ANWAR IBRAHIM OF MALAYSIA MEETS WITH 'OLD
FRIEND' ERAP
[PHOTO
AT LEFT - Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim shares a laugh
with former President Joseph Estrada during a press conference at the Manila
Polo Club in Makati yesterday. ERNIE PEÑAREDONDO]
MANILA, JANUARY 31, 2010 (STAR) By Sandy Araneta - Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim met with former President Joseph Estrada yesterday during breakfast hosted by former Finance Secretary Jose Pardo at the Manila Polo Club in Forbes Park, Makati City.
Estrada’s camp described the meeting as “a reunion of old friends.”
The breakfast was attended by Malaysian Member of Parliament Mohamed Azmin Ali, executive director of the Institut Kajian Dasar Khalid Jaafar, former Ambassador Ernesto Maceda, former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, Estrada spokesperson Margaux Salcedo, Philippine STAR columnist Marichu Villanueva, and businessman Fernando Peña.
Estrada and Ibrahim talked about their respective lives since the latter’s last visit to Manila in June 2008 when the former Philippine President hosted a dinner for him at his home in North Greenhills.
That meeting was also attended by the late former President Corazon Aquino.
Ibrahim was elated to hear that Estrada had been allowed by the Commission on Elections to participate in the upcoming elections.
During their meeting, Estrada said he could not help but compare their lives.
“We were both imprisoned, my wife ran for the Senate and his wife ran for Parliament and both won while we were in prison; then my son Jinggoy ran for the Senate and his daughter also ran for Parliament and also won. Then in 2008 he ran for Parliament and now I am running for president again,” Estrada said, pointing to the uncanny parallelisms in their lives.
The two leaders discussed the upcoming Philippine elections.
Estrada said Ibrahim had cautioned that the automation could lead to a lot of mistakes.
“If (poll automation) is less than 100 percent accurate, it could be very dangerous. I hope that the ASEAN will be more pro-active in monitoring your elections,” Ibrahim said.
Estrada said that his Malaysian friend had suggested that international election watchdogs and specific Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, if not the ASEAN as a body, should be allowed if not invited to observe the conduct of the elections, especially since it will be the first case of full automation in a national poll in Southeast Asia.
Ibrahim expressed hope that the upcoming elections will be honest.
“There must not only be transparency but a perception of transparency,” he said.
The former Malaysian leader was also confident that Estrada would do well in the upcoming polls.
“I think it will boil down to a three-cornered fight,” Ibrahim said, admitting that the former president has his experience going for him.
“He even has more experience than me,” Ibrahim said. “He was president, I was only deputy prime minister.”
Estrada returned the compliment by once again lauding Ibrahim as a champion of democracy.
“We have similar battles because while I have been fighting for the impoverished, Anwar has been fighting for the rights of the minority in Malaysia. I guess we have become good friends over the years because we have somehow been fighting for similar causes, for equality, justice and a real democracy,” Estrada said.
Anwar sees acquittal
With regard to the cases that he is currently facing, Ibrahim said he does not expect to be convicted on charges that he sodomized a former male aide.
“The medical records are in our favor. If they (prosecutors) go by the law, there would be no conviction,” he said.
Malaysia’s Federal Court on Friday upheld a lower court’s ruling that the prosecution does not need to provide Ibrahim with medical reports, camera recordings and other evidence ahead of his trial for alleged sodomy – a crime in the Muslim-majority country that carries a jail sentence of up to 20 years.
The former deputy prime minister was charged with corruption and sodomizing his former family driver in 1998. He was convicted and imprisoned but released in 2004 after the Federal Court overturned the sodomy conviction.
Ibrahim said the charges were meant to prevent him from challenging then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
He said the new charges are part of a political conspiracy to undermine his three-party opposition alliance. Malaysian officials have denied plotting against him. – With AP
GMA can't appoint next Supreme Court chief - IBP By Aurea Calica and Delon Porcalla (The Philippine Star) Updated January 31, 2010 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) said it is unconstitutional for President Arroyo to appoint a successor to Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Reynato Puno.
Former IBP national president Joel Cadiz said the group’s House of Delegates came up with the stand – upon motion of IBP governor for Eastern Visayas Rolando Inting – during the annual convention of its officials and members in Puerto Princesa, Palawan.
