'NOT applicable'
The local ombudsman has knocked down as legal support of former Cebu City mayor Mike Rama the so-called Arias Doctrine. The ombudsman has just decided to indict Rama and four former members of the city's bids and awards committee in connection with a P25 million waste disposal contract in 2015.
Under the Arias Doctrine, laid down in Arias vs Sandiganbayan, a head of office "has to rely to a reasonable extent on his subordinates and on the good faith of those who prepare bids, purchase supplies, or enter into negotiations."
Rama directly contracted the project to Asian Energy System Corp., doing away with the bidding.
He couldn't, the Visayas ombudsman ruled in finding probable cause against Rama and the four others and recommending charges against them before the anti-graft court.
People talk about...
[1] WHY PH 'HAS NO CHOICE' ABOUT THE COUNTRY BECOMING A CHINA PROVINCE. Antonio T. Carpio, former senior associate justice of the Supreme Court, said the choice offered by President Rodrigo Duterte was "a Hobson's choice," meaning the Filipinos have no choice when Duterte challenged Filipinos to "choose to become a US territory or a province of China." His condition, if we can stand alone militarily, is an impossible condition based on the wrong facts, said Carpio in his March 5 column in the Inquirer.
[2] JUMPING SHIP OFF PDP-LABAN. The crisis seems to have shaken up the ruling party. Exits from the PDP-Laban must have so worried its leaders that it is now taking steps to slow down, if not stop, the defections. The latest defector is reportedly Biliran Representative Gerryboy Espina who has leaped to Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats. Something must be afoot in the House.
Turbulence in the House
Why did the comment of Representative Franco "Duke" Frasco light up the disagreement between him, as chairman of the Visayas Development Committee of the House, and Reps. Raul del Mar and Bebot Abellanosa, his fellow Cebuanos in Congress?
If it were solely about the declaration of the stand of the bloc not having been authorized by the group, that wouldn't have set off much controversy.
A Cebuano journalist based in Manila says he suspects the talks about the coup against Speaker Allan Peter Cayetano fueled the hostility that "infected" even the Visayas bloc. The anti-Cayetano camp thought Frasco was persuaded to make the statement to help fortify the speaker's camp while the pro-Cayetano group thought Del Mar and Abellanosa were put up to it, the delivery of the privileged speeches, to erode support for the speaker.
Politics in a time of upheaval at the House where another speaker, Pantaleon Alvarez, was ousted in July 2018.
Humor on coronavirus
US President Trump said he expected a miracle about the virus Covid-19. It would just disappear, he said, like a miracle. A late-night show host commented, "I did that about Trump. Until now he has not disappeared."
At a press-con, on a health expert's advice for people not to touch their face, Trump said he has not touched his face "for weeks." Don't believe it, said another comic in his show's monologue, showing a close-up photo of the president's face, "Look at the makeup on his face." He couldn't have laid it on without using his hands.
Prince William during a royal visit to Dublin's Guinness Storehouse quipped to a health worker, "I bet everyone's like, 'I've got coronavirus, I'm dying,' and you're like, "No, you've just got a cough." In the same event, he said, "By the way, the duke and the duchess of Cambridge are spreading coronavirus. Sorry."
Serbia's president and foreign minister implied that drinking alcohol could prevent the virus from spreading: it concentrates on the ones drinking and kills them.
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