Fighting down his weight

or lost by a vote closer than 18-3. Eighteen “bribees?”

But then Rene took the stand and shot himself in the foot. Then the defense called Ombudsman Chit Carpio-Morales who had done her homework. Again, in violation of a basic examination principle, whether on direct or cross, taught in basic trial technique: Do not ask a question the answer to which you don’t already know. So, Ombudsman Chit went to town on Rene’s dollar deposits provided by the Anti-Money Laundering Council, required to be reported in the Salonga Law, RA6713, which I co-authored and spon Rene jobless, and broke his spirit.

The current spectacle of the Supreme Court supplying proof of intramurals is sad and shows how low it has fallen from pre-ML years. One Kenkoy charge has to do with the purchase of a bullet-proof vehicle for the Supreme Court to be used by the CJ. It seems to cheapen the process. That the members want to be heard on personnel appointments seems too petty for impeachment. Their job is simply “to decide cases,” as a US Supreme Court nominee, footballer Byron T. White, famously told the Senate in 1962 when asked how he envisioned the SC’s role to be. To leak info and “evidence” is not part of its lofty function. Such repeated leakage to our resourceful and blameless Jomar Canlas causes damage in lessening the candid cross-fertilization of ideas in devil’s advocacy. Powersharing slows down adjudication.

Imee now says the Marcoses are in their winter. (?) Politically, may they stay there forever, like Hitler. They have damaged us enough. Philanthropy is where they can rise and shine, scintillate even, say, by fundingDigong’s free education program, for which there is no money now, given the various valid competing claims on our scarce resources. Our politicians are so populist, looking at the next election, not the next generation.

But, again, hope springs eternal. If this be winter now, for education and human rights, springtime cannot be far behind.