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Probe needed EDITORIAL C 07/05/2011

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Probe needed

EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
07/05/2011
A judicial investigative body should really look into the report of an alleged extortion attempt by a Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) that handled and decided on the just compensation awarded to the Philippine International Airport Terminal Co. (Piatco) where it was found that the Supreme Court (SC)--ordered technical evaluation commission’s Final Report’s recommendation to the court on just compensation appeared to have been ignored by the hearing judge as the amount the judge awarded Piatco was nowhere near the amount the three-man commission had recommended to the judge.

From the commission’s signed Final Report that was submitted to the judge, which was obtained by the Tribune, there was no such amount of $176 million that was recommended but awarded anyway by the judge to the consortium. In fact, this amount was the earlier reported amount that the Solicitor-General had announced it was willing to pay Piatco as reimbursement for the government’s expropriation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport 3 (NAIA-3)..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110705com1.html

Test of independence and impartiality FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 07/05/2011

Test of independence and impartiality

FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
07/05/2011
It won’t be long before a new Ombudsman is appointed by Noynoy, after the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) short-listed four names for Ombudsman, such as former Surpeme Court Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, Justice Undersecretary Leah Armamento, Presidential Commission on Good Government Commissioner Gerard Mosquera, and former Justice Secretary Artemio Tuquero.

All four in the shortlist earned the same number of votes: five, although it is likely that it will be Morales who will be appointed Ombudsman. A dark horse would be Tuquero, who is a member of the influential Iglesia ni Cristo.

The JBC voting is pretty interesting in that Morales only got five votes, even as she was publicly considered as the frontrunner in the Ombudsman’s race, which could translate to some members of the JBC being of the belief that her age could be a liability in her taking on the Ombudsman’s job..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110705com2.html

West Bank: Ancient priesthood uses past to predict future focus 07/05/2011

West Bank: Ancient priesthood uses past to predict future

focus

07/05/2011
NABLUS — In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, a small and ancient Samaritan community is managing to make ends meet by dabbling in the age-old practice of fortune-telling.

University Avenue, in the hill-ringed city of Nablus, is lined with white banners with the names of Samaritan priests, renowned among their Palestinian neighbors for astrology and divination.

Palestinians go to the Samaritans’ booths along the avenue or to their homes on nearby Mount Gerizim hoping to find answers to their most pressing problems.

The Samaritans claim to be the true children of Israel who left Egypt with Moses and consider themselves the guardians of the authentic Mosaic tradition. They say it is the Jews who over time diluted the religion revealed by Moses..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110705com3.html

Amigo / A Moment in the Sun AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Ken Fuller 07/05/2011

Amigo / A Moment in the Sun

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW
Ken Fuller
07/05/2011
Cinema-goers and readers each have a treat to look forward to in the near future. First, independent film-maker John Sayles’s Amigo, set during the Philippine-American War and mostly filmed in Bohol, is to be released in this country this month (that’s what the Web site says, anyway). Given Sayles’s progressive outlook, we can expect this to be sympathetic to the viewpoint of the Filipinos resisting the new colonial power.

Sayles is an interesting guy. Born in 1950, after completing college in 1972 he took a number of blue-collar jobs while writing in his spare time. First came short stories, then a number of novels, one of which — Union Dues, published in 1977 — told of a labor activist searching for his son who has run off to join a radical group; this was nominated for a National Book Award. Then he moved into movies. His directing credits are now approaching 20, with his best-known work including Lone Star and Matewan, the latter dealing with a miners’ strike in the 1920s..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110705com5.html

Margie’s war: For what it’s worth (1) INSIDE CONGRESS Charlie Manalo 07/05/2011

Margie’s war: For what it’s worth (1)

INSIDE CONGRESS
Charlie Manalo
07/05/2011
Ever since Margie Juico assumed the PCSO chairmanship, she had, just like a raging warrior, embarked on all-out war against her predecessors. She had accused the former PCSO officials of leaving behind a bankrupt agency with P4 billion in debt, entering with overpriced advertising contracts and supplies’ contracts, doling out donations to ghost patients, luxury vehicles to bishops, endowments and ambulances for the benefits of lawmakers’ constituency among many others.

