LuisTeodoro.com

George Soros is many things to many people. To authoritarian regimes, he’s a nuisance who uses his billions, through his Open Society Institute, to fund causes and projects that help undermine their authority. To activists in societies emerging from dictatorship, he’s a Godsend who, when talking about democracy, puts his money where his mouth is by investing millions of dollars in popular initiatives.

To leaders like Muhammad Mahathir of Malaysia, money-market speculator Soros was at least partly responsible for the financial crisis of 1997, and what’s more, allegedly funded through the Southeast Asian Press Alliance the pro-democracy online news site Malaysiakini. »

Few probably noticed, and those who did probably didn’t care. September each year will henceforth be “Rule of Law Month,” by virtue of Presidential Proclamation 713. President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo also issued Executive Order 361 last September 22 requiring the Department of Education to include the teaching of the rule of law in the curricula of public elementary and secondary schools all over the country.

Everyone knows, or should know what “the rule of law” means. Like the three square meals a day many Filipinos now don’t have, the rule of law is understood in this country of judges and lawyers primarily through its absence. »