people's will and self-determination, of their character and their ambitions. However, it is strictly speaking true: you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.

In the United States the people have just spoken in the 2006 midterm elections.

DONALD RUMSFELD resigns. Exeunt, stage right. Robert Gates will have to clean up.

San Francisco's NANCY PELOSI will be the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives, lights please: stage left, as she vows to lead "the most honest, open and ethical House" in US history. (Many will remember she said that.) A few weeks ago, CBS 60 Minutes' Leslie Stahl did an in-depth on the woman set to be two heart beats away from the Presidency. Speaking of which, possibly the first woman president of the US has been re-elected to a Senate seat in New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton. But I am sure my good friend Rodel Rodis in that sublime City by the Bay, and its highest elected Filipino-American official, is ecstatic, and rightly so. PDI Research has a roundup of Filipino-American candidates.

But lest the klieg lights blind, read also Ramesh Ponnuru, How to Win By Losing (via John Marzan).

Meanwhile back in the Archipelago...

Manolo Quezon (The Explainer) and his guest, Atty. Ed Lacierda were discussing the ongoing controversy over "voting separately" or "voting jointly" arising from an ambiguity in the following 1987 provision:

Article XVII - Amendments Or Revisions -

Section 1. Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by:
(1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or
(2) Constitutional Convention.

A plain reading of this provision, in my opinion, leads inexorably to the conclusion that there is actually very little ambiguity to this provision. Proposing amendments to, or revision of, this Constitution must be done by an "Act of the Congress" whose form and substance must conform to the requirements of the Constitution. In Lambino vs. Comelec, the Philippine Supreme Court indeed found that the Lambino Group's "Initiative Petition" was insufficient in form because the full text was not attached to the signatures, and unconstitutional in substance for being a Revision, which is prohibited in the people's initiative mode.

Now the question comes before us: Can a House Resolution signed let us say by 100% of all the members of the Lower House, be found by Comelec (and the Supreme Court upon an inevitable petition for certiorari!) to be sufficient in form and substance and be submitted to the people for ratification in a plebiscite? To me the Nograles-Pichay-Jaraula House Resolution is simply D.O.A. in this regard because a House Resolution is NOT an Act of The Congress. It is a mere act of the Lower House. It is thus insufficient in form ab initio. There is a growing air of forlorn desperation in the attempts of the House leadership to force a plebiscite on a wholescale revision of the Constitution. They really need to do everything and anything to avoid the coming 2007 elections, which are shaping up to be a disastrous referendum on the Arroyo regime that will usher in a Hanging Senate. See also the Comment Thread at MLQ3's blog.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has gotta be worried about all the Western-style Democracy she is about to get next year.

Saddam Hussein finds even more defenders at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, whose editorial waxes ever so eloquently about Justice and the Law and human life, whilst steadfastly ignoring the evidence of crimes against humanity and genocide presented against Mr. Saddam Hussein in what was indeed a chaotic and imperfect trial. But it's too much to suggest that Saddam might actually be INNOCENT, or that the Iraqi Court has no legitimacy. I suppose they are being consistent since they have utter disdain for Philippine Courts also (except when they like the Decision!) having proclaimed recently that a majority of Filipinos doubt the fairness of the Supreme Court. But who are we, really to question the Iraqi court's rights and existence? It didn't help the Republicans very much anyway, so why piss on the little retribution and happiness the relatives of Saddam's victims may now enjoy in that unhappy land?

I've been monitoring the 2006 US Midterm Elections at the New York Times website. As widely predicted, the Democratic Party has indeed taken control of the House, 229-196, after a 16 seat net gain in the elections. Complete results of the House race are here. House SPEAKER-APPARENT Nancy Pelosi addressed a cheering crowd of the Party faithful, saying that they were on the verge of a great Democratic election victory. She said they would take America in a new direction in the war on Iraq. "Stay the course has not made our country safer...we cannot continue down this catastrophic path...The campaign is over, the Democrats are prepared to lead...we are ready to govern...in partnership not partisanship. From sea to shining sea the American people voted for change...Today we make history..."

San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi will most likely be the United States first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives. Most observers agree she is at the most liberal end of the liberal Democrats. As the 2008 elections come into view, she will be a force in American politics along with Hillary Rodham Clinton, said to be the Democratic front-runner for that future presidential elections.

However, as late as midnight EST, the Senate race was too close to call. To take the Senate the Democrats must gain six seats. They have gained 3 of those at this point in time. It's all down to three states.

CNN is reporting that a cliff hanger between Democrat Jim Webb and Republican incumbent George Allen in Virginia could end up deciding who controls the US Senate. There is already talk of recounts, lawsuits, provisional ballot counts, absentee ballot counts, voting machine snafus. Sounds like an election!

Pia Hontiveros (Strictly Politics) had on David Kuchenbecker of Democrats Abroad and Doyle Stout of Republicans Abroad, who represent members of the respective political parties in Manila, to discuss the now-ongoing US midterm elections. Conventional wisdom says the Democrats will probably take control of the Lower House of the US Congress, but David Kuchenbecker thinks everyone will have to stay up "til around midnight election day" to find out if the Republicans will also lose control of the US Senate.

