At no other time is the line between law and politics more blurred than when Congress holds impeachment proceedings. Charges called “articles of impeachment” are filed. Congressmen don the role of prosecutors, and senators constitute themselves as a jury. They conduct a trial where evidence is presented and evaluated, and witnesses are summoned and questioned. … Read more

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo appointed so many unfit and corrupt people to public office during her presidency that, by this measure alone, she should have been impeached several times over. For, apart from treason, nothing perhaps can be more injurious to the State than to have people like them run the government. Yet, her political allies in … Read more

COUNTDOWN to the first minute of the New Year was a game that my children loved to play when they were younger. The TV would be set to one channel where a digital clock shows the time. The whole family would gather in front of the television, in its conferred role as god of time, … Read more

(Last Dec. 12, I spoke at the lecture series organized by the University of the Philippines in Los Baños to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Dr. Jose Rizal.  This is an abridged version of the lecture I gave.) JOSE RIZAL, our national hero, is sometimes referred to as the “first Filipino.”  Though his life … Read more

“Come and say hello to your grandson,” my daughter Jika beckoned to me the other day.  She was caressing her distended belly now fully occupied by the six-month-old fetus growing snugly inside her. My wife put her hand on the spot where it moved beneath the skin, and asked me to feel it. “Xavier, this … Read more

Disasters in search of causes, victims in search of villains, and benevolence in search of recognition. They are all part of the aftermath each time a natural catastrophe of mind-boggling proportions hits our country. It is when we are brought back to existential issues: the inexplicability of human suffering, the chaos of nature, the fragility … Read more

Some quarters have depicted the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona as an attack on the judiciary, a co-equal and autonomous branch of government. It is difficult to see how this is so. In the first place, a chief justice is not the entire judiciary, just as a president is not the entire executive branch. … Read more

That photo showing President Aquino  meeting with his allies in the House of Representatives just after a majority of its members signed the impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Renato Corona might at first glance give the impression of a conspiracy hatched by two branches of government against one.  Clearly, there was coordination between the two, … Read more

In his famous essay, “The Philippines a century hence,” Jose Rizal alluded to a practice during the colonial period that somehow mitigated the injustices of colonial rule. This institution was called the “juicio de residencia” or judgment of residence. It required Spanish public officials to render a full account of their performance in office at … Read more

In a political system like ours where governmental power is exercised by three co-equal and autonomous branches, disagreements are to be expected. That is how the system works.  Each branch of government functions as a check on the others. But the manner in which this check is to be carried out varies from one branch … Read more