Archive - Commentary

What are the remedies available under international law for the injury suffered by other states as a result of China’s alleged mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic?

On December 30 last year, Dr. Ai Fen, Director of medical emergency at Wuhan Central hospital in Hubei province, received the lab results of a patient with flu-like symptoms that had proved to be resistant to prescribed treatment.

The COVID-19 global pandemic declared by the World Health Organization has become what it is ---- overwhelming and staggering in number of growing cases and deaths worldwide.

I said a prayer of thanks when I finally got out of Philippine Air Lines flight 1782 from Puerto Princesa Saturday. Up to noontime Friday, I was not sure if I could get a seat as airlines cancelled several flights after President Duterte ordered a lockdown of Metro Manila Thursday night in connection with the rampaging novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

Anytime now, we expect the Senate as a body to question before the Supreme Court the unilateral termination by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte of our obligations under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States of America.

There’s no let-up in the avalanche of fake, false, and misleading posts in social media rivalling in viciousness to the mysterious COVID-19.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III has told reporters that the Senate will be asking the Supreme Court Monday to rule on whether the president can unilaterally abrogate a treaty without the concurrence of the Senate that ratified the pact.

The President’s oft-repeated claim that ABS-CBN swindled him of the money he paid for his political ads that was not aired was effectively debunked by the network’s President and CEO Carlo Katigbak during the Senate hearing last Friday

Commissioner Rowena Guanzon of the Commission on Elections posted Sunday on Facebook a summary of Solicitor General Jose Calida’s petition for Quo Warranto against leading broadcast company, ABS-CBN, which she said was “prepared by my legal staff under my supervision.”

A week after he filed a quo warranto petition before the Supreme Court to shut down broadcast giant ABS-CBN for alleged violations of its franchise which is due to expire on March 20, Solicitor General yesterday asked the High Court to issue a gag order to the media outfit.

Late last year, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told a group of human rights advocates from the Philippines in The Hague for a conference: “I am going to Manila next year.”

While the world and the Filipino people were preoccupied with the rampaging COVID-19 that has infected more than 43,000 and killed over a thousand people since its discovery a month ago, the Duterte government unleashed a virus so virulent, it threatens democracy in this country.