IN A press conference very recently Vice President Sara Duterte announced that she is contemplating hiring private security guards to secure her if the military pulls out her current security personnel.
According to the Vice President at this point in time she trusts no one except herself. Her announcement came on the heels of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner’s announcement that the VP’s entire 433 security group may have to be relieved because of that incident at Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) where the Policeman doctor who was heading the medical team transferring lawyer Zueleika Lopez, the VP’s Chief of Staff, was moved from the House Detention Center for health reasons.
The head of Sara’s security group was caught on camera pushing the PNP doctor. The pushing resulted in the filing of a case against the VP’s security head. And General Brawner deemed it wise to relieve the entire unit while the hearing is still in progress.
However, according to the VP, she is not going to accept any replacement unit, and she’d rather hire private security personnel from service providers.
Of course, the bigger issue in the current controversy is the statement of the VP that she trusts no one from the government-provided security officers. On the other hand, coming from VP Sara herself she said that the military has a constitutional duty to protect the country’s number one and number 2 officials.
So, it is provided in the Constitution? Will her loss of trust in all who will be assigned to protect her be enough grounds to hire the services of private security officers? Won’t the Vice President also be violating the constitution when she has to reject the government-assigned security personnel? And will the government agree to her proposition simply by “surrendering a Constitutional mandate?”
Maybe it is also unfair for the VP to lose the trust in every member of the armed services group assigned to secure her just because she had a major political squabble with the Commander-in-Chief. They are simply doing their duty. And they surely know where the legal boundary is. We know for certain that our soldiers will just act “with blind obedience.”
To quote the late Davaoeño senator Landring Almendras, Sr., “Let us to see.” (Tan-awon nato).
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So the Vice President is not accepting the financial offer of her father to foot the bills for lawyers who will defend her in the impeachment cases once these are consolidated and forwarded to the Senate by the House of Representatives?
Yes, she said she now has several lawyers assigned to handle the various offenses charged against her in the impeachment cases. The VP claimed she started preparing with her lawyers when ACT-Teachers Partylist congresswoman France Castro started pitching in Congress her desire to have the VP impeached.
Frankly, we have no idea how much would it cost the Vice President to have herself defended in her impeachment case by legal luminaries who she could trust to get herself exonerated. As it is known impeachment is a political case and the Senators who will be sitting as judges are politicians known to have their biases and party alignment.
Will the lawyers of the VP be able to convince the senator-judges to act with fairness based on their defense arguments so the VP’s side will be appreciated with all that it’s worth?
It is our take, however, that there is not much for VP Sara to worry about. Considering the remaining number of session days between now and the last session day, the House of Representatives and the Senate may not anymore have substantial time to deal with the impeachment case.
Of course, it would be a totally different story if both Houses would railroad the proceedings upon instigation by whoever.
Nonetheless, VP Sara is not taking it sitting down. As she said she has already a team of lawyers to defend her. It is therefore clear that the VP is not likely to be caught flat-footed.
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We congratulate the Davao City Council Committee on Information and Technology headed by youthful Councilor Bonz Andre Militar for pushing for the approval of an Ordinance digitalizing the local civil registry (LCR). The local law mandates the creation of the Civil Registration Information System Online.
It means the public can transact business with the LCR even without going to the office of the agency. In the process, the Ordinance will possibly hasten transactions as well as possibly stop any opportunity for corruption.
Personally we believe that it is an ordinance like this that will earn the public’s sincere appreciation because clearly it has a very positive impact on the delivery of the services of a government office to the people.
We can only hope that there will be no major bars in the implementation process of the ordinance. Otherwise, it will go to naught.
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