• 6 AUGUST - *1907 - Gen. Macario Sakay, one of the Filipino military leaders who had continued fighting the imperialist United States invaders eight years into the Ph...
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David, the underdog, slew Goliath EDITORIAL 04/10/2012

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

David, the underdog, slew Goliath

EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
04/10/2012
Outside of the monoliths, Liberal Party (LP) and Nacionalista Party (NP), few other political parties had made a lasting impression in terms of fielding reliable bets for the periodic polls and those political groups that mount a challenge against such parties were parties usually formed by the incumbent.

Thus, it was the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) for former President Ferdinand Marcos for a long time. Cory Aquino won under the banner of the United Democratic Opposition (Unido) coalition which she quickly dropped after she made use of the Unido vehicle and allied herself with the Laban ng Democratiko Pilipino, which she also dropped when she endorsed Fidel Ramos, who came to power through the Lakas-Kampi-CMD. Joseph Estrada has his own Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) when he overwhelmingly won the presidency in the 1998 elections.

Now, the tables are turned as a non-incumbent formed a coalition outside of the two giant parties and is now expected to pose a challenge to the dominant LP..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120410com1.html

Psy-war resumes FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 04/10/2012

Psy-war resumes

FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
04/10/2012
The Lenten break still wasn’t over, but there went the prosecution team and its spokesmen already firing their guns again at the Chief Justice and his defense team, claiming that they have been reinvigorated, are more focused and driven to prove their case against the chief magistrate, Renato Corona.

Say what? Prove its case against the CJ? But the prosecution has already rested its case long before the Senate took a six-week recess. It is now the defense’s turn to disprove the charges leveled against its client.

But the prosecution appears to think that it is its psy-war tactics and trial by publicity that will make its case win..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120410com2.html

Iran: ‘No preconditions’ to nuclear talks will be accepted

Iran: ‘No preconditions’ to nuclear talks will be accepted


Iran has slammed world powers for imposing preconditions ahead of Saturday’s nuclear talks. The foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, stressed on Monday that “setting conditions before the meeting means drawing conclusions before negotiations.”

­"None of the parties will accept conditions set before the talks," Iran’s PressTV quoted Ali Akbar Salehi as saying, adding that Salehi branded the demands as “completely meaningless.

The US insists that Tehran should suspend uranium enrichment, which they consider just a few steps from weapons grade, according to leaked reports. Washington also wants Iran to close its underground nuclear facility at Fordo near the holy city of Qom..... MORE
SourceRT.com

URL: http://rt.com/news/iran-nuclear-talks-meaningless-pre-conditions-610/

War on drugs? 110k active US troops 'on prescribed meds'

War on drugs? 110k active US troops 'on prescribed meds'

Thousands of US soldiers are going into battle fueled by all sorts of prescription medications, be they amphetamines, antidepressants, sedatives or others. Largely unmonitored consumption of drugs can lead to aberrant behavior and mental disorders.

­Over 110,000 American service personnel took prescribed medications in 2011 to battle through everyday military routine.

The Times recently disclosed that nearly 8 per cent of active-duty American servicemen and women take sedatives and over 6 per cent are on antidepressants, a tremendous eightfold increase since 2005, when two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were in full swing..... MORE

SourceRT.com

URL: http://rt.com/news/us-army-medicine-drugs-580/

The economic policeman speaks AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Ken Fuller 04/10/2012

The economic policeman speaks

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW
Ken Fuller
04/10/2012
Ever since independence in 1946, Philippine economic policy has been dictated by foreigners. First — and as a condition of that so-called “independence” — the USA called the tune, to the extent of stationing “advisers” in government departments. The aim, of course, was to ensure that formal independence would not endanger US economic interests; or, as US Sen. Millard Tydings bluntly described the purpose of the Bell Trade Act, to “keep the Philippines economically though we lose them politically.”

Those US interests, by the way, have evolved over time, and it is interesting in this regard to compare the National Security Council’s “Statement of Policy” toward the Philippines of April 5, 1954, with that of June 4, 1958.

While the 1954 policy stated that the Philippines was “important to the United States and the free world” due to its strategic location, its role as a model for other Asians, and because “it is our principal source of copra and hemp, and an important source of sugar and chrome,” the 1958 document reversed the priority of the first two points and amended the third to read that “the Philippines is one of the most important areas of US commercial activity in Asia, both as a market and as a field of investment.” Thus, by the late 1950s US capital had moved from seeing the Philippines as a source of raw materials to viewing it as a destination for capital..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120410com5.html

Many summers ago NO HOLDS BARRED Armida Siguion-Reyna 04/10/2012

Many summers ago

NO HOLDS BARRED
Armida Siguion-Reyna
04/10/2012
I was 11 years old on April 9, 1942, when this was broadcast on radio:

“Bataan has fallen. The Philippine-American troops on this war-ravaged and bloodstained peninsula have laid down their arms. With heads bloody but unbowed, they have yielded to the superior force and numbers of the enemy.

