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Month: March 2008

What if you win the lotto jackpot?

Update: The lotto jackpot has been won by someone from Luzon. Not me nor any of those interviewed here. But it was worth dreaming, even for a brief moment.

As I was writing this piece, the P228 million jackpot prize for 6/49 SuperLotto, the biggest in Philippine lotto history, was still up for grabs.

I asked friends what they would do with the money if they won. Their answers revealed their secret dreams. It’s fun and touching.

Palace sets new bar to attending probes

Invokes SC on lack of Congress rules

by Jocelyn Montemayor

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita yesterday said Cabinet members would invoke the Supreme Court ruling requiring the publication of rules of procedures before appearing in any of the congressional inquiries particularly in the Senate.

Ermita, in a press briefing at the Aplaya Resort in Calatagan in Batangas, said the Supreme Court, voting 10-5, last Friday ruled that Section 21 of Article VI of the Constitution requires the publication of the ground rules or rules of procedures that would be observed in the conduct of inquiries.

Sharp increase in rice prices spark anxieties across Asia

From GMA News Online:

by Associated Press

Philippine activists warn about possible riots. Aid agencies across Asia worry how they will feed the hungry. Governments dig deeper every day to fund subsidies.

A sharp rise in the price of rice is hitting consumer pocketbooks and raising fears of public turmoil in the many parts of Asia where rice is a staple.

No executive privilege to hide crime

This part of Associate Justice Antonio Carpio’s dissenting opinion is the whole point of the issue whether Romulo Neri’s invocation of executive privilege upholds or hampers the search for truth and rule of law:

“Executive privilege must be exercised by the President in pursuance of official powers and functions. Executive privilege cannot be invoked to hide a crime because the President is neither empowered nor tasked to conceal a crime. On the contrary, the President has the constitutional duty to enforce criminal laws and cause the prosecution of crimes.

UNCLOS’ regime of islands

In the beginning, the bills delineating the country’s archipelagic baselines, filed in the House of Representatives by Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco and in the Senate by detained Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV were the same.

Both bills included the Scarborough Shoal in the vicinity of Zambales as part of the baseline and the Kalayaan Island Group in the Spratlys as “regime of islands.” While Cuenco’s bill has evolved into something else and has passed second reading, Trillanes’ bill has remained unacted on.

It’s 9 vs 6: SC favors Neri’s plea vs ZTE probe

The true color of the Supreme Court now

by Evangeline de Vera

Voting 9-6, the Supreme Court
yesterday ruled that acting Higher Education chair Romulo Neri correctly invoked executive privilege in refusing to answer three questions asked by the Senate in connection with its inquiry into the allegedly corrupt $329 million national broadband network project awarded to the China’s ZTE Corp.

The tribunal thus granted the petition of Neri that the Senate be stopped from compelling him to testify on what he said were confidential matters, saying doing so would be detrimental to the country’s diplomatic relations with China.