BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
10/15-16/2011
There is that proverbial saying among lawyers who cannot “think outside the box” that when the Supreme Court comes out with a wrong decision that becomes a law. The problem however is when lower courts render a wrong decision, the aggrieved litigant can appeal the case until it reaches the High Tribunal. If the magistrates are not in a good mood, the poor judge may even end up losing his job and his retirement benefits. For that we are all enjoined to abide by that shoddy decision because it is necessary for the preservation of an orderly society.
Incidentally, the case of the Flight Attendants and Stewardess Association of PAL vs. Philippine Airlines has been pending for more than 13 long years now. Interestingly, in October 2008, a Division in the Court of Appeals decided a case which should have been decided by another Division. For that, Justice Vicente Roxas lost his job, Justice Jose Sabio suspended for two months without pay, Presiding Justice Conrado Vasquez severely reprimanded, and Justice Myrna Dimaranan admonished. We are not saying the justices of the Second Division of the Supreme Court are guilty, but the question people ask is - what if it turns out they rendered a right decision but is reversed? Would it not create uproar?
Such is asked because the present case pierces directly into the jugular vein of the High Court’s integrity, not to say of its failure to discipline its own ranks. The public cannot go on swallowing that nonsense; that if it commits a mistake it becomes a law, while those mortals in the lower court are severely punished for committing the same mistake of “ignorance of the law.” As said, it is not much about the validity or invalidity of the September 7, 2011 Resolution, but of the fact that the House Rules, with a threat of punishing a lawyer, was violated no less by those men in black robes.
The ridiculous reasoning made by Chief Justice Renato Corona, that before one should start saying something against the institution he should first study the case, is debauched of logic. Everybody knows that it is for the justices to explain why they violated their own rule. There is in that statement the usual braggadocio that they know what they are doing; and it is for the people to digest their erroneous inanities. As one lawyer puts it, between that Resolution and the rights of the members of FASAP, it needs no elaboration that substantive and vested rights have already accrued to the members, and their rights cannot now be set aside by such flimsy technicality that it should have been decided by the Third Division.
The lawyer pointed out that there is nothing in the original decision up to the denial of the second motion for reconsideration stating or even hinting that petitioners won their case against PAL on the basis of technicality. Rather, they won on the merit of what is due them, which on a number of cases has ruled that technicality should not be allowed to supersede the substantive rights of the accused and what the law provides. Hence, it now becomes highly questionable for the Supreme Court to reverse itself without impugning its own integrity. In fact, its only way out from the mess is to go after those who took it to themselves to arbitrarily recall the second motion for reconsideration on the basis of an informal third motion for reconsideration. The lawyer is most adamant because the second motion stated that it was with finality, with a stern warning it will no longer entertain any further pleading or motion.
Alas, to get away with it, PAL’s chief counsel Estelito Mendoza crafted another of his legal hubris by writing instead a “letter” to the Supreme Court. Maybe he anticipated that should he be questioned, he would have his escape latch by claiming he merely sent a “letter,” which is an informal inquiry on the case the High Court just litigated, but which the court ridiculously failed to censure for being violative of the Rules of Court. The lawyer explained, the Resolution dated October 4, 2011 is invalid as it is repugnant to the Constitution for it failed to state the facts and the law why the Resolution dated September 7, 2011 had to be recalled. Under Section 14, Article VIII of the Constitution, it states that, “no decision shall be rendered by any court without expressing therein clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based.”
Senator Santiago, who is an authority on the Rules of Court, pointed out that even if a second motion is occasionally allowed, such is given due course only under “exceptionally meritorious cases.” The petitioner must first, with leave of court, file a motion with the court pleading that it be allowed to file a second motion for reconsideration. Only when the petition to file a second motion for reconsideration is granted can it proceed to file the formal second motion for reconsideration. Even that, what was actually filed with the court was a third motion for reconsideration which now betrays the court’s confused line of thinking. Their decision to recall the second motion for reconsideration was a resolution based on that “letter” that in their language is nothing but a scrap of paper. Had the lawyer of PAL been an ordinary practicing lawyer, he could have promptly merited contempt, disbarment or both from those dour-faced justices who have lost their way on what to do.
