THE CONTRACTORS

Privilege Speech on 26 January 2009)

Mr. President:

According to Black’s Law Dictionary, a contractor is: “one who contracts for the completion of an entire project, including purchasing all materials, hiring and paying subcontractors, and coordinating all the work.” That is according to the dictionary. But to many Filipinos, a contractor is simply defined as a crook, who engages in gross overpricing of materials, pays salaries to ghost employees, produces shoddy public works that endanger the public, and gladly hands out massive, clandestine, unreported campaign contributions in cash to candidates, in order to cover up his tracks.

The Senate is poised to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, on whether three Filipino contractors “debarred” or blacklisted by the World Bank, may have bribed certain public officials, and otherwise engaged in criminal conduct, such as collusion in bidding for projects. But the House of Representatives has beaten the Senate to the draw, although their public hearing produced not an investigation, but a comic opera.

Some honorable representatives reportedly joined in singing a hallelujah chorus to the almighty contractors, from whom all good things come. The honorable investigators reportedly morphed into opera singers by sending up embarrassing paeans of praise for the contractors under fire. Thus, once more, the political power of big-time contractors proved itself to be awesome.

We are not talking of penny ante contractors. We are talking of giants in the construction industry: E.C. de Luna Construction, Cavite Ideal Construction, and CM Pancho Construction. Here are some of their multimillion public works projects over the years. First, E.C. de Luna Construction:

• Tagaytay-Palico Road – P104.20 M


• Road concreting Palawan – P322.20 M


• Tagaytay City Flyover – P292.94 M


• Road construction Misamis Occidental and Zamboanga del Norte – P254.83 M


• Road improvement San Jose, Patnongon – P126.68 M


• Overlay Asluman Road, Iloilo and Antique – P 997.57 M


• Iloilo East Coast – Capiz Road – P 530.59 M

Second, Cavite Ideal Construction:

• Naga-Toledo Road – P 805.6 M


• Sablayan Road, Occidental Mindoro – P 889.3 M


• Tacloban Road, Leyte – P 964 M


• C-5 flyover, Metro Manila – P 765 M


• Putlan bridge, Nueva Ecija – P 205.6 M


• Lotus Central Mall, Imus, Cavite – P 425 M


• Rehab project Echague, Isabela – P 587.9 M


• Civil works for Sta. Maria bridge, Ilocos Sur – P 97.6 M


• Civil works Baybay Bato, Leyte, Cebu – P 856.2 M


• Civil works Reina Mercedes, Isabela – P 562.5 M


• Macalelon Road, Quezon – P 654.7 M


• Aritao Road, Baguio – P 1,422.4 M


• SLEX Service Road, Metro Manila – P 524.4 M


• Arterial road, South Leyte – P 829.7 M

Third, CM Pancho Construction. I have a list of their projects, but without the cost.

However, the point common to all these three contractors is that they are masters of their universe, and they could be grand players in politics.

In blacklisting these three contractors, the World Bank Group Sanctions Board said, in its decision dated 12 January 2009:

3. The Notice relies on circumstantial and testimonial evidence of collusion in order to establish that the Respondents engaged in corrupt practices and collusive and other fraudulent practices in connection with the World Bank-financed project. The circumstantial evidence consists of alleged indicia of collusion, including high bid prices, symmetrical relationships among bids, bids containing significant errors, “clusters” of bids, “strange and unnatural” bid prices, submission of fraudulent bid securities, and inconsistent application of criteria within the prequalification process. The testimonial evidence is in the form of statements from multiple witnesses, some identified in the Notice, some anonymous, and others whose identity was withheld from the Respondents as confidential materials. . . .

8. In the case of Respondents E.C. de Luna and Eduardo C. de Luna, the Sanctions Board determined that the appropriate sanction would be debarment for an indefinite period. In determining this sanction, the Sanctions Board took into account, inter alia, E.C. de Luna’s position as designated winner in the collusive scheme and also the multiple witness statements identifying E.C. de Luna and Mr. Eduardo C. de Luna as ringleaders in this scheme. The Sanctions Board considered as a further aggravating factor that these Respondents had engaged in multiple instances of misconduct, concluding that this conduct was sufficiently egregious as to warrant the most severe sanction.