“The world will long remember the epic struggle that Filipino and American soldiers put up in the jungle fastness and along the rugged coast of Bataan. They have stood up uncomplaining under the constant and grueling fire of the enemy for more than three months. Besieged on land and blockaded by sea, cut off from all sources of help in the Philippines and in America, the intrepid fighters have done all that human endurance could bear..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120410com4.html

Expensive power deals sealed; Summit only for show — solon By Charlie V. Manalo 04/10/2012

Expensive power deals sealed; Summit only for show — solon

By Charlie V. Manalo 04/10/2012

President Aquino’s convening of the Mindanao Power Summit this Friday will only be for show as agreements to jack up power rates in Mindanao and put up environmentally-hazardous coal plants were already sealed during a pre-summit meeting organized by the Department of Energy last week, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño said.

Casiño aired his apprehension upon learning that in an April 4 pre-summit meeting in Davao, Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras ordered Mindanao electric cooperatives to buy expensive power from privatized power barges at P14 kilowatt hour (kWh), with government shouldering the P9 per kWh diesel cost. Almendras also reportedly ordered local government officials to immediately approve the environmental compliance certificates (ECCs) for at least two new coal fired power plants in Mindanao..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20120410hea6.html

North Korea rocket installed on launch pad 04/10/2012

North Korea rocket installed on launch pad

04/10/2012
TONGCHANG-RI SPACE CENTER — North Korea’s long-range rocket is on its launch platform, Agence France Presse reporters said, as the regime again insisted it was to send a peaceful satellite and not a missile.

The usually secretive North organized an unprecedented visit for foreign reporters to Tongchang-ri space center in an effort to show its Unha-3 rocket is not a disguised ballistic missile, as claimed by the US and its allies.

Communist North Korea says it will launch the satellite for peaceful scientific research between April 12 and 16 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of founding leader Kim Il-Sung. His birthday was on April 15..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20120410hea4.html

NPC, NP, LDP ‘open’ to 2013 alliances By Gerry Baldo and Charlie V. Manalo 04/10/2012

LP CLAIMS NOT THREATENED BY ERAP-BINAY’S UNA

NPC, NP, LDP ‘open’ to 2013 alliances

By Gerry Baldo and Charlie V. Manalo 04/10/2012

Liberal Party (LP) stalwarts claim that it is not threatened by the formation of an Erap-Binay coalition under the umbrella of United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), but three other Philippine political parties appear to be interested in forging an alliance with UNA for the 2013 elections.

The political parties reportedly interested in an alliance with UNA are the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), the Nacionalista Party (NP) and the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP).

The LP, for its part, has stated that at this time, the dominant political party is not interested in forming coalitions with other parties, but could do so, as long as these parties interested in forging an alliance with the LP, would follow its “reform agenda,” with LP stalwart Florencio “Butch” Abad saying that the LP can go it alone in 2013..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20120410hea1.html

Planas plea for TRO on EO 2 denied By Benjamin B. Pulta 04/10/2012

Planas plea for TRO on EO 2 denied

By Benjamin B. Pulta 04/10/2012

The Court of Appeals (CA) has ruled against the suit of former Nayong Pilipino executive director Charito Planas seeking to stop to the implementation of President Aquino’s Executive Order 2 on her supposed midnight appointment in 2010.

In a six-page resolution promulgated last March 16, the 12th division of the appellate court denied her motion seeking the issuance of a status quo ante order against EO 2 that had been rendered moot and academic by the expiration of her term last March 9.

The CA will still rule on the merits of the petition and resolve legal questions raised by the former official against EO 2..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20120410nat1.html

AFP raids fail to rescue kidnapped Zambo mayor By Mario J. Mallari 04/10/2012

AFP raids fail to rescue kidnapped Zambo mayor

By Mario J. Mallari 04/10/2012

A series of raids conducted by combined military and police operatives to rescue kidnapped Salug, Zamboanga del Norte Mayor Jeffrey Lim in some parts of the Zamboanga region have yielded negative results, a ranking military official said yesterday.

Army 1st Infantry Division (ID) chief Brig. Gen. Rainier Cruz said at least four operations were launched since Lim was abducted by unidentified armed men last April 2 in Poblacion, Salug.

“Negative so far,” said Cruz of the results of the series of raids staged by government troops..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20120410nat6.html

Urban poor to call for Noy’s resignation over demolitions By Pat C. Santos 04/10/2012

Urban poor to call for Noy’s resignation over demolitions

By Pat C. Santos 04/10/2012

Urban-poor groups under the Alyansa Kontra Demolisyon (Alliance Against Demolition) will launch today a campaign to gather one million signatures for the repeal of the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) or Republic Act 7279.

In a statement, they said the petition calls on the House of the Representatives to expedite the passage of House Bill 5443 filed by Anakpawis party-list Rafael Mariano, which repeals the UDHA which the poorest representative in the Lower House claimed has paved the way for the massive demolition of urban-poor communities nationwide in favor of the capitalists.

Alyansa Kontra Demolisyon, an assemblage of not less than 80 urban-poor groups mostly based in Metro Manila, had also filed a case asking the Supreme Court (SC) to declare some anti-poor provisions in the UDHA as unconstitutional..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20120410met1.html

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