I DON’T know if President Duterte realizes it, but most of the controversies hounding his administrations are self-inflicted.
We hear the President ranting about and cursing those who criticize his war on illegal drugs and the killings that accompany them.
It seems that our President just likes to talk a lot. His audience likes listening to him and clamors for more. Does he not know about the adage “less talk, less mistakes”?
Now comes his recent threat to two news organizations, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and ABS-CBN.
In an expletive-laden speech, Mr. Duterte slammed the two media outfits and humiliated journalists who are critical of him. He said he would reveal details of their personal lives including those of their children, using the publicly funded television statement, PTV-4.
“The media are getting too far,” he says.
The President sends a chilling message.
Santa Banana, I have been a journalist for more than six decades and I have heard presidents talk. Indeed some chief executives have had their quarrels with the media. But it is only now that a president has expressed the intention to use public resources to intimidate journalists.
The President must understand the role of media. We are in a democracy, and there must be assent and dissent. Without these, there can only be tyranny.
On many occasions, too, the President has attacked those critical of his approach to fighting illegal drugs. To the European Union, he said “I’ll hang you.” Of course this could be hyperbole, but it is still a threat.
And then he vowed to pardon and even promote those cops involved in the killing of Albuera, Leyte mayor Rolando Espinosa. Does it not look like the President is trivializing and making a mockery of the criminal justice system?
He is a lawyer and a former prosecutor. The case against those who killed Espinosa may be resolved long after his term.
Mr. Duterte must weigh his words when he speaks. He may be forgetting that anything a president utters in public is policy.
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No less than the Speaker of the House of Representatives flaunts the fact that he has a mistress. When he dares some groups to have him disbarred, he shows he could go so low and displayed his arrogance.
He slurs women by displaying machismo. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines and the Supreme Court may just really disbar him because the Code of Professional Conduct of Lawyers is clear about what lawyers can and cannot do. Just recently, the Supreme Court disbarred a female judge in Pasay City for sexual harassment and refusal to take on duty. And this is not as grave as flaunting a mistress.
Alvarez’s mistress has in fact been seen in a photo taken inside a plane. It is logical to assume that since they were with other members of Congress, that trip was funded by public money.
Alvarez should be disbarred and ousted as Speaker.
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Finally, it appears that a Korean who has made a mockery of our justice system for over 21 years now may soon be deported.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II ordered last March 7 the arrest and deportation of the subject.
Thanks also to the determined effort of lawyer Alex A. Tan of the A. Tan Zoleta and Associates Law Firm that filed a deportation complaint in 2014 against South Korean national Kang Tae Sik.
During the Feb. 23 Senate hearing of the killing of another Korean, businessman Jee Ick Joo, Aguirre cited the possible involvement of a purported Korean mafia in the killing, and named Kang as somebody who “should be deported already.” He said Kang had been “trifling with the Philippine judicial system, especially the Bureau of Immigration.”
Aguirre also wondered why a Korean consul vouches for Kang as a reputable businessman with no derogatory record with the embassy. He said that what the consul told him was the complete opposite of the information given to him by a high-ranking official.
For the record, Kang was convicted by a Manila Regional Trial Court in January 1996 on two counts of violation of Batas Pambansa 22, or the Anti-Bouncing Check Law. Kang had issued two checks in 1993 with a total amount of half a million peso in payment of a personal loan extended to him by a certain Peter Sun. Both checks proved worthless when presented to the bank.
The court sentenced Kang to a total of one year and eight months in jail for two offenses. He was also ordered to pay the lawyer’s fees, the litigation costs and the value of the checks, plus 12 percent interest per annum from the date of conviction until full payment. Since the offense involved moral turpitude, the conviction made him subject to deportation under our laws.
But, Santa Banana, Kang successfully evaded jail for 21 years. Neither did he pay the money to Peter Sun nor shoulder the cost of the trial. And until last year, he also foiled several attempts by the Bureau of Immigration to deport him. He was able to do this by employing and manipulating all the processes available to him under our legal system, hiring a smart lawyer, who used various means of dilatory tactics to his advantage.
Would you believe that Kang and his lawyer filed a total of 14 different petitions, motions, pleadings and appeals?
These were filed before the Regional Trial Court, the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, the Bureau of Immigration, the Department of Justice and up to Office of the President. In fact, several of these were filed even after his conviction became final and executory, having been affirmed by the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.
As his latest feat, Kang managed last year to convince former Justice Secretary Alfredo Caguioa, now Supreme Court associate justice, to reverse three earlier decisions of the entire Board of Commissioners of the BID that ordered his deportation. On Jan. 15 last year, Caguioa revoked the Warrant of Deportation against Kang and ordered his immediate release from detention—without bail.
Lawyer Alex Tan filed a Motion for Reconsideration contesting Caguioa’s decision.
Fortunately, Secretary Aguirre has put his foot down on Kang’s legal antics.