I wish I were a contractor, instead of a lawyer. Instead of having to be honest, competent, and hardworking, I can grow fabulously rich, and maybe reduce certain legislators to jelly. Instead of reading myself blind, I could just bribe public works and local government officials. Instead of going to boring church every Sunday, darn it, I can just build an entire church and thus secure the redemption of my immortal soul. Instead of serving as a moving target for paid character assassins and expensive PR firms whose only expertise in journalism is bribery of media practitioners who inhabit their pockets, I would be canonized by media.

If I were a contractor, I would just buy off unpleasantness, such as adverse publicity or a congressional investigation. How convenient in a country whose many things are for sale, including men’s souls.

But I digress. After the Senate reorganization, I did not apply, nor did I particularly want, but was nevertheless appointed, as economic affairs chair. When I started on my duties and examined the records, I found that four resolutions on the World Bank scandal were filed, and all were referred to my committee. The three separate resolutions filed by Sen. Roxas, Sen. Legarda, and Sen. Revilla were all referred on 21 November 2007. The fourth resolution by Sen. Lacson was referred on 19 January 2009. With all the four resolutions, economic affairs was the primary committee, while both public works and finance were the secondary committees.

After session was resumed this January, I set a public hearing for tomorrow. I ordered invitations to be sent out, and I buckled down and read the background file. However, last Wednesday, 21 January 2009, a fifth resolution by Sen. Roxas was called for first reading, and would have been routinely assigned to economic affairs. But Sen. Pangilinan suddenly filed a motion for reconsideration to transfer the referral to either the public works or blue ribbon committees. Sen. Roxas, who was formerly chair of the economic affairs committee and author of the latest resolution, objected to the motion. I was no longer in session hall.

The next day when the staff reported the incident to me, I was as shocked as if I had suffered multiple stab wounds. The first stab wound came from behind. In my two terms as senator, the approved parliamentary behavior has been to show respect to a committee chair, by consulting her first, before trying to remove a subject from her jurisdiction. It is just elementary courtesy, but it was denied me.

I immediately dashed off a letter to Sen. Zubiri, the majority leader, filing my opposition on the ground of laches. Laches is the doctrine in equity, by which a court denies relief to a complainant who has unreasonably delayed in asserting the claim, when that delay has prejudiced the party against whom relief is sought. In other words, laches is sleeping on your rights.

The referral of the first three resolutions were made to my committee more than a year ago, in November 2007. Why did not Sen. Pangilinan file a timely motion for reconsideration? At that time, he was majority leader and ex officio chair of the rules committee. Why did he wait more than a year until the committee chairmanship had been assigned to me?

Under the Senate Rules, all four committees involved – economic affairs, public works, finance, and blue ribbon – have overlapping legitimate jurisdictions over the subject. However, the Senate President chose to make the referral no less than four times to the economic affairs committee. Thus, there is no problem with the committee. Perhaps, the only problem is . . . me?

The next day I received a second stab wound. The majority leader was quoted as saying that, without consultation, he had decided to make a new referral to the blue ribbon committee. He cited a consensus allegedly reached in caucus that all investigations of government anomalies should be assigned to the blue ribbon committee.

In effect, does this mean that blue ribbon would have a monopoly of all criminal investigations? Then it should also assume the duty of filing the corresponding bill on each and every subject matter, instead of just filing a report with the Ombudsman. And does this mean that even the committee with regulatory jurisdiction over the subject matter has no personality to participate, even only as a secondary committee? Then every committee would be reduced to administrative research.

Where in the Constitution does it authorize the Senate to vest its power to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation in just one out of some 36 committees? Doesn’t this alleged consensus amount to a gag rule with respect to every committee chair? For every senator has his or her own style of presiding. I respectfully remind you that the Constitution authorizes the Senate to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation, but only “in accordance with its duly published Rules of Procedures.” Has this Senate published this alleged rule on exclusivity?

In the Senate Rules defining the jurisdiction of each committee, the Rules uses the term “all matters.” The Rule does not use the term “exclusive” with respect to the jurisdiction of the blue ribbon committee. For this committee, the Rules merely uses the clause “all matters relating to, including investigation.” If the intention was to change the meaning, then the rule should be formally amended in writing, and published. Otherwise, this alleged consensus should be put to a vote in plenary session.

But putting aside this issue of statutory construction, why make this alleged consensus retroactive? The resolutions were first referred to the economic affairs committee over a year ago, in November 2007, when the consensus had not yet been reached.