Also on Pia's show was Jonathan Melegrito of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (Naffaa) in Maryland to ask him an interesting question: Is there such a thing as a Filipino American vote? Do Filipinos vote predominantly Republican or Democrat.

I suppose a related question is, how many Filipinos are there in the United States and how many of them are eligible to vote? Unfortunately there are no hard and fast numbers since Filipinos are not counted as a separate group in the US Census. Estimates therefore range from a low of2 million to a high of 4 million Filipino-Americans of various immigration and citizenship status.

Filipinos are a readily identifiable voting bloc, such as for example blacks or chicanos and other minorities, but unlike them Filipino-Americans have not become organized enough to be a force on their own. I believe part of this phenomenon is paradoxically due to the easy process of assimilation and adjustment Filipinos have when emigrating to America. It seems they are better prepared for life there than in their own land, some wags have observed. What this means is that there are no "Pinoy towns" as such, like the Chinatowns in every major city. And even though there are large concentrations of Filipinos in places like San Francisco or New Jersey, they so easily fit into the wider society and are largely successful in their professions and businesses so that they are not cocooned into a closed community of Filipinos only. Most Filipino-American immigrants are readily integrated into American society.

This is of course not true for all Filipino Americans. For example, Filipino veterans of World War II have really gotten a raw deal and their ranks are thinning out quickly before justice is given to them for faithful and loyal service in the United State Military. I salute the long and lonely fight for rights and benefits for Filipino veterans being waged by persons such Eric Lachica of USFilVets.

Check out what Conrado de Quiros of PDI thinks of Saddam Hussein's guilty verdict for genocide and crimes against humanity, and the death sentence issued by an Iraqi Court under its recently ratified 2005 Constitution--

CdQ: "What arrant nonsense. If the trial itself, not to speak of the verdict, moves the world to tears, it is only to tears of frustration and anger, not to tears of joy or gratitude. This does not restore the moral order of the universe, it unhinges it, sending humanity’s concept of right and wrong spinning out of its orbit ... The verdict on Saddam does not shout justice, it shouts justification. It means to justify the American occupation of Iraq, notwithstanding the deception it was founded on, by reminding the world what a bastard Saddam is. And what a service Bush did the world by invading his country, raining bombs as smart as Bush is on the residents of Baghdad, and unleashing policies of mass destruction on a world the American Caesar (of the Las Vegas variety) barely understands and a people he couldn’t care about. Of course, Saddam is a bastard. But there’s a bigger bastard halfway across the globe, and there’s no court trying him.

What, you just punish him by beating him in elections?

Yeah, Choy, it's called "Western-style Democracy," and that's really all we've got, plus the silly lil things called a democratic Constitution that guarantees them.

But if you like the bitter taste of Conrado de Quiros' bile while he's having a shock attack expostulating about his most favorite Americans (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) -- there's more where above came from, including an equating of Saddam Hussein to Macario Sakay! I would have thought a better Filipino analog to Saddam would be Ferdinand Marcos, his Little Brown Brother, whom I am sure, even he would've supported the overthrow of, say by a force of US Marines led by Filipino American soldiers. I daresay, that when Ronald Reagan told Marcos to "cut and cut cleanly," he abandoned one of America's sonofabitch dictators in Asia and made the restoration of democracy possible and the Edsa Revolution "peaceful." (It WAS the least Reagan could do, but few know it was Paul Wolfowitz made him do it.) But I wonder if the curious reference de Quiros makes to "the American Caesar of the Las Vegas variety" must've been inspired by his recent partying with Filipino-Americans in that blooming City of the American Southwestern Desert a few weeks ago. You see, the funny lil secret about the most eloquent of our anti-American writers today, is that they learnt their hatred for America and democracy from other Americans, the original source being of course U.S. Anti-Imperialist League. But Conrado de Quiros, who thinks Baghdad is no Nuremberg, is no Mark Twain either. I guess what Conrad does not yet get is that democracy is a labor of centuries, that the lifetimes of nations outspan those of individual human beings, whose effects ought to be judged in the longer run than this week's news. Or even next month's or next year's.

Arroyo Defense Secretary Quits Over 2007 Elections Role of Military?



The sudden resignation of the Philippines Defense Secretary Avelino "Nonong" Cruz is a major tectonic event for the Arroyo Presidency, like the sort of earthquakes that presage a volcanic eruption. It is said to be fallout from the recent train wreck of the Lambino Charter Change Express. But that seems to be merely the Palace's preferred spin on it, since there isn't much more they could actually lose on the chacha front (except maybe for a sorry con-ass.)

From the Palace web site:

Sec. Nonong Cruz graduated salutatorian (cum laude) from the University of the Philippines, College of Law in 1977 and placed 7th in the Bar Examinations of the same year. He also finished B.S. Mathematics from the Ateneo de Manila University. As a student leader during the Martial law, he served as President of the UP Law Student Government and the Ateneo Student Council. He was also Senior Editor of the The Philippine Collegian and a member of the editorial board of The Guidon.

