moot and academic_ and it's all crappy

I'm reading the newspapers days late so I'm still a little pissed off at what’s happening around these parts of late.

Of course, people will tell me that everything that's been going on has been going on for what seems like forever, so i shouldn't really be the least surprised.


I was taking in my nightly port of wine last night after we'd done the annual noche buena when I realized, geez, Arroyo shouldn't have been allowed run in 2004. And i wasn't drunk yet then, I swear. Drunk with anger maybe, if that’s possible. But anger's all I have when it doesn't look like I can do anything about it.

Gloria swore that for the sake of unity, she won't run in the 2004 elections, so that we can avoid dividing the nation. Okay. Fast forward to 2005. We're divided. Why? Because she ran. ayos. Arroyo will make a great seer. She’s better than any of the fortune-tellers we tout on the teevee to be the purveyors of Star predictions. She’s the best pundit I’ve ever had the mis(fortune) of being in the same country with. Freaking correct. We are divided.

And yet…. If she’d seen it coming, why didn’t she help us avoid it?


Section 4, article VII of the Philippine Constitution says, and I quote, "... The President shall not be eligible to run for any re-election....". What did Gloria Arroyo, the then Vice-president become, after Estrada was booted out of office? See section 8 article VII. "In case of death, permanent disability, removal from office, or resignation of the President, the Vice-President shall become President to serve the unexpired term." via the case of Estrada v Desierto, the Supreme Court ruled that Estrada resigned from the Presidency. (Albeit this is a very strained ruling, we’ll stick by it because whatever the Supreme Court says… forms a part of the legal system of the Philippines- article 8, Civil Code.) Arroyo became president. Hence, she "shall not be eligible to run for any re-election.”


Okay. Granted that according to election law, for a term limit to apply the prior term must have been served completely. Meaning, if Arroyo only served for the remainder of Estrada’s term, it doesn’t count. Okay. (Let’s forget about section 8, article VII.) Why wouldn’t we be allowed to apply the reasons why Our president isn’t allowed a second term? Six years is “long enough, for a good president to implement his programs….” (Constitutional Commission). Add to that the unspoken reason that we’ve had enough of anyone lording over our institutions and abusing it. Then maybe she shouldn’t have been allowed to run.

Unless she’s a bad president so six years wouldn’t have been long enough for her.


But she did run; and she was allowed to. And I can’t do anything about it. And we must respect the decision of every judicial body that allowed her to.

But the country is in such a mess right now, and with everyone batting for a change in the Constitution, it’s like we’re all having muck thrown in our faces. The consultative-whatever-commission- chaired by… gasp… Jose Abueva… has recommended that elected officials stay on till 2010 without need of any election. They also want to remove the restraints against foreigners in owning land and businesses. Okay. We give aliens our livelihood through the WTO, now we intend to give them our land and businesses? Okay. These same people also want to lodge Executive and Legislative power in one body, the parliament. Imagine today’s government without the Senate. We’d all be cowed by the demands of the Executive. Okay.

I’m not having a Merry Christmas right now (I’m having a crappy one. Why did I have to pick up a newspaper?). I have no reason to.

(also in my Dictum blog.)