Unbelievable bounty offer
SHEER HATE OR MOSTLY PRANK? It is not yet ascertained if most of the incidents involving recent threats in social media against President Rodrigo Duterte were inspired by intense hatred against the president.
Initial disclosures say they were not: the teacher in Zambales did it out of a stupid notion it would increase the number of “likes” for his Twitter feed. A woman in Cordova, Cebu said her Facebook account was hacked by a prankster.
The offer of P50 million to P75 million, the impossibility of the bounty, from persons who could not raise a tiny fraction of the money in their lifetime, should wave the red flag that says “crazy.”
Be it the work of a nutcase or a jokester though, threats against the chief executive are taken seriously by any country.
Not warrantless arrest issue?
TABOGA CASE ABOUT CONFESSION TO A REPORTER. The Department of Justice, through its inquest fiscal, Assistant State Prosecutor Jeannette Dacpano, found and ruled that (1) the warrantless arrest of Ronnel Mas, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, who posted on Twitter an offer of P50 million to kill President Duterte, was invalid, and (2) inciting to sedition, the charge filed against Mas, is not a continuing crime.
Yet the invalid arrest would not take down the case, Dacpano said, because the defect was “ultimately cured” by the admission of Mas that he indeed posted the text in his own Twitter account.
The fiscal cited “People vs Taboga,” which must be People of the Philippines vs Edralin Taboga (GR 144086-87, Feb. 6, 2002). In that case, a widow in her 70s was robbed and killed, with her body charred beyond recognition in the house that the robber, one of her farm workers, set on fire in Magsingal, Ilocos Sur on April 1, 1998. The issue of warrantless arrest was not raised.
Initial reading of Taboga does not list the issue of warrantless arrest among the two issues the court tackled: the contended errors of the trial court in admitting in evidence Taboga’s “confession” to a radio reporter and in finding him guilty of robbery with homicide although it was not proven by evidence other than the confession.
Most people don’t check the cases cited by lawyers. In talking to media, lawyers need to explain how a case would apply to the current dispute.
Why is the arrest of schoolteacher Mas not covered by the general rule against warrantless arrest? The police could’ve secured the warrant and thus avoid the mess that warrantless arrests usually create.
And the public needs to know more than the one-line citation of the case: “People vs Taboga.” The reporter has to do the digging if the lawyer doesn’t provide it.
Furor over ECQ, MECQ
QUICK EO, DELAYED IATF RULING. The national government, through the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) and the office of the president, announced on May 12 its ruling that Cebu City would stay under MECQ or modified enhanced community quarantine until May 31.
On the same day of May 12, the tri-city alliance of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu appealed to the IATF that it would want to remain under enhanced quarantine until May 31.
On May 15, the day the ECQ was set to expire, Mayor Edgar Labella issued Executive Order 77, which would implement the MECQ. That night, however, after the EO was already publicized, IATF partly granted the tri-city appeal: It ruled that Cebu City and Mandaue City would keep their enhanced quarantine category, while Lapu-Lapu City would go with Cebu Province in the shift to general quarantine.
The following day, May 16, Mayor Labella announced IATF’s change of mind and revoked EO 77.
But only after a number of potshots on social media slammed with such complaints as “People are confused by the orders” and “Is anyone in-charge at City Hall?”
The lesson is that those who lead must be as quick in responding with explanation as some people are in throwing accusation.
Unwilling GCQian
THEY STILL DON’T KNOW STATE OF HEALTH. Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Junard “Ahong” Chan is specific about his wish, along with that of mayors of two other cities (Cebu and Mandaue), to remain under GCQ, at least until May 31. They don’t know the actual state of health (“ang tinuod hulagway sa sitwasyon”) in their cities until the rapid diagnostic tests are completed and the results known and studied.
But the IATF ruling is their command and so he and Lapu-Lapu must bear the shift, with Cebu Province, from ECQ to GCQ.
Being tested here, during the second half of May, is whose strategy is the better move: Which will save more lives, the continued lockdown under ECQ or the partial return to business under GCQ?