If the consensus is that only blue ribbon can investigate government anomalies, then the motion should have sought transfer to the blue ribbon committee alone. But the motion sought transfer to the public works committee, or to the blue ribbon committee. So I demand to know: why is it acceptable to assign the subject to either public works or to blue ribbon, but not to economic affairs?

It is obvious that the Senate probe of the World Bank blacklisted contractors will have little legislative value, because it has been overtaken by events. Pres. Arroyo has already ordered the Department of Trade and Industry to investigate the subject. The Ombudsman is already conducting preliminary investigation of the criminal cases, and she is scheduled to release the results in February.

The World Bank itself has already identified the following administrative remedies:

• An independent permanent assessment and technical audit that strengthens transparency of the bidding process.


• Enhanced processes for procurement, financial management, internal controls, and audit of the road management agencies.


• Inclusion of a new and innovative coalition of citizen and road users group, called “Road Watch” in the project management setup.

The only value of a Senate hearing would likely be publicity for reelectionist politicians, and other candidates. There might be some political value in Sen. Lacson’s disclosure, if any, of the public official who allegedly received P70 million in bribes.

Last December, the World Bank issued a policy research working paper entitled “Grand Corruption in Utilities.” The paper states:

Grand corruption . . . includes cases when politicians or high-ranking civil servants manipulate a country’s management or regulation of infrastructure industries to gain exclusive benefits. It can be a “purely” public sector phenomenon or involve both public and private agents. In the first case, state-owned public service providers serve as tools for politicians, who benefit in the form of personal revenues, bolstered positions, or party contributions. In the case of public-private interactions, private sector actors used bribes to influence the form of the market or contractual terms at the cost of consumer welfare. Sometimes these phenomena are described as crony capitalism, in which political networks dominate important private assets, or state capture, in which private firms are able to influence public power to their own benefit. (Emphasis added.)

.

The only salient issue in the probe is: who are the public officials involved in crony capitalism, and in state capture? There is a complication, because under international law, the government cannot subpoena World Bank officials, or subpoena the written report of its Department of Institutional Integrity. However, it appears that the World Bank has furnished copies of its report to the finance secretary and to the Ombudsman, and we can subpoena these local officials. But the Philippine government has no authority to substitute its own disciplinary judgment for that of the World Bank.

If the Senate probe has little legislative value, why bother to insult me by removing it from my committee? Is the influence of the contractors so strong that they can now determine who shall investigate them? Am I disqualified because I happen to be the only former RTC judge in the present Senate? I feel like Julius Caesar, after he was stabbed by Cassius. The hostility is as palpable as the pain.

In this chamber, I am the only recipient of the Magsaysay Award for government service. I have proved that I will fight the crooks in government at any time, at any place. But to ask me to squabble with my own colleagues in the workplace for scraps of power is unacceptable. This bloodsport is extremely distasteful to me. If my fellow senators do not like my style in presiding at public hearings on scandals, that is their problem.

Many of our colleagues in this lawmaking body are non-lawyers. And of the few lawyers, even fewer have spent enough time in trial courts. I was a multi-awarded RTC judge for five years. I taught Remedial Law, aka the Rules of Court, in UP for ten years. Despite these credentials that I am obliged to recite, there is now a move to prevent me from presiding at a picayune public hearing on the blacklisted World Bank contractors.

If my critics wish to vaporize or neutralize me, that is their impossible dream. But it is a different matter if my own colleagues wish to turn me into a monkey who sees nothing, hears nothing, and says nothing. I cannot remain in the Senate and consent to be emasculated. Hence, I express in the strongest terms my disgust at this transparent attempt to play puerile power games with me. I do not think that the public will be thrilled, much less edified, to watch senators fighting for turf, as if the territory of corruption were not extensive enough in this corrupt country.

Let me serve notice that if I continue to be treated without the respect that I am entitled to as a co-equal senator, even only because of my age and my experience, I shall be compelled to tender my resignation as Senator of the Philippines, and to bring this issue directly to the Filipino people. Let me ask the three big-time contractors – E.C. de Luna Construction, Cavite Ideal Construction, and CM Pancho Construction: Are you people behind this move to prevent me from presiding at the hearing tomorrow? Are you happy now?

May I know if I am permanently barred from presiding at the investigation of any scandal, even if it directly falls under the jurisdiction of the committee on economic affairs and on foreign relations, both of which I chair? If so, I respectfully move to submit this alleged monopoly consensus to a vote on the floor.