Now a Cabinet Secretary of a major Executive Department like Defense does not suddenly quit over some past policy difference. If Sec. Avelino "Nonong" Cruz tendered his irrevocable resignation during a one-on-one tete-at-tete with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, it may be over something he either wants to do or doesn't want to do for her in the future because it conflicts with his conscience, not just his intelligence any more.

This has to do with the 2007 Midterm Elections and what role the military will play in it. Maybe the Palace didn't realize the boyish Nonong Cruz was serious when he declared last February around the time of the alleged coup, that he intended to disentangle the Philippine military from the tentacles of electoral politics and professionalize the armed services.

During elections the military are the Security Guards of the Garcis in Comelec and the bodyguards of the key personnel and documents during the multistage canvass. But with a crucial election coming up that could see the Filipino people vote in a Hanging Senate, there's no room for error and the Palace knows it. Now the Palace needs someone absolutely reliable to run the military during the 2007 elections the way Old Tradition has done it. As in 2004.

Perhaps Nonong Cruz had made a free hand to professionalize the Armed Services a condition of his employment when he first accepted the Defense post. But now that the real election operators want the military back for use in the 2007 elections, he's only going to get in the way of a do-or-die operation in 2007.

The handwriting is already on the wall: the Philippine Senate will be in Opposition hands next year, with a solid two thirds majority overall. If the Opposition wins just 8 Senate seats in the midterm 2007 elections, there will be the required number of 16 senators for conviction in an impeachment trial. But the Palace must win more than two-thirds of the Lower House since only one-third of its membership is required to send her for trial among that species of Senator-Judges whose existence she has been threatening to terminate in various devious and not-so devious ways.

The Garcis at Comelec will need their old reliable Security Guards to "guard the ballot" during the dagdag-bawas, err, multistage canvassing operation of the manual elections. Them, and the indentured servants call public school teachers, whose convenient existence is the main reason Comelec has never automated its polling operations. Why buy develop and automated system when you have all the human adding machines you need. And teachers have great reputations with the people.

That of Nonong Cruz has certainly improved.

The Manila Bulletin headlines GMA's refusal to accept the resignation. (By the way, I am enjoying Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial, which Ricky Carandang and I got to talk about on ANC Mornings last Thursday.) Fittingly as the traditional repository of such records as Obituaries around here, the Manila Bulletin's front page also carries the news that Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by hanging. Here is New York Times coverage of the blessed event. This news may not help the GOP very much except with its core constituencies. I just wish Ferdinand Marcos had met the same Justice.

The US 2006 midterm elections has certainly hotted up. But is a Democratic victory in 2006 actually a Republican strategy for victory in 2008? Ramesh Ponnuru thought so several months back (via John Marzan of Politics '04). Botching John Kerryism is also here from Victor Davis Hanson.

I saw the movie The Prestige last night, from Touchstone Pictures, starring Michael Caine, David Bowie, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Scarlett Johannson. Everything that happens can be explained if you suspend disbelief and accept that the Transported Man apparatus of the 19th century inventor and physicist, Nicola Tesla (who makes a putative cameo appearance in the plot), actually works. The challenge of the movie is to explain all events in the plot without this assumption. We were talking about it for hours afterwards. A rare movie this. Also in MLQ3's PDI column today: Noblesse Prestige

Honesto General at INQ7 Money has the both right and wrong ideas in The Fallacies of the SWS Hunger Survey. He's wrong to call for regulation of the survey firms, because as I've often averred, Public Opinion Polling is a Genre of Journalism. But he is quite right to question the objective reliability of a measure like "self-rated hunger" in which the SWS asks people whether or not they have experienced "hunger" in the preceeding quarter. Mr. General says,

SWS should interview my 7-year-old grandson Wacky. Three times a day just before meals, he complains, "Lolo, I'm so hungry."

What he means of course is that the respondents who honestly answer the SWS survey question, did they experience hunger in the preceeding quarter, may say YES for completely subjective though truthful reasons that have nothing to do with for example, the poverty level of people, or the actual inability to get food for bare survival.

Indeed if you examine the SWS raw data, (just ignore the Media Release), you will find a curious SEASONALITY to the peaks and valleys of self rated hunger response, which tends to peak in the 4th Quarter survey but drops precipitously in the 1st Quarter Surveys. Why? Well it seems people get very hungry JUST BEFORE the Christmas holidays. But they are relatively satiated after the holidays! The data is only 34 SWS surveys worth between 1998 and 2006. There also seems to be cyclical components of self-rated hunger in correlation to the elections (1998, 2001, 2004). An even bigger mystery arises in the fact that self-rated poverty is down 8 points in this Quarter from the last! What is this, people are getting richer AND hungrier at the same time?

This is verbatim from Ms. Rina Jimenez David of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, who writes a column four or five times a week and had the following to say about soldiers, all the men and women in the armed services of any country. I am ashamed to be in the same gene pool as this idiotarian member of the local demagagosphere...

Ms. David: "The truth is that soldiers never have, and never will, fight and kill for such high-flown ideals as “democracy,” “freedom,” “the government,” or even “the homeland.” They take up arms and engage in combat mainly because that is their job and that is what they trained for. But what moves them is not some abstract principle or loyalty, but rather the very human instinct first, not to get killed; and second, to protect the men and women they fight with. In an age before the military became gender-integrated, soldiers considered each other “buddies” and, throughout the centuries, a soldier’s loyalty and bravado were expended for the sake of one’s buddies, for making sure they all came out of the battlefield alive."

