Symptom of judicial supremacism.

What transpired in yesterday’s hearing of the impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Renato Corona highlights the danger of judicial privilege, which the Supreme Court invoked in issuing a gag order on its members and employees last Valentine’s Day.

While not totally striking out Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s testimony on the alleged irregularities in the Corona-led Supreme Court’s issuance of the controversial temporary restraining order (TRO) involving Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s attempt to leave the country last November, which were revealed by Associate Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno in her separate opinion; Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile dismissed the Secretary’s comments as hearsay. For this reason, he admonished his colleagues not to regard the Secretary’s testimony regarding Justice Sereno’s revelations, although he allowed the said testimony to remain on record.

Clash of Values: Judicial Review vs Checks and Balance.

There’s an on-going debate among the legal commentariat in the Philippines on the question of whether the Supreme Court could exercise its power of judicial review over the impeachment proceedings in the Senate. The debate pits two important values that the country’s Constitution upholds: On one hand, the duty of the Judiciary to point out grave abuse of discretion on the part of any instrumentalities of government in order to protect citizens’ rights, and, on the other hand, the power of the Legislative to check the other two branches of government.

The Senate itself holds some sort of a middle ground: It says that the Supreme Court can exercise judicial review in interlocutory matters, but it has no jurisdiction on matters pertaining to trying and deciding an impeachment case, since the Senate has the sole constitutional authority on such matters. In my opinion, however, this middle ground opens a Pandora’s Box that could lead to either the dilution of the Congress’s exclusive impeachment powers or an outright constitutional crisis.

Hashimoto’s revolution.

The unfolding political tectonic shifts in Japan that I described in a previous post has become more interesting. Apparently, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s goals are no longer limited to regionalist devolution. It appears that what he really wants– and this is not really a surprise to observers who have been closely following the flamboyant mayor– is a new Japanese revolution, perhaps one as big as the Meiji Restoration itself.

Last week, Hashimoto’s political party, the Osaka Restoration Association (Osaka Isshin no Kai), promulgated a list of goals that it said it would pursue should it enter national politics. These goals include the removal of pension for rich retirees; the abolition of grants from Tokyo to local governments and its replacement with direct local government taxation; the abolition of the House of Councillors; and, as if these weren’t bold enough, the direct election of the Prime Minister. In short, Hashimoto’s clique is calling for a shift from a unitary, bi-cameral parliamentary configuration to a quasi-federal, unicameral quasi-presidential form of government.

Did the Senate fall for the Defense’s gambit?

In a significant vote, the Senate sitting as the Impeachment Court decided on Monday to uphold the Supreme Court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) against the subpoena on impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona’s dollar accounts. The vote came after the Defense counsels, in a dramatic press conference at the historic Club Filipino last Sunday, accused Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa of trying to bribe senator-judges on behalf of President Benigno S. Aquino III.

At first glance, the Defense’s accusation—which is based on the words of an anonymous source; therefore, hearsay—looked like a desperate, but largely impotent, act; one that, in the words of legal scholar and Huffington Post commentator Edzel Tupaz, “burned all the political capital the Defense had.” But it appears now that it could have actually been, in fact, a well-thought political gambit that paves the way to the shifting of the main arena from the Senate to the Supreme Court.

Regionalism provoking tectonic shifts in Japan.

Japan’s Agency for Reconstruction, a full-fledged cabinet ministry with three bureaus and six branches, has debuted yesterday in Tokyo to coordinate the government’s efforts to rehabilitate the country eleven months after the infamous Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear whammy. While everyone wishes the Agency well, it is clear that reconstructing the country requires not more bureaucracy but a sense of unity among the country’s leaders. Unfortunately, there’s no such unity; bickerings among the different political actors continue to plague the country’s leadership.

