2001 Postscripts

December 2001

OSAMA SLIPS THRU CORDON: It seems that the report in an earlier Postscript is right that terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden has slipped through the tight American cordon. From his new hideout, widely presumed to be outside Afghanistan, he is shown on a new videotape still exhorting his forces to hit back at America. [ Read More ]

LET’S AT LEAST LISTEN: President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo tells the nation there are encouraging signs that next year would be better than the year about to end. The economist-president drew this optimistic scenario after careful study of the situation with her advisers. [ Read More ]

THIS being the season of grace, the time of year when we pause and ponder on the Child and King, I wrote this short story some Christmases ago to help carry the joyful message of Jesus’ birth and his coming to show us the way. [ Read More ]

JUST WHERE IS BIN LADEN?: Since not even the White House can tell exactly where Osama bin Laden is or if he is/was actually in those labyrinthine caves in the Tora Bora mountains, everybody is free to speculate what ever happened to the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the US. [ Read More ]

STAR President/CEO Miguel G. Belmonte surprised the assembled PhilStar family during our Christmas party the other night by announcing that starting next year, management will give a 16th month pay to all its workers. [ Read More ]

ERAP TO GO SCOT-FREE: You know why the Sandiganbayan trial of former President Erap Estrada for plunder and other crimes is going around in circles? Why the public never fully understands why the justice presiding over the trial fell into complications and was replaced? Why after a protracted trial Erap will, by all indications, be acquitted on a technicality? [ Read More ]

COCO SHARES UNTOUCHED: We understand that the 15-percent slice of San Miguel shares that Japanese beermaker Kirin has bought for $540 million did not come from contested government-sequestered stock but were unencumbered unissued shares. [ Read More ]

HOT TOPICS: Two items have become regular stuff in our mailbox: (1) Incoming email loaded with a virus, and (2) letters from overseas Filipinos sounding off on dual citizenship and absentee voting. [ Read More ]

RIGHT RESPONSE: It would be a gross error for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to appear before the Blue Ribbon committee of the Senate to refute unsubstantiated claims that she tried extorting controlling shares of a telecommunications firm seeking a congressional franchise. [ Read More ]

ABOVE ALASKA — We’re back to the old reliable ballpen and pad paper as we write this advancer some 11 kilometers above the frigid iceland of the so-called polar route. A laptop could disturb fellow passengers and the plane’s avionics. [ Read More ]

NEW YORK — But where is Osama bin Laden, the prime target of all that death and destruction in Afghanistan? They have killed almost everybody, including surrendered Talibans, but no corpse bearing the likeness of Osama has turned up despite the $25-million prize on his turbaned head. [ Read More ]

NEW YORK — Judging from the feedback we’ve been getting from Filipinos in America, it seems that our compatriots abroad must first get their act together before they hanker for a chance to vote in elections back home. [ Read More ]

NEW YORK — It is not generally known that the Philippines need not pay a cent to the United States to chip away at the $430 million it owes the US in concessional or easy loans. Imagine paying for part of those loans without actually paying for them! All the Philippine government has to do is to allocate funds for forest conservation. Under certain criteria, the peso value of such conservation measures is then considered payment for part of those loans from the US. [ Read More ]

November 2001

NEW YORK — We have not seen the end to the restrictive reactions to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America. One such area of restrictions is in the licensing of some 200 million drivers in this country. [ Read More ]

NEW YORK — Mindanao was obviously the focus of the substantive discussions between President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and President George W. Bush when she called at the White House during her one-week working visit to the United States. [ Read More ]

NEW YORK — The stink from an incipient deal involving the insurance of $6-billion assets of the National Power Corp. is wafted all the way across the Pacific to the Filipino community in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tristate area. [ Read More ]

WASHINGTON, DC.  – Coming home on Sunday with pasalubong worth more than $4 billion and tons of goodwill for the country after a seven-day working visit to the United States, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has reason to be “satisfied.” [ Read More ]

WASHINGTON, DC.  – After a week of trying to pry out figures on American commitments of military assistance, the press covering the visit here of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo succeeded Sunday night in putting a dollar tag on expectations from the White House. [ Read More ]

