President Cory’s Press Statement on the Council of State Meeting

CORAZON C. AQUINO
25 Times St., Quezon City
 

I regret that I cannot attend the Council of State meeting on January 24 for reasons of principle. By that action, I do not mean to be disrespectful of the Council nor to renege on one of my duties as a former president. Nevertheless, I apologize to the Filipino people, particularly those whose sense of propriety I might be offending.

While I value the Council of State highly as an institution, I believe that it can only function effectively as a top-level advisory body in an atmosphere of trust. And there lies the problem. At the heart of the crisis besetting the current administration is the fundamental issue of trust.

The very legitimacy of the President’s mandate remains under a cloud of doubt despite the administration’s self-serving statements to the contrary. Rather than resolve the issue in a transparent and forthright manner, the President has opted to muddle it further by insisting that any allusion to the legitimacy issue is part of a grand conspiracy to unseat her.

This is most unfortunate. This posture does nothing to restore the people’s trust in the presidency and in the government. Worse, my presence in the meeting may create more confusion as to where I really stand with regard to my July 8, 2005 statement seeking her voluntary resignation. The absence of trust on both sides gives me great discomfort to even contemplate participation in the forthcoming meeting of the Council of State.

I believe that I would be serving the interests of the Filipino people better at this time by sustaining my efforts to help strengthen our fragile democracy.

Over the short term, this entails working to restore confidence in democratic governance by advocating constitutional avenues out of the present political crisis. To this day, I maintain that the least painful path for the nation is for the President to make the supreme sacrifice of relinquishing her office.   Short of that, I believe our nation would be due for protracted political turmoil.

           Over the long term, my dream is to create an empowered citizenry as the foundation upon which our democracy can endure and flourish. Toward this end, I have reached out to various sectors to undertake major initiatives to improve the lives of the poor, who stand to suffer the most from the persistent crisis. By systematically lifting millions of Filipinos from poverty, we can help them regain their human dignity and make better choices as part of mainstream society.

Let me also ask the Filipino people to join me in praying for our nation at this critical time. For it is my belief that the most pressing problem impinging on the national interest is neither political nor economic in nature. It is a moral issue that cannot be resolved by structural or legal interventions and by government programs endorsed by the Council of State. It can only be addressed by the President herself.

C U L8R

There are days you just want to hide from the world. Call in sick. Turn off the ringer.  Vibra-mode the cell and keep it locked in drawer.  Curl up in bed in a fetal position. Watch mindless TV and veg.

Hide. Hide. Hide.

At this stage, the reasoning goes: if you ignore your demons long enough, they’ll give up on you. 

Now, think of doing this for years.  How?  Read this.

Fil-Am Lawyer Takes Over the Wonkette

A Manhattan-based Fil-Am lawyer recently took over the Wonkette, one of the top blogs on the planet (#24 on Technorati, a Mortal Human (and #27) on the truth laid bear). Read about it here , here, and here. David Lat, whose parents immigrated to the US in the 70’s, is a former US attorney and a graduate of Yale Law School.  His dad, a Park Avenue plastic surgeon, was in the news here last year trying desperately to seek the release of some medical equipment which he donated from the US and was stuck in Customs for 5-1/2 months.

Anyway, David Lat gained fame late last year when he revealed that he was Underneath Their Robe’s Article III Groupie.  Here’s a New Yorker story about it.  It’s a great blog — a “Hollywood Insider” for the US judiciary.  UTR even has “correspondents” sending in judicial SIGHT-ations — close encounters with those-who-are-robed.

One piece of trivia that’s not been reported was that this guy once worked for arguably the most successful law firm in the world, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Krantz (topping the list at The Vault). Despite having less than 200 lawyers in a single office in New York, it is by far the most profitable law partnership - earning an estiimated $3.5 million in profits per partner.  From what I’ve heard, they offer the highest salary of any firm in NYC (in vicinity of $150K/year) with an annual bonus equal to 100% of the base pay (at least for the last couple of years).  Apparently, Mr. Lat turned all of this down for a job with the US Attorney’s Office in Newark.  Go figure.
But all that’s in the wilted past because now it’s turning up roses for this guy.

San Beda Law Faculty Up In Arms

Isagani Cruz writes about a problem at San Beda Law.  Upon the Dean’s recommendation, two students were allowed to re-enroll in violation of a retention policy that called for their dismissal.  The faculty is obviously upset and one has already resigned in protest with the Dean blithely accepting the resignation without any comment.  From what I know, this kind of “discretion” used to be wielded by the UP Law Dean but that hasn’t happened, to my knowledge, in the past 15 years or so.  And rightly so — law school deans are not supposed to bend the rules in any way that compromises academic standards.  They are there to maintain the quality of graduates expected from the institution.  Fiddle with that and after some time, the school’s cachet is lost.  A school is only as good as its alumni. 
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Which Desperate Housewife Are You?

Take the Quiz!

Benkler’s Book

Mark my words. Professor Yochai Benkler’s upcoming book, The Wealth of Networks, will become a classic.  A professor at Yale Law School, I’ve had a chance to hear him speak at the iLaw programs organized by the Berkman Center.  His economic analysis of open source development and wireless networks is insightful and I think, gives us clues as to how we can use networks like the Internet to harness economic value in new and counterintuitive ways.  I can’t wait to get a copy.

Blogger to Blog-novelist

Apparently, Dean Alfar (Notes from the Peanut Gallery)  isn’t the only one who’s made the jump from blogger-to-novelist.

Playboy without the Play

Just ask any guy and he’ll tell you that one of the most oft-repeated white lies is: “I read Playboy for the articles.”  I must say that I have read Playboy articles (from my brothers’ collection) and they’re very good.  One that stands out from memory is a short story — a “missing” chapter from Catch-22 — written by Joseph Heller which featured Yossarian up to no good, as usual.  I was telling my brother the other day that he has a copy of the last stapled issue, with the first Madonna nudes, taken back when she was a starving student in New York City.  The cover proclaimed “It’s a Keeper!” but noone among us took heed and as with all stapled magazines back then, the cover was the first to go.  

Anyway, I just learned that if an Indian national tells you he reads Playboy only for the articles, he’s not lying at all.

Roaming Through the Net’s Dark Side

The New York Times reports on minors operating web-cam pron sites for money.   I wonder if minors in this country are similarly exploited.  Last year, on-line sex ventures were subject to criminal prosecution (despite the fact they used no minors and in my opinion, were not committing any crime).  But when it involves children, it’s indefensible. 

For me, the NYT article raises vexing questions about being a parent in the Internet age.  We’re supposed to respect the closed doors and give our kids space to grow and mature — or at least get over their adolescent angst before they engage in habitual self-desctruction as a lifestyle.  But when they’re being exploited in the very home that’s supposed to shelter them from the depravities of the outside world, one can’t help but question the wisdom of embracing the Net (as I have) and encouraging our children to do the same.  The Net brings everything closer — the good and the bad — and I hope we can filter some things out.  But in the end, we can only go as far as teaching our kids to know the difference between right and wrong.  The tragedy is after that, it’s their choice.

Blazing Fast Wi-Fi

I’m happy to find out that Wi-Fi connectivity has reached Ethernet speeds. What’s surprising is that the new routers cost only twice as much as G-routers.  P10K for 100MBPs?  Bring it on.