Of course, as a student of politics, I find these bickerings, and the political maneuverings that come with them, very interesting. Fascinating political developments have been unfolding in the country recently. Just as everybody thought that there couldn’t have been anything more dramatic than the ouster of the long-entrenched Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 2007, the resulting shadow battle between the reformists and the political establishment, and what everyone thought was a track towards a two-party system; more tectonic shifts are actually occurring: ones characterized by the rise of new political actors, the re-invigoration of previously marginalized political actors, and the corresponding reaction from the traditional political actors. And these shifts have been triggered not from Tokyo but from Osaka, Nagoya, and other regional centers.

The Supreme Court will lose in a constitutional crisis.

In an unprecedented move, impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona petitioned his own colleagues at the Supreme Court to stop his on-going impeachment trial at the Senate basically on grounds that the House of Representatives did not follow due process when it transmitted the impeachment complaint to the Senate.

Why the fact that Corona had already acknowledged the validity of the trial at the onset should not have estopped him from lodging this petition, only lawyers know.  But what’s probably clear to both lawyers and non-lawyers alike is that Corona’s petition appears to be a sign of either panic or desperation, or perhaps both.

Ma’s re-election and Taiwan’s future.

It’s almost a consensus among most observers that the re-election of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jou means continued cross-straits stability, as he would certainly follow up on his policy of forging greater economic integration with the Chinese Mainland. Some, however, think that, on the contrary, a second term for President Ma could in fact result to greater instability characterized by intense Chinese pressure on Taiwan to yield to a number of demands.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), an advocate for Taiwanese independence, had clearly wanted to reverse President Ma’s pro-China policy; although its standard-bearer, Tsai Ing-wen, framed her campaign on socio-economic issues that resonated well with the ordinary Taiwanese. For his part, President Ma argued that continued friendship with the Mainland is more conducive to development. Tsai called this view naive, saying closer integration with the People’s Republic is dangerous.

How Jews found refuge in the Philippines during the Holocaust.

A visiting friend from the University of Haifa was surprised to learn that there actually is a small Jewish community in the Philippines and that the country was in fact a haven for a considerable number of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. He’s been in the Philippines before but he has never heard of these facts, which I think represents the general lack of knowledge among both Jews, Israelis and Filipinos on the role played by the then Commonwealth of the Philippines and its President, Manuel L. Quezon, in saving the lives of around 1,200 souls during that dark period of history.

Thankfully, the Israeli government is aware. In fact, in 2009, it erected an impressive monument, called The Open Doors, honoring the Philippines and President Quezon at the 65-hectare Holocaust Memorial Park in Rishon Le Zion. I’m not really sure if the offsprings of the late Commonwealth leader has also been invited to plant a tree in Israel’s Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles, an honor generally reserved for “righteous men” who had saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust; if not, an invitation should be forthcoming as well. I’ve actually written about this interesting Philippine-Holocaust connection back in 2008, but for some reasons I could not locate the said article; so I guess I would have to write about the story again.

Victory for Anwar?

More like victory for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

The acquittal of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of his second sodomy charge may have been a legal victory for the opposition leader, but politically it was, to a considerable extent, a set-back. Indeed, the acquittal is another proof of the remarkable– and surprising– political acumen of Prime Minister Najib, who had previously been regarded more as a grey technocrat than a cunning politician.

Pope bypasses Filipino prelates.

The Vatican has released ten minutes ago the names of twenty-two prelates that would be made cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI in the consistory scheduled next month, and the two newly-appointed Filipino archbishops of cardinalate sees in the Philippines are conspicuously absent on the list.

Archbishop Jose Serofino Palma of Cebu, who was appointed in October 2010, has been bypassed for the second time. It was understandable that he was not made cardinal in last year’s consistory, since the Pope seemed to follow an unwritten rule which states that a new bishop of a cardinalate see should not be made cardinal until his predecessor has reached the age of eighty, perhaps in order to avoid according one diocese the unfair advantage of having two cardinal-electors. When Palma was appointed archbishop, his predecessor, Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, was still an eligible elector. But Cardinal Vidal would have turned eighty the week before next month’s consistory, which means that, this time around, Palma is already eligible. By not naming him as a prince of the Church, is the Pope demoting the Archdiocese of Cebu to a non-cardinalate see?