"The merry month of May"

The just-concluded May 13, 2019, electoral exercise reminds me of the phrase, “the merry month of May.” Indeed, our legal system fixes the triennial national and local elections on the “second Monday of May.” For many Filipinos, this is the real Mayfest. (Read more)

From: https://palawan-news.com/magsaysay-is-my-guy/

“Magsaysay is my Guy”

The annual September 21 commemoration of the beginning of Martial Law always reminds me of the end of the Marcos regime.  To make a pun of it, I was caught on the wrong side of EDSA on February 22, 1986—my father being then a Deputy Minister—and the People Power Revolution left my father jobless and our family in a severe economic crisis.  But what I remember most of those four days following the Enrile-Ramos dig-in at Camp Aguinaldo was the almost non-stop playing of Mambo Magsaysay over June Keithley’s Radyo Bandido.  While its logical connection with those days’ events escapes me, I actually enjoyed the song which, I learned afterwards, was composed by the brilliant Raul Manglapus.  It might also have been Manglapus who came up with the catchy tag-line, “Magsaysay is My Guy”, for the 1953 Presidential election; and Mambo Magsaysay is still, certainly, the classic, gold-standard for campaign jingles, that made The Guy win.  The lyrics of the song go:

“(Stanza 1:) Everywhere that you would look/ Was a bandit or a crook/ Peace and order was a joke/ Till Magsaysay pumasok/ (Ref.:) That is why, that is why/ You will hear the people cry/ Our democracy will die/ Kung wala si Magsaysay/ Mambo, mambo, Magsaysay, mabu-, mabu-, mabuhay/ Our democracy will die/ Kung wala si Magsaysay/(Stanza 2:) Birds, they voted in Lanao/ At pati aswang pa daw/ Ang eleksyon lutong Macaw/ Till Magsaysay showed them how”...

Last August 31 was the 111^th birth anniversary of President Ramon Magsaysay who, like my father, Badong—and for that matter, the late DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo—died in a plane crash while in office.  I think all three were “men of the masses” who gave their lives in the service of others.  But the Magsaysay connection does not end there.   

One of the interesting personalities I have come to know in recent years is Mr. Cesar P. Magsaysay, a nephew of President Ramon Magsaysay, being the son of the Presidential brother, Jesus.  “Tito Cesar”, as I would like to call him, or CPM, is also the brother of Vicente, a former Governor of Zambales and personal friend of my father.  Governor Vic is the father of Angelica Magsaysay-Cheng, the incumbent Vice-Governor of Zambales; and father-in-law of former Zambales Representative Mitos Habana-Magsaysay, with whom I coincided in the 15^th Congress.  Some years ago, CPM decided to settle in the southern town of Jose Rizal, Palawan, where he is literally breaking ground as a gentleman-farmer, bringing along, and sharing with the community, the technological and managerial savvy that made him a successful businessman. 

Of course, this piece cannot be only about personalities.  As my phenomenologist-philosopher friends would have it, one should strive to end his ruminations with a “transcendental reflection”.  But there is actually something truly transcendental in the Magsaysay legacy:  it is to him that we owe what, perhaps, to many, would be the best definition of “social justice”:  “He who has less in life should have more in law” (Magsaysay Credo).

Our 1935, 1973, and 1987 Constitutions all mandate the promotion of Social Justice, but without giving any definition.  Of course Social Justice is now generally understood to be a more secular restatement of the “preferential option for the poor” of Catholic Social Doctrine; which, in turn, comes from our Lord’s discourse on the “works of mercy” as criteria for the Last Judgment: “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” ( Mt 25:40).  As Father Bernas, echoing President Magsaysay, would put it, “social justice in the Constitution is principally the embodiment of the principle that those who have less in life should have more in law.  It commands a legal bias in favor of those who are underprivileged.^” (Joaquin G. Bernas, S.J., The 1987 Constitution, 1996 ed., p. 1059)

My generation of law students caught the tail-end of a trend which required freshmen to recite from memory a long-winded definition from the 1940 Supreme Court decision in Calalang v. Williams (70 Phil. 734).  In that controversy, the petitioner questioned the validity of a regulation banning animal-drawn carriages (calesas) from certain streets in Manila.  Among others, the issue of its being contrary to the Social Justice provision of the 1935 Constitution was raised. 

Upholding the validity of the regulation, the Court said:  “Social justice is ‘neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy,’ but the Humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the State so that justice in its rational and objectively secular conception may at least be approximated. Social justice means the promotion of the welfare of all the people, the adoption by the Government of measures calculated to insure economic stability of all the component elements of society, through the maintenance of a proper economic and social equilibrium in the interrelations of the members of the community, constitutionally, through the adoption of measures legally justifiable, or extra-constitutionally, through the exercise of powers underlying the existence of all governments on the time-honored principle of salus populi est suprema lex.”