Meantime, Mr. President, out of delicadeza, I leave to the sound discretion of our colleagues the question of the scheduled public hearing tomorrow, and who shall preside over it. Because of its urgency for the public interest, I shall deliver tomorrow afternoon the sponsorship speech on the baselines bill, and then proceed to interpellation.

I avail of my parliamentary privilege, and I refuse to take any questions. Instead, I shall now walk out of this Senate, to express my strong personal disgust at the exhibition by some of our colleagues of the absence of common decency, and the failure of parliamentary conduct, in connection with the big-time contractors blacklisted by the World Bank.

Transcript of Sen. Santiago's interview

21 January 2009

On the government’s economic stimulus package

What this means is that government is going to spend P330 billion creating jobs so that more money would go to the people and will circulate in the economy, and in that way we can offset the expected adverse consequences of the recession in America .

Most governments in the world are making these stimulus packages, so there is nothing unusual, much less anomalous, about it. However, the devil is in the details. We have 330 billion to spend. That should be spent in improving agricultural productivity. If we are going to spend money anyway, let’s make sure we’ll have economic security, that is to say that we will not be at the mercy of rice exporters or fish exporters when the crunch comes.

As chair of the committee on economic affairs, I prefer that the 330 billion economic stimulus money should be spent on agricultural productivity, namely on such infrastructure projects such as the building of small-scale irrigation systems or of farm-to-market roads—more or less permanent improvements that can be availed of by the people.

I am definitely against spending any part of the 330 billion to create artificial jobs, for example sweeping streets or buying overpriced uniforms or brooms. This is a very fertile source of graft. There is already a red light flashing on and off. I read that the Metro Manila Development Authority chair has already started hiring more street sweepers. That is the worst kind of economic stimulus you can think of. He is going to use that for electioneering. And I warn that person that if these uniforms are going to be pink and blue, I am going to send him to jail personally.

It may not be enough. Of course it is never enough. You see, what happens is because the United States has less money than it used to have, it is no longer importing as much as it used to be from the Philippines . Of course our exporters are hurting; some are gone outright, some of them have made massive layoffs. So more Filipinos will be losing jobs. If that is the case, there will be money circulating in the economy, and with that everything will rise, oil prices will rise. That is why it becomes necessary for an economist like President Arroyo to adopt a stimulus package to stimulate the economy. First of all you have to release more money.

On US President Obama's inaugural speech

We have all seen this spectacle. It is always spectacular. The Americans want to impress people all over the world that they are the source of the rule of law and of democracy. I doubt it very much, but that is their self-propaganda which they fervently believe.

We simply have to wait and see. I hope that President Obama will not be as hostile to international law as President Bush was. President Bush was a swaggering cowboy. I do not know if he had any academic qualifications for the post because he can’t seem to understand international law. The United States cannot act unilaterally unless it has the support of a Security Council resolution. It cannot be the policeman of the world.

By contrast, President Obama has already announced that he has a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq . That is a good sign because Iraq is the Vietnam of our days. That is going to be a deep hole that the Americans has dug for themselves, and unless President Obama seizes the initiative, they might stay in that hole for a long time.

On the composition of the ethics committee

You can’t evade the issue of the 2010 elections. The Filipino people is very fond of self-flagellation because they celebrate presidential elections as if they have anything to look forward to, and then after only six months they begin to make a death wish for the elected president. That is so Filipino.

If those presidentiables (in the ethics committee) were more sensitive to the normal issue that would arise, that is to say the conflict of interest issue, they would have declined membership. But as it is, they have accepted it; that is their responsibility. However, it will become slightly difficult to justify an adverse opinion against Sen. Villar considering that they would be contesting the same seat in 2010. In that situation, you will never be able to evade public accusations on the partiality of the judgment.

Can the ethics committee continue with the hearings without the minority?

There is no rule in our Senate Rules that compels the minority to attend, and therefore we simply considered, and since they did it out of their own volition spontaneously, they have therefore waived any right. In the voting, they would be considered at the very least to have abstained. So we will go by the rule of the majority, at least those who participated.

