Column: Tough but fair: The Inquirer debate

I did not realize, before I wrote this particular column, that I would be asked later in the week to write “teasers” about the debate for the front page. if I had known, perhaps I would have decided differently. Published on February 2, 2010.

Allow me to write about the sense of growing excitement shared by the many people working behind “Inquirer 1st Edition: The Presidential Debate.” Since Friday, hundreds of Philippine Daily Inquirer and INQUIRER.net readers have been submitting to the newspaper the questions they would like posed before the candidates. On Monday, campaign staff representing eight presidential candidacies were formally briefed on the process flow and logistics of the candidates’ forum. (A ninth was invited but could not make it.) And on Wednesday and on three other occasions this week, various panelists will meet to practice for the event, which takes place on Monday, Feb. 8, at the University of the Philippines.

Column: Adulterer, yes; plunderer, no

The moral hazard that is Estrada’s return to politics. Published on January 26, 2010.

The decision of the Comelec’s second division to qualify Joseph Estrada for the presidential election in May, reached on the ninth anniversary of his people-powered ouster from Malacañang, invites the Filipino citizen to consider, yet again, the ex-president’s sins against the nation.

In two recent editorials, the Inquirer observed the distinction between the legal impediments Estrada faces (which the second division blithely set aside, in favor of a sweeping populism) and the moral hazard that Estrada’s return represents.

This distinction, I think, is crucial to our evolving understanding of the democratic project.

Many Filipinos object to the very idea that a failed president can serve in the presidency again. But as the first editorial pointed out, the issue before the Comelec was whether the Constitution—not past performance, not much-publicized adventures in morality—bars Estrada from running for reelection. In other words, the notion of “failure,” of whether Estrada was a “good” or “bad” president, ought not to figure in the legal debate.

Column: The iconoclastic Gloria A.

Published on January 19, 2010.

This is not an essay in religious psychology, but only a look—via Fr. Joaquin Bernas’ precise theses, John Rawls’ “overlapping consensus” and the underlying philosophy of TV’s “CSI”—at what may well be Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s true legacy.

* * *

I thought yesterday’s column by Father Bernas put paid to the debate over whether President Arroyo should name Chief Justice Reynato Puno’s successor. In 19 succinctly stated points (which he all but apologized for, saying he was forced to “write in telegraphic style” because “there are so many issues involved”), the foremost constitutionalist answered virtually all concerns raised in the debate. For instance: “The only instance I can think of where the presence of the chief justice might be indispensable is when the President is on trial on impeachment. But I cannot see that coming any time soon.”

Like many other political journalists, I am a layman forced to wrestle with legal and constitutional implications on a regular basis. Father Bernas’ theses-style approach, therefore, is useful for cutting through the clutter. For instance, an Inquirer editorial a few days ago took a few paragraphs to assert that Rep. Matias Defensor’s seeming desperation contrasted with the Constitution’s “massive calm.” Father Bernas disposed of Defensor’s panic in two sentences: “The original period proposed for filling vacancies in the Supreme Court was 60 days; it was extended to 90 days without debate … Thus even the Constitution believes that the vacancy can wait 90 days.”

A dinner host

After studiously avoiding the Inquirer for several years, President Arroyo visited the newspaper again on February 2. As was her preference, and our custom, she brought dinner too. In the beginning, she was seated between Sandy P. Romualdez and Marixi R. Prieto, president and board chair respectively, but over the course of the 90-minute dinner Sandy gave up her seat for Letty J. Magsanoc, the editor in chief, and MRP (as she is known in the newspaper) insisted on offering her seat to Joey D. Nolasco, the managing editor. Hence, this shot.  Note the improvised nameplate for Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila, who sat to my left. He said he happened to be working overtime at the Palace, when the President saw him and asked him to join her for dinner at the Inquirer. (He didn’t seem put out, and indeed proved to be an engaging dinner companion.) To my right sat the formidable Medy Poblador, now accoutered with the rank of cabinet secretary. At the start, Sandy welcomed the President, and said she understood the terms of the discussion to be “no-holds-barred but off the record.” GMA immediately cut in, eyebrows raised: “I didn’t say no-holds-barred!” That night, we kept it light.