Thanks to President Ramon Magsaysay, today’s law students no longer have to suffer indigestion from the Calalang definition of Social Justice.  (24.IX.2018)

Government of laws (and men) 

 The ouster of Chief Justice Sereno by way of a Quo Warranto proceeding, the revocation of the grant of amnesty to Senator Trillanes and its elevation to the Supreme Court—these and other current or recent controversies call to mind the idea that “great cases make bad law,” a phrase made famous by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. This is what the father of the School of Legal Realism wrote in his dissenting opinion in Northern Securities Co. vs. United States (1904): Read more...

Of heroes and saints

Someone once pointed out to me a parallel between our national heroes, on one side, and our Catholic Saints, on the other: both categories of human persons are remembered and honored for certain admirable deeds or traits (“virtues”). Indeed, “hero” comes from the Latin (and Greek), heros, which means, “demigod”; while “saint” comes from the Latin, sanctus, which means, “holy”, “sacred”, i.e., of or belonging to God. Obviously, however, the two classes—national heroes and saints of religion—are not identical; they are merely analogous: our heroes are such in a temporal and secular (worldly) context, while saints pertain to an eternal or definitive and tanscendental order. (Read more...)

A city founded by a Saint

Perhaps not all of the good people of Puerto Princesa City are appreciative, or even aware, that a true and most honorable distinction of the town is that of having been founded by a Saint: One of the signatories to the acta or deed/document of March 4, 1872, establishing the pueblo, was the chaplain of the expedition sent for that purpose, Fray Ezequiel Moreno, O.A.R. (Read more...)

From:

https://palawan-news.com/norms/

Norms

This year, 2018, is my eighth in the business of (supposed) lawmaking; and working with or among legislators brings one to occasional philosophizing on “law”. Of course, by “philosophy”, we mean “the knowledge of things according to their ultimate causes”. I like to translate this last phrase as pagmumuni-muni sa puno at dulo ng mga bagay-bagay, which I think I owe to Father Roque J. Ferriols, S.J., my favorite philosophy professor in college (he will be celebrating his 94th birthday this coming August 16, and I include his well-being in my prayers). Thinking of Fr. Ferriols also reminds me that July 31 is the feastday of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam!

Going back to “law”, I am intrigued by the word “norm” as a substitute, along with “rule” or “ordinance”. “Norm” is not often used as a noun, but in its familiar adjectival form, “normal”, we recognize the reference to a “standard” or rule of behavior.

Nowadays, when I hear or see the word in the context of law, what immediately comes to mind is the phrase, “peremptory norm of international law”, the concept of jus cogens (Latin for “compelling law”). And, surely, it is not difficult to appreciate its definition in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969): “a peremptory norm of general international law is…a norm from which no derogation is permitted” (Art. 53; italics mine). Of course, legal theory also acknowledges the existence of “hortatory norms” which, in contrast with peremptory norms, merely “exhort”.

At the risk of oversimplifying (which I trust my co-workers in the Sangguniang Panlalawigan and friends in the legal profession will forgive), I think much of local legislation would have to do with the operations of the local government rather than the conduct of private citizens (which latter are already covered by numerous national laws). Thus, the most important pieces of local legislation are the annual budget ordinance (and its modifications, if any, in the course of the fiscal year); and the authorization of non-routinary, specific acts or transactions of the local government, e.g., borrowing money, creating a new office or position, purchasing land, etc. These are also norms in the sense that they allow or permit acts thatwould not otherwise be allowed or permitted, and establish the conditions for their exercise or performance.

In the also rule-bound process of passing these ordinances (or “resolutions”, in the case of measures creating hortatory norms), there is assurance that the people’s elected representatives have deliberated on the wisdom of the action and its foreseeable consequences, to serve the best interest of the public. Salus populi est suprema lex (Cicero).

Still, a more precise formulation of the ultimate causes of “law” is that of St. Thomas Aquinas: Law (human, civil law; as distinguished from Divine law, etc.) is “an ordinance of reason for the common good promulgated by the political authority”.  The definition breaks down neatly into the Four “ultimate causes” of being-as-being (ens qua ens; being-in-existence) identified by classical philosophy.

Regarding “law”: 1) The Matter or “material cause” (what gives a thing the potency or capacity to become what it is) is the ordinance or rule itself; 2) The Form or “formal cause” (what gives a thing the “act” of being what it is) is the reasonableness (of the ordinance); 3) The “Efficient Cause” (what directly gives rise to the existence of the thing) is the promulgation done by the political authority; and 4) The End or “final cause” (the ultimate purpose for which it exists) is the “common good”.

