Not so old, as ghosts go.

During the last few days of the Estrada administration, Erap’s enforcers were on desperate killer mode, and were out to silence those they perceived or knew to be threats to the dying administration. One of them was public relations man Salvador “Bubby” Dacer, who at some point or another did P.R. work for Erap and presumably knew where some of the skeletons were buried. There were indications that the public’s anti-Estrada sentiments were about to reach a flash point, and that Dacer was about to spill the some very damaging beans. Dacer was a survivor, having served many politicians before, some on opposing sides. He knew when to ride the changing political tides.

Well, he didn’t survive then PNP Chief Panfilo Lacson’s aides. According to reports, Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito, were abducted in broad daylight in a busy street in Makati and brought to Cavite, where they were killed and their bodies burned. Months later, amidst frantic efforts by their families to look for them, their charred remains were found near a creek bed and identified through dental records and personal effects. By then, Erap Estrada had been kicked out of office and Panfilo Lacson was reinventing himself as a politician.

Now, nearly eight long years after the twin killings, two top aides of ex-PNP Chief Lacson, former police Senior Superintendents Cesar Mancao and Glenn Dumlao were arrested in the U.S. for their direct role in the murders. Both had fled abroad when the case got hot, but the proverbial long arm of the law was not to be denied. Lacson refused to comment on the arrests. Read the rest of this entry »

The Inquirer headline warns of an ongoing move in the House of Representatives to amend the Constitution through a constituent assembly which could lead to the indefinite extension of the Arroyo administration’s reign. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s eldest son, Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, is supposedly leading a signature drive, which has already secured between 120 and 150 signatures on a resolution calling on the Senate and the House to amend the Constitution by voting jointly and not separately. The anti-charter change Senate will be outvoted by the Arroyo-controlled Lower House. Read the rest of this entry »

Or maybe squashed may be a more apt term. Like a bug.

The House committee on justice voted to dismiss the intervention complaint advanced by Manolo Quezon and a group of bloggers which sought to add the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as one of the grounds for impeachment of President Arroyo. The House supposedly lacked jurisdiction to take cognizance of another impeachment complaint since there had already been an earlier one filed by Joey De Vencia et. al. based on other grounds. The committee brushed aside the argument that this was not a new impeachment suit, but merely one which seeks to consolidate an issue with should properly be included in the acts constituting impeachable offenses committed by GMA. Read the rest of this entry »

The House of Representatives Committee on Justice has determined that the impeachment complaint filed against President Arroyo, the 4th of her stay in office, is sufficient in form though its substance has yet to be debated upon. But the impeachment suit faces sure defeat before a House dominated by Arroyo allies. The best the opposition can try for is that the issues raised be given a chance to be properly ventilated and brought to the attention of the public. But even this faint hope is sure to be thwarted. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a moral and religous dilemma which I pray no one would ever face, but which will happen to a fair number of us in the light of advances in life-sustaining technology.

When does death occur ? More to the point, when is it morally proper to pull the plug ?

Motl Brody of Brooklyn, N.Y., was pronounced dead last November 4 after a half-year fight against a brain tumor, and doctors at Children’s National Medical Center in Wahington D.C. say the seventh-grader’s brain had ceased functioning entirely. He was brain dead. His orthodox Jewish parents went to court to maintain the boy on life-support, essentially to compel the hospital to keep him alive indefinitely through mechanical means by keeping his heart and lungs functioning. Under some interpretations of Jewish religious law, including the one accepted by the family’s Hasidic sect, death occurs only when the heart and lungs stop functioning. The hospital argued that its “scarce resources” were being used “for the preservation of a deceased body.” Read the rest of this entry »