However, most, if not all of these allegations, as former PCSO Chairman Manoling Morato insists, are unfounded.

How, Manoling asks, could Margie say that the PCSO is bankrupt when she admitted herself the PCSO paid P2.9 billion in taxes? The P4 billion PCSO debt, Manoling said, might have included all the agency’s payables for mandatory contributions to different government agencies including the Commission for Higher Education (Ched) and the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), which have accrued throughout the years..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110705com6.html

Clarification LETTER 07/05/2011

Clarification

LETTER

07/05/2011
Dear Editor:
We write to clarify the details on the Pag-IBIG Overseas Program (POP), which was featured in your paper last June 17, 2011 in the news article entitled, “Binay urges Pinoys abroad to avail selves of Pag-IBIG overseas program.”

The Pag-IBIG membership program which covers Filipinos overseas differs from the Modified Pag-IBIG II Program.

With the signing of Republic Act 9679, membership to the Pag-IBIG Fund became mandatory to all Filipino income earners working in the Philippines or abroad. These include overseas Filipino workers (OFW), whether land- or sea-based, and other individuals employed by foreign-based companies. Filipino immigrants and naturalized citizens are also encouraged to register under the POP..... MORE
SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110705com8.html

The Philippines: A Third World country forever? VIEWPOINTS Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz 07/05/2011

The Philippines: A Third World country forever?

VIEWPOINTS
Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz
07/05/2011
There were those happy times and easy days when in Asia, the Philippines was second only to Japan in socio-economic development. It would not be merely wishful thinking that the Philippines could be then considered as a “First World Country” — if the phrase were already in use. But the big misfortune came to pass that one regime after another, one government after another, and the Philippine has degraded slowly but surely into a Third World Country. This pitiful Philippine status continues to be vivid and vibrant in the mind and heart of the international community to this decade. Thus this country is accordingly treated and mistreated.

How come? What happened in the course of time? Who made it happen? How did it happen? Is the Philippines condemned to be a Third World Country — forever? Shall the Filipinos be continuously identified with poverty and misery? Will the country be consistently considered as the fertile ground of graft and corruption, of criminality and injustice, in the Asian continent? Is the Philippines then a lost — hopeless — case in the world of development and progress?.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110705com7.html

SC orders probe of Mayor Sara’s battering of sheriff By Benjamin B. Pulta 07/05/2011

SC orders probe of Mayor Sara’s battering of sheriff

By Benjamin B. Pulta 07/05/2011

There used to be just the battered wives and children, but another one may be added: Battered sheriffs. This case, however, wont just disappear as the Supreme Court has stepped in.

A probe has been initiated by the high court into last Friday’s incident where Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio repeatedly hit a court sheriff with her closed fist after the latter failed to heed her request to delay the demolition of squatter families in Barangay Kapitan Tomas Monteverde Sr. in Davao City.

Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez said he has ordered Davao City Regional Trial court Executive Judge Isaac Robillo to submit a report on the incident after seeing news reports showing Duterte attacking court sheriff Abe Andres.

Marquez and a group of sheriffs were set to meet last night to discuss the incident..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110705hed5.html

Officials deny Chinese diplomat access to DFA over ‘rude’ conduct EXCLUSIVE By Michaela P. del Callar 07/05/2011

Officials deny Chinese diplomat access to DFA over ‘rude’ conduct

EXCLUSIVE

By Michaela P. del Callar 07/05/2011

Officials have denied a senior Chinese Embassy diplomat access to the Department of Foreign Affairs for allegedly displaying rude behavior during a tense meeting at the DFA last month while discussing the China-Philippine disputes over the Spratly Islands, according to an official and a DFA memo seen by the Tribune yesterday.

DFA officials accused Chinese Embassy First Secretary and Director of Political Affairs Li Yonsheng of verbally lashing out at Asia-Pacific Affairs Executive Director Meynard Montealegre before Philippine and Chinese officials, prompting them to recommend that Li be barred from future meetings with DFA officials “for exhibiting conduct unbecoming of a diplomat.”