NEW YORK — If the high-powered sales team of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is to be believed, she could be bringing home after her week-long visit to the world’s capital exciting pledges of American investments and assistance. Emphasis is on “pledges.” [ Read More ]

ALCORDO RAPPED: If the temper of some National Power Corp. personnel and their startling revelations are any indication, Napocor president Jesus Alcordo may yet be the second administration official, next to Transportation Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez, to face plunder or similarly serious charges. [ Read More ]

UNPREVENTABLE CRIME: There are certain personal crimes that the police simply cannot prevent. One of these crimes is the recent murder of actress Nida Blanca. Blaming this on supposed police or government incompetence is a bit unfair. [ Read More ]

OPERATING IN THE DARK: What’s going on in the Sandiganbayan and the trial of former President Erap Estrada? [ Read More ]

SHOOTING IN THE DARK: The blackout that crippled most of Luzon the other day should jolt most of us into asking some questions as we grope in the dark. [ Read More ]

MANY people have the mistaken notion that dual citizenship for Filipinos is illegal, that it is not allowed by the Constitution. [ Read More ]

PRAYERFUL DAY:Today being All Saints Day, the accustomed day the living hold a slam-bang reunion with their departed loved ones, we share these choice prayers gathered by PPI’s Johnny Mercado. They may come in handy when we pause from our earthly preoccupations to offer prayer for our dead. You might want to clip them for reference. [ Read More ]

October 2001

MAKING HAY IN GLORIOUS SUN:  President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is out delivering speeches somewhere. Some of her boys, meanwhile, are busy making hay while the glorious sun shines on them. [ Read More ]

A LOSING BATTLE: It’s reassuring that once in a timely while, somebody like respected businessman Enrique Zobel speaks up on an urgent concern of the community. He did a few days ago on what he called the “losing battle for our environment.” [ Read More ]

ARE HIS HANDS CLEAN?: We’re disturbed by this item sent by Billy Esposo on alleged ties of President George W. Bush himself to the financial network of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden, the man whose accounts he had ordered frozen. [ Read More ]

REBUFF AT SUMMIT: Uncle Sam should not be surprised that the heads of government meeting at the summit in Shanghai did not formally endorse the military crusade launched by President George W. Bush against the forces of evil hiding in Afghanistan. [ Read More ]

VIRULENT STRAIN: There’s another kind of terrorism quietly raging in the bureaucracy. It is called “conthrax” and it’s deadly. [ Read More ]

SEND HER BACK TO TALIBAN: After we ran that longish caption showing the stark contrast between Miss America and Miss Afghanistan (Postscript 10/16), a number of readers sent this related piece entitled “A solution for Osama bin Laden”: [ Read More ]

WE’VE just received two pictures, one of Katie Harmon, Miss America, wearing the swimsuit she chose for the competition, and another of a typical Afghan lady wearing the heavy smothering burqua as required by the Taliban regime. [ Read More ]

QUICK WALKING TOUR: Manila Mayor Lito Atienza took some writers on a walking tour before the weekend to show why he has been excited about the facelift that he has been pursuing in Liwasang Bonifacio and vicinity. [ Read More ]

WE apologize to Manang Pacita and her family for our mistakenly referring to her in our column the other day as the “late” Sen. Pacita Madrigal Warns. Reader Pons Marquez, former general manager of Madrigal Shipping Co. (1972-1976), told us in an email that the former social welfare secretary under the late President Magsaysay is still very much around. We’re sorry for this grievous error. [ Read More ]

HIDING THE MESS: A gourmet friend once told us that any restaurant manager who bars customers from peeking into his kitchen is not to be trusted. He is most likely hiding some stinking mess inside. [ Read More ]

WE must share this email written by one Nazim-Amin, a crew of a Delta jetliner that was forced to land at the nearest airport right after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: [ Read More ]

MILKING COW: First Gentleman Mike Arroyo should not be surprised that he is being linked to a stinking scandal at the Sweepstakes, a favorite milking cow of whoever is in power. [ Read More ]

