Broadcast media blues EDITORIAL 09/15/2010

Broadcast media blues

EDITORIAL

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09/15/2010
Broadcast media are on the carpet, and because of having acted irresponsibly during the hostage crisis situation, they now are on the defensive and getting the shorter end of the stick, as shown during the Senate hearing yesterday.

At the root of it all, was the irresponsibility of the broadcast media to air the hostage crisis live, which aggravated the situation, especially at that point where the hostage taker, viewing the broadcast through a TV monitor in the bus, saw on real time, his brother being taken away and cuffed by the police.

Making things worse at that time was that the media kept up with having the viewers — which included the hostage taker, with the brother’s interview and his fear of being killed by the police who were taking him away.

There is little doubt that this particular scene was what made the hostage taker, Rolando Mendoza, go crazy and start shooting his hostages.

But it is not only in this hostage crisis that the broadcast media showed irresponsibility..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100915com1.html

Treading the same path FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 09/15/2010

Treading the same path

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

09/15/2010
Noynoy Aquino is treading the same Gloria Arroyo path in defending himself from allegations.

His reply to these reports on the jueteng payola, linking some of his aides was that this is the work of his political detractors — even as there has not been any investigation on these allegations by the Palace.

Since such is his answer to these allegations, and his yellows are ready to buy that, what then becomes of Gloria and her aides’ stock answers then to any and all allegations, such as this is the work of her political foes who want to bring her government down?

Can it therefore be deduced that neither Gloria, her spouse, her kin and her aides, were ever the recipient of jueteng payoffs, since such was merely the work of her political detractors and critics?

After all, what’s good for the sanctimonious gander who moreover promised change and reform, should be just as good for a goose. 

Given that Noynoy is taking the same path taken by Gloria in washing her hands off the many charges against her, insisting on proof first, as well as blaming everything on her critics and political foes, can he then be saying that Gloria was, after all, merely a victim of her political detractors?.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100915com2.html

Australia’s Rudd needs to lose ‘megaphone’ as FM ANALYSIS 09/15/2010

Australia’s Rudd needs to lose ‘megaphone’ as FM

ANALYSIS

09/15/2010
SYDNEY — Despite fluent Mandarin and his background as a diplomat, Kevin Rudd irritated Asian powers as Australia’s leader and will need to mend fences in his new role as foreign minister, analysts say.

Rudd, who becomes Australia’s chief envoy less than three months after being unceremoniously ousted from the prime ministership by his own party, was an outward-looking premier with a love of travel that earned him the nickname “Kevin 747.”

But despite high ambitions of placing Australia at the center of Asian development, Rudd, who was posted to Stockholm and Beijing as a diplomat in the 1980s, soured ties with China, Japan and India with his “megaphone” style.

“When he was prime minister he actually left behind quite bad relations with a number of states,” explained China expert John Lee, from the Centre for Independent Studies think tank.

“And it wasn’t necessarily bad relations between Australia and these states, it was bad relations between Kevin Rudd and these states,” Lee told AFP.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100915com3.html

Jueteng redux? C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S Jonathan De la Cruz 09/15/2010

Jueteng redux?

C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S

Jonathan De la Cruz

09/15/2010
It is good that President Aquino has ordered the DILG, PNP and now the BIR to go hammer and tongs against jueteng operators. Probably jolted by the latest revelations that the operators of the illegal numbers game have found new padrinos in his administration P-Noy has vowed to unmask the perpetrators and bring them to justice. The inclusion of the BIR in the task group is a take on the Al Capone story which happened during the Depression years in the US. It is related that US authorities had a hard time taking hold of the Chicago mobster and letting their charges stick even as they had every reason to believe that Capone really had his hands on every illegal activity including illegal gambling and other racketeering operations. He was as slippery as an eel. So, they got him via tax evasion charges, took him into custody and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Let’s hope that the authorities will be able to do the same to the operators and their backers, in and out of government, soon enough.