Indeed, laws have to be reasonable. Ordinances that are not reasonable do not qualify, strictly speaking, as “law”. In the extreme, citizens have no moral obligation to obey unreasonable rules and may even have the duty to resist and work to abolish them. Indeed, unreasonable laws may be declared void by the courts for contravening the constitutional guarantee of “due process”: “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law” (Sec. 1, Art. III, 1987 Constitution). “Due process” is understood to have a “substantive”, not just “procedural”, aspect. This substantive aspect is precisely “reasonableness” (as opposed to the quality of being unjust, oppressive, whimsical, arbitrary, etc.).

Furthermore, laws can only emanate from the “political authority”—the competent and “duly constituted authorities”—and should have been promulgated or made known in a manner whereby the ordinary citizen affected could reasonably be expected to know of it, such as to justify the precept, “ignorance of the law excuses no one.”

Most important, of course, law must serve the “common good”, which is “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 26). As far as I know, this is the most accurate and comprehensive (and authoritative) definition of the common good; and it happens to come to us from the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. (30.VII.2018)

From: http://palawan-news.com/fifty-years-ago/

Fifty Years Ago

My mother, Elsa, passed into eternity on May 28, 1968, two or three weeks after her last PAL-flight home from Manila, which happened to be the very same flight that carried the “pilgrim image” of Our Lady of Fatima to visit Pala
wan. May is the month especially dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary (observed by making pilgrimages and floral offerings to Marian shrines) and I am convinced that the Mother of God—who is also our Mother, since baptized Christians are “members” of Christ—was very much with my mom in her last days of suffering (from a long-drawn battle with cancer), and there to welcome her home at the moment of death. Of course, I continue to pray for the eternal happiness of all our beloved dead, and ask the pious reader to do so, too. The love involved in remembering will never be a waste.

1968 was also my father‟s first year in office as Governor of Palawan, having been elected in the November 1967 elections. I also started my formal schooling in 1968, as a Grade One pupil in the class of Mrs. Irene Cadiz at Puerto Princesa Pilot Elementary School. Going beyond the personal, 1968 was also the year of the “Tet Offensive” that, arguably, tipped the balance of the Vietnam War in favor of the North Vietnamese (and Viet Cong guerrillas) against the South and its ally, the United States. 1968 also saw the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 4), and Robert F. Kennedy (June 5). But even more important—because of its implications for everyone‟s eternal happiness—1968 is the year of the issuance of the Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life) by Pope Paul VI.

Humanae Vitae made it clear—for the first time, offficially and from the highest authority of the Church on earth—that “contraceptive sex” is immoral. Here are some excerpts from the Encyclical:

“11. The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is... „noble and worthy.‟ It does not, moreover, cease to be legitimate even when, for reasons independent of their will, it is foreseen to be infertile...The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.

“12. This particular doctrine...is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS FROM OUT OF THE CAVE v.d.m. socrates

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and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.” (Italics mine)

The Encyclical goes on to proscribe as immoral “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means” (HV, No 14).

Obviously, there is much more in the Encyclical, which anticipates and actually responds to possible objections. I therefore recommend downloading Humanae Vitae—Google search will immediately produce the official Vatican link—and reading it thoughtfully. Whether or not one agrees with the teaching, it would be a good exercise in truth-seeking; and of course, could spell the difference for someone‟s eternal destiny.

Humanae Vitae was issued by Pope Paul VI on July 25, 1968, Feast of St. James the Apostle (James “the Greater”, the brother of John). James and John are the sons of Zebedee whom our Lord nicknamed Boanerges (“sons of thunder”), perhaps for impetuously wanting to rain down fire on a Samaritan town that refused to welcome our Lord. These two are also famous for wanting to sit closest to our Lord in His Kingdom, and for daring to say, Possumus!, “We can!”, to the conditions set by our Lord. I imagine that Pope Paul VI felt he was being somewhat impetuous (in a good, if uneasy, sense)—and audacious—in giving the world Humanae Vitae.

Our so-called RH Law (RA 10345) is, sadly, a direct repudiation of the doctrine of Humanae Vitae. Congress may never go back, but the debate will continue in the consciences of many; and Humanae Vitae will remain the best resource for a clear understanding of the immorality of contraceptive sex. Nor is it too late for the RH Law supporters to be converted.

Pope Paul VI died in 1978 and was beatified in 2014. His canonization is expected sometime later this year. He was the first Pope ever to visit the Philippines—where an attempt was made on his life! While in Manila, he ordained a number of priests, including two from Palawan: Fathers Jesus De los Reyes (now a Monsignor), and Jose Garduce (now deceased). At the same Mass at the Luneta, two kids from Palawan were among those privileged to receive Holy Communion from the Pope: one was Mon-Mon, son of then Congressman Monching Mitra; and the other was my younger sibling, Nancy. But that was already in 1970, the beginning of a more tumultuous decade for our country. Today, my heart goes back to 1968. (16.VII.2018)