DILATORY ANTICS: Former President Erap Estrada did the right thing showing up at the start of the hearing of plunder charges against him before the Sandiganbayan. [ Read More ]

September 2001

ONE CONDITION: If our President formally declares that we will allow American forces to use Subic and Clark for the servicing of their warships and aircraft, we will go along with the idea — provided base facilities are not used as launching pads for direct attack missions anywhere. [ Read More ]

NPC-GSIS FEUD OVER?: Two different public biddings were originally scheduled today for the reinsuring of the multibillion-peso assets of the National Power Corp. — one to be conducted by its insurer the Government Service Insurance System and another by a presidential committee. [ Read More ]

PAPAL PRESENCE: That was a dramatic interjection of papal presence in the emerging theater of war in the Middle East. [ Read More ]

GOD was right there, in full control. Here’s testimony of where He was last Sept. 11 when hijacked jetliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Written by Dan Van Veen of the Assemblies of God News Service, this feature came out Sept. 18 in Religion Today. [ Read More ]

WHAT R.P. CAN DO: What role should the Philippines play in the emerging gang war in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region? [ Read More ]

LESSON FOR TODAY: Poor Pakistan had to agree to be the staging ground for an American invasion of Afghanistan, not to mention its leaders’ being used to convince the Taliban to surrender terrorist-suspect Osama bin Laden. [ Read More ]

BEFORE anything else, we want to refer back to our Postscript written Sept. 12 expressing disappointment that, according to us, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo did not express solidarity right away with the US government and the grieving American people. [ Read More ]

IT’S NOT ME: We’ve receive some email about Federico C. Pascual, erstwhile boss of the Government Service Insurance System, being ordered by the Commission on Audit to return some P11.4 million he had received upon his separation from the GSIS. [ Read More ]

MIKE’S MINIONS vs GLORIA’S GOFERS: Someone has to say this sooner or later, and it now happens to be our unpleasant task to volunteer the observation that the Achilles heel of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is beginning to look like her husband Mike Arroyo. [ Read More ]

IF he has any delicadeza, administrator Tony Abad of the National Food Authority should have quit after the public outburst of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo over the 1.2 million sacks of NFA rice she found almost rotting in a bodega in Batangas. [ Read More ]

THREE POINTS: Sen. Panfilo Lacson beat a tactical retreat in the Senate yesterday and refused to meet head-on the three-point challenge of AFP intelligence chief Col. Victor Corpus on accusations that the senator had laundered millions of dirty dollars abroad. [ Read More ]

INFORMATION OVERLOAD: We’ll admit being overwhelmed by the massive information being unloaded by witness Mary Ong alias Rosebud before a joint hearing of Senate committees looking into serious charges against Sen. Panfilo Lacson. [ Read More ]

SEN. Panfilo Lacson (PMA ’71) made a big gamble when he threw an “All right” question to Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes (PMA ’66) in last week’s televised Question Hour in the Senate. [ Read More ]

August 2001

THIS observer does not consider it meddling when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said that she was for the Senate pursuing its inquiry into charges that Sen. Panfilo Lacson had engaged in criminal activities, including drug trafficking and money-laundering. [ Read More ]

STEALTH & SILENCE: It was providential that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was away on a neighborly visit to Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore when AFP intelligence chief Col. Victor Corpus ignited a brushfire that scorched the underpants of Sen. Panfilo Lacson. [ Read More ]

BASED on our survey of Postscript readers, 9 out of every 10 respondents believe that many of the senators who grilled AFP intelligence chief Col. Victor Corpus and ex-police agent Ador Mawanay last Friday were themselves hiding something, possibly including substantial bank deposits abroad, that they fear might catch the eye of Corpus. [ Read More ]

LET’S change the subject for a while from blah-blah politics to something more substantial, namely business. Here’s a roundup of business notes from sources and disclosures. [ Read More ]

FACE to face with two witnesses retailing what sounded to them like fantastic tales, it should have been very easy for our senators to act senatorial last Friday during their joint committee hearings. [ Read More ]

WHY should a person who was invited to testify in a Senate inquiry be detained or “jailed” for not proving “charges” made in the course of his testimony? [ Read More ]