She claims to have come by this epiphany from watching war movies. (In between huge gulps of soda pop and buttered popcorn, I guess?) Oh and you know what Rina has been saying soldiers do when they aren't busy trying not to get killed? Yup. They go on brutal gang rapes of helpless Filipino women.

Well, freedom of expression allows anyone with two-bit opinion column to blurt out whatever blithering idiocies are in their heads. But what it reveals about what is in their hearts is what depresses me. She may castigate Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for her governance, but Rina Jimenez David is no different than GMA, who doesn't attend the funerals of Filipino-American soldiers either. Or honor their memory, because Rina David essentially believes in nothing.

The framers of the 1987 Constitution cannot be accused of verbosity when they crafted the following provision on Charter amendments or revisions:

ART. XVII Section 1. Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by: (1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; (2) or, a Constitutional Convention.

Since there are 24 Senators and 236 Congressmen, there are 260 Members of Congress. Three-fourths of all its Members equals 195. That is the plain, arithmetic sense of the provision above. But if only the framers had added the phrase "voting separately" or "voting jointly" to the above we wouldn't be having all this controversial bother. The omission is particularly strange because the 1987 Constitution contemplates situations appropriate to both types of voting on the part of the Congress, and says so explicitly in the relevant Constitutional provisions.

For example, the Congress has oversight and veto powers over a Presidential proclamation of martial law or the lifting of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, --

Article VII - Executive Department - Section 18 The Congress, voting jointly, by a vote of at least a majority of all its Members in regular or special session, may revoke such proclamation or suspension, which revocation shall not be set aside by the President.

Suppose for example that that President declares martial law. In that case half plus one of 260 Members of Congress is 131 Members would be needed to revoke. In this case, all 131 could come from the Lower House and none from the Senate.

In contrast, a declaration of a state of war requires both Houses of Congress to vote separately on whether a state of war exists.

Article VI - Legislative Department - Section 23 (1) The Congress, by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses in joint session assembled, voting separately, shall have the sole power to declare the existence of a state of war.

Voting separately by Congress is also mandated to settle the issue in the unimaginably rare possibility that two Presidential candidates would have exactly the same number of votes in an election. There is also

Article VII - Executive Department - Section 9. Whenever there is a vacancy in the Office of the Vice-President during the term for which he was elected, the President shall nominate a Vice-President from among the Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives who shall assume office upon confirmation by a majority vote of all the Members of both Houses of the Congress, voting separately.

When Teofisto Guingona, Jr. was appointed by GMA to take her job as Vice President after Erap was ousted, the Congress did indeed comply with above provision.

I think there is no escaping the fact that there is a built-in ambiguity in Art XVII Sec. 1(1) that will have to be ruled upon by the Supreme Court. How will the case get there?

The anticipated sequence of events will be this:

(1) Under the Speaker-in-Hoping Butch Pichay's generalship, a House Resolution will be signed by 195 House Members proposing the replacement of the current Legislative and Executive Dept. Articles with new articles defining a Unicameral Parliamentary form of government. Rep. Pichay told Ces Drilon last Friday that this must happen by December 22, 2006 before Congress goes on recess, because "we are trying to postpone the 2007 elections."

(2) The approved House Resolution will be submitted to Comelec for it to determine sufficiency in form and substance, and to rule whether or not a plebiscite should be called to ratify the same.

(3) As in the Lambino Group's people's initiative on the Constitution, recently junked by the Supreme Court, however the Comelec rules in that case, whether favorably or not, either the House or the Senate and other concerned parties will surely petition the High Court to certify the Comelec's decision.

If the Comelec approves the Lower House's petition for plebiscite, which a plain reading of the Constitution might convince it to do, then perhaps, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, the foremost Constitutional law expert in the Senate today and faint-hoped by some to be appointed the next Chief Justice, will file a new case, to be called Santiago vs. Comelec and House of Representatives.

The issue will be whether a Resolution passed by the House of Representatives, and signed by three-fourths of the total number of all the Members of Congress, is sufficient in form and substance to propose a REVISION of the Constitution. (We must remember that the Supreme Court just ruled in Lambino v. Comelec that the switch to a Unicameral Parliament from a Presidential system of government with a bicameral legislature amounts to a revision of the Constitution.)

CAVEATS: Proponents of CON-ASS make the powerful argument that there is nothing ambiguous per se about the provision, and that a plain reading of it favors their interpretation of the aritmetic described. But I think the Houdini like escape for bicameralists in this provision lies in the phrase "the Congress."

It is "the Congress" which "may propose" amendents of, or revisions to the Constitution. Not the House of Representatives alone, nor the Senate alone, but "the Congress."

Acts of Congress take on two forms. The first are ordinary laws, such as the national budget which are approved by a simple majority of both Houses of Congress, voting separately. But, as proponents always stress, Congress is not passing a law in this case, such as changing the name of a street, but "merely" proposing changes for the people to ratify in a future plebiscite.