With that questionable attempt to stretch the life of an otherwise concluded case, the Supreme Court committed an act of self-immolation. It was those magistrates who ignited the fire now consuming them. This is clear because those rules are principally intended to put to an end to their Jurassic complaint that somehow there has to be an end to a case. Just like the hypocritical government we have, it was the justices who vandalized their own rules, and in so doing they only added fuel to an already raging inferno. Punishing those who are now pointing out just how they have become ridiculous could only hasten their isolation that it might even galvanize a movement for their impeachment for their insolent subservience to those big corporations.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
OWS: The time has come
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/14/2011
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests in the US which started just two weeks ago in the “Big Apple” but already pummeled repeatedly by the New York Police Department with aggressive dispersals, including the arrest of some 800 protesters in one day, have now spread to 847 cities across that country. Protesters see themselves as part of the 99 percent ( i.e. the oppressed majority) versus the 1 percent on top that controls their nation’s wealth by continuously exploiting the system. Their movement calls on the rest of the 99 percent to gather at Wall Street and occupy it, until their government is forced to oust the bankers and investment sharks who have long controlled their country, and to return power to the people.
Despite efforts of US mainstream media to downplay (if not, totally ignore) these protests, such as reporting that only a few cities or a handful of participants have joined, these demonstrations have now spread to 847 cities and are still growing. The movement today even represents the greatest potential for a new American Revolution, much like an “American Autumn” in the vein of the so-called “Arab Spring.”
Autumn, by the way, is also called fall; and some have taken to calling the OWS phenomenon “America’s Fall” — the biggest mass mobilization since the anti-Vietnam War era. It has, in fact, gotten Wall Street “banksters” (banker-gangsters) scared. They have branded the movement as nothing but a “mob.”
Much to their consternation, though, a lot of noteworthy figures — or icons — of anti-capitalist and anti-Federal Reserve movements have already graced the OWS rallies, demonstrations, and “tent cities.”
Oscar winner and film producer of establishment myth-busting works, such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Affair, director Michael Moore, who appeared and spoke at OWS, was earlier heard over radio describing it “literally (as) an uprising of people who have had it… (and it) will continue to spread… (to) tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people… (with a) majority of Americans… really upset at Wall Street... So you have already got an army of Americans who are just waiting for somebody to do something, and something has started.”
Consumer advocate and former presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, said of the OWS: “The frustration seen in the protests on Wall Street over the past few weeks demonstrates a widespread and growing citizen discontent with the two political parties in Washington DC and with a political system that is dominated by corporate interests. It is time for citizens to push their elected officials to break the corporate stranglehold on our economy.”
Major labor unions are joining the OWS, too, from the Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transport Workers Union, to the United Federation of Teachers, whose president Michael Mulgrew said, “The way our society is now headed it does not work for 99 percent of people; so when Occupy Wall Street started… they kept to it and they’ve been able to create a national conversation that we think should have been going on for years…”
Another prominent voice that bolstered the OWS protests came from former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. One report (“Dennis Kucinich Tells Occupy Wall Street to Nationalize the Federal Reserve”) quoted the Ohio Democrat as saying, “We need a government of the people and for the people. We need a financial system that is of the people and for the people. It is time we take our nation back and take our monetary system back from the big banks… put the Federal Reserve under the Treasury… end the practice of fractional reserve banking and… take control of our monetary policy and make sure it works for the people. We can use our constitutional authority to coin money and spend it into circulation to put millions of Americans back to work in a way that is non-inflationary. The time for bold change is now.”
The Federal Reserve, or what many mistakenly take as the US central bank, is in fact a private bank controlled by private bankers hiding behind the term, “federal.” The Fed, as it is also called, is where these banksters manipulate the dollar for a handful of US oligarchs.
As one of the main targets of the OWS is to “End the Fed” and restore the power of the state over money, as in the time of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson, something very similar must be done here too. And I’m speaking of none other than restoring the Philippines’ 1972 constitutional provision on the Central Bank — removing the word “independent” added on to the 1987 Constitution in order to restore the people’s control over our Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
That has been one of the themes I have pounded on in this two-decade column writing of mine. But, I go further: We must declare money as a public utility; and major decisions such as incurring more borrowings should periodically undergo a people’s referendum.
Actually, the abuse and exploitation of the people by the global finance capitalists (as distinguished from real capitalist-entrepreneurs) is far worse here than in the US. It is therefore time for the Philippines’ own “Winter Storm” (or a “2nd First Quarter Storm” next year).