The motion drew no objections.
Cadiz said the Constitution is explicit against presidential appointments two months before the May 10 elections.
“It is hoped the JBC (Judicial and Bar Council) will listen to all the positions including that of the IBP as regards to the constitutionality of the appointment after Chief Justice Puno’s retirement,” Cadiz said in a phone interview.
“If the JBC determines that it is unconstitutional (for the President to make the appointment), it need not send a list to the President. We hope the JBC will consider all arguments and make that determination that if they don’t submit a list to the President, it agrees on the (unconstitutionality of her appointment),” Cadiz added.
Puno retires on May 17 and an appointment can only be made when there is already a vacancy, according to those opposing Malacañang’s pronouncement that Mrs. Arroyo may appoint a chief justice-in-waiting.
According to Palace critics, May 17 is covered by the two-month election ban on appointments by the President.
SC Senior Associate Justices Antonio Carpio and Conchita Carpio-Morales have applied for the job of Puno but said they would only accept the appointment if it is made by the next president.
Bargaining power
An organization of progressive lawyers believes Mrs. Arroyo wants to appoint the next chief justice so she can have “leverage and bargaining power” in the SC after the end of her term on June 30.
“If she makes the appointment of the next chief justice, all members of the Court will have been her appointees. And that is a huge leverage and bargaining power for political maneuvers and power play,” the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) said in a statement.
Mrs. Arroyo is expected to face criminal charges for her administration’s alleged abuses.
The NUPL called Mrs. Arroyo’s trying to rush the appointment of Puno’s successor as a “sinister design to perpetuate herself in power, cloak herself with immunity and dangle impunity, debase the post of the Chief Justice and of the SC itself.”
The NUPL, through its acting secretary-general Edre Olalia, said Mrs. Arroyo would certainly face legal problems for “lingering charges of unbridled graft and corruption, rampant human rights violations, and midnight contracts.”
“The teaching of history and experience is that the chief justice is key and crucial in the positions and opinions of the Court notwithstanding the professional origins and political orientation of some or all of its other members,” the NUPL said.
“The Court, especially the chief justice, must not be tainted with any suspicion of partiality or bias. And it would be unfair for the chief justice appointed to be placed in such a situation,” it added.
“A Damocles’ sword is thus left hanging over the heads of whoever will be nominated or wish to be nominated,” it said.
“The NUPL believes that the outgoing President is quivering in her knees and is so desperate that naming and appointing a new chief justice that she expects - rightly or wrongly - to steer the SC to take her side and rescue is an offer she cannot simply refuse.”
Carpio hit
Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez twitted Carpio for setting a condition for his nomination, saying he knew from the start he would not get Mrs. Arroyo’s appointment.
“He knows the President will proceed in naming the next chief justice and it would probably not be him but Justice (Renato) Corona or somebody else, especially after he gave such an unsavory statement,” Suarez said.
Carpio, the most senior justice after Puno, informed the JBC - the screening committee of the judiciary headed by the SC chief - that he welcomes the nomination, but on the condition that he gets his appointment from the next president and not from Mrs. Arroyo.
Mrs. Arroyo and Carpio had a falling out in 2006 when then Defense Secretary Avelino “Nonong” Cruz resigned from the Cabinet.
Cruz is a senior associate of Carpio’s law firm, along with former Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo.
Sources disclosed that the President does not want to appoint the 60-year-old Carpio, who will outlive the six-year term of the next president. He will reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 on Oct. 26, 2020. It is an open secret that Carpio dislikes the First Family.
Corona, who retires on Oct. 15, 2019, is known to be friendly to Mrs. Arroyo and her family.
The next president will serve for six years or until June 2016.
By tradition, the president appoints the most senior associate justice to be chief justice. But Mrs. Arroyo deviated from this when she appointed Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, even when Puno was the most senior. Puno nevertheless succeeded Panganiban.
Meantime, Suarez, chairman of the House committee on oversight, said it would be up to the JBC to decide to whom it would submit its shortlist of nominees for the post of chief justice.
“I don’t think the JBC will proceed with the selection process if it does not think President Arroyo has the authority to appoint Puno’s successor,” he said.
“The mere action by the JBC to start preparing the shortlist and eventually submit the same to the President are an indication that she may not be violating any law,” he added.