WATCH: China Coast Guard gunboat water cannons Philippine Coast Guard vessel half its size at Ayungin Dec. 10 – PCG video

The best defense is offense. China schemes to steal oil and gas in Recto Bank within Philippine exclusive economic zone. To avert that, the Philippines must extract the fuel for itself.

It can be done; it has been done. Up to two years ago China coveted Malaysia’s offshore petroleum. The latter held naval patrols with America and Australia while drilling for oil. Indonesia requested a US aircraft carrier sail-by as it drilled as well in Natuna Isles that China was grabbing.

Beijing shrieked. Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta coolly recited portions of Manila’s 2016 arbitral victory at The Hague against Beijing’s illegal claim over the entire South China Sea.

“Now China is quiet, while Malaysia and Indonesia enjoy their oil,” notes former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio. “We should also invite naval allies to joint exercises while we drill in Recto.”

Recto has proven reserves. In 2013, the US Energy Information Administration estimated it at 5.4 billion barrels of oil and 55.1 trillion cubic feet of gas. That’s 63.5 times more oil and 20.5 times more gas than Malampaya, which will run out between 2024 and 2027.

National existence hangs on Recto replacing Malampaya. The latter fuels 40 percent of Luzon electricity. With no alternative, Luzon and parts of the Visayas will plunge into darkness.

Imagine the disaster. Water service, factories, offices, shops, telecoms, trains, schools, hospitals, hotels, diners, cinemas, churches will close. No work or classes from home either. Foreign investors will leave. Jobs will vanish.

Recto is a hundred miles from Palawan, within the Philippines’ 200-mile EEZ. It’s 650 miles from China’s southernmost province Hainan, thus outside its EEZ. The Hague arbitral court affirmed. China can’t claim it by imagined “nine-, ten- or 11-dash line.”

Although China snubbed the hearings, it’s bound by The Hague verdict under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Its state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. has no right to drill there.

CNOOC cannot subcontract to private exploration firms, says Carpio. Shell, Occidental, Exxon, among others, are bound by international law, so will shun CNOOC.

Manila discovered gas in Recto’s Sampaguita fields in 1976. Three wells at 250 feet proved productive. The government awarded Service Contract-72 in 2002. Britain’s Forum Energy took interest in 2005. China repeatedly menaced its survey vessels.

Filipino magnate Manuel V. Pangilinan bought Forum to extract petroleum once and for all. Twice the Duterte admin delayed him to let CNOOC in, only to realize that the Chinese-state firm was only dribbling the ball. The Philippines also ran out of time.

Recto petroleum is why China is striving to dislodge BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal. Ayungin (international name: Second Thomas) is at the entrance of Recto (Reed). The Philippine Navy beached its vessel there in 1999 to counter China’s 1995 occupation of nearby Panganiban (Mischief) Reef.

China’s Communist Party has long been craving Recto. Despite bannering China as an ancient civilization, CCP acts uncivilized.

Sierra Madre’s dozen or so Marines need regular supply and rotation. China Coast Guard gunboats ram and water cannon Filipino wooden civilian bancas ferrying food and other basic needs. Latest barbarism was on Dec. 10, the 75th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

China’s coast guards report to CCP’s military commission. They shouldn’t be in Panganiban or anywhere in or near Ayungin, or Rozul (Iroquois) and Escoda (Sabina) Shoals in Recto’s west and eastsides.

“We should repair Sierra Madre,” says international maritime lawyer Jay Batongbacal, PhD. But China bars it, so the World War II-vintage ship and Filipino defenders would crash into the sea.

CCP mobilizes jingoist Chinese for aggression. Among the blockers of last Sunday’s Ayungin resupply were a Chinese cargo ship and two maritime militia trawlers.

The previous day, other militia trawlers assisted Chinese coast guards in water cannoning two Philippine government vessels near Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal. The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources was only bringing fuel and food to Filipino catchers outside the shoal, which China grabbed in 2012.

On Tuesday, Dec. 5, Chinese cargo steel ship M/V Tai Hang rammed a Filipino wooden boat. The sun was bright at 4 p.m. and the sea calm when – Huang! One of the five Filipinos thrown overboard was able to video two Chinese crewmen on deck ascertaining the hit-and-run.

