When I left the government to join a newspaper, my friend asked me: “Why?” This was answered more than a century ago by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Edward Carrington, which reads: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” My dear friend, the answer is obvious.
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Justice Noel Tijam was President Duterte’s second appointee to the Supreme Court, after Justice Samuel Martirez. After their retirement from the highest court, both of them were given new sensitive assignments. Justice Martirez was named the Ombudsman after a grueling selection process conducted by the Judicial and Bar Council vice Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, while Justice Tijam was designated as a member of the Judicial and Bar Council. The fact that nobody cried “recycling” confirms that their designations are well accepted. Both are illustrious products of the San Beda College of Law who have made their fellow Bedans proud of their achievements.
When Justice Tijam retired in January, his peers in the Court gave him a testimonial ceremony. His response to the speeches made in his honor by CJ Lucas Bersamin and all the associate justices should be read by all judges, legal practitioners and students of law.
Justice Tijam sent this joke to me: “A 70-year-old Kansas man committed a robbery to get arrested so that he could get away from his wife. After trial, he was placed under house arrest.” We are currently observing the “International Women’s Month.” The truth of the matter is that it’s not just for a month but for each day of our life.
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One of the most powerful women during her era was Katharine Graham who was the publisher of the Washington Post during the critical years of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. She was both loved and hated during her time. She was once aptly described by a detractor as “an extraordinary woman who comforts the distressed and distresses the comfortable.”
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After lunch in a famous restaurant, I used the bathroom, which was reeking with unpleasant smell. And voila!… there was no running water. I had a meeting in an office in Mandaluyong and went to the bathroom but the bathroom was closed with a sign posted on the door: “Closed. Sorry, no water.” I had coffee with friends in a popular coffee shop somewhere in Pasig City and left an interesting conversation to use the restroom but a “No Enter” sign was posted outside. Signs of the time.
If I were running for public office, I’ll adopt this campaign slogan: “Sagot ko ang problema ninyo. Ipa-flush ko ang kubeta ninyo.”
Water has become a precious commodity that one guy had reported to the police that a neighbor had stolen a pail of water that he had stored.
“Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink” lamented Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, about a seafarer who was stranded in the open sea for days.
Now that water is as scarce as finding an oasis in the desert, where and how do the small water purifier shops that literally abound in every street corner source their water supply for their business? Are we still buying clean and safe drinking water? Do these shops still strictly maintain the required process to purify their product?
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Up to now, people ask me why I resigned from my post. I did not. My term of office automatically expired when RA No. 11199 took effect on March 5, 2019. I stepped down voluntarily and irrevocably to give the President a free hand to designate my successor who is deserving of his trust. And let me add what I had said in an interview earlier: “Appointive officials in government serve at the pleasure, and in most cases at the displeasure of the appointing power. I left my office at my pleasure.”