SCROLLING down: Bebs and Alvin claim that their preventive suspension in May 2016 reduced their second term. Koko contends that his protest against Zubiri left him only two years of six during his first term. Supreme Court jurisprudence has rulings for each situation... If Charmalou Aldevera would be Bong Go's replacement, how would President Duterte call her?
* FIRST, the opposition team for the Senate is called "Oposisyon Koalisyon" with only eight candidates and with its titular head VP Leni Robredo already doubting about how the bets would fare, given their performance in the surveys.
Disqualification: cases differ
What's the difference between the alleged "interruption" of the term of Cebu City Councilors Bebs Andales and Alvin Arcilla and the "incomplete" term of Senator Koko Pimentel? Andales and Arcilla are subjects of a disqualification petition before the Comelec so is Pimentel in a separate complaint.
* The two city councilors, with then mayor Mike Rama, Vice Mayor Edgar Labella and 10 other councilors, were preventively suspended for six months by then president Noynoy Aquino in an order served last May 17, 2016.
Andales and Arcilla, now running for a fourth term, claim that their second term was not a complete three years. Local elective officials may serve only three consecutive terms of three years each.
* Pimentel's first term started only in August 2011 after he won his electoral protest against Senator Miguel Zubiri as the 12th winning senator in the 2007 polls. Pimentel, reelected in 2016, asserts he can still run as his first term was not a full six years, about four years short. Senators may serve only two successive terms of six years each.
What's the difference? Bebs and Alvin lost some time, more than a month or so, from their second term because of their preventive suspension while Koko lost his from his first term because of his protest.
Decided cases of the Supreme Court say that while loss of term because of a protest is deemed an interruption. Loss of term caused by preventive suspension is not.
But watch how Comelec and maybe the Supreme Court will rule on these disqualification cases.
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Bong Go's successor: photo-bomber too?
A woman lawyer from Davao City named Charmalou "Sweetheart" Aldevera was reported more than a week ago as being "considered" for the job that Bong Go, who filed a C.O.C. for senator. A bit of news confirmed by Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo and teased about by Duterte who said the next Bong Go will be a woman. Reenforcing it was the leaked info that Aldevera, a lawyer of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy -- founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, who says he is the son of Jesus Christ -- was being trained for the job.
Do you suppose it will include photo-bombing? No, a pro-Duterte blogger says, unless Aldevera also has senatorial ambitions. And how would President Digong call her? "Sweetheart"?
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Phrase of the day: 'one of a kind'
Mines and Geosciences Bureau chief geologist Liza Manzano calls the Naga disaster a "one-of-a-kind landslide." It was "unique."
Which brings to mind another disaster, of another sort: the quo warranto petition to unseat Supreme Court chief justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno. Former SC spokesman Theodore Te says the decision created a "once-in-a-lifetime loophole" that could have been prevented. The SC should have "restrained" itself.
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