At Recto in June 2019, a Chinese militia trawler switched off its light then rammed an anchored Filipino boat at midnight. It switched its light back on momentarily to check if the 26 Filipinos had fallen into the sea, then fled.

It’s time Filipinos took the offensive.

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TikTok went global in 2018. At once, security experts suspected it of being a Chinese cyber-espionage tool. Reasons against the micro-vlogging and e-commerce platform:

• It collects, uses and discloses users’ personal information. Substantial data are gathered without permission from other apps in the device. It draws sensitive data even when users don’t save or share content.

• TikTok developer ByteDance and founder Zhang Yiming are Chinese. In 2017 the China Communist Party enacted a National Intelligence Law. It compels Chinese companies and citizens to support domestic and overseas espionage and keep secret their participation.

Due to TikTok’s cyber-sabotage potential, several governments banned it from their devices. Foremost were China’s security disputants America, Canada, Britain, European Union, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. India forbade TikTok even in private mobiles and tablets.

ByteDance protested, citing company changes. It had opened to foreign shareholders. CEO Zhang had acquired US citizenship and emigrated to California’s Silicon Valley.

Its engineers were cooperating with concerned states to resolve security and privacy issues.

China’s foes were unconvinced. ByteDance and most overseas employees remain Chinese, all subject to CCP’s intelligence apparatus.

Tiktok’s overseas servers interconnect with those in China. Backdoors may exist surreptitiously to access unauthorized data, and malware planted to subvert.

The Philippines disagreed with security allies then. President Rodrigo Duterte professed love for Chinese President Xi Jinping. He allowed a new telco to set up cell sites inside military camps – a potential eavesdropping risk.

TikTok became a sensation not only among civilian government employees. Uniformed, intelligence and foreign affairs personnel also installed it in state-issued gadgets. Short videos were entertaining.

The National Security Agency now wants to prohibit TikTok from official devices due to disinformation capability. Reuters reports that Filipinos are among the top ten nationals who imbibe news mostly from TikTok.

NSA notices pro-China news and views – as China escalates aggression in the West Philippine Sea. “Disinformation operations, psychological warfare and other stuff are being done,” NSA Assistant Director Jonathan Malaya says.

He adds: “Banning wouldn’t be for those in the civilian sector, but for security, armed forces, uniformed personnel, intelligence.”

China is becoming more and more a surveillance state. It spies on its own citizens via millions of CCTVs in street corners. With artificial intelligence, each camera can detect 60 faces simultaneously, analyze up to 100 faces per second and store 1.8 billion images.

Abroad, CCP’s International Department has “influence fronts.” These are spying units disguised as Chinese citizens’ help centers or embedded in academe, industry, political and civic groups.

The US suffered 224 Chinese spying from 2001 to 2022. Forty-nine percent directly involved Chinese military or government employees, 41 percent were private Chinese citizens and ten percent were compromised US citizens.

Purposes overlapped: 46 percent of incidents were cyber espionage, 29 percent military technology theft, 54 percent commercial technology theft and 17 percent on politicians. That’s despite a 2015 deal by president Barack Obama with Xi to lessen snooping.

Europe detected six Chinese military fronts for cyber spying and hacking. The “advanced persistent threats” were seen “conducting malicious cyber activities against business and governments in the Union,” said the EU Agency for Cybersecurity and the Computer Emergency Response Team.

Upon special extension as CCP chairman in October 2022, Xi imposed a new rule. All Chinese companies are to have “party cells.” To avoid conflict, CEOs and proprietors swear allegiance to and parrot Xi’s quotations.

Within weeks, Nikkei Asia reported, more than two-thirds of Chinese firms traded in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange had articles of association with CCP.

TikTok’s parent firm cannot escape CCP assumption. But NSA must take care to speak of banning not for content but technological security. NSA can acquire info from intelligence partners Five Eyes and EU.

Information-Communication Technology Sec. Ivan Uy resists banning for content: “There has to be basis. [NSA] can have TikTok explain to us their technology … Not only [TikTok but] all social media are abused for disinformation and fake news.”