Incensed by Li’s behavior, the DFA’s Asia-Pacific Affairs (ASPAC) division said in a June 23, 2011 memo signed by Assistant Secretary Cristina Ortega, that it has informed the Chinese embassy “it is no longer dealing with Li, also known as Andrew Li” and that he was “no longer welcome at ASPAC.”.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110705hed4.html

Luisita leader dies without seeing TRO lifted by SC By Charlie V. Manalo 07/05/2011

Luisita leader dies without seeing TRO lifted by SC

By Charlie V. Manalo 07/05/2011

He waited for more than half-a-century to finally lay claim to a portion of the 6,000-hectare of Hacienda Luisita which had been promised to him, his family and other tenant-farmers of the sugar estate.

Last Friday, Federico “Tatay Pedring” Laza, 68, succumbed to a lingering kidney problem without seeing the 6,000-hectare sugar plantation owned by the family of President Aquino distributed to farmers.

Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) secretary general Danilo Ramos described the older Laza as “one of the key leaders of the peasant movement inside the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda.”.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110705nat1.html

Psalm’s plan to hire PR firm, publish coffee table book opposed 07/05/2011

Psalm’s plan to hire PR firm, publish coffee table book opposed

07/05/2011
Why would a government agency like the Power Sector Assets Liabilities (Psalm) Corporation hire a public relations firm and publish a coffee table book?

This was the question raised by Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone yesterday following reports that the agency tasked to privatize the government-owned National Power Corporation is planning to hire the services of a public relations firm.

“The reported plan of Psalm to hire an international PR and publish a coffee table book should be exposed and opposed. These moves are anti-consumers. It will only adds to the unnecessary expenses of Pslam which will be passed on to the consumers by way of rate increases,” Evardone said yesterday..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110705nat5.html

Tolentino tells DPWH to build flyover instead of underpass By Pat C. Santos 07/05/2011

Tolentino tells DPWH to build flyover instead of underpass

By Pat C. Santos 07/05/2011

Before starting the construction of P430 million underpass project at the intersection of Araneta Avenue and Quezon Avenue, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Francis Tolentino wants the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to reconsider changing its design.

According to Tolentino, the site Araneta Avenue-Talayan being a flooded area if completed may turn out to be a basin of flood waters during heavy rains as the location has been identified as flood-prone when heavy down pour hit.

Tolentino said that he had already informed DPWH Secretary Rogelio Singson on the apprehension if the P430 million four-lane underpass project at the intersection of Quezon Avenue/Araneta Road would push through may pose problem as the Araneta-Talayan is one listed as the flooded area during heavy rains.

Based on the available data, Tolentino recommends that instead of underpass it is better to have a flyover bridge which is much feasible to motorist because of its natural ground elevation..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110705met2.html

Bill seeking to prohibit ‘animal crush’ video filed By Charlie V. Manalo 07/05/2011

Bill seeking to prohibit ‘animal crush’ video filed

By Charlie V. Manalo 07/05/2011


Buhay Party-list Rep. Irwin Tieng has filed a bill seeking to stop the perverse and unusual practice of Filipino women who inflict animal cruelty while clad in their underwear and who sell the viewing of it to foreigners for as much as $1,000 (about P43,000) per show.

In filing House Bill 4595 entitled “An Act To Prohibit Animal Crush Video and Providing Penalties for Violations,” Tieng pointed to the fact that Filipinos have been found to be involved in a growing world fetish for “animal crush videos” which are shown in websites and social networking sites.

“The crush videos which visually depict the abuse and killing of animals cater to sexual fetishists who want to watch and hear animals being crushed to death. The hapless victims are mostly dogs, cats, rabbits, monkeys, snakes, and frogs, depending on the specification of the patron. The video features Filipino women perpetrating the torture who are scantily clad either in lingerie, two-piece bikinis,” Tieng said in the bill’s explanatory note..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110705met3.html

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