EMONG'S JOURNALS

The House of Representatives’ Committee on Legislative Franchises denied the application of media network ABS-CBN for a new 25-year franchise, with 70 committee members voting in favor of the resolution, 11 against it. Legal practitioners have suggested various remedies for ABS-CBN to have a franchise, including a very rigorous, back-breaking Constitutional recourse: the People’s Initiative. But this law is rife with complexities. What is People's Initiative People's Initiative (PI) is a provision in the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines allowing for a "people's initiative" as one of the modes for constitutional amendment: ART. 6, SECTION 32 The Congress shall, as early as possible, provide for a system of initiative and referendum, and the exceptions therefrom, whereby the people can directly propose and enact laws or approve or reject any act or law or part thereof passed by the Congress or local legislative body after the registration of a pe...

How well do you know the Writ of Habeas Corpus? Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is mulling to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to address the country's drug problems and suppress rebellion in Mindanao. Habeas corpus, or the Great Writ as they call it in the Western world, is the legal procedure that keeps the government from holding you indefinitely without showing cause. When you challenge your detention by filing a habeas corpus petition, the executive branch must explain to a neutral judge its justification for holding you. Habeas corpus prevents anyone from simply locking up people in secret dungeons and throwing away the key. Here are ten (10) useful facts about the Habeas Corpus: 1. A writ of Habeas Corpus is a court order to a person (prison warden) or agency (institution) holding someone in custody to deliver the imprisoned individual to the court issuing the order. 2. Literally, 'habeas corpus' means 'you may have the body' (if legal pro...

THE United States Supreme Court has recently issued a decision allowing same-sex marriage in all US states, a landmark ruling embraced as a victory long sought by US gay rights movements. The Philippines Supreme Court, likewise, also has a pending petition in their office seeking a similar decision. But this petition, filed by lawyer Jesus Nicardo Falcis III, may come as hard as passing through the eye of a needle, as the country's law contains provisions that limit marriage exclusively between a man and a woman. The Family Code of the Philippines and same-sex marriage According to a Philstar report, Atty. Falcis filed his petition on May 18 of this year, asking the SC to nullify and declare as unconstitutional provisions of the Family Code, which laid down the legal framework for the ban on same-sex marriage. Unlike in the US where there is no law that does not allow same-sex marriage in the country, the Philippines has the Family Code of the Philippines (Ar...