As I close this column, PressTV has just reported that the Occupy Wall Street protests have already spread to 1,000 US cities. I am thus hoping for a spillover to the Philippines very soon, starting with an “Occupy Malacañang Freedom Park” in the coming weeks against the Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act) and its extortionist 15.8-percent power rate pricing scheme, as well as the price gouging on water, the VAT (value added tax) on toll fees and pretty much everything else.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “Occupy Wall Street: Lesson for RP”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/14/2011
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests in the US which started just two weeks ago in the “Big Apple” but already pummeled repeatedly by the New York Police Department with aggressive dispersals, including the arrest of some 800 protesters in one day, have now spread to 847 cities across that country. Protesters see themselves as part of the 99 percent ( i.e. the oppressed majority) versus the 1 percent on top that controls their nation’s wealth by continuously exploiting the system. Their movement calls on the rest of the 99 percent to gather at Wall Street and occupy it, until their government is forced to oust the bankers and investment sharks who have long controlled their country, and to return power to the people.
Despite efforts of US mainstream media to downplay (if not, totally ignore) these protests, such as reporting that only a few cities or a handful of participants have joined, these demonstrations have now spread to 847 cities and are still growing. The movement today even represents the greatest potential for a new American Revolution, much like an “American Autumn” in the vein of the so-called “Arab Spring.”
Autumn, by the way, is also called fall; and some have taken to calling the OWS phenomenon “America’s Fall” — the biggest mass mobilization since the anti-Vietnam War era. It has, in fact, gotten Wall Street “banksters” (banker-gangsters) scared. They have branded the movement as nothing but a “mob.”
Much to their consternation, though, a lot of noteworthy figures — or icons — of anti-capitalist and anti-Federal Reserve movements have already graced the OWS rallies, demonstrations, and “tent cities.”
Oscar winner and film producer of establishment myth-busting works, such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Affair, director Michael Moore, who appeared and spoke at OWS, was earlier heard over radio describing it “literally (as) an uprising of people who have had it… (and it) will continue to spread… (to) tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people… (with a) majority of Americans… really upset at Wall Street... So you have already got an army of Americans who are just waiting for somebody to do something, and something has started.”
Consumer advocate and former presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, said of the OWS: “The frustration seen in the protests on Wall Street over the past few weeks demonstrates a widespread and growing citizen discontent with the two political parties in Washington DC and with a political system that is dominated by corporate interests. It is time for citizens to push their elected officials to break the corporate stranglehold on our economy.”
Major labor unions are joining the OWS, too, from the Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transport Workers Union, to the United Federation of Teachers, whose president Michael Mulgrew said, “The way our society is now headed it does not work for 99 percent of people; so when Occupy Wall Street started… they kept to it and they’ve been able to create a national conversation that we think should have been going on for years…”
Another prominent voice that bolstered the OWS protests came from former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. One report (“Dennis Kucinich Tells Occupy Wall Street to Nationalize the Federal Reserve”) quoted the Ohio Democrat as saying, “We need a government of the people and for the people. We need a financial system that is of the people and for the people. It is time we take our nation back and take our monetary system back from the big banks… put the Federal Reserve under the Treasury… end the practice of fractional reserve banking and… take control of our monetary policy and make sure it works for the people. We can use our constitutional authority to coin money and spend it into circulation to put millions of Americans back to work in a way that is non-inflationary. The time for bold change is now.”
The Federal Reserve, or what many mistakenly take as the US central bank, is in fact a private bank controlled by private bankers hiding behind the term, “federal.” The Fed, as it is also called, is where these banksters manipulate the dollar for a handful of US oligarchs.
As one of the main targets of the OWS is to “End the Fed” and restore the power of the state over money, as in the time of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson, something very similar must be done here too. And I’m speaking of none other than restoring the Philippines’ 1972 constitutional provision on the Central Bank — removing the word “independent” added on to the 1987 Constitution in order to restore the people’s control over our Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
That has been one of the themes I have pounded on in this two-decade column writing of mine. But, I go further: We must declare money as a public utility; and major decisions such as incurring more borrowings should periodically undergo a people’s referendum.
Actually, the abuse and exploitation of the people by the global finance capitalists (as distinguished from real capitalist-entrepreneurs) is far worse here than in the US. It is therefore time for the Philippines’ own “Winter Storm” (or a “2nd First Quarter Storm” next year).
