Justices Carolina Aquino, 89, and Efren Plana, 84, have passed on. I knew them only from afar. In the early 70’s, Justice Carol, then with SyCipLaw, called me. I was with the Ledesma firm. We talked settlement.

She was the biyenan of MABINI member Dodo Sarmiento, with whom I reconnected recently at the Comelec (I assisted a lawyer from Bacolod.) Dodo, UP, bar topnotcher ’76, No. 6, Harvard, drafted our petition to flush out Macoy’s secret decrees and MABINI succeeded. Pls. see Tañada v. Tuvera, 146 SCRA 446 (1985). Now the Supreme Court (SC) issues secret rulings affecting the public as ACCRA and I found out to our grief! We could take Macoy to the SC but where can we take the latter?

Justice Efren, with ACCRA, sent me an encouraging grace note when I was a senator. He was a brother of an accountant my father worked with in a Davao construction project, the ninong of our bunso. He was the ponente in a case I argued for Arlene Babst, et al., in Babst v. Nstional Intelligence Board, 132 SCRA 316 (1984). Winner: the firm of Moot & Academic. He concluded: “Fortunately, the NIB director general and chairman saw the wisdom of terminating the proceedings and the unwelcome interrogation.”)

Carol was the wife of Chief Justice (CJ) Ramon Aquino who I first met in the 70’s in the Board of Liquidators headed by Dr. Gaudencio Garcia (who along with CJ Aquino are two all-time top law teachers/authors. My adversary was Compañero/Caballero/Dean Tony Coronel and the no-nonsense duo really made us work at a time when what mattered was to know the law, not the judge; we did not try our cases in the media either. Standards have changed, not always for the better.

Rep. Manny Pacquiao scintillated in boxing but has been a disgrace to the House of Sumulongs, Salongas, Roxases, Osmeñas, Pelaezes and Lims. Aside from asking that he be allowed to train in the Batasan grounds, what has he done in the House save to be a Non-Performing Liability and contending for top absentee? Now he wants a brother to be with him in the House and his wife, as Vice Guv. Why not ask her to withdraw and have him replace her and then he can continue fighting at risk that next time, he may have siesta of ten minutes, or longer. Or the Big Sleep. A Vice Guv could engage in the Manly Art of Modified Murder or the Cauliflower Industry without hurting his constituents, only himself.

Multitasker Manny V. Pangilinan’s group of companies has donated P100M+ to Pablo victims. He is known to put himself where his mouth is. Multitasker Manny Pacquiao dedicated his fight with El Dinamita, who knocked him out when he led with his face, negating the gift. Unforgettable tableau - Manny sleeping, Jinkee screaming. He did pledge P10M to the same victims. May we ask if he has done so? - given that his Mum groused that he would not even finance a trip to Rome for San Pedro Calungsod who Manny may reject in his new role as preacher in another sect.

Many may have helped Pablo victims the FPJ way, unadvertised. He would donate in another’s name. He distanced himself from Erap after the latter had won, returning a gift car. He had refused a donation of P200M to his sputtering campaign, then hurting in 2004 after the issue came up that he was not a natural-born Pinoy (Caesarean kuno, ha,ha). He did not want to recover a lot he owned, taken over by informal settlers saying they needed more than he did their tiny places in the sun. I met him only twice in my life, when we exchanged pleasantries as Bedans of the Century in 2001 in Mendiola, and when he called for me in late May 2004, after the elections, to discuss certain contingencies in his San Juan office. Then at dawn in December 2004 I was with the multitude in Sto. Domingo. I joined the start of the final march to North Cemetery to bury one whose middle name was Decency, a trait of daughter Grace, for whom I will vote; She is a co-alum of my Dulce of Boston College, the Jesuit school Dulce attended when our love was new.

Meantime, the Congressmen concerned will please consider withdrawing their ill-advised Reso against Justine Bieber, said to have blasted our Pambansang Kamao. They should not do anything further that may make me wish my innocent apos would never know that Lolo once worked in the legislature. The Reso is a rebuke of me. Manong Ernie Maceda and I were never absent in any Senate session and still my talented, hardworking staff and I felt we did not have enough time to study complex issues. Today, with far more people and problems, I am amazed at how law- and policy-makers multi-task, on radio-TV, showbiz, gamble, womanize (and manize?), etc. and treat work in Congress as a sideline or hobby. Nonito Donaire should not look up to Manny as a role model.

Nor up to Sen. Bong Revilla, more focused on the millions he will make on his latest movie. He wants to run for Prez in 2022, maybe against Sen. Bongbong and Manny Pacquiao. Some choice but they could prepare now, sans the distractions. After all, fraternally, we cannot underrate anyone’s capacity for subjective growth.

I may not have done much in my time aside from blocking the return of the death penalty, ousting the military bases, allowing women to enter the PMA, etc., and co-authoring and sponsoring the measure that helped oust a Chief Justice. But before government, I was a human rights advocate who fought the regime daily, from Day One, detained, shot at, teargassed, water-cannoned, truncheoned, threatened, terrorized, etc. On February 25, 1986, after preparing the unconventional oaths of Cory and Doy and preparing Proclamation No. 1 saying that we were taking power in the name of the people (and therefore going revolutionary), time to go home, but foiled by Providential Prez Cory, with whom I finally left in 1992. FVR would call at dawn to urge me to head the Commission on Human Rights but it was time to reconnect with my neglected family. I also said NO to overtures to go to the SC, to which Prez Cory had appointed me in January 1987.

I see that Teddy Te has been named SC spokesman. Whatever for? It seems a spokesman should be limited to administrative matters, like announcing when a new appointee would take his oath or when bonuses may be received. When Justices wrote short comprehensible decisions, there was no need for a spokesman. Today, reading lengthy flip-flopping decisions a spokesman only adds to the confusion. The SC should return to the days when a SCRA volume would have four months of clear decisions, now only of four days of unclear flip-flopping ones.

Teddy is a good friend of Justice Marvic Leonen maybe the only SC Justice sworn in with no family member present, to my limited knowledge. He’s public property now. Is he an unwed father picked by a bachelor Prez? We know so little of highest officials, like the alleged drinking habits of a prez wannabee. Sana scuttlebutt lang. K, Teddy, please work on no more secret rulings, and please attend the Monday morning rites, to respect the flag as Justice Stevens, noted in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, a flag-burning case, on the heroism of the “Philippine scouts who fought in Bataan,” the ones we disparage when we snub the flag

Have a better year, one and all.