Unknown RTC judge is next Comelec commissioner

June 18, 2008 at 4:12 am (elections)


Written by Carmela Fonbuena
Newsbreak

Malacañang will soon appoint a relatively unknown and soon-to-retire Malabon regional trial court Judge Leonardo Leonida, 59, as elections commissioner, four sources with links in Malacañang and the judge’s legal circle confirmed with abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.

President Arroyo is expected to issue an ad interim appointment for Leonida this week or next. She is also expected to reappoint Commisioner Moslemen Macarambon, who was twice bypassed by the Commission on Appointments, the sources said.

Leonida’s appointment is expected to raise questions on the selection process in Malacañang. We found out that Leonida is facing an administrative charge before the Supreme Court for unethical conduct. This draws parallelism to the controversial appointment of Macarambon, whose reputation in the judiciary is under question. (Read: SC ruled twice against new Comelec Exec)

Leonida was not in the shortlist submitted to Malacañang early this year. (Read: Panel Submits Comelec Shortlist to Palace) Apparently, he is a new addition to the shortlist submitted to Malacañang last month. According to a source privy to the search process, the first shortlist was expanded from 10 to about 20 because of politics in the Palace. Leonida is one of 10 regional trial court judges that made it to the list. (There are three vacant positions.)

His inclusion in the Malacañang shortlist was a surprise for many as Leonida is practically unknown to Comelec and the legal circles in Metro Manila. ABS-CBN’s Willard Cheng reported on Sunday that the shortlist was trimmed to three names—Leonida, lawyer Howard Calleja, and chief state prosecutor Jovencito Zuño. Two independent sources said a bishop close to President Arroyo recommended Leonida to the Comelec post.

We checked with Comelec chief and former Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo, Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, Calleja of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), and Vincent Lazatin of the Transparency International Network and they don’t know Leonida.

“I have not met him. I’m in the black,” Melo told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak when asked if he knows the background of Leonida.

Among lawyers in Metro Manila, Leonida’s name does not strike recall. “At least with Metro Manila practitioners, [he is] absolutely unknown,” said another lawyer who has connections in government.

We could not reach Leonida for this article. According to a Malabon RTC clerk of court, Leonida is on terminal leave. He is the acting judge of the court’s branch 74.

San Beda student
But there is one person we found to have personally known him. It is elections lawyer Sixto Brillantes, although he last got in touch with Leonida in the 1970s. He was then Brillantes’s student in the San Beda College of Law. Leonida finished his law degree in 1973. As a student, Brillantes said, “He’s okay. He is good and efficient.”

But that was in the past. Two other sources familiar with Leonida’s judicial career told abs-cbnNEWS.con/Newsbreak said that Leonida has a “bad reputation.”

To those in the legal community who are familiar with Leonida and his certain appointment to the Comelec, “the reaction was very negative. He does not enjoy a good reputation in legal circles,” said one.

“With the choice, it is obvious that there is no determination or sincerity [on the part of the administration] in instituting reforms at Comelec,” he added.

Scandal in Laguna
Based on an interview, we found out that Leonida was transferred from Laguna to Malabon for an alleged indiscretion.

abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak was able to verify this with the Supreme Court (SC). An insider confirmed there’s a pending administrative case against Leonida on the alleged affair. We also gathered that it was his wife who asked for Leonida’s transfer. The complaint is now pending before the 2nd Division of the SC.

We failed to obtain copies of the administrative case from the SC’s Office of the Court Administrator as such cases are confidential in nature.

Long government service
Leonida passed the bar in 1974, with a grade of 79.75 percent. In 1983, he started his career in government service as secretary to one of several committees of the Batasang Pambansa. After Martial Law, he served again as a committee secretary in the 1986 Constitutional Commission.

In 1987, he was appointed as the 3rd assistant provincial prosecutor of Rizal. He was a fiscal in various courts for ten years until he was he was appointed in 1997 by President Fidel Ramos as presiding judge of Branch 27 regional trial court in Sta. Cruz, Laguna.

He is a native of Marinduque, where he finished his grade school and high school. He finished Bachelor of Arts in Manuel L. Quezon University in 1969, BS Law in 1973, and BS Business Administration in 1983. He now lives in Paranaque. –with reports from Jenny Lynne Aguilar (abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak)

1 Comments

Iamchange2010

June 16, 2008 at 8:36 am (elections, youth and education)

I am reprinting this call for youth volunteers for the 2010 elections, started by Team RP. I got this from my Ateneo e-mail. It is a call being started by young people now to form a large group of volunteers who will help make the 2010 elections an election that will involve the youth sector of the country. It is a campaign to ask the young to register, vote and monitor the elections results. I enjoin our readers to join them. Thank you — Danton

*****

IamChange2010
is the BIGGEST voter registration and education drive yet.

