President Rodrigo Duterte was pathetic when he admitted helplessness when Chinese President Xi Jinping threatened to go to war if the Philippines would enforce its sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea.
Helplessness is never an option as recourse to the United Nations and calling to effect international agreements are readily available.
While he rejects assistance from the European Union (EU) because of alleged conditions related to his bloody campaign against drugs, he accepts Chinese pledges of aid and investments despite the overriding condition that the Philippines must not enforce against China the UN-supported arbitral decision of the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal adjudicating that the resource-rich and vast areas in the West Philippine Sea are part of Philippine territory and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), including Benham Rise, Spratlys and Panatag Shoal, among others.
The summary and precipitate dismissal of Rep. Gary Alejano’s impeachment complaint signaled the requiem for due process, judiciousness and fairness and incanted an alleluia to inordinate partisan importuning.
The dismissed complaint verily satisfied the minimum standard of “recital of facts constituting the offense charged and determinative of the jurisdiction of the committee” as required by the House Rules on Impeachment.
No less than Justice Committee Chairman Reynaldo Umali in his opening remarks recited the impeachable offenses charged and the ultimate or very basic facts constituting the subject offenses.
(Committee on Justice, House of Representatives, 15 May 2017)
Mr. Chairman, may I make a statement in order to underscore the proper anchorage and orientation of impeachment proceedings.
While it is correct that an impeachment proceeding is a political exercise, it is however, impressed with judicial character. This is the reason why we have a verified complaint; a complainant; a respondent; determination of sufficiency in form and substance; and if necessary, determination of probable cause to impeach the respondent. In the impeachment trial, select Members of the House of Representatives act as Prosecutors and the Senators seat as a court in the role of Senator-Judges.
Marginalized workers cannot eat motherhood statements and unfulfilled promises that embellished the President’s Labor Day message.
The labor force needs immediately concrete, specific and substantial benefits like a wage increase approximating a living wage, elimination of contractualization or outsourcing of labor requirements to reduce workers’ benefits, and termination of the practice of “endo”, the contrived expiration of labor contracts before a worker completes six months of employment to preclude a permanent status.
