Senator-judges showing their obvious bias!

I woke up yesterday morning and opened the TV to ABS-CBN’s “Umaga Kay Ganda” with Anthony Taberna having Philippine Star columnist Ernesto Maceda as his guest. Apparently both men agree that the prosecution is still ill-prepared to handle the Impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona to the point that it has only exposed what most of us already know - that the Senator-judges from the Liberal Party, led by Sen. Franklin Drilon, are openly biased vs. CJ Corona.

This is the observation of many pundits, that the Liberal Party Senator-judges sound more like prosecutors than judges. Perhaps it is due to their frustration for allowing ill-prepared, “student” lawyers to prosecute CJ Corona. These keystone cop congressmen-prosecutors are truly no match against the defense team led by former Justice Cuevas, who spent most of their lives in trial courts, while you know what congressmen do.

When push comes to shove, we know that Sen. Drilon will certainly be voting for the impeachment of CJ Corona even if the defense can prove his innocence. We know for a fact that ABS-CBN has openly showed its bias being a pro-PNoy TV network, but even Anthony Taberna told Liberal Party senators, “Don’t over do it,” and show some kind of respect because as senator- judges, they should show impartiality. If this were an ordinary court trial, the defense would file a motion to change the judge.

Ernie Maceda also pointed out that one of the Articles of Impeachment clearly states that CJ Corona failed to file his Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs) which, on the third day of the trial, has already been proven wrong. That the SALNs of the members of the Judiciary has not been made public was not the fault of CJ Corona. It started at the time of Chief Justice Marcelo Fernan who put some kind of regulation in getting the SALNs.

If you checked with the other branches of the government, apparently everyone is doing the same thing … like in Congress; the media cannot just get their SALNs unless they write to the Secretary General of the House of Representatives. In the Judiciary, it is the Court Administrator who handles their SALNs and you must get permission from the judges if you want to get a copy of their SALNs. Now if you find this irregular … then I fully agree that we should change the system so that the SALNs would be made public for the sake of transparency and our democratic institutions.

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How times have changed under Mayor Michael Rama. Traffic has become worse under his watch and he can only blame himself for giving the leadership of CITOM in the hands of a neophyte who refuses to listen and more importantly who is unseen in our streets. If traffic is bad in Cebu City today, it is due to the fact that those drivers who violate our traffic rules do so with total impunity. At night, we still see jeepneys drivers running around without their headlights, which are the pet peeve of our good friend, US Honorary Consul John Domingo. This is because no one and I mean no one stops them on their tracks.

My own pet peeves are those vehicles owned by the barangays illegally parked on the main road. The best example is Barangay Lahug, whose two green colored buses are parked along Gorordo Ave. every day, taking one whole lane. If I can see this rampant violation, it just makes me wonder why our traffic authorities cannot see it? Or perhaps the political season has already started… where pundits are saying that the camp of Barangay Captain Mary Ann de los Santos would be an ally of Mayor Mike Rama.

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Last year, Bangkok was hit by a severe flooding that lasted for more than a month and it literally crippled the Thai economy, especially its tourism and manufacturing industries. One of the hardest hit was Honda Motors, where we get our Honda cars. But it seems that Honda Thailand has already recovered from that flooding as our good friend Honda Cebu Big Boss Tito Solomon told his guests at the launching of the new 2012 Honda City. Well as it turned out, they did not only launch the spanking new Honda City, they were also inaugurating the expanded Honda Mandaue showroom.

We toured the Honda Mandaue facility and found out that it has more than doubled in capacity to repair Honda cars. Call it convenient for me because SkyCable is just a stone’s throw away and when I need to have my Honda Civic checked, they can do it in a jiffy. Looking at the new 2012 Honda City, it has truly become a car with the right amenities, especially that very important iPod interface and a trunk that could hold three golf clubs. But since I drive a Civic, perhaps I’ll wait for the new 2012 Civic that is coming to Cebu very soon at the nearest Honda dealership.

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