As I close this column, PressTV has just reported that the Occupy Wall Street protests have already spread to 1,000 US cities. I am thus hoping for a spillover to the Philippines very soon, starting with an “Occupy Malacañang Freedom Park” in the coming weeks against the Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act) and its extortionist 15.8-percent power rate pricing scheme, as well as the price gouging on water, the VAT (value added tax) on toll fees and pretty much everything else.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “Occupy Wall Street: Lesson for RP”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)
Thursday, October 13, 2011
The Lite and Sad Side of Life
YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
10/13-15/2011
Since I am a DEADLINE writer, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to choose the appropriate time, when to sit down and write my column for the respective Regular and Lite editions of OpinYon.
When I wrote my Monday – Wednesday, Oct. 10 - 12, OpinYon Regular column, I chose to center on what was my then upcoming Birthday, on Wednesday, Oct. 12, and include a few things that preceded it in my 63 years of life since my birth in 1948.
That would have been more appropriate for this end of the week Lite edition.
However, my birthday would have been in the past tense by now.
Wrong Timing
Also, since I was just getting out of my absence for two issues, I did not have the energy and momentum for a hard hitting serious topic when I wrote it last Thursday.
I had no choice but to go Lite on a Monday.
Now, as I write this supposed Lite column, I’m caught in the wrong timing.
However, I cannot just take a siesta first, and wait for the world to change while I sleep.
If I did, nothing would have changed except that I would be past my deadline by a few more hours.
I would have just made life more anxious and difficult for my editors and Publisher.
Never to Strike Twice
Talking about editors, I thought that there is such a thing that lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
Well, it just did to me. In the same week that I was recuperating and reenergizing from my Sept. 30 and Oct. 3 Diaryo Pinoy and Oct. 3 – 5 and 6 – 8 OpinYon absences, I lost both of my editors in two different and separate newspapers.
Diaryo Pinoy was re launched in April by former Congressman Jing Paras. He had a little help from Rey Briones, former Congressman Prospero Pichay and Boxing Champion and Congressman Manny Pacquiao. He had big help from our first editor, Susan Cambri.
Diaryo Pinoy was a six times a week tabloid. We did not have a Saturday edition.
Change in 'Dyaryo'
We all went through the experience of transferring editorial offices from the National Press Club building on Magallanes Drive to the the BF Condominium building in Intramuros.
We changed printing presses at least twice.
We failed to come out at least once because of these changes.
Then, last week, Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, Susan edited her last issue of Diaryo Pinoy.
The next day, I received a text message from Toto Fetalino asking me to send my column to another Email address aside from the old one.
The text did not mention anything about a change or changes in the editorial staffing.
I did not give any special meaning to the fact that my column “Kung Bakit Ako Nawala” came out on Thursday rather than Friday, which was my regular day.
I had submitted my column a night earlier (Tuesday rather than Wednesday.) than usual.
Our deadline is the day before.
Susan, No More
However, since I go to Kapihans every morning from Sunday to Saturday, I have to and prefer to write and submit my column two nights before the issue hits the newsstands or half a day before the official deadline.
It had happened before that when I submitted my column a night earlier, it was also used a day earlier because one of the scheduled columnists failed to submit on time.
However, since I was having a tough time writing four columns on four consecutive days and nights (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday), I decided to request my Diaryo Pinoy editor, Susan, for a change in my column schedules from Monday and Friday to Tuesday and Thursdays.
This would also make my pick-up and delivery and distribution of complimentary copies more efficient and rationale.
And so last Friday night I called Susan. That was the first time that I found out that Susan was no more…
New Contact
I was shocked and anxious.
I had texted my excuses when I could not write and submit my column only to Susan via my and her Smart and Sun cell phones.
Unlike in the case of my excuses to OpinYon which I sent in via text and Email, I had not Emailed to Diaryo Pinoy.
Also, I did not know which Email addresses belonged to the paper and which personally belonged to the editors concerned.
And so, I burned the air waves to my new text mate, Toto Fetalino, to clarify everything,
Well, all was well that ended well for me and Diaryo Pinoy. Not so for Susan who is now, I hope temporarily, jobless. It pains when one loses part of the family …
OpinYon Acting Editor
Earlier, I was even more shocked when I found out last Friday afternoon that Alex Allan was gone too …
In an acting capacity, Alex was like our fourth editor.
Our first was Information Technology expert and former Mayor and present VP Jejomar Binay’s and PCSO’s consultant, Ike Seneres. He edited OpinYon issues # 1 up to about # 17.