TikTok Philippines disavows CCP ties. “Shareholders own private companies like ByteDance,” Policy Officer Toff Rada asserts. “Who are they? Sixty percent are foreign global institutions like General Atlantic, Softbank, KKR; private investment companies, some Americans. Companies are run by boards of directors.

“None of ByteDance’s directors are with the Chinese government. Three are American. We have said again and again that TikTok is not in China. Parent company ByteDance has only one subsidiary operating there …  In all these years, no one has produced even a shred of evidence that we have leaked data to the Chinese government.”

But that’s precisely because of the secrecy requirement of China’s intelligence law, a defense official counters: “Admit your cyber-snooping participation, and you and your family will go to prison.”

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Photo from website of Amerasia International Terminal Services Inc.

Manuel Urbano Jr. sounded excited as always when he phoned on June 8th, his 84th birthday. I thought he would ask me like before to help tackle a hot issue on his hit YouTube channel “Mr. Shooli.” Then my jaw dropped when he said from out of the blue, “Mr. Shooli is losing steam.”

“It can’t be po,” I replied about his show that metamorphosed from mainstream television’s “Mongolian Barbeque” in the 1980s to “Mr. Shooli” in film and online. “It’s a YouTube sensation. Episodes go viral. Audiences mimic the gags, the intonation, even production styles. And it has many sponsors.”

Manong Jun hushed me: “I don’t mean Mr. Shooli the show, I mean me as Mr. Shooli.”

Fans knew it’s the inimitable Jun Urbano behind the comedic Mr. Shooli. But he always differentiated between himself as creator-director and Mr. Shooli as character. Program guests in the past three decades realized that. He’d tell them for example, “After Mr. Shooli introduces you and the subject matter, go right in as you wish.”

But on that morning he referred to Jun Urbano and Mr. Shooli as one. Odd.

Manong Jun expounded: “Todo ganado pa rin ako. But it’s becoming harder and harder to get up from bed, research the material, write the script, put on costume and make up and set up lights, audio-video and gear.” Naka-alalay pa ng husto niyan si Banot at Morado (two of his four sons.)

He ended the call with a wish, “Panahon na ng mga bata, sana sila naman.”

Manong Jun had undergone quintuple heart bypass in 2012. He was later diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. But that never seemed to bother his hectic work. Before and after his heart surgery, he produced more than a thousand television commercials.

He appeared weekly as Mr. Shooli in the TV satire “Mongolian Barbeque.” Viewers became familiar with his bright red regal attire, fu manchu moustache on the side of his lips and supposedly chinoy accent. They laughed as he told them their faults through comedy.

He also produced and starred in two movies. The titles hinted at the satirical content. “Juan Tamad at Mr. Shooli sa Mongolian Barbeque” was about the fabled indolent Pinoy who lay down under the guava tree and waited for the fruit to ripen and drop by itself into his mouth.

“Ang M.O.N.AY. ni Mr. Shooli” or “Misteyks op da Neysion Adres Yata” parodize politicos. Jun Urbano’s best friend Leo Martinez directed and costarred as Tongressman Manhik-Manaog. They obviously got away with it.

Jun Urbano had other projects in mind, including one on the sad-happy life of overseas Filipino workers. Another is about a US-born millennial balikbayan who learned that the good in the homeland outweighed the bad so decided to stay. Friends were eager to finance him. But in at least two press interviews he said he felt he was about to board his final flight.

He did last Saturday, Dec. 2. But not before two fitting tributes.

On Aug. 13, The Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences honored Jun Urbano with its highest accolade. The Dr. Jose R. Perez Memorial Award was for his “outstanding achievements and lasting impact on the film industry.”

FAMAS recognized Urbano’s dedication to the craft, “cementing his legacy in the annals of Filipino cinema.”

The University of the Philippines-College of Mass Communications revered him too. On Oct. 11 UP-CMC gave him the Gawad Plaridel 2023 for “outstanding accomplishments in the fields of television, advertising and film.”

The citation said it all: “For creating productions in television and film that elevated the substance and form of comedy that future generations of Filipino media practitioners can look up to as models for creating media productions with superior quality and social commitment.”