FOOT IN THE MOUTH: It was bound to happen. With Col. Victor Corpus, AFP intelligence service chief, talking endlessly every day about his favorite topic — Sen. Ping Lacson — he was bound to find his foot in the mouth. [ Read More ]

TONY WRITES “30”: WE join our colleagues in mourning the death of newsman Tony Zumel, 69, one of the key figures in the peace talks going on in the Netherlands between the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front. [ Read More ]

MANY of us parents are unaware (or unconcerned?) that our children may be taking a practical course on how to kill or get killed on the road when they become old enough to drive. [ Read More ]

THE money-laundering charges heaped on Sen. Ping Lacson need not drag on or be that complicated, because the terms of reference appear clear and simple enough. [ Read More ]

WITH the pile of evidence that the AFP intelligence service claims to have built up against Sen. Ping Lacson, why don’t they just file the charges in court and get it over with? [ Read More ]

FIRST Gentleman Mike Arroyo better heed his wife’s advice for him to shun interviews about the rumor that he had accepted a bribe to work out the recall of the veto of a telecommunications franchise. [ Read More ]

IT says here that Sen. Ping Lacson is threatening to sue Inquirer columnist Mon Tulfo and his paper for his series of articles exposing the “real” Lacson. [ Read More ]

July 2001

AS a non-lawyer, we’re bewildered by remarks in learned circles that the recall of a presidential veto is a legal impossibility and that, therefore, it was improbable for the husband of the President to have taken a bribe for the recall of a veto message. [ Read More ]

THE threatened investigation of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee into an alleged bribery for the recall of a presidential veto of a telecommunications franchise promises to be bloody. [ Read More ]

ONE reason why many people are convinced of the workability of the national recovery program presented by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in her State of the Nation Address is that the opposition is frantically trying to shoot it down. [ Read More ]

THAT was a rip-roaring State of the Nation Address with a dramatic twist at the end by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the opening yesterday of the 12thCongress. [ Read More ]

WE know that Trade Secretary Mar Roxas knows how to handle cartels and the like, but it won’t hurt if President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo nudges him about the rapacious overpricing of cement. [ Read More ]

THE phalanx of lawyers of The Estradas of Polk Street should get an award for its ingenious contributions to the enrichment of Philippine jurisprudence. [ Read More ]

THOSE are serious charges that columnist Mon Tulfo hurled in an open letter to his (former?) friend Sen. Ping Lacson. [ Read More ]

THE public should be roused to the crucial need for the televised coverage of the coming trial of former President Erap Estrada on a plunder charge before the Sandiganbayan. [ Read More ]

WE have this annoying feeling that in the end former President Erap Estrada would walk out of the Sandiganbayan clean and clear. [ Read More ]

ALMOST all the figures we’ve seen point to one alarming thing: The economy is down and the prospects of a short-term recovery are dim. Business has been very bad and people are having a hard time coping. [ Read More ]

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been roundly criticized for her allotting P10 billion for the “modernization” of the armed forces while apparently neglecting to similarly fund essential services. [ Read More ]

IF you watched the live TV coverage of the impeachment trial of then President Erap Estrada and read the news reports the next morning, you would have noticed the yawning chasm between what you witnessed on TV and what you read in the papers. [ Read More ]

IN our last Postscript, we started to say something about the limitations of the press in giving the public a complete and truthful account of public affairs. [ Read More ]

THE Supreme Court should not have handled as a simple “Yes-or-No” or a “Black-or-White” proposition the question of media coverage of the upcoming Sandiganbayan trial of former President Erap Estrada. [ Read More ]

June 2001

THANK God, there is a Supreme Court to stop the desecration of the party-list system provided in the Constitution to give marginalized and underrepresented sectors a voice in the legislature. [ Read More ]

As a former President who, we presume, still loves his country, Erap Estrada should make a strong public appeal to his supporters to stay calm and collected during and after his arraignment tomorrow before the Sandiganbayan. [ Read More ]

WE just received from the Internet a purported letter to the Filipino people from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. [ Read More ]