In the beginning when we were new, small and unknown, we made use of his identity and personality to help us along.
In an interim capacity, next came Al Labita. He was sickly enough to start with. Then, his home in San Pedro burned down and he got hurt further.
One Big Family
Then, came Luchie Arguelles (who is abroad, on her annual vacation, as of this writing. She will be back in two week's time.)
At first, I did not notice her too much, because at our first office in a three-storey townhouse on Finlandia Street on the western side of the PNR tracks, there were several, maybe four, private rooms.
Ray had one to himself. Luchie shared another one with a couple of our staffers.
When we transferred to the lower ground floor of Cityland building on De la Rosa Street on the eastern side of the PNR tracks, editorial was in just one common room with most of the other sections.
We have another office on the third floor for marketing.
However, Publisher Ray prefers to stay in the lower ground floor.
We all became closer to each other as in one big family.
The Launch
This was also the time leading up to our first anniversary and the launch of our Lite edition on August 22.
Our Publisher, Ray Junia, let our editor, Luchie Arguelles, take the reins not only of OpinYon Regular, but also the multiple reins of the preparations for our First Anniversary Celebration and the Launch of OpinYon Lite.
However, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Hearings on the PCSO (starting July 6), the death of our eldest brother, Mano, on Sunday, July 24, the resignation of former Senator Juan Miguel “Migs” Zubiri on August 3.
And the proclamation of Atty. Koko Pimentel as Senator, distracted me.
New Editor Gone
I did not notice too much when Alex Allan joined us and became our Associate Editor.
However, for the past month or so, I was able to get back to my schedule of dropping by the office and perhaps having lunch with our publisher, editors and staff.
Since I had known Alex Allan when he was a Defense reporter and I was the National Telecommunications Commission Commissioner, it was easy for me to re-establish friendship and rapport with him.
Maning Yap Gone, too
Then this morning, I found out from fellow columnist Ka Mentong that Professor Dr. Maning Yap had died and had been buried without our finding out on time.
According to Pastor "Boy" Saycon, Maning's compatriot in the People's Patriotic Movement, he died at the age of 79 on Monday, Sept. 26.
At 6 pm, last night, Wednesday, Oct. 12, the PPM and COPA celebrated a Memorial Mass and Eulogy at the Bonifacio Ridge Condominium, 1st Street, Ft. Bonifacio.
Linggoy Alcuaz
10/13-15/2011
Since I am a DEADLINE writer, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to choose the appropriate time, when to sit down and write my column for the respective Regular and Lite editions of OpinYon.
When I wrote my Monday – Wednesday, Oct. 10 - 12, OpinYon Regular column, I chose to center on what was my then upcoming Birthday, on Wednesday, Oct. 12, and include a few things that preceded it in my 63 years of life since my birth in 1948.
That would have been more appropriate for this end of the week Lite edition.
However, my birthday would have been in the past tense by now.
Wrong Timing
Also, since I was just getting out of my absence for two issues, I did not have the energy and momentum for a hard hitting serious topic when I wrote it last Thursday.
I had no choice but to go Lite on a Monday.
Now, as I write this supposed Lite column, I’m caught in the wrong timing.
However, I cannot just take a siesta first, and wait for the world to change while I sleep.
If I did, nothing would have changed except that I would be past my deadline by a few more hours.
I would have just made life more anxious and difficult for my editors and Publisher.
Never to Strike Twice
Talking about editors, I thought that there is such a thing that lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
Well, it just did to me. In the same week that I was recuperating and reenergizing from my Sept. 30 and Oct. 3 Diaryo Pinoy and Oct. 3 – 5 and 6 – 8 OpinYon absences, I lost both of my editors in two different and separate newspapers.
Diaryo Pinoy was re launched in April by former Congressman Jing Paras. He had a little help from Rey Briones, former Congressman Prospero Pichay and Boxing Champion and Congressman Manny Pacquiao. He had big help from our first editor, Susan Cambri.
Diaryo Pinoy was a six times a week tabloid. We did not have a Saturday edition.
Change in 'Dyaryo'
We all went through the experience of transferring editorial offices from the National Press Club building on Magallanes Drive to the the BF Condominium building in Intramuros.
We changed printing presses at least twice.
We failed to come out at least once because of these changes.
Then, last week, Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, Susan edited her last issue of Diaryo Pinoy.