Gawad Plaridel is granted only to living communication artists and scientists. This is because it has a requirement – for the recipient to lecture on his craft.

Jun Urbano did just that right after accepting the trophy on stage. He was dressed as Mr. Shooli. And since it was in public, he dissociated the awardee Manuel Urbano Jr. from the recipient in bright red.

He said: “I’m sorry po, nahihiya humarap si Jun Urbano sa mga matatalinong propesor at estudyante dito sa UP. Ipinadala niya si Mr. Shooli para tanggapin itong parangal ninyo.” Then Mr. Shooli delivered what is perhaps Jun Urbano’s last way of making us laugh by telling us about our faults.

Read “Wha’ happen to you, Mr. Shooli asks Pinoys,” Gotcha, 1 Nov. 2023: https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2023/11/01/2308013/wha-happen-you-mr-shooli-asks-pinoys.

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            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Photo from website of Amerasia International Terminal Services Inc.

What are a freeport locator’s rights? A court answer to that simple question can settle turmoil in the sprawling economic zone. Perhaps assuage restive workers.

Cargo handler Amerasia International Terminal Services is a pioneer at Subic Bay Freeport. It petitions the Olongapo Court for “declaratory relief.” Such plea seeks “an authoritative statement of rights and obligations of parties.”

On a definition of rights depends Amerasia’s operation, capital and workers. Its case “is not to settle issues arising from an alleged breach [of rights and obligations, but] may be entertained before the breach or violation of contracts.”

Dire events prompted the court petition. In 2021 the Supreme Court 3rd Division upheld the Olongapo judge’s kicking Amerasia and fellow pioneers out of Subic. Although the five magistrates were split 3 to 2, the case was not raised to the en banc.

Thus, newcomer Harbour Centre Port Terminal Inc. is set to replace the pioneers, based on issues questioned 13 years ago.

The SC is not a trier of facts; it determines constitutionality, legality and procedural validity. So it’s back to the lower court for a factual declaration.

One of two respondents is Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). The other naturally is Harbour Centre.

Since June 2023 Amerasia has been asking SBMA about its plans, given that previous chairmen, administrators and board members resisted Harbour Centre’s entry. Present SBMA chairman-administrator Jonathan Tan and director Jose Mari Ponce were mum. SBMA simply issued Harbour Centre notices of award and to proceed.

Foreign and domestic investors are closely monitoring the case outcome. They need proof of sanctity of Philippine contracts.

Other Subic pioneers, high-tech port developers Mega Subic Terminal Services and Subic Seaport Terminals, are watching too. Same with their thousands of employees who fear job losses.

Since 1994 Amerasia, Mega Terminals and Subic Seaport Terminals have contributed P2.7 billion to SBMA revenues. Suppliers who installed P1 billion in machineries and shops added more.

All now worry about being eased out. Unknown is how many of 145-thousand workers and entrepreneurs from surrounding provinces will also be adversely affected.

Harbour Centre in November 2009 unsolicitedly had proposed to operate Subic Freeport for P6.4 billion. By February 2010 the outgoing SBMA administrator signed a joint venture – stating only P200-million Harbour Centre investment over three years.

The three-month “evaluation” surprised locators. The joint venture came ahead of publication and conduct of competitive challenge, a breach of 2008 guidelines. It was also done during the 2010 election ban on government contracting.

Deadline was set on April 22, 2010 for submission of counter-proposals. SBMA received none, precisely because of the prohibition that insulates state projects from political partisanship.

The National Economic and Development Authority hadn’t studied the legal, financial and technical viability. The President as NEDA chairman and Cabinet secretaries in the board did not approve the deal. In July 2011 NEDA invalidated it for procedural breaches.

Still the Olongapo judge affirmed the joint venture. The Court of Appeals in 2013 reversed the lower court, and the Supreme Court 3rd Division in 2021 in turn reversed the CA.

Amerasia’s new case exhibits its 2007 Lease Agreement with SBMA over part of the freeport for 25 years. The cargo handling lease precedes the 2010 SBMA deal with Harbour Centre.

