{"id":21845,"date":"2024-02-20T01:47:32","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T11:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/?p=21845"},"modified":"2024-02-20T01:47:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T11:47:33","slug":"my-ilocano-father-citizen-willie-and-his-the-history-made-on-his-birthday-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/2024\/02\/20\/my-ilocano-father-citizen-willie-and-his-the-history-made-on-his-birthday-week\/","title":{"rendered":"My Ilocano Father, Citizen Willie And His The History Made On His Birthday Week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

by Emil Guillermo<\/em>

<\/strong>My father, Willie Guillermo, born under the American flag in the colonial America that was the Philippines, had his birthday on Thursday, Feb. 8. He would have been 119 and thriving had he stopped eating pork at a reasonable age and gone vegan.

So, of course, he was in the back of my mind while I pondered all this week\u2019s important Trump legal developments.

Consider this odd coincidence

.When my father\u2019s death day was Trump\u2019s birthday.

Would Trump\u2019s political life die at a Supreme Court hearing on my father\u2019s birthday?The week started when the DC federal appeals court ruled that Trump is not immune from criminal prosecution for his actions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Then, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether Trump should be kicked off the Republican primary ballot in Colorado, based on the 14th Amendment\u2019s Section 3 that bars people \u201cengaged in insurrection\u201d from holding office.

The language is pretty clear:

\u201cNo person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as\u00a0an officer of the United States<\/em>, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, support the Constitution of the United States, shall have\u00a0engaged in insurrection or rebellion<\/em>\u00a0against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.\u00a0But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability<\/em>.\u201d

Surely if the law was based on common sense, Trump would be covered by this constitutional provision when he held that rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and urged his followers to \u201cfight like hell.\u201d

Even the Trump lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, admitted today that it was violent \u201criot.\u201dBut then there\u2019s that last line, the key to the whole graph. It allows that house of chaos known as Congress to play a decisive role.

One thing about my father. He was a betting man. He preferred horses, but if he were living, I\u2019d suggest he\u2019d switch from that wretched, cruel sport to betting on SCOTUS decisions.

It\u2019s just as unpredictable.

Justices Kagan and Jackson
<\/strong>So if Willie Guillermo were listening to the SCOTUS hearing and handicapping the outcome, his ears likely pricked up when he heard more liberal justices, like Justice Elena Kagan question whether an individual state could rule and impact all the others.

Would that be fair or even democratic?

And then my Dad would wonder why his favorite, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, wasn\u2019t getting into the merits of the insurrection itself.

Filipinos know insurrection, after all. They were the original insurrectionists, and revolutionaries fighting against the U.S. imperial forces in 1899.

I like those guys; I can tell the good insurrectionists from the bad ones.

Why wasn\u2019t there more discussion about the mob violence, aided by guns and impromptu weapons like flagpoles, to thwart Capitol police, enter the Capitol itself, and terrorize our elected officials?

It just didn\u2019t come up as relevant in the argument.

Instead, Judge Jackson made it sound that perhaps the 14th Amendment\u2019s section 3 wasn\u2019t intended to be a broad catchall for all time, but that its original intent was limited to preventing confederates of the South from rising again, and that was that.

Kagan and Jackson seemed to join the mostly conservative justices who questioned if it should even be the Court\u2019s role to decide this national issue instead of Congress.

Given the tone of the hearing, my Dad would bet that the Colorado Supreme Court\u2019s decision would be overturned.

I don\u2019t like that myself, as the language in the 14th Amendment seems clear to me, and I wouldn\u2019t exactly consider myself an \u201coriginalist.\u201dBut going this way on the Colorado case allows the court to reject the Trump immunity case, thereby giving SCOTUS that Solomonic shine of fairness.

The Immunity Case
<\/strong>As for the ruling by the DC Court of Appeals that rejected Trump\u2019s claim of absolute immunity for criminal actions committed while president, my father would agree with the appellate decision wholeheartedly.

The court ruled that \u201cany executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.\u201dHooray, he would say with an Ilocano accent. And he would have thanked Judge Pan for questioning Trump\u2019s lawyer last month about a hypothetical Seal Team 6 killing\u2014a political assassination. It clarified for all that immunity for Trump would have been his license to kill our democracy.

But my Dad would be on the moon with this statement by the court.\u201cToday, we affirm the denial,\u201d the appellate judges wrote. \u201cFor the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become\u00a0citizen Trump<\/em>, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant.\u201dThe key word is citizen.

My Dad knows the rights of citizens are not insignificant. He knows because for so many years, he was denied that right.

He was non-citizen Willie from the day he entered the country in 1928. He was considered a colonized American, an American national from the Philippines.

He couldn\u2019t vote, own land, or intermarry. He had no rights until after World War II. That\u2019s when he was allowed to become Citizen Willie.

Citizen Trump? He\u2019ll have more rights than he needs.

I also know that though my Dad would probably bet Trump prevails on the Colorado ballot issue, he\u2019d be disappointed in the high court.

He\u2019d have his doubts about a Supreme Court so willing to take away abortion rights and voting rights from women and people of color, but ready to uphold the rights of a bad insurrectionist.

Citizen Willie, a proud Filipino American, would feel a little sad and fearful about how his fellow Americans were so willing to enable a man who would be dictator.

But wait there\u2019s more
<\/strong>That certainly would be more than enough action for a birthday week, but before my father could blow out his birthday candles, Special Prosecutor Rob Hur issued that ridiculous 300+ page report of his.

Hur\u2019s job was to find if there was enough evidence to prosecute President Biden for his handling of classified materials. And Hur said he wouldn\u2019t prosecute.

What Hur did instead was make disparaging remarks about Biden and his memory, all extraneous, and then used that as the reason he wouldn\u2019t prosecute.

The report said, \u201cat trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.\u201d

So Hur wouldn\u2019t prosecute because he felt he couldn\u2019t beat Biden, who would be such a good witness. That\u2019s why he added the last two words \u201cpoor memory,\u201d A cheap shot. But that\u2019s how politics is played these days, nasty. Hur beat up on Biden for Trump. It was a clear case of elder abuse.

The special prosecutor knew he had nothing on Biden, so instead he slandered him in a sentence that wreaks with ageism.

My father at age 119 would have recognized the low blow and disapproved.

But what a way to end an historic birthday week for my dad, with three incidents that could decide the future of American democracy.

EMIL GUILLERMO<\/strong> is a journalist and commentator. Watch him on <\/em>YouTube.com\/@emilamok1<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Emil Guillermo My father, Willie Guillermo, born under the American flag in the colonial…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[29,20],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?fit=611%2C600&ssl=1",611,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?fit=300%2C295&ssl=1",300,295,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?fit=611%2C600&ssl=1",611,600,true],"large":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?fit=611%2C600&ssl=1",611,600,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?fit=611%2C600&ssl=1",611,600,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?fit=611%2C600&ssl=1",611,600,true],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?resize=611%2C600&ssl=1",611,600,true],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?resize=611%2C570&ssl=1",611,570,true],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1",600,600,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1",600,600,true],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?resize=611%2C600&ssl=1",611,600,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?resize=611%2C500&ssl=1",611,500,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?fit=611%2C600&ssl=1",611,600,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?resize=540%2C336&ssl=1",540,336,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?resize=339%2C250&ssl=1",339,250,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Candid Perspectives<\/a> Featured<\/a>","tag_info":"Featured","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CP-Cake-color_02072024.jpg?fit=611%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21846,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21845\/revisions\/21846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}