And we invite YOU to be a part of it!

By fusing the hippest in today’s youth culture with a compelling social message,
IamChange2010 will be a campaign like no other in the Philippines.

IamChange2010 shall feature:

1. an IamChange2010 Privilege Card for registered voters
2. bi-monthly national caravan with roadshows in 9 areas:

Bacolod
Baguio
Bulacan
Cagayan de Oro
Cebu
Davao
Pampanga
Subic
and Metro Manila

3. concert tours and coffee sessions
4. sports tournaments and arts competitions
5. Countdown to 2010 Billboard
6. Presidential Debate for the Youth
7. Election Night Wrap-up
8. much much more!

If you are interested, please send a letter of intent to kai.pastores@yahoo.com, including your preferred committees (for Documentation, Secretariat, Marketing, Promotions, Programs, Logistics, Media Relations, and IT). If you have any questions, feel free to contact Kai at 09178320120.

IamChange2010
is brought to you by Team RP, a youth-led initiative to advocate and proactively work towards the fight for Truth, Accountability and Reform in our government. It is led by college students and young professionals who want to see genuine reform in our country, especially in our government leaders today.

http://teamrp.multiply.com

JOIN IamChange2010 Today!

Comments

Selling Candidates: The Promise and Limits of Political Ads

May 14, 2008 at 1:51 pm (elections)

After the pioneering book, Spin and Sell, a sequel, Selling Candidates: The Promise and Limits of Political Advertisements was recently launched.

Written by Ana Maria Tabunda, Carmela Fonbuena and Aries Rufo, the book discusses the political ads of the 2007 senatorial elections and how the media covered the 90-day campaign and election period.

In the launch held at the Hyatt Hotel in Manila, the book, published by Public Trust Media Group in cooperation with the Kondrad Adenauer Stiftung, was the take-off point for discussion by panelists from the media, politics, and advertising sector.

Losing senatorial candidate Prospero Pichay is an example that political ads are not enough to put one in the Senate. He said that reasons for his defeat include not having an organization, not being carried by the biggest religious groups, and the fact that he is not known nationwide.

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano added that free media or publicity—meaning being covered by the press—is a more effective vehicle than political ads.

Yoly Villanueva Ong, president and CEO of Campaigns and Grey, said that image is not fabricated and a costume you put on. Rather, it is rather based on the truth.

Charie Villa, vice president for news gathering of ABS-CBN, said that people are now more discerning on who to vote for public office.

Against ad ban
The highlights of the book include a chapter written by Tabunda, Shifting Preferences: Image, Personality, and Political Party in the 2007 Senatorial Elections. She describes the contents of the political ads of both the Genuine Opposition (GO) and Team Unity (TU).

In another chapter, Tabunda concludes that three out of four voters are against a ban on political ads since these campaign materials are among the sources of information for the voters.

For her part, Carmela Fonbuena studied the communication strategies and plans behind the political ads. She enumerated four factors that affect the candidates’ chances of winning: political advertisements, news coverage, political legacy or political baggage and dagdag bawas or vote padding.

Aries Rufo, in his chapter, Hostaged by Spin and Gimmickry, discusses how the media covered the whole campaign and election period. -Stefanie Leuterio (abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak)

2 Comments

To run or not to run

May 6, 2008 at 2:01 pm (Prof. Danton Remoto, elections)
Tags: ,

dear spliceandice,

to answer your question, let me give a very brief background. we formed ang ladlad in 2003, wanted to run in 2007, but ben “burjer king” abalos said we did not have a national constituency, we are not marginalized and we are not under-represented. i think he was just afraid that if we won (and surveys said we would get two seats) we would add votes to the gma impeachment campaign. and so we were not allowed to run, and i ran as a congressman of district 3 as a guest candidate of pdp-laban/ genuine opposition. we lost. we were also surprised to learn that a week before the elections, the comelec changed all the election supervisors in my district, and only God know what happened next.

now the law says i cannot run as a party-list candidate again under ang ladlad, because of my loss in the last elections. therefore, i am being asked to run as a congressman of district 3 (i got 10,000 votes — all of them clean, i assure you, walang bahid ‘yan ng daya), or as a senator of the republic. i am weighing the pros and cons based on finances, survey results, and which party would draft me.

so to answer your question, spliceandice, yes, i am running in 2010. i hope that answers your question.

thank you,

danton remoto

4 Comments

The road to 2010

May 1, 2008 at 9:34 am (Prof. Danton Remoto, elections)
Tags: , , , ,

Danton Remoto
Remote Control
www.abs-cbn.com/news

I am reprinting my column which appeared in this week’s issue of www.abs-cbn.com/news. Although it seems I am talking about us, let me say I am also talking about the other young people who want to enter politics but are afraid of the dirt, the muck, the mud usually associated with it. Thanks.