What is the form that such proposal must take? The second form that Acts of Congress come in, are Resolutions, of which there are three types: House Resolutions, Senate Resolutions, and Joint Resolutions. Resolutions are used for many purposes, even to recognize famous Filipino pugilists and pool champions. But acts of "the Congress" cannot be put in the form of a "mere" House Resolution or Senate Resolution.

In my humble opinion, in order for "the Congress" to propose changes to the Constitution under Art XVII Sec. 1(1), it must pass a Joint Resolution approving the same. A House Resolution, even if it complies with the provision requiring the vote of "three fourths of all its Members" will be ruled INSUFFICIENT IN FORM because it is not an act of "the Congress" -- which can only be clothed in the form of a Joint Resolution of "the Congress." It is not the signatories upon whose vote such resolution is approved, that are the proponents of the change, (unlike in the people's initiative mode), but "the Congress" itself. Therefore, the powerful principle of the sufficiency in form may also enforce the principle of bicameralism. The Senate of course, would not be willing to enter into a Joint Resolution without a thorough debate and examination and amendments to Mr. Pichay's ideas about parliamentary government.

Thus, like the Lambino People's Initiative, the Pichay Unicameral Con-Ass will be deemed INSUFFICIENT IN FORM, if what the Comelec approves for plebiscite is a "mere" House Resolution. An Act of "the Congress" which is not an ordinary law, must come in the form of a Joint Resolution. What other form COULD it come in?

MORE CAVEATS: In the Comment Threads of MLQ3's weblog, I have offered the following definitions of the terms "amendment" and "revision":

An AMENDMENT is any change to the Constitution.

A REVISION is any change of Constitution.

As I've already mentioned, the Supreme Court decided recently that the switch to a unicameral Parliamentary system amounts to a revision of the Constitution--a finding of INSUFFICIENCY of SUBSTANCE on the part of the Lambino initiative petition, since revisions may not be undertaken by people's initiative on the Constitution.

"The Congress" may of course propose amendments or revisions in the process that has been referred to as "Con-Ass or Constituent Assembly" while people's initiative is limited to amendments. A different but related question arises: WHY is the power to REVISE the Constitution reserved for deliberative bodies like the Congress and a Constitutional Convention? I think the answer is this. It is but reasonable to expect that an outright revision of the Constitution, or any large-scale amendment such as a complete overhaul of the "Constitution of Government," ought to be the product of a deliberate process to draft, discuss, refine, and optimize the proposal that will be put up for ratification in a plebiscite. It is inconceivable that a complete revised Constitution can be produced and then voted upon and signed by three-fourths of all its Members -- but unchanged from its authors' draft, undebated, unamended, unperfected by the manifest deliberations and debates of a body solemnly engaged in its preparation. That I think also points to th quintessential difference between the People's Initiative mode of charter change and both Con-Ass and Con-Con.

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Philippine Commentary is proud to carry Alan Paguia's Legal Commentary on the suspension of Mayor Binay and the criminal culpability of Sec. Ed Ermita for illegally issuing the order.

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First Daughter Luli Arroyo has stroked a chord among the vanishing breed of nationalists with her castigation of a most unfortunate civil servant at the Bureau of Immigration at the airport. It isn't even clear what actually happened but seems there is no greater crime against nationalism than for a Filipino to let a foreigner get one over other Filipinos. Really! Don't these ignorant civil servants know that such rights and privileges, such as line-jumping and the various "arts of the areglo" are strictly reserved for the Filipinos to do unto other Filipinos?

I am pleased to publish here at Philippine Commentary, the occasional thoughts of Prof. Alan F. Paguia on important legal and judicial issues that face the country. Here he tackles the legality of the order of preventive suspension against Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, which affects the ongoing "scorched earth" policy the Palace seems to be employing against its enemies to soften up the 2007 election battleground.

People vs. Ermita
By Alan F. Paguia

Is Executive Secretary Eduardo R. Ermita criminally accountable for suspending the duly elected mayor, vice-mayor and councilors of Makati City? It would seem so.

Why?

First, that power is vested by law exclusively in favor of the President. There appears no law which authorizes the Executive Secretary to exercise that power.

Therefore, his exercise of that power is outrightly unlawful.

Second, the Administrative Code of 1987 expressly limits the authority of the Executive Secretary to acts that merely IMPLEMENT, and NOT ISSUE, presidential directives, orders and decisions. In the case at bar, the Executive Secretary himself ISSUED the suspension order. He acted as “the President”.

The order reads:

Office of the President of the Philippines, Malacañang
O.P. CASE NO. 06-H-305
ROBERTO G. BRILLANTE, Complainant,
-versus-
MAYOR JEJOMAR C. BINAY, VICE MAYOR ERNESTO S.
MERCADO, COUNCILORS
ERWIN JEJOMAR BINAY,
FERDINAND EUSEBIO,
ERLINDA GONZALES, RICARDO
JAVIER, RICARDO J. PUNO,
MONIQUE LAGDAMEO, ROMEO
MEDINA, ERNESTO ASPILLAGA
ISRAEL CRUZADO, ELIAS
TOLENTINO, DIVINA JACOME,
ROMANA PANGILINAN, NELSON
PASIA, NEMESIO YABUT, JR.,
RODOLFO SESE and CHRISTINE P.
MERCADO, all of Makati City,
Respondents,

X-------------------------------------x

ORDER

This Office is confronted by the prayer in the complaint of Roberto G. Brillante for the Issuance of a preventive suspension of all respondents in order to prevent the latter from harassing possible witnesses, and to prevent them from tampering vital documents and evidence now in their offices.