On the Cabinet reshuffle

My response here is ‘Why am I not thrilled?”. It is unusual because she is at the end of her term and now she wants a new team. That means that the old team is not working—that is logic. So why is it not working? She should have done that for the earlier part of her term. It speaks of troubled waters. They can’t get along with each other there; that is always the case in Malacañang. Because it is the nerve center they can’t get along with each other, they are always fighting little turf wars. And this is how she decides it. The poor president of our country who is already besieged with the massive effort to lift our economy from an impending morass because of the economic recession in America can’t be bothered with these details. This is the way she calms the waters.

On FVR’s letter praying for Sen. Santiago’s health

Don’t you know that God is very conscious about the source of the prayer? If it comes from a polluted source, God would be very upset. So he should stop praying for me.

Transcript of Sen. Santiago’s Interview

19 January 2009

On her chronic fatigue syndrome

It is actually the long term effect of the assassination attempt in 1992. We never revealed it because my campaign managers said that it will be used against me, people will claim that I am already mentally and physically incapacitated. But now I have to say it because media might speculate on why I am not present in certain occasions.

I was on a car on a Sunday morning going to a speaking engagement up north in a campus. All of a sudden a military jeep came running towards us at high speed and changed lanes so that he will deliberately hit the back of my car where I was seated. I was almost dead on arrival. It was never revealed to the media. I know it was an assassination attempt because immediately the next day, anticipating public response and sympathy, there was an alleged letter to the editor from Tarlac (I was at Tarlac at that time) that I had made the whole thing up just to win sympathy. People went to my hospital room in Tondo in Metropolitan Hospital and they can see for themselves that I could not even talk and that I have swollen to about five times my normal size because of all the bruises that I have suffered. My sister who is cardiologist in Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles said that because of my inherent heart condition—two of my younger brothers died of heart attack—I would be suffering Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And I did.

Who do you think was behind this?

Ramos, very clearly. I have always maintained that. He was at that time the candidate of the administration. I did file a criminal complaint for frustrated murder against the driver of the jeep to the fiscal in Tarlac and he immediately dismissed it because of course he wanted to earn brownie points with the administration.

On the Baselines Bill

I have already made contingency plans. Sen. Pimentel can defend it. But basically what we are doing is we are just complying with the archipelagic doctrine, that is to say we draw our line that encloses all our islands. We have not included the controversial Spratly Islands as part of our archipelago, and that diffuses the tension that has been generated by China and the other claimants of the Spratly Islands . They have protested some of the versions that enclosed the islands within our archipelago. To sidestep the opposition from other states, we have instead adopted in the foreign relations committee a version that puts the Spratly Islands outside of our archipelagic domain but considers them a regime of islands belonging to the Philippines.

What that means is that each island will have its own base point for measuring such things as the territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf, and so on. Since all of these areas of jurisdiction in international maritime law, I found that these areas of jurisdiction of the Spratly Islands within the baselines from which we start measuring. They will have their own. In effect, we will not be expanding the maritime jurisdiction so much that the other countries will begin to complain because we overlapped with their exclusive economic zone or their continental shelf, for example.

What we have done is we preserved our archipelago, we have preserved our relations with Thailand , Vietnam , and other states, and at the same time, we preserved our claim to the Spratly Islands . We leave that to the negotiations to the next UN Conference on the Law of the Sea. I will deliver the sponsorship speech on Monday.

On Puno as a presidential bet

That is a poison chalice. They are offering a cup of life-giving water to a person who needs it, but, unknown to him and you both, it is toxic.

We already saw that when former Justice Marcelo Fernan aired his plans to run for president he met immediately a very stiff wall of resistance from the political parties and other political leaders. Because he was so disappointed, eventually he made up his mind and ran for senator and he won. He even became senate president.

I know from somebody intimate with the Chief Justice that, as a scholar of the law like me, he has an attitude problem. I have an attitude problem so I put myself in his shoes. I think he has an attitude problem because an academician will take two lifetimes to adjust to a politician’s life. I think—if I may be so bold to put words in his mouth—he absolutely detests the political lifestyle.

There are three things you have to comply with: one, money; two, money; and three, money. I happen to believe that Chief Justices are honest public servants even from the beginning, so where is he going to get at least three billion pesos? You can’t raise three billion; it’s only money that makes money. If you don’t start with anything at all, you can’t hope to raise that much. He will have no money. He has no party. That party that offered its facilities to him is a nonexistent party and exists only in the media if you consider it in conventional terms.