The next day, I received a text message from Toto Fetalino asking me to send my column to another Email address aside from the old one.
The text did not mention anything about a change or changes in the editorial staffing.
I did not give any special meaning to the fact that my column “Kung Bakit Ako Nawala” came out on Thursday rather than Friday, which was my regular day.
I had submitted my column a night earlier (Tuesday rather than Wednesday.) than usual.
Our deadline is the day before.
Susan, No More
However, since I go to Kapihans every morning from Sunday to Saturday, I have to and prefer to write and submit my column two nights before the issue hits the newsstands or half a day before the official deadline.
It had happened before that when I submitted my column a night earlier, it was also used a day earlier because one of the scheduled columnists failed to submit on time.
However, since I was having a tough time writing four columns on four consecutive days and nights (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday), I decided to request my Diaryo Pinoy editor, Susan, for a change in my column schedules from Monday and Friday to Tuesday and Thursdays.
This would also make my pick-up and delivery and distribution of complimentary copies more efficient and rationale.
And so last Friday night I called Susan. That was the first time that I found out that Susan was no more…
New Contact
I was shocked and anxious.
I had texted my excuses when I could not write and submit my column only to Susan via my and her Smart and Sun cell phones.
Unlike in the case of my excuses to OpinYon which I sent in via text and Email, I had not Emailed to Diaryo Pinoy.
Also, I did not know which Email addresses belonged to the paper and which personally belonged to the editors concerned.
And so, I burned the air waves to my new text mate, Toto Fetalino, to clarify everything,
Well, all was well that ended well for me and Diaryo Pinoy. Not so for Susan who is now, I hope temporarily, jobless. It pains when one loses part of the family …
OpinYon Acting Editor
Earlier, I was even more shocked when I found out last Friday afternoon that Alex Allan was gone too …
In an acting capacity, Alex was like our fourth editor.
Our first was Information Technology expert and former Mayor and present VP Jejomar Binay’s and PCSO’s consultant, Ike Seneres. He edited OpinYon issues # 1 up to about # 17.
In the beginning when we were new, small and unknown, we made use of his identity and personality to help us along.
In an interim capacity, next came Al Labita. He was sickly enough to start with. Then, his home in San Pedro burned down and he got hurt further.
One Big Family
Then, came Luchie Arguelles (who is abroad, on her annual vacation, as of this writing. She will be back in two week's time.)
At first, I did not notice her too much, because at our first office in a three-storey townhouse on Finlandia Street on the western side of the PNR tracks, there were several, maybe four, private rooms.
Ray had one to himself. Luchie shared another one with a couple of our staffers.
When we transferred to the lower ground floor of Cityland building on De la Rosa Street on the eastern side of the PNR tracks, editorial was in just one common room with most of the other sections.
We have another office on the third floor for marketing.
However, Publisher Ray prefers to stay in the lower ground floor.
We all became closer to each other as in one big family.
The Launch
This was also the time leading up to our first anniversary and the launch of our Lite edition on August 22.
Our Publisher, Ray Junia, let our editor, Luchie Arguelles, take the reins not only of OpinYon Regular, but also the multiple reins of the preparations for our First Anniversary Celebration and the Launch of OpinYon Lite.
However, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Hearings on the PCSO (starting July 6), the death of our eldest brother, Mano, on Sunday, July 24, the resignation of former Senator Juan Miguel “Migs” Zubiri on August 3.
And the proclamation of Atty. Koko Pimentel as Senator, distracted me.
New Editor Gone
I did not notice too much when Alex Allan joined us and became our Associate Editor.
However, for the past month or so, I was able to get back to my schedule of dropping by the office and perhaps having lunch with our publisher, editors and staff.
Since I had known Alex Allan when he was a Defense reporter and I was the National Telecommunications Commission Commissioner, it was easy for me to re-establish friendship and rapport with him.
Maning Yap Gone, too
Then this morning, I found out from fellow columnist Ka Mentong that Professor Dr. Maning Yap had died and had been buried without our finding out on time.
According to Pastor "Boy" Saycon, Maning's compatriot in the People's Patriotic Movement, he died at the age of 79 on Monday, Sept. 26.
At 6 pm, last night, Wednesday, Oct. 12, the PPM and COPA celebrated a Memorial Mass and Eulogy at the Bonifacio Ridge Condominium, 1st Street, Ft. Bonifacio.
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