Under Section 63 (b) of the Local Government Code (R.A. 7160), a preventive suspension may be imposed only after the Issues are joined, when the evidence of guilt is strong, and given the gravity of the offense, there is great: probability that the continuance In office of the respondent could influence the witnesses: or pose a threat to the safety and integrity of the records and other evidence.

In the case at bar, the records show that all the respondents have filed their respective Answers (Affidavits) to the complaint except respondent city mayor who submitted an Affidavit. Ad Cautela as a “precautionary” Answer to the charges. Mayor Binay Is requesting for a bill of particulars which could be ventilated before the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) as Investigating Authority during the preliminary conference (Section 5, Administrative Order No. 23, as amended).

Considering that the contents of the said affidavit of respondent City Mayor Binay have answered squarely the Issues/charges set forth In the complaint, we, therefore treat said affidavit as his answer to the complaint thereby joining the Issues herein.

The second requirement Is that the evidence of guilt is strong. Contrary to respondents’ allegations, the documents submitted as annexes to the complaint present strong evidence of guilt that some of the employees may be “ghost employees” from their respective offices, collecting salaries from the city government to the prejudice of the latter.

Moreover, In view of the seriousness of the offense and the great possibility that respondents’ continuous presence in their respective offices would put pressure and influence on would be witnesses, and put in jeopardy the safety and integrity of the various records and documents, this Office deemed it necessary, In the Interest of justice, that the respondents be separated from their offices as a precautionary measure.

WHEREFORE, premises considered, respondents MAYOR JEJOMAR C. BINAY, VICE MAYOR ERNESTO G. MERCADO, COUNCILORS ERWIN JEJOMAR BINAY, FERDINAND EUSEBIO, ERLINDA GONZALES, RICARDO JAVIER, RICARDO J. PUNO, MONIQUE LAGDAMEO, ROMEO MEDINA, ERNESTO ASPILLAGA, ISRAEL CRUZADO, ELIAS TOLENTINO, DIVINA JACOME, ROMANA PANGILINAN, NELSON PASIA, NEMESIO YABUT, JR., RODOLFO SESE and CRISTINE P. MERCADO, all of Makati City, are hereby preventively suspended from office for sixty (60) days effective upon receipt hereof.

Meanwhile, so as to avert a vacuum and paralysis In the smooth and orderly delivery of basic and essential services to the constituents of the City of Makati, the DILG CITY DIRECTOR of Makati City is hereby designated as Caretaker of Makati City to run the day-to-day local government affairs thereat until such time that the President of the Philippines shall have designated a new set of officials for the City of Makati.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government Is hereby directed to implement this Order, immediately.

SO ORDERED.

Manila, Philippines. OCT. 16, 2006

By authority of the President:

(Signed)

EDUARDO R. ERMITA

Executive Secretary

The order appears to be the proverbial “smoking gun” and ought to be Exhibit “A” in the contemplated case of People of the Philippines vs. Ermita.

Third, the law also limits the authority of the Executive Secretary to decide, for and in behalf of the President, on matters NOT requiring personal presidential attention. Does preventive suspension of the elected officials of a highly urbanized city such as Makati – require personal presidential attention? Yes. Section 63 of the Local Government Code expressly says so. It would be absurd to allow an appointed official to suspend duly elected officials. The authority of the first is merely derivative in nature, while that of the second is original – coming as it does from the direct mandate of the sovereign people.

Fourth, while the Executive Secretary is authorized to sign papers “By authority of the President”, the same is expressly limited to acts that merely IMPLEMENT presidential directives, orders and decisions. If he acts outside that limitation, he would be acting beyond the scope of his authority.

Fifth, under the law, the Executive Secretary may ATTEST, but NOT ISSUE, executive orders and other presidential issuances. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, “attest” means “to signify by subscription of his name that the signer has witnessed the execution of the particular instrument”. In the case at bar, the instrument or suspension order was EXECUTED by the Executive Secretary. He did not act as a mere witness to its execution.

Sixth, did Sec. Ermita persuade, induce or influence other public officials to perform an act? Yes. He ordered the DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government) and police officials to implement the suspension order which was, in fact, implemented. Did that act constitute an offense in connection with the official duties of the DILG and police officials? Yes. They enforced what appears to be a patently unlawful order. Instead of acting as law-enforcers, they acted as law-breakers. They acted unjustly and in bad faith when they deprived the sovereign people of the services of the latter’s duly elected officials, without proper legal basis. Thus, a case should be instituted for violation of Sec. 3a of the Anti-Graft & Corrupt Practices Act.

