LAWYERING A CROOK
Before Ferdinand Marcos, law firms have been here attending to the myriad legal or otherwise mundane needs of their clients. There was a difference then however. Law firms of yore worked within the parameters of morality first, and the legality second. The bottom line then was not the fat bill attendant to the problem, but...
WHY THEY STEAL
The eight commandment does not mean anything to a Pinoy public servant. More often, it is just a reminder by the jolly pastor. Public funds have no ownership. Government position is one big picnic. One hears that a government salary is an anchor against the time’s uncertainties. Going private means one has reached a dead...
DRIBBLE
Delay becomes our culture. Time, we have plenty of it. Our perception of time is a concept, not an exact measurement of an otherwise ephemeral given. Time for us is, right, ephemeral: something ghostlike, passing, and ethereal. We fix our mornings from sunrise to noon; and the afternoon from noon to sundown. A stick of...
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BENCH BIDDER
It was a quite day in the office. With only his secretary pounding on her keyboard when the landline rang. He thought it was one of those clients penny-pinching on his e-load.The guy on the other line was a former undersecretary of a government agency and having got wind of his application in the Judicial...
QUEZON POLITICAL KINGPIN?
In a matter of 14 months, the next elections loom large. For the first time in our provincial political history, a father and son put their political fate on the chopping block. They are now testing their theory that at last the people of Quezon are not a thinking lot. The days of dynasties have...
A LABOR CASE UNDER PHILIPPINE SETTING: HYPOCRISY OF AN NGO
SUPREME COURT MANILA EIGHTH DIVISION PHILIPPINE RURAL RECONSTRUCTION MOVEMENT (PRRM), Petitioner, - versus – SC-G.R. SP NO.: 169227 (CA-GR. CV-No. 62036) VIRGILIO E. PULGAR, Respondent. x————————————–x COMMENTS RESPONDENT, by counsel, most respectfully submits this Comments to the petition and opposes the same on the following overriding grounds : A. Petitioner raises new defense/matters worse, questions...
Beto-Beto
My mother always thought that I’d grow up as a big time gambling lord. I went home late evenings with bulging pockets full of tansans, teks, kaha ng yosi, and rubber bands. At the age of eight she caught me tossing bingkong coins under the house of her favorite neighbor, Aling Maring. I got the...
FVR: BUSINESS BEST BEST
This country could no longer afford a stranded economy. Five more years or we crumble from the sheer weight of poverty or we implode from the misdirected infightings of the subsidized institutions. The various power centres are simply running amuck. Listening from Nene Pimentel’s acid rants one could hear the self righteousness of thousand others...
THE RAMOS ALTERNATIVE
How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese? Charles De Gaulle, in “Les Mots du General”, 1962 French general & politician (1890 – 1970) Whether we like it or not, FVR is a tempting alternative. The Cory years, 1986-1992, gave us a glimpse of the sterner stuff of Ramos. Of course...
LOKOHAN NA!
What the opposition and the administration are doing right now is nothing but plain gang war. In this type of conflict, there are no ground rules. The row is no-holds-barred and the protagonists are locked in mortal combat. First, there were those bogus cards that circulated prior to Christmas in 2001 with a cryptic message....
MAY ASIM PA
Literally translated in English it means “sourness retained” or “sour still”. The language switch however does not do justice to its real meaning. Sourness is synonymous with dourness. It conjures up an idea of acidity and therefore repulsive. Its free translation should be “sweetness retained” or “sweet still” and captures its sense in greater part....
PANTALAN
The island of Alabat has three towns, two are on the opposite ends and the third is in the middle. The elongated island is about 33 kms. long and 5 kms. wide. Its nearest point to the mainland is the poblacion of Quezon, which is about 700 meters off Roma Point, part of Guitis, Quezon....