DON’T spend time worrying about the fate of the peace talks in Oslo between the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front. The talks will resume soon. [ Read More ]

IF a kidnap victim is in mortal danger and his family or associates can afford it, and if the government can’t help him anyway, the government should not fulminate if ransom is then paid to gain his freedom. [ Read More ]

WE’RE excited about the opening of the next Congress with three party-list representatives of Bayan Muna taking their place among 200-plus congressmen. [ Read More ]

THE traditional Independence Day parade at the Luneta last Tuesday was supposed to give us an inspiring insight of what we were, what we are and what we will (or want to) be in our lifetime. [ Read More ]

WE’RE celebrating today, June 12, our supposed independence. [ Read More ]

WE don’t know if we’re getting any nearer to the missing multibillion-peso trust fund for the modernization of the armed forces, but we’re getting some interesting leads. [ Read More ]

Former first lady Loi Ejercito need not lament her husband’s absence from her proclamation as senator-elect the other day. She did not need him there. [ Read More ]

BY this time, water service should be “back to normal” in wide areas of Metro Manila that had to endure a dry weekend while new water lines were connected.”Back to normal” means back to dry taps for most of the day or water dripping into waiting pails for brief periods during the night. Every day, every night.We are, if we may remind everybody, not in the Sahara but in the heart of the nation’s capital often drenched by rain and visited by flash floods. [ Read More ]

AS we write this, we got word that one of the Abu Sayyaf key commanders was killed and some of the terrorists’ hostages were rescued after the kidnappers clashed with pursuing government forces. [ Read More ]

May 2001

IN fast-tracking the power industry restructuring bill for immediate approval, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said she won’t sign it into law if it does not assure low electricity rates.But there is no real assurance for low prices in this country, Madam President, even when the assurance is etched in a legal document.The well-connected water companies that bought the Nawasa under a contract assuring low water rates are now asking for the provision on rates and foreign currency adjustments to be amended – and are likely to get it. [ Read More ]

THE stage is set for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to show how differently she would handle the kidnapping of some 20 persons, three of them Americans, from a Palawan resort at dawn the other day. [ Read More ]

WHAT’S happening to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo? She told the nation on her inaugural that she was not aiming to be a great president, but just a good president. And everything else was supposed to fall into place. [ Read More ]

FORMER President Erap Estrada looked pathetic in those front-page pictures showing him virtually begging President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for better treatment, including his being placed on house arrest. [ Read More ]

WITH broadcaster Noli de Castro pulling away from the pack and nearing the 10-million-vote mark reminiscent of the phenomenal poll performance of Erap Estrada in 1998, will it be Kabayan Noli for President in 2010? [ Read More ]

THE biggest Election Day story, which strangely has remained unreported in its entirety, is the operation in our midst of private armies whose mission obviously goes beyond the May 14 elections. [ Read More ]

THE confusion that marred the election in many places yesterday was the result of utter mismanagement by the Commission on Elections. [ Read More ]

IT’S easier to transport a ballot box than to transport the entourage of former President Erap Estrada and his son Jinggoy between Santa Rosa, Laguna, and San Juan City. [ Read More ]

RAIN has been falling the past few days. That’s good. While helping lower the temperature and give the grimy metropolis a much-needed shower, it loosens up the layers of election posters all over town. [ Read More ]

SORRY, I’m coming in a little late, but please allow me a brief comment on the “State of Rebellion” question. [ Read More ]

DON’T panic. We are not sitting on the edge of civil war, as claimed by some excitable political seers overwhelmed by events swirling around Edsa and Mendiola. [ Read More ]

April 2001

WHAT we had warned against as early as last January is now happening. [ Read More ]

IT was a messy overkill at Greenhills yesterday, but we were at least able to show the world that we are also capable of arresting and detaining a former president. [ Read More ]

FORMER internal revenue cashier Dominga Manalili, who is facing a plunder charge, has been denied bail and detained for the past three years at the cramped Quezon City jail. She is accused of taking P190 million in public funds. [ Read More ]

WHY should Justice Secretary Hernando Perez, an official from the Executive branch, be announcing the impending issuance of arrest warrants for Erap Estrada by the Sandiganbayan? [ Read More ]