Seventh, did Sec. Ermita knowingly approve or grant any privilege or benefit in favor of any person? Yes. He had intentionally approved and granted the privilege of serving as Makati City officials in favor of persons who served in substitution of the unlawfully suspended officials. Were the substitutes legally entitled to such privilege or advantage? No. The order or quasi-judicial decision appears illegal and void on its face. According to jurisprudence, it has no legal and binding effect, force or efficacy for any purpose whatsoever.

In Re: Report on the Judicial Audit in RTC-Br. 15, Ozamis City, 438 SCRA 363, it was ruled that a decision that is void for failure to comply with substantial requirements would remain invalid notwithstanding the failure of the parties to question it.

Eighth, under the law, the Republic of the Philippines is not bound by the mistakes or errors committed by the Executive Secretary in the exercise of his functions. Consequently, he is personally liable for the same.

Sec. Ermita did not act alone when he suspended the subject Makati City officials. He and other persons had come to an agreement concerning the commission of the patently unlawful suspension and they decided to commit it. Under the law, that is conspiracy. The rule in conspiracy is - the act of one is the act of all. Thus, the case against Sec. Ermita should include all those who conspired with him.

Therefore, the title of the case should not be People vs. Ermita. It should be People vs. Ermita, et alia.

Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) nominates Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. PDI is titillated by the possibility. Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago is eminently qualified for the position, as far as the Left is concerned, since she has called for abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement over the Subic Bay rape case. But Solicitor General Eduardo Nachura stressed that her "closeness to the President" should be no impediment:

“Senator Santiago is very qualified, and I’m sure that if she will be the next chief justice, she will be very fair and [special] considerations will be disallowed,” Nachura told reporters.

“There are no political considerations here. I don’t think Senator Santiago’s being an administration ally will be an issue. There are no politics here,” he stressed.

So, is Nachura, and by implication Malacanang Palace, publicly backing Santiago? Or is this the Palace's way of selling two important ideas: (1) That the President's eventual appointment will be based solely on merit, not considerations of her own political survival; and (2) That it will be okay to again ignore the traditions of seniority in the appointment of the Chief Justice, since even Miriam is a complete outsider.

I believe that uppermost in the President's mind in choosing the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the growing probability of an impeachment and trial as the Opposition looks set to capture the Senate in the 2007 midterm elections. I have been saying that the mere existence in the Senate of 16 "hanging Senator Judges" -- i.e. inclined to convict GMA in a fair trial -- will remove the Damocles Sword the Palace holds over members of the Lower House and make eighty or more votes for impeachment there, not inexorably suicidal for them.

If I were GMA, Miriam Santiago would be the last person I would want to be Chief Justice and the possible presiding judge of an impeachment trial. Remember, she has made a career of accusing Fidel V. Ramos of cheating HER out of the Presidency in 1992 (which many believe was actually true). She is also the person in Santiago v. Comelec, the 1997 Supreme Court ruling that killed the Pirma people's initiative.

Moreover, as Chief Justice, Miriam might find her true calling, and actually bring Constitutional law expertise to that post. And something even more important that GMA probably cannot afford: the cold impartiality of a neutral judge!

My guess is that her best hope, if any be left, is still with the guy who wrote the fax that brought GMA to power and knows all their secrets. Not Miriam the Unpredictable.

henever she speaks I am tempted to say that Jamby Madrigal is the new Miriam Santiago. But that would be an impudent insult to a brilliant legal mind, accused of various mental disorders over the years only because of an ineradicable Ilonggo-British accent.

Jamby Madrigal has neither problem. Her drawling Old Money diction finds new eloquence in the figures of speech of the Communist Left, with whom she has developed a symbiotic political and ideological relationship with many trans-gender nuances. Fortunately for us, she is the Medium and they are the message. But that combination has been seen on stage many times before, with entertaining, even hilarious effects.

But you don't really have to accept my diagnosis without seeing the clinical evidence. Here it is, in her own words, in a speech she recently delivered in the Hague, and posted on the official Senate government website (talk about infiltration!). It is the Opening Statement for the Prosecution in a trial over political killings in the Philippines. The principal accused is President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. I would compare the forum to processes often associated with certain large marsupials in the Southern Hemisphere, but I've already delivered one undeserved insult today. So let us listen to the good Senator Jamby Madrigal who does the work for us.

Speech of Sen. Madrigal at the People's Permanent Tribunal
The Hague, 30 October 2006

Ladies and Gentlemen of the People’s Permanent Tribunal:

The Filipino people and their posterity have great need for the efforts of this tribunal, and its labors to secure our common objective of exposing to the people, just how deeply and thoroughly the President of the Philippines has betrayed her office, the public trust, and the humanitarian principles to which Filipinos have been committed since independence.
[TRANSLATION] WE CAN'T GET RID OF THE PRESIDENT OURSELVES UNDER PHILIPPINE LAW, SO WE'VE COME TO YOU FOR HELP.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has publicly called for prudence and discernment, so that the institutions of the State and secular society will have an opportunity to assume responsibility for the search for the truth, with fairness, charity, and justice in mind. The President of the Philippines has trivialized and sidestepped proposals such as a Truth Commission; she has actively thwarted impeachment; she has treated the efforts of the Citizen’s Commission for Truth and Accountability with contempt and more.
[The CBCP did not actually withdraw support from the President and they probably don't agree with Joma anywhere nearly as much as I do, but if I mention their name here at the beginning, many people will be fooled into thinking they do.]

