Yesterday Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte was in a barangay in the city’s third district. He officiated a “Kasalan ng Bayan” for couples who have been living together for quite some time already without the benefit of either Church or civil marriage rites.
The ceremony was expected as early as mid-morning and all the pairs and their respective godparents, all dressed up for the occasion, were already at the site of the mass wedding. Unfortunately for them, we were told, the mayor was as of 11:30, was not yet around.
It was quite a long wait. But of course it did not matter much. The “honeymoon” has long been done except that some – if not all – of the couples could have prepared some extra meals in their residence if only to give meaning to their official start of the married life.
Nonetheless, Mayor Baste may have his reasons for not arriving on time in that mass wedding ceremony. As mayor of a highly urbanized city with some 1.5 million constituents, he cannot prevent the people from coming to his office for whatever purpose. Therefore, the likelihood is that he might have some unexpected visitors that destroyed his scheduled activities yesterday.
On the same vein the couples hoping for an early finish of the marriage ceremony cannot also be faulted if they would feel they were given less importance by the mayor by letting them wait for so long.
Anyhow, they can always have their “revenge” if they felt so aggrieved. The mayor is running for vice mayor in next year’s mid-term election. They can look forward to that. But will they? We can remember that in past Kasalan ng Bayan the Mayor gifted the wedded couples with some cash and other items to supposedly start their union.
We were not informed of whether the mayor did the same generous act to yesterday’s mass wedding beneficiaries. But the possibility is, he did exactly just that. So, who would care about waiting for hours?
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The controversy generated by the statement of Vice President Sara on her somewhat conditional “grave threat” against President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Roimualdez, is getting more complicated with the President’s own reaction saying that he will not let it pass without the corresponding appropriate action.
There is no doubt that the move of the national Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) itself could have been part of the President’s response to such threat despite its being done with certain conditions.
And if only for the layman among the Filipinos, as well as some lawyers who could only care so less on the issue, here are some “briefers” from retired Regional Prosecutor and now Dean of the College of Law of the University of Mindanao (UM) lawyer Antonio B. Arellano on the controversial issue. This was posted by the Dean on Facebook. Therefore, we believe that he does not mind that we pick this up and further share with the public.
Here it is.
Re the VP Sara “Conditional Grave Threat”: The NBI is conducting the “case build-up” to determine if the VP’s act constitutes a criminal offense. If on the affirmative, the matter is indorsed to the NPS of the DOJ (Department of Justice) for the conduct of Preliminary Investigation. If “probable cause” or that the “evidence on hand sufficiently establish certainty of conviction”, the information is filed with the Court of appropriate jurisdiction for the trial on the merit.
Well, with this “briefer” who is the layman who cannot understand the processes with which the government is working on if only to make sure that what it is doing on the “conditional grave threat” is in accordance with existing laws.
Also, this will give the non-partisan among us – laymen, students of law, and even some legal practitioners – a better grasp of the action the government is currently doing relative to the bold, yet calculated utterance of the Vice President.
In other words, the Law dean’s thoughts on the Sara harangue is very educational that only the most bias for either the VP and the supposedly subjects of the threat, will refuse to understand.
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The group which is now the most prominent to be the opposition to the incumbent President, his wife, and his cousin Speaker of the House of Representatives is talking of so much corruption in government. It mentions the Maharlika Wealth Fund, the transfer of unspent PhilHealth funds back to the national treasury, the sale of the 25 tons of gold reserve for P125 billion, etc, etc.
Except for the transfer of the unspent fund of the Philippine Health Insurance firm which is part of the money allocated by the government annually as subsidy, all the others mentioned have not been subject of discourse in the mainstream media.
We haven’t heard also of any corruption in certain offices that was subject to investigation by the appropriate probe bodies, even by the Congress. All we have heard about to have been extensively investigated by the previous Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is the P47 billion Pharmally deal involving highly overpriced medical supplies during the pandemic days. How come such claim of big-time corruption suddenly pop out from nowhere? Even hardest to believe is the alleged sale of the 25 tons of gold reserve for the country.
Is not such gold reserve under the care of the Central Bank, an instrumentality that is like an independent entity within the government itself? Can the President just order the management of the Central Bank to dispose of such monetary guaranty?
Indeed, in Philippine politics, any political party or group can do either its best or worst if only to enhance its interest.
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