ERAP Estrada will never be executed by lethal injection, as some of his fans fear and many of his foes pray. [ Read More ]

WE’VE been searching for the likely reason why out of 75 million Filipinos, a convicted priest-killer who had escaped from jail twice was received royally by the President of the Republic and had the picture of their shaking hands splashed on the front pages. [ Read More ]

HOLY Week is not something that drops from the sky totally unexpected. We know well in advance the exact week next year, or even next century, where Semana Santa would fall. [ Read More ]

HOW long will the people put up with the dilatory antics of ex-President Erap Estrada and his lawyers? [ Read More ]

PERSONAL message to presidential daughter Luli Arroyo: Please ask your Mom if she gets anything from jueteng. This was one of the big issues that brought down the Estrada administration. It might just as quickly taint and topple your Mom. [ Read More ]

IT’S probably just a coincidence, but the number of the lone plunder case filed so far with the Sandiganbayan against ex-President Estrada adds up to a “Double 13.” [ Read More ]

THE best way we know to overcome fear is to confront it. The Arroyo administration can do just that now. In fact, it has no choice but to. [ Read More ]

NOW they are telling us that public relations man Bubby Dacer was strangled and his body burned. [ Read More ]

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal Arroyo cannot deliver in her remaining three years a lasting and just solution to the parallel problems posed by the communist insurgency and the Muslim secessionist movement. [ Read More ]

March 2001

GRANTING that government negotiators are dying to bask in Scandinavian spring weather and granting we have the money for junkets, maybe we can let them talk to the National Democratic Front panel in Oslo or thereabouts just to start the peace ball rolling. [ Read More ]

THE Supreme Court has spoken. By a close vote of 8-6, it ruled out yesterday another special registration of voters in view of the failure of Congress to relax the law forbidding registration within 120 days of the May 14 elections. [ Read More ]

WHY should the youth and other disenfranchised voters suffer for the management failure of the Commission on Elections? [ Read More ]

WE should immediately stop tagging our panels negotiating with the National Democratic Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front as the “GRP” or the Government of the Republic of the Philippines. [ Read More ]

WE’RE marching backwards, to the drum of lobbyists and influence peddlers, in the big business of generating and distributing electricity in this country. [ Read More ]

THE Supreme Court should just rule posthaste on the voters’ registration issue on the basis of the law alone. The basic question is: Does the law allow registration within 120 days before the May 14 elections? [ Read More ]

THE board of the National Press Club must level with its members and tell us, if not also the public and the Commission on Elections, the secret financier behind the Club’s bid to be accredited for a nationwide quick-count project. [ Read More ]

THE law itself is the serious obstacle to the registration at this late date of around 4 million youths who have failed to sign up. The election law prohibits registration within 120 days of an election, and it is only 63 days before the May 14 polls. [ Read More ]

THE signing of affidavits by former SSS and GSIS top guns saying that ex-President Estrada ordered them to buy massive shares in Belle Corp., a favored gaming firm, should not be the end of prosecutors’ interest in the raiding of pension funds. [ Read More ]

SOME people can’t understand why million-dollar lawyer Rene Saguisag is being denounced as derisively as his client Erap Estrada. Do lawyers share in the guilt of their clients? [ Read More ]

IT is significant that fallen President Estrada fell from a campaign stage in Cagayan de Oro just as the Supreme Court was promulgating last Friday its decision affirming that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is the legitimate President and that Mr. Estrada does not enjoy immunity from suit. [ Read More ]

MUCH has been made of the absence of the word “resign” in the farewell statement of ex-President Estrada when he packed up and abandoned Malacañang, the seat of power, on Jan. 20, 2001. [ Read More ]

February 2001

THIS soldier falls in line behind our Publisher Max Soliven when he thunders: [ Read More ]

WE’RE disturbed by the divisive and counter-productive debate over two legal points that EDSA II should have rendered moot but apparently failed to: (1) whether Joseph Ejercito Estrada is still president, and (2) whether he enjoys presidential immunity from suit. [ Read More ]