The purpose of this exercise is: to engage the legal profession, the clergy and religious, the bishops, and the laity, and to confront them with the true meaning not only of recent pastoral statements from the clergy, but to use secular law for moral objectives; to eliminate the “rule of law” or simply, the law, as a monopoly of the President of the Philippines or any state leader; to engage the President’s partisans in an active defense of her, against evidence and testimony already subjected to the most rigorous legal analysis and interpretation; and finally, to provide a means that is of permanent record, portable, easily distributable, and difficult to misinterpret, throughout the length and breadth of the land and the world.
[Translation: We haven't succeeded in convincing our own people to eliminate this inconvenient "rule of law" even when we held our own Kangaroo Court, with its own Presiduum and all, last year. So we turn to you, the Permanent People's Tribunal, to help us turn it all into propaganda, instead.]

Such an exercise will take a few months, to be sure, but it will prevent Mrs. Arroyo from saying she has achieved normalcy; it shines the harsh light of the law on the issues, it exposes the evidence, it makes them available to all, including the skeptical, fearful, or indifferent. [GLOBAL propaganda]

Since 2004, the Filipino people have been a people demanding answers, and yet unable to get a frank, democratic response from our leaders. Mrs. Arroyo has led the way in substituting confusion for clarity, replacing faith in our people with cynicism towards their democratic demands, and demonstrating hostility rather than dedication to the rule of law. She tramples human rights and yet preaches she loves her people. [So now, we shall do that too!]

I believe what my countrymen and all those in solidarity with them believe: that the truth can be found, and that it is the obligation of every Filipino and every person in the world dedicated to truth, justice, human rights and the creation of a democratic space, to find it. Only then can we be truly democratic, and free, for we would be equal in knowledge, and liberated from doubts concerning our government. [We haven't been able to get rid of her, but we just know she is guilty.]

Normal, to her, is the continued harassment of oppositionists, whether belonging to progressive groups, or to the mainstream political parties. She denounces the party list representatives, then confers heroic status on them by ordering their arrest. [Do unto other's before they do unto you.]
[read the rest at the Senate website in the link above]

Meanwhile, in the real world of the communist insurgency (really just a nationwide extortion and protection racket) here is the NDF boasting of two political murders committed by the CPP-NPA just the other day. But I doubt that these will be added to the list of "extradjudicial killings" -- since they were done after a New People's Army court, (probably the local branch of the one Jamby just addressed!) had already "sentenced" them to death.

There is no denying of course, that many people are dying--both innocents and combatants on both sides. There is after all a communist insurgency on with a "people's army" led by their "vanguard party" that has bedevilled the people for half a century, seeking to overthrow the government, by violent means and foul, and create a new Member of the Axis of Evil Hairdos.

The local version of it last year was a bizarre, Orwellian morality play that only glorified local Leftist fantasies of Justice-by-edict. In the name of the People, of course. No one takes this new, "international" People's Tribunal of Joma and Jamby seriously. Except of course for the Kangaroos, that noble race of mammals more anxious than her to keep their good reputation and upright standing within the democratic and constitutional genus.

Bel Cunanan of PDI, who is normally like oil on water, name-dropping and oozing optimism, displays a rare tantrum as she calls for abolition of the people's initiative as a means of charter change. Tsk, tsk, what a bitter pill is so sour a defeat.

I give John Kerry a lot of credit for apologizing to the American people regarding his controversial remarks to college students recently about Iraq. It's damage control, but I believe it is sincere.

Adrian Cristobal of the Manila Bulletin offers a curious theory. He thinks victory for the Democrats during the midterm elections is a Republican strategy for winning the 2008 elections!

WITH the US mid-term elections just a few days away, the Republicans are trailing in the polls. The usual analysts blame this on the Iraq war. (There’s also Foley’s folly, which reminds us of a British writer’s remark that nothing is as ridiculous as the British public in their sudden fits of morality, only this time it’s the American.)

The curious thing is why astute Democrats are wary of winning, and equally astute Republicans are not dismayed at losing, the majority in Congress.

The astute Democrats think that not getting the majority will enhance the party’s chances in the presidential elections. They believe that the Republicans cannot disentangle themselves from the mess they created with George W. Bush in just two years.

The astute Republicans think so, too; that’s why for them it would be better for Democrats to win the congressional majority since the onus of responsibility would be on their shoulders; they wouldn’t be able to do anything constructive either.

It wasn’t so long ago when President Bush said, in effect, that the present mess, if mess it is (which he may have or may have not created), would be the problem of the next administration, Republican or Democrat; certainly not his.

I think Ricky Carandang and the rest of the ABSCBN News Gang will be discussing Bob Woodward's new book on Iraq, State of Denial, tomorrow, Friday on the Morning Show on ANC.

Manuel L. Quezon III has the Really Long View today at PDI with a discussion of the generational displacement caused by Ferdinand Marcos.

My favorite editorial cartoonists, Cox & Forkum, announce a new book, Black and White World III.