In Legal Terms
Counting Filipinos
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
June 6, 2026
A BOOK is palpable, tangible, printed on paper of varied weights, so durable you can bequeath it to your progeny. My late father, a poet and printer, often told me that words worth reading should see print and those who write must ensure that their words outlast them physically by at least a century.
All the president’s books
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
October 28, 2023
BOOKS are like spoons; once invented, they cannot be bettered, said the Italian polymath, Umberto Eco. Some may think that Eco’s words are no longer true because of the internet. However, an everlasting medium for storing information has not been invented, which is why nothing has yet exceeded the capacity of the book to store information for centuries. Try to open a floppy disk from three decades ago, and you will surely fail to secure the information stored there. Now, try to open a book printed 300 years ago; in an instant, you are given access to the information it contains, provided you understand the language.
The real beef on the ICC withdrawal
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
September 23, 2023
BOOKS are like spoons; once invented, they cannot be bettered, said the Italian polymath, Umberto Eco. Some may think that Eco’s words are no longer true because of the internet. However, an everlasting medium for storing information has not been invented, which is why nothing has yet exceeded the capacity of the book to store information for centuries. Try to open a floppy disk from three decades ago, and you will surely fail to secure the information stored there. Now, try to open a book printed 300 years ago; in an instant, you are given access to the information it contains, provided you understand the language.
The Grand Gallery of Singapore
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
August 5, 2023
NOW, let me tell you why I want to write about one of the august buildings around the Padang of Singapore, a historic place and ceremonial ground in that island republic. Padang means field in Bahasa Melayu, and the building I am referring to is the National Gallery Singapore, the only gallery and museum outside of our archipelago that regularly and consistently presents to the world works by Filipinos. Dr. Eugene Tan, the director, is a brilliant but humble and self-effacing man who has given Filipino artists the chance to show their prodigious talents in Southeast Asia’s First World economy.
The great Sierra Madre lockdown
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
July 8, 2023
THE island of Luzon is traversed by three mountain ranges. Its geological spine, the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, is a 540-kilometer stretch from Cagayan to Quezon. The Cordillera Mountain Range, measuring 320 kilometers cuts through Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino and Nueva Ecija, and between the two is the Carballo Mountain Range. These three nurture the headwaters of the mighty Cagayan River. The Sierra Madre and Cordillera were so impenetrable, the Spanish empire could barely stake territory with Cross and Sword.
The Butuan Goddess, how to get her back
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
June 10, 2023
WHEN you enter Butuan City in Agusan del Norte, you will be welcomed by a regally seated golden goddess. The statue, which is a 3-feet tall enlarged replica of the real “Butuan goddess,” is an 18-karat gold figure supposedly found by a Manobo woman by the Wawa River. Some people call the goddess “The Golden Tara,” “The Agusan Gold Image” or simply “The Agusan Image.” The original is in the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History.
The Lost City and how the Igorots lots their lands
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
June 3, 2023
I RECENTLY released a book entitled “Juicio Final.” It is a history book with paintings that would give visual life to the stories. The cover of the book shows an imposing Igorotta which was borrowed from the frontispiece of a book written by the French traveler, René Jouglet, in the 1930s romantically entitled “The Lost City,” making people conjure images of Shangrila.
A Tree as Tall as the Ritz
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
May 27, 2023
ON my first trip to the United States, I took a tourist bus in New York City and understood why it was described as a concrete jungle in some books I had read. In lieu of trees, there were skyscrapers, growing beside each other, casting shadows on the streets and in some areas, blocking the flow of air. Among the concrete trees, the Ritz Carlton Hotel alongside Central Park looked like the tallest from the window of that bus.
The Cleverest Thing and the Nine-dash Line
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
May 20, 2023
IT is a series of dashes, nine in all, that presents and outlines in a vague way, China’s claim on the South China Sea (SCS). The nine-dash line encroached on the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf of the Philippines. Before China revealed its intentions in the SCS, the significance of the dashes was a cartographic puzzle.
Arson for Dummies
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
May 13, 2023
BECAUSE of uncommon heat and dryness, destructive fires are commonplace. A poet once wondered whether the world would end by fire or ice, but after partaking of desire, he said, he favors those who favor fire. Conflagrations are not always accidental. There are instances when arson becomes a part of State policy.
Do we really own Scarborough Shoal
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
May 6, 2023
FIRST, let me define what a shoal is.
It is a sandbank or sandbar that makes the water around it shallow. For example, the former Engineer’s Island, now the Baseco (Bataan Shipping and Engineering Company) is a sandbar.
Flight is indicative of guilt
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
April 29, 2023
I HAVE been in trial practice for almost four decades, which means I have waited on judges for hours on end while reading tabloids until the information that they contained became stale news. This is my take on the highly controversial Arnolfo Teves Jr. case which is now headline material.
When Genocide was not a Crime
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
April 22, 2023
RAPHAËL Lemkin, a Jewish Polish lawyer, was the person who coined the word genocide. It came from the Latin words genus meaning race and cide meaning kill. Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large number of people of a particular national, ethnic, racial or religious group for the purpose of destroying it.
I would have Invited the Pope
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
April 15, 2023
THE Holy See has announced Pope Francis I’s repudiation of the “Doctrine of Discovery,” which many centuries ago was invoked by the monarchs of Spain and Portugal to seize lands, which previously belonged to somebody else.
Faked Intimacy and the Game in the Name
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
April 8, 2023
THE abolition of the tobacco monopoly by virtue of a decree dated June 25, 1880 signaled the start of a heyday for would-be Chinese tobacco manufacturers.
Provenance and the venerable Maribel Ongpin
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
April 1, 2023
AT the height of the pandemic, I wrote a book about the brilliant architect, Andres Luna de San Pedro, the only child of the ill-fated Juan Luna and titled the book Luna, Arquitecto.
The Chinese opium den and the nature of mala prohibita
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
March 25, 2023
A LAW is malum prohibitum if it is wrong because the act is prohibited. Motive in crimes mala prohibita is immaterial. The defense of good faith is also unavailing. It is an offense that may not be inherently immoral but becomes so because its commission is declared illegal by law.
Too much learning is a dangerous thing
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
March 18, 2023
EMANUEL Lasker, a philosopher and World Chess Champion, postulated a hypothetical creature called the “macheide.” Lasker said that the “macheide” is a being whose senses are so sharpened by evolution and relentless struggle, that it always chooses the best way and methodology to perpetuate the success of its species.
Carmen Guerrero Nakpil’s Pen
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
March 11, 2023
THE National Artist F. Sionil Jose was a friend who was always obliging enough to write forewords for my books. He was like a gentle, elderly uncle who did not seem to mind exchanging ideas with me, sharing his life’s experiences during our long conversations at the top floor of his beloved bookshop, Solidaridad. I must have taken up so much of his writing time, but he was never impatient.
The Reed Tablemount
The Manila Times
By Saul Hofileña Jr.
March 4, 2023
A TABLEMOUNT is a mountain or volcano with a flat top or summit that is found under the sea. It is also known as a guyot (pronounced as “gee-yow”), a name derived from the Swiss American geologist, Arnold Henry Guyot. Flat summits are usually more than 200 meters below sea level, and they are most abundant in the Pacific Ocean.