FORMER congressman Dante Tinga sent us a note yesterday denying he is the choice of the oil companies for the vacant Cabinet post of Energy Secretary. We’ll use it on Tuesday, but we quote for today one key paragraph: [ Read More ]

ALERT!: There’s a sinister move to appoint former congressman Dante Tinga secretary of energy, the Cabinet post held by Mario Tiaoqui who is best remembered for his kid-glove treatment of the giant oil companies. [ Read More ]

IF we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like this: [ Read More ]

PUWERSA ng Masa? It’s more of “Perwisyo ng Masa,” reader Joe dela Cruz of mail.com says of the senatorial ticket put together by deposed President Estrada from, among others, the reelectionist senators among the Dirty 11 of impeachment trial notoriety. [ Read More ]

ONLY 3.7 percent of readers who responded to the Postscript survey last Sunday took the word of deposed President Joseph Ejercito Estrada that he wanted to go abroad for treatment of his glaucoma. [ Read More ]

WHY does Erap Estrada want to go abroad? What’s the real reason? Toward the middle of today’s Postscript, we have another survey of readers’ opinion. Please check it out and rush a response. [ Read More ]

THE lawyers will have a field day before the Supreme Court arguing, pro or con, the finer legal points raised in connection with the short-lived presidency of Joseph Ejercito Estrada and the filing of criminal charges against him. [ Read More ]

IT is most urgent that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appoints a Vice President immediately. [ Read More ]

WITH Ombudsman Aniano Desierto properly served notice that he cannot play footsie with favored officials facing charges, it is a foregone conclusion that plunder and other criminal charges against deposed President Estrada will be filed with the Sandiganbayan. [ Read More ]

OUR mailbox has been clogged with responses, with more pouring in, expressing vehement opposition to a proposal to exile deposed President Estrada. Majority of respondents want him to personally face charges, preferably while locked up in jail. [ Read More ]

January 2001

WHAT do our readers think of exile as an option for deposed President Estrada? We’re inviting our readers to tell us in this new Postscript survey. [ Read More ]

DON’T blame Orly Mercado for resigning as defense secretary after finding himself having to work beside presidential adviser Gen. Lisandro Abadia in the national security team of President Arroyo. [ Read More ]

IF the legal loose ends of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s hurried ascension to the presidency were left flapping in the wind, the misimpression that she was installed by People Power and not by a constitutional process of succession could be carried over as historical fact. [ Read More ]

LIKE a pesky fly, Joseph Ejercito Estrada refuses to leave. Better cover the ointment! [ Read More ]

IT’S over, or so it seems.

It’s curious, but we now actually have two presidents. President Estrada has not resigned. He just left the presidential palace under duress.  [ Read More ]

PRESIDENT Estrada may not realize it, but by his tampering with the Senate and causing the indefinite suspension of the impeachment trial, he has lost a valuable, manageable forum for arguing his innocence. [ Read More ]

FORMER Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu had reasons to leave for the United States right after he testified in the impeachment trial. There were strong indications that the vicious drug lords wanted to silence him before he talked some more. [ Read More ]

WE vehemently denounce the reported alternative plan to use sprawling Clark Field near where we live in Mabalacat, Pampanga, as dumpsite for the tons of stinking garbage piling up in Metro Manila. [ Read More ]

ANYBODY with average intelligence who has been religiously following the impeachment trial cannot help noticing the ill-disguised conspiracy to stop revelations that may damn President Estrada. [ Read More ]

WHY can’t President Estrada resign? asked one of our readers. And he provided the answer. (Read it at the tailend of today’s column.) [ Read More ]

AFTER 16 days of the impeachment trial, what’s the score? Our scorecard at this point has “impending mistrial” scrawled across it, for a reason we will give later in this piece. [ Read More ]

DEFENSE lawyer Estelito Mendoza still has to explain away the involvement of his office in the reported manufacturing of substitute bank documents showing Jaime Dichavez’s name in place of Jose Velarde’s and thereby remove the smoking gun from the signing left hand of President Estrada. [ Read More ]

LEST we forget, let’s post again the message we printed right here right after the spate of bombings last Saturday: [ Read More ]

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