In Legal Terms
All the president’s books
October 28, 2023
BOOKS are like spoons; once invented, they cannot be bettered, said the Italian polymath, Umberto Eco. Some may think that Eco’s words are no longer true because of the internet. However, an everlasting medium for storing information has not been invented, which is why nothing has yet exceeded the capacity of the book to store information for centuries. Try to open a floppy disk from three decades ago, and you will surely fail to secure the information stored there. Now, try to open a book printed 300 years ago; in an instant, you are given access to the information it contains, provided you understand the language.
The real beef on the ICC withdrawal
September 23, 2023
ON March 16, 2018, when Rodrigo Roa Duterte was president, the Philippines formally submitted to the United Nations its Notice of Withdrawal from the Rome Statute. The legality of the Philippine withdrawal from the treaty which created the International Criminal Court (ICC) was questioned.
The Grand Gallery of Singapore
August 5, 2023
NOW, let me tell you why I want to write about one of the august buildings around the Padang of Singapore, a historic place and ceremonial ground in that island republic. Padang means field in Bahasa Melayu, and the building I am referring to is the National Gallery Singapore, the only gallery and museum outside of our archipelago that regularly and consistently presents to the world works by Filipinos. Dr. Eugene Tan, the director, is a brilliant but humble and self-effacing man who has given Filipino artists the chance to show their prodigious talents in Southeast Asia’s First World economy.
The great Sierra Madre lockdown
July 8, 2023
THE island of Luzon is traversed by three mountain ranges. Its geological spine, the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, is a 540-kilometer stretch from Cagayan to Quezon. The Cordillera Mountain Range, measuring 320 kilometers cuts through Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino and Nueva Ecija, and between the two is the Carballo Mountain Range. These three nurture the headwaters of the mighty Cagayan River. The Sierra Madre and Cordillera were so impenetrable, the Spanish empire could barely stake territory with Cross and Sword.
The Butuan Goddess, how to get her back
June 10, 2023
WHEN you enter Butuan City in Agusan del Norte, you will be welcomed by a regally seated golden goddess. The statue, which is a 3-feet tall enlarged replica of the real “Butuan goddess,” is an 18-karat gold figure supposedly found by a Manobo woman by the Wawa River. Some people call the goddess “The Golden Tara,” “The Agusan Gold Image” or simply “The Agusan Image.” The original is in the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History.
The Lost City and how the Igorots lots their lands
June 3, 2023
I RECENTLY released a book entitled “Juicio Final.” It is a history book with paintings that would give visual life to the stories. The cover of the book shows an imposing Igorotta which was borrowed from the frontispiece of a book written by the French traveler, René Jouglet, in the 1930s romantically entitled “The Lost City,” making people conjure images of Shangrila.
A Tree as Tall as the Ritz
May 27, 2023
ON my first trip to the United States, I took a tourist bus in New York City and understood why it was described as a concrete jungle in some books I had read. In lieu of trees, there were skyscrapers, growing beside each other, casting shadows on the streets and in some areas, blocking the flow of air. Among the concrete trees, the Ritz Carlton Hotel alongside Central Park looked like the tallest from the window of that bus.
The Cleverest Thing and the Nine-dash Line
May 20, 2023
IT is a series of dashes, nine in all, that presents and outlines in a vague way, China’s claim on the South China Sea (SCS). The nine-dash line encroached on the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf of the Philippines. Before China revealed its intentions in the SCS, the significance of the dashes was a cartographic puzzle.
Arson for Dummies
May 13, 2023
BECAUSE of uncommon heat and dryness, destructive fires are commonplace. A poet once wondered whether the world would end by fire or ice, but after partaking of desire, he said, he favors those who favor fire. Conflagrations are not always accidental. There are instances when arson becomes a part of State policy.