And it creates a problem with jurisprudence because you have a question of the chief of one branch of government crossing over to another branch of government in the light of the fact that the executive is considered a political branch and the judiciary is a nonpolitical branch. What will then happen to the nonpolitical nature of the judiciary if its justices took it into their heads to prepare the way for a possible presidential campaign? So there is just too much complication, foremost of them is that the Chief Justice will never allow himself to be carried away by these intimations of temporary popularity.

The reason why the Supreme Court is low in public approval is that the Chief Justice is a very self-effacing man. He does not like to talk about himself, much less about his ambitions. So there is no hope. That is hopeless. That is a hopeless cause.

I think this is one of the most corrupt governments in the world. I think more of us will agree to that. Not only government—this is a very corrupt society. And the Chief Justice is correct in denouncing it. However, to create a denunciation into a springboard for a political career is highly dangerous. It might even be terminal.

I am not discouraging him. In fact if he will run I will vote for him. But it has no relation to reality. These are just people spinning their wheels. And he is too smart not to know what is being done to him.

Who is urging him to run?

People who might be his friends now, but they would not be real friends. No true friend will ever induce any person to enter Philippine politics in its present complexion. For the chief justice to enter politics is tantamount to expressing a death wish.

MIRIAM: DOJ MASS LEAVE ILLEGAL

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, a constitutional law expert, said that it would be illegal for prosecutors to stage a nationwide mass leave, to protest President Arroyo’s order placing on leave of absence those involved in the Alabang Boys drug case.

Santiago was reacting to news reports that prosecutors are considering the option of going on mass leave, to express support for their colleagues whom the President placed on official leave.

At this time, a mass leave is being studied by three prosecutors’ groups: National Prosecutors’ League of the Philippines , Chief Prosecutors Association, and the State Prosecutors’ Association.

Santiago cited the 2007 decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Toyota v. NLRC, which ruled that a strike by government employees is illegal, when it is contrary to a specific prohibition of law.

“It would be illegal for prosecutors to go on strike, because it is prohibited by a 2002 resolution of the Civil Service Commission,” Santiago said.

Santiago referred to CSC Resolution No. 021316 entitled “Omnibus rules on prohibited concerted mass actions in the public sector.”

Section 4 of the CSC resolution provides that “The right to self-organize accorded to government employees . . . shall not carry with it the right to engage in any form of prohibited concerted activity or mass action causing or intending to cause work stoppage or service disruption, albeit of temporary nature.”

The resolution goes on to define the term “prohibited concerted activity or mass action” as: “Any collective activity undertaken by government employees. . . with the intent of effecting work stoppage or service disruption . . . which shall include mass leaves.”

Santiago said that in the 2007 case of Sta. Rosa Union v. Coca-Cola Bottlers, the Supreme Court ruled that even if employees do not use the word “strike,” there is still a prohibited strike when employees go on mass leaves.

Santiago stressed that in the 2006 case of GSIS v. Kapisanan, the Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional rights of free expression and assembly, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, do not include the right to strike.

Santiago particularly quoted this passage from the Supreme Court decision: “Any suggestion, however, about these rights as including the right on the part of government personnel to strike ought to be, as it has been thrashed . . . Employees in the public service may not engage in strikes . . . The right of government employees to organize is limited to the formation of unions or associations, without including the right to strike.”

Santiago said that the Constitution protects “the right to strike in accordance with law,” emphasizing the phrase “in accordance with law.”

“Since there are laws that prohibit mass leaves by government employees, any mass leave is illegal, and does not fall under the protection of the Constitution. Any mass leave by prosecutors would fall under the prohibition of the Civil Service Commission which was first laid down in a 1987 by means of Memorandum Circular No. 6,” she said.

Santiago said that CSC Memorandum Circular No. 6 was accompanied by Executive Order No. 180, both issued in 1987.

The senator explained that the prohibition against strikes by government employees is a rule of common law which has been adopted by the Philippine Supreme Court in a long line of cases beginning in 1983.

“The law prohibits strikes in the public sector because they prejudice public services,” she said.

Santiago cited the 1987 case of Bangalisan v. Court of Appeals, which ruled that: “The right of government employees to organize is limited only to the formation of unions or associations, without including the right to strike . . . One wrong cannot be righted by another, and redress, for even the most justifiable cause, should not be sought by proscribed or illegal means.”

Santiago said that the remedies available to prosecutors are: the principle of “exhaustion of administrative remedies,” and a bill in Congress granting authority to, and recognizing the right of, government employees to go on strike.