Inaalat (on a losing streak) is how many observers are now describing the series of negative reports which have been coming the Aquino administration’s way lately. Just as the Luneta hostage carnage was fading in the public view aided somehow by P-Noy’s public statements and the Chinese government’s avowals of trust and comity, we have this latest jolt from anti-jueteng crusader Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz that two (or is it five) administration officials are getting millions of pesos in “payola” from the illegal numbers game. Cruz, who heads the Krusadang Bayan Laban sa Jueteng had earlier linked just two close P-Noy aides to the alleged payoffs but immediately corrected himself saying the number is more than that. He named five additional, mostly local, officials. If I were DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo and his deputy in charge of police affairs, Undersecretary Rico Puno,.... MORE
Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100915com4.html

Georgia’s mountain wilderness Georgia’s mountain wilderness FEATURE 09/15/2010

Georgia’s mountain wilderness

FEATURE

09/15/2010
MESTIA — High in the Caucasus Mountains, a wild landscape of glacier-capped peaks, forested valleys and villages huddled around medieval stone towers has been locked away for centuries.

But Georgia’s Upper Svaneti region — one of the highest and most remote settlements in Europe — is finally opening up to the outside world.

Home to only 14,000 persons, Upper Svaneti is a relic of Georgia’s ancient culture, a living museum where the locals speak a language that broke off from Georgian 3,000 years ago.

Getting to the regional capital Mestia, a village of 2,500 located 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) above sea level, currently involves a harrowing half-day drive along a rough road that winds around steep cliffs.

Now, in a bid to attract tourists and develop the region’s economy

, Georgia’s government has launched a major programme to improve transport links to Svaneti, spending millions of dollars (euros) to refurbish roads and this summer announcing plans for a new airport in Mestia..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100915com5.html

Missing his target HE SAYS Aldrin Cardon 09/15/2010

.Missing his target

HE SAYS

Aldrin Cardon

09/15/2010
It was, to say, picture perfect — that of President Aquino, his eyes squinting as he peered through the scope to check a high-powered rifle any gun lover — which, in case you don’t know it yet, includes our very own dear Chief Executive — would love to own.

The photograph was a great copy, they shared the headlines in many newspapers last week, at about the same time when another photograph, this time bearing the likeness of an elite police team, in a re-enactment of the fateful Aug. 23 hostage-taking incident at the Quirino Grandstand, where eight Hong Kong tourists were killed when an out-of-it-all dismissed police officer sealed his life for nothing but to send the country into an international embarrassment that would blot Noynoy’s first hundred days.

The two photographs, however, tell similar stories.

The first, that of the President inspecting a deadly hardware, could be so privileged to at least lay hands on a modern equipment his police and military forces could only dream of.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100915com6.html

Bulls-eye SHE SAYS Dinah S. Ventura 09/15/2010

Bulls-eye

SHE SAYS

Dinah S. Ventura

09/15/2010
President Aquino is no stranger to violence. His father, Benigno Sr., was assassinated on the airport tarmac. His mother’s term as president was peppered with a number of armed coups d’etat by rebel soldiers who wanted to grab power, and he took a bullet in his body to show for it.

Those violent years urged him to take up the gun and learn to shoot. And his aim, we discovered recently, is excellent.

Unfortunately, decisions made on Aug. 23, 2010 did not have the same perfect aim. In fact, it appeared that no one was aiming for anything specific that day, such as making it possible for the hostages to be let go by the disgruntled police officer, who had decided to take the law into his own hands. Rolando Mendoza wanted his job back, claiming he had been unfairly dismissed, and he took a busload of Hong Kong tourists hostage to ensure that he got what he wanted.

Throughout the 10 hours of heat, hot heads, high drama and hijinks, the world watched as the situation dragged for hours and rapidly disintegrated into a tragedy that took the lives of tourists who were about to leave for home that very night..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100915com7.html

SC stops Merci’s impeachment, 8-3 By Benjamin B. Pulta and Gerry Baldo 09/15/2010

House to defy high court’s status quo ante order 

SC stops Merci’s impeachment, 8-3

By Benjamin B. Pulta and Gerry Baldo
09/15/2010

Saved by the Supreme Court (SC) bell—at least for now.

A status quo ante order has been handed down by a polarized high court stopping the impeachment of controversial Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.

In a two page resolution, the SC en banc through Assistant Clerk of Court Felipa Anama required parties “to observe the status quo prevailing before the issuance of the Sept. 1, 2010 and Sept. 7, 2010 resolutions of the House committee on justice.”

Two leaders of the House of Representatives said the House is going to ignore the order of the SC suspending the impeachment proceedings against Gutierrez even under pain of contempt.