Amerasia further presents SBMA’s 2015 Amendment extending the 25-year lease by eight more. This shows that SBMA recognized Amerasia as cargo handler instead of the 2011 Joint Venture with Harbour Centre.

Another exhibit: SBMA’s issuance to Amerasia of Certificate of Registration and Tax Exemption in December 2021. This upholds Amerasia as a Subic Freeport cargo handler, in conflict with the concession granted to Harbour Centre.

The Olongapo Court must clarify the facts fast. From there Amerasia, Mega Terminals, Subic Seaport Terminals, SBMA and Harbour Centre can plot their next moves. Same with other foreign and domestic investors.

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Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines has among the country’s highest college enrollments – PUP Facebook photo

Congress forbade state universities and colleges (SUCs) from collecting tuition starting 2018. Same with local ones (LUCs) of provinces and cities. It was bandied as the first improvement under the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.

Yet Congress forgot the basic ingredient for quality education: new money. In fact, its yearly allotments for tuition-free SUCs/LUCs has been diminishing.

The House of Reps recently approved P100.8-billion budget for SUCs/LUCs in 2024. It is 5.75 percent or P6.155 billion lower than this year’s P107 billion.

And that P107 billion is only half of what SUCs/LUCs need in order to maintain previous quality levels. Meaning, this year’s budget should be at least P214 billion.

That’s why there’s unrest in SUC campuses in Metro Manila. Professors and students are protesting deteriorating facilities and unfulfilled salary increases.

Affected are University of the Philippines, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Philippine Normal University, Eulogio Amang Rodriguez Institute for Science and Technology and Technological University of the Philippines.

Demonstrators want P9-billion confidential-intelligence funds of high officials realigned to SUCs/LUCs. They demand payment of the last tranche of promised standardized wages for academic and nonacademic personnel.

Problem is that Congress miscalculated in 2018. That year it allocated only P65-billion subsidies for SUCs/LUCs. It was barely enough for maintenance and operations, salaries and training, new facilities and equipment, and scholarships.

Congress erred worse. The P65 billion was only for 2018’s graduating seniors and incoming freshmen. There were no sophomores and juniors. The decade-long implementation of the Kindergarten-to-Grade-12 program had interrupted college enrollments by two years.

Then Congress scrapped tuitions. In a flash it forfeited five to 12 percent of SUC/LUC funding. Rich students who used to pay tuition benefitted the most. Only 12 percent of college enrollees are penurious but scholastically deserving.

The P65-billion subsidy needed in 2018 was projected to swell 35 percent every three years. By 2021 it should’ve been P90 billion. And by 2024 it should be P120 billion.

Double the needed amount for 2024 to P240 billion – to cover the sophomore and juniors that the 2018 budget missed. Plus the eliminated tuition.

P240 billion is what SUCs/LUCs direly need for next year.

Urgently needed along with that amount is a review of the tuition-free policy and the supposed improved quality of tertiary schooling.

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Jam for children’s rights. The Rotary Club of Malabon Highlands is organizing a folk-rock-pop dinner-concert on Saturday, Nov. 25,  6 p.m., at the UP-Diliman Bahay Ng Alumni.

Started by composer Paul Galang’s Abakadang Kayumanggi Community Development Foundation, the yearly fundraising benefits 150 underserved children of low income workers and poor families.

Featuring Noel Cabangon, Gary Granada, Color It Red, Gracenote, Edru Abraham with Kontragapi Ethnic Music Ensemble, and Paul Galang with Astarte Abraham and Lester Demetillo.

Paul is continuing his late mom’s “Every Child is My Child” mission in 1988. Abakadang Kayumanggi helps poor youngsters in Barrio Potrero, Malabon and Bagong Barrio, Caloocan. The aim is to prevent them from living in the streets and falling prey to child abuse.

For tickets and reservations: 09128592000 or 09062707804. Or email hello@imx.ph.

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Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

All dentists must know how to pull-out teeth. No physician can be an obstetrician, ophthalmologist or ear-nose-throat specialist unless able to do surgeries. More so general, orthopedic, neuro, cardiothoracic, plastic and reconstructive surgeons.

