No to Duterte’s house arrest

By Herbert Vego

MY fearless prediction is that the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague will not grant the Philippine Senate’s resolution asking it to move former president Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte out of the Scheveningen prison and place him under house arrest elsewhere for “humanitarian considerations.”

Fifteen senators approved Resolution No. 144 on Oct. 1. They are Alan Peter Cayetano, Migz Zubiri, Bato Dela Rosa, JV Ejercito, Jinggoy Estrada, Win Gatchalian, Bong Go, Ping Lacson, Loren Legarda, Rodante Marcoleta, Imee Marcos, Robin Padilla, Erwin Tulfo, Joel Villanueva, and Mark Villar.

Three senators — Bam Aquino, Risa Hontiveros, and Kiko Pangilinan — voted against it.

Senate President Tito Sotto and Sen. Raffy Tulfo abstained, indicating their unwillingness to be identified with their friend Digong. Both are known to be nurturing either presidential or vice-presidential ambition in the election 2028.

Since senators Pia Cayetano, Chiz Escudero, Lito Lapid, and Camille Villar were absent during the voting, it’s akin to abstention.

It is interesting to note that Vice President Sara Duterte, who is personally close to most incumbent senators, had visited the Senate on September 29 or one day before the passage of the controversial resolution.

I can think of no reason why the 15 senators voted for the resolution; none, other than whatever favors the Dutertes might have bestowed on them.

But, of course, they know that ICC would not listen for ironically the same reason that the Senate had cited: Under. Article 10(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.”

There is no iota of evidence that the ICC was inhumane to the person who is there to undergo trial on charges of crimes against humanity through extrajudicial killings of thousands of alleged drug dealers and drug users.

If you care to scan the Internet for information on the ICC’s Scheveningen Detention Center, it functions to hold in safe, secure and humane custody its detainees. It allows the detained

persons access to fresh air, recreational time and sports activities. They have access to library books, newspapers, television and computer facilities to work on their own cases.

If Digong’s British-Israeli lawyer Nicholas Kaufman were really convinced of his client’s innocence, he should not have requested for postponement of confirmation of charges originally scheduled last September 23 on the alibi that the accused was not physically fit to stand trial.

Kaufman was obviously  lying.  It was on the same date when Duterte’s estranged wife Elizabeth Zimmerman and his granddaughter Isabelle Duterte paid him a visit and found him “very well,” according to Rappler.

-oOo-

MORE POWER, POST-EARTHQUAKE

BECAUSE of the 6.9-magnitude earthquake the entire Visayas Tuesday night, the power distribution utilities are now suffering from lack of power supply.

Normally, the Visayas grid has an available capacity of 1,888 megawatts (MW) against a peak demand of 1,839 MW.

However, according to our source at MORE Power, Iloilo City’s distribution utility, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) has placed the Visayas power grid on yellow alert in the wake of the September 30 earthquake.

A yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

“Twenty-seven plants are on forced outage due to the earthquake, 16 others have been unavailable even prior to the incident; while one other is running on derated capacity, for a total of 1654.7MW unavailable to the grid,” a press release from the NGCP said. This could trigger scheduled brownouts.

Of course, this is alarming. Under the law of supply and demand, the price of a commodity increases when the supply is insufficient. We can only hope and pray for the power plants to moderate their greed.

As far as MORE Power is concerned, it has been consistent in keeping its distribution cost reasonable.  It is not the culprit behind the rate increases shown on the power bills because each bill also reflects the costs of fuel, generation and transmission, plus ancillary expenses.