Blighted Reviewed By Tony Abaya

‘Blighted’ is a searing social commentary on the state of the nation as it lurches from one moral crisis to another, tragically without any resolution, and set amid the events of the last 30 years, up to and including the death of former President Cory Aquino in August 2009.

The villains are recognizable enough, including a fat and powerful Godfather-figure named Jabba, though the events are fiction. And the three protagonists are meant to represent a cross section of Filipino society in the 21st century: Pabs, a spoiled brat from a fictive South Greenwich gated subdivision; Leandro, a middle-class intellectual polit-sci student at UP Diliman; and Rico, a hard-hat construction worker employed by Pabs’ father’s company, trying to make ends meet.

The three are thrown together in a police jail after they were rounded up following a rowdy street demonstration. They become good friends and meet several times after they are released from jail. This is the story of that three-cornered relationship, and through it, the story of Filipino society in metastatic decay – the title of one of the book’s chapters – as it spirals in a moral vacuum.



Not being a literary person, I am not competent to comment on the novel’s literary merits: characterization, dramatic tension, dialogue, atmospherics, narrative style..

I can only mention that it has a Rizalian resonance of Elias and Ibarra discussing the ills of contemporary society, but the setting is not 1887, but the still cancer-ridden Philippines of 2009.


see more: Frank Chavez | CMA-Law.net

No Quarters Asked , No Quarters Given

This is the principle which the lawyers in Chavez Miranda Aseoche subscribe to when handling the cases of their clients.

Led by Frank Chavez, one of the foremost and fearless counsel in this country, the law firm has been known for its courageous and zealous advocacy of the causes of its clients. One noted business columnist even described this law firm as “Rotwellerian”, a grudging compliment to the way its lawyers ferociously advance the causes of its clients.

The law firm has, to name a few, been engaged to champion the rights of a group of minority stockholders whose rights have been curtailed, if not deprived, by the majority. The case ended with the ouster of the despotic officers.

It has likewise been engaged to restore stockholders who were illegally ousted from an academic institution. The case ended with the clients getting back their seats, constituting the majority, in the board albeit not without a bitter fight which even necessitated the assistance of law enforcement officers.

The firm has likewise championed the case of an individual wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit. The case ended with the acquittal of that individual by the Supreme Court.

The law firm takes up the causes of workers and employees who were illegally dismissed from their employment; and yet, also, takes the defense of employers who are subject to shakedowns by unscrupulous employees.

Sometimes, the firm will not confine itself to representing private individuals and groups. Its founding partner, Frank Chavez, would take the cudgels for the Filipino nation by filing taxpayer’s suits questioning the excesses of specific acts of the Executive Department. Philippine jurisprudence has been made richer by the contribution of Frank Chavez to cases which involve Constitutional issues.

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