They’re most alarmed by what befell bone surgeon Benigno Agbayani Jr. Ninety-five thousand other physicians fear that “injustice done to Dr. Iggy” could open the floodgates to malpractice suits that would inflate the cost of medical care. Not to mention, discourage entrants to the medical profession.

Convicted for an operation gone wrong, Dr. Iggy was jailed in May 2023 then died of heart attack five months later, Oct. 5. Congestion in the facility likely distressed him physically, psychologically, emotionally. He was 58.

Lawyer Saul Hofileña had sued Dr. Iggy in 2006 for reckless imprudence resulting to serious physical injuries. Allegedly the arthroscope that Dr. Iggy used on his left knee was unsterilized, thus causing pus and pain.

Hofileña had to be operated on thrice by a dozen doctors in another hospital: one to remove the knee infection, another to fix the wrist that broke from using a cane, the last to further remove infection. He was immobilized for a month and spent two years on wheelchair, affecting his income.

The case dragged on for nearly 18 years. The Manila Metropolitan Trial Court in July 2013 convicted Dr. Iggy: Res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself); complainant Hofileña underwent surgery and left with an infection.

Dr. Iggy appealed to the Regional Trial Court in September. The timeline is relevant:

• On Oct. 11, 2013 the RTC ordered him to file an appeal memo within 15 days. Receiving it on Nov. 19, he thus had until Dec. 4 to do so.

• Instead of such memo, Dr. Iggy’s lawyer, due to “heavy workload,” filed a motion for 15-day extension. The RTC granted it Dec. 16. The lawyer had until Dec. 19 to fulfill but didn’t. Instead he filed for another extension till Jan. 3, 2014.

• On Dec. 23 the RTC dismissed Dr. Iggy’s appeal for breaching the reglementary period. The lawyer again moved for reconsideration, which the RTC denied on Feb. 26, 2014.

Dr. Iggy ran to the Court of Appeals but the justices couldn’t evaluate his case. His lawyer had failed to submit 11 pertinent MeTC and RTC filings.

The lawyer admitted his lapse, yet still didn’t submit five of the documents. He stressed Dr. Iggy’s right to appeal. The CA reminded that appeal was a statutory privilege which may be exercised only in the manner and provisions of law.

Dr. Iggy questioned the CA ruling before the Supreme Court. On June 23, 2021 the SC upheld the CA’s adherence to court rules.

Reminding that it is not a trier of facts, the SC nixed the lawyer’s point that Dr. Iggy’s guilt had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Still, it shortened Dr. Iggy’s sentence to one year and one day from the MeTC’s two years and one day.

Detained at the Manila jail, Dr. Iggy insisted on his innocence. His sudden demise agitated medical professionals. Till his last week he kept warning medical groups about ambulance-chasers and vindictive patients preying on them. Doctors would be forced to take out medical insurance and impose more lab works on patients, all of which would lead to higher professional fees and consultation costs.

Not a few doctors now express wariness to take on lawyers and relatives as patients. Some instruct clinic aides to screen for potential “troublemaking patients.”

Not only unsterilized instruments can cause infections, doctors stress. There are also the possibilities of patients’ poor immunity and post-op carelessness. In Hofileña’s case, they say, he went to other doctors, which meant a cut in original doctor-patient relations.

Sought for his side early November, Hofileña declined in deference to the deceased family’s 40-day mourning. “I’ve forgotten about that criminal case. After I testified at the MeTC, I let the state prosecutor handle it because I also filed a civil-damage suit,” was all he told this column.

“My wife is a physician. Her parents and three siblings are physicians. I’m indebted to the physicians who removed my infection,” he added.

Speaking for Hofileña, Atty. Aldrin Quintana seeks to allay doctors’ fears: “The SC decision did not set precedent and will not affect doctors since the case is peculiar to Dr. Agbayani alone. This is because the ruling is based on the negligence of Dr. Agbayani’s counsel which led to the dismissal of Dr. Agbayani’s petition in the CA.

“A decision of the MeTC, the lowest in the judicial totem pole, does not set precedents. Only the SC can set binding precedents when it renders decisions. Not a trier of facts, the SC didn’t rule on the issues in the MeTC.”

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Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.