Juan Miguel Zubiri, senator of the land, is done with his work as judge in the impeachment trial of Sara Duterte. Even before the trial has begun, he has already rendered a verdict. And his verdict is acquittal. He has violated his oath of office.
Our association of the Duterte house in Doña Luisa subdivision is far from rosy. The self-confessed Davao Death Squad assassin, Arturo Lascañas, said it was in that house that the assassination of Leila de Lima, then the chair of the Human Rights Commission was planned by then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte while cooking sausages.
In the event the three judges of pre-trial Chamber 1 will reject the interim release, the Dutertes have only themselves to blame. It is a very sick family of bullies and persecutors. They know no other game but power for themselves. At our expense. That is why unlike the people of Davao city, we see no end in the need to hold them accountable.
In 2015, GMA News reported that Sigfrid Fortun’s acceptance fee is P20 million per case. If that is true, we can already envisage the bottomless pit of money that the Dutertes have. Remember that for the ICC case of Rodrigo Duterte, the family is not being impoverished by Nicolas Kaufman’s legal fees of P2,590,960 per month (Eu40,000). They have asked the International Criminal Court to help them cover the legal fees of the Kaufman team’s five lawyers.
Integrity is not one of Chiz’s talents. We can make him know there is a price to it.
Go’s transfer to Lupon, Davao Oriental is seen as his break from the Duterte children and their heirs, now numbering five in political power. With Go’s higher ambitions, his chances of having the city as his baluarte are dim. It will always be in the hands of the Duterte children, who see him as belonging to the opposing Honeylet Avanceña side of the broken family.
The Sara kiss of death was especially seen in the city of Manila and in Batangas. She deliberately made negative campaigning for the congressmen who were potential prosecutors in her forthcoming impeachment trial in the senate. These congressmen were among the most vocal in the House Quadcomm hearings. Representative Joel Chua (Manila, 3rd district) headed the House committee on good governance that conducted seven hearings on Sara’s red-flagged use of confidential funds.
As a pope of the contemporary world, one issue he will address will be migration, a preferential apostolate of the Catholic Church. Migrants migrate to escape conditions of poverty, religious and political persecution, and wars. Migration is never a crime. What will his papacy do to embrace the humanity of migrants and refugees? As a son of migrants and of Afro-Creole culture, Leo XIV is a groundbreaking pope.
Cardinal Tagle’s former teacher: Tagle is not a risk-taker. He prefers to stay in the safety of his residence, dishing out platitudes rather than engaging in shaping the political discourse of the nation. He strives to be a friend of everybody and longs for their approval in return.
Filipinos should pray and hope for a cardinal not because he is Filipino but because he can best lead the Catholic Church in the direction it is discerned to go…One who can guide the church on faith and morals, and can successfully meld the spiritual and political role of the pope who is also the head of a sovereign state.
