Cory and the Constitution

Dedicated to the memory of their beloved patriarch, highly respected businessman and philanthropist Don Santiago Tan Chan, the Tan Chan Foundation Inc. which grants college scholarships to outstanding and deserving female students, in collaboration with ZONTA Club of Cebu I, held awarding ceremonies at the Cebu Country Club on June 25. Giving the awards were the widow Mrs. Leonisa Jo Tan Chan, assisted by her son Santiago Jr. and ZONTA president Mrs. Teresita Shiaap.

The purpose of the project is to advance the status of women. This eleventh year of the project has three college graduates, Marlyn T. Piloton (Physics and Chemistry) cum Laude; Gaymar C. Satorre (Science and Health), and Charina P. Ngoho (Mathematics).

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I spent a very pleasant and insightful afternoon with a Cebuana Theresian, a Baroness, the widow of Sir Giles Tennyson d'Eyncourt of London, Juanita Borromeo, a top student of St. Theresa's College years ago.

She discoursed on subjects ranging from the Middle East Imbroglio to the objections on the expanded VAT. It had to be a Baroness to tell me why the EVAT is so objectionable - the tax applies to everybody, including the poor. In England, only the middle class and the rich are taxed.

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Our government's debt as of April, reports Bangko Sentral, is now P3.867 trillion, including $32.14 billion owed to foreign creditors. Domestic debt rose to P2.064 trillion due to net issues of government securities.

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To quote the Daily Tribune's July 5 editorial, let the reader be the judge: "She will always stand for the Constitution, so claimed former President Corazon Aquino, stressing that whatever political problems there are, is best resolved through the constitutional process, not outside of the Charter because such moves expose the country to graver dangers that may be worse than the injustice the nation seeks to correct. How she can state this with a straight face is amazing, given the fact that at least, twice, she turned her back on the Constitution and actively participated in unconstitutional means to remove two presidents (Marcos and Estrada)!... Did they respect the rule of law and the Charter in 2001? Did those Edsa II power grabbers respect the constitutional process of impeachment as a means of removing a President? Did they ask the nation, when the Estrada presidency was besieged with resignation and ouster calls, for calm and sobriety, or even exhort the public to follow the Charter and not go outside of it?"