***
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. So is the road to 2010.

It is still two years before the elections, but the battles have already begun. In the third district of Quezon City where I live, the councilors running for vice-mayor have strung many tarpaulins showing their fat, oily faces. Since they would be vacating their seats they have warmed for three terms, they have included photos of their wives, or sisters, or brothers, along with the pet poodle named Fifi to complete the family portrait. Of course, the wives, sisters, or brothers would run for councilors two years from now. In the Philippines, this is not called a political dynasty. It is called royalty.

Some of them are wise about it, in the Tagalog meaning of wise as in ”tuso.” They are offering 50 percent tuition discounts at some middling school or other. And when the poor people of Escopa would go to the schools, they would be informed that the councilors’ discount is 50 percent, yes, but the tuition is worth P18,000 per semester. And where would Aling Mila, who queues for four hours to buy two kilos of NFA rice, get that P9,000 to put Junior through school?

Or they are sponsoring bingo socials, or basketball games, or why not, even boxing matches, with them in tarpaulin poses that would make Manny Pacquiao blush in shame.

After I ran in the last elections and lost, I was contented to just return to my life a teacher of Literature, introducing students to the magic of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda. But now as I write this column, my cell phone keeps ringing and ringing. Or else, it is beginning to be clogged up with messages.

Somebody running for congressman is asking me if I would run again for the same position? I won’t, I answer, not after seeing the election supervisors shuffled and changed by former Comelec Chairman Ben “Burjer King” Abalos one week before the May 14, 2007 elections.

“If you’re not running,” asked the persistent caller, “will you support my candidacy?”

I gave him my e-mail address and asked him to send me his platform. The silence of the lambs filled the other end of the line. “Hello?” I asked, and he was there again, resurrected from the dead, muttering that, yes, indeed, why not, I will send you my flatporms. Before I could tell him I wasn’t talking about shoes, he had already hung up.

Or take the case of this movie star running as a councilor in a nearby district, a friend of a friend, who is also asking for my, uh, endorsement. “My endorsement?” I wanted to say, following this with the laughter of a hyena. I never entertained the notion that my “endorsement” would amount to anything.

“Yes, sir, they told me you got 10,000 votes in the last elections, and you got them without any cheating!”

“Of course,” I wanted to answer, “without any cheating!” But I just resorted to my Americanism (aha, aha, aha), and let him drone on and on. I did not promise him anything even if he looked cute enough to play Superman in its next remake. I just advised him to begin working for the post now.

Yes, now. Two years before the elections, we do not need to see tarpaulins greeting us a merry Christmas, a happy Valentines, a great graduation, or a sizzling summer. I would advise below the radar-line campaigning.

What does it mean?

Good, honest-to-goodness work for and with the poorest communities. No fizz, no flash, no glitz, no glamour.

A real livelihood program, for one, where the people are taught skills, given initial supplies, then monitored afterward. A medical mission with good doctors, nurses and dentists, and a cache of medicines that could be used when the rainy season – and its illnesses – comes in. Books for the barangay library, so the young ones could learn to read and open the windows of their minds.

The list could go on and on.

But if I were you, you should also go out and talk to the youth. They constitute 70 percent of the voting bloc, and believe me, they will be a tectonic force in the 2010 elections. What I like about the youth is you cannot fool them. They seem to have what Ernest Hemingway called a “shit-proof lie-detector system” inside them that could sniff out the trapo from the real thing. The world wide web, the borderless world of cyberspace, cable television, even cheap air travel and the tales of wonder from their OFW relatives have made sure that in 2010, they will look for candidates who are young, bright, talented and brash.

Candidates who will call a spade a spade, a dictator a dictator – and step up the plate and offer themselves to the young voters. It is happening now all over the world, demographics have taken care of it – the rise of a new breed of candidates who reinvent the creaky wheel of politics. They do not have a lot of money, but they have guts and street smarts and the deep knowledge that they are inviting everybody to step aboard a ship A ship called hope.

My fearless forecast: the Jurassic candidates will doomed – those who are between 60 and death, those who give flowery speeches, and those who steal the country blind. We will see the revenge of the young voters in 2010, and it will give us a break from bad governance that we so richly deserve.

3 Comments