Iloilo Rep. Neil Tupaz and Quezon Rep. Lorenzo Tañada III said the House committee on justice will continue with the impeachment proceedings despite the high court order, saying that the House, as a legislative body, is a co-equal body of government which is not under the judiciary..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100915hed1.html

SC rejects farmers’ bid to stop Luisita proceedings 09/15/2010

SC rejects farmers’ bid to stop Luisita proceedings
09/15/2010
Thousands of farmers working the Cojuangco family controlled Hacienda Luisita suffered a setback before the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday after the tribunal turned down the motion filed by Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Hacienda Luisita (Ambala) to scrap the ongoing mediation proceedings between the hacienda’s management and beneficiaries.

Retired SC Associate Justice Alicia Austria Martinez, who heads the three-man mediation panel created by the court to help both parties come up with an amicable settlement to end the decades long land dispute, said the magistrates denied Ambala’s petition during their regular en banc session held every Tuesday.

Aside from turning down the motion to suspend mediation proceedings, the court also asked the Ambala to participate in the arbitration proceedings.

Hacienda Luisita spokesman Tony Ligon told reporters that the mediation proceedings are scheduled to resume next Monday.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20100915nat1.html

Cruz: 8 dioceses also receive jueteng payola By Pat C. Santos and Angie M. Rosales 09/15/2010

Cruz: 8 dioceses also receive jueteng payola
By Pat C. Santos and Angie M. Rosales
09/15/2010

Presidential aides and buddies linked to millions of jueteng payoffs appear to be in good company of some payola-taking bishops, as Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz yesterday bared that eight dioceses in the country are recipients of jueteng payolas.

As this was bared, Sen. Miriam Santiago also scored Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) undersecretary Rico Puno, who has been given control and authority over the Philippine National Police (PNP) despite being under the DILG chief Jesse Robredo, saying that Puno’s withholding of the information on the “feelers” sent to him on jueteng payoffs by “emissaries” and friends was “improper” and questionable.

The senator stressed that the DILG appeared to have been remiss in taking appropriate action on these alleged overtures on jueteng payola to him.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile also questioned Puno’s statements saying that the DILG official should identify those alleged fixers or go-betweens who sought him out the past few months..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100915hed3.html

Judiciary budget up in Aquino, CJ meet 09/15/2010

Judiciary budget up in Aquino, CJ meet
09/15/2010
President Aquino yesterday said he will ask for a meeting with Chief Justice Renato Corona to iron out the demands of the judges for salary increases which, he said, had already been granted the judiciary unlike other departments that “suffered cuts.”

In a chance interview after witnessing the change of command between retired Philippine National Police Chief Gen. Jesus Verzosa and newly appointed PNP chief Gen. Raul Bacalzo at Camp Crame in Quezon City, the Chief Executive echoed his trusted budget and Management Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad in fending off the ongoing grumbling of the judiciary given the slashes in its budget allocation as specified in the 2011 proposed national budget.

Aquino justified the appropriations that his government has made in its proposed P1.614-trillion budget as he insinuated that the claims made by the judiciary that it has not experienced an increase in its budget was wrong because its members have been getting adjustments in their allowances since 2007.

“First of all, the judicial budget, I understand, for 2011 has been increased by about five percent. So it’s not correct to say that it wasn’t increased — there are a lot of other departments that sufferedthe cut for that matter,” Aquino told reporters..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100915hed4.html

Noy: Junior officers’ plaints vs new PNP chief ‘manufactured’ By Aytch S. de la Cruz 09/15/2010

Noy: Junior officers’ plaints vs new PNP chief ‘manufactured’
By Aytch S. de la Cruz
09/15/2010

Saying that the complaints against his chosen Philippine National Police (PNP) chief were “manufactured” by the junior officers in the police force, President Aquino admitted that he merely ignored these complaints, even to the point of not investigating these charges aired against PNP chief Director General Raul Bacalzo.

Aquino claimed that the complaints were clearly manufactured stating that it has always been a tradition not only in the police but also in the military that some officials would always bring into play issues against every succeeding chief.

The junior officers alleged that Bacalzo was a failure in addressing the issues of extra-judicial killings in the country, citing his purported zero achievements when he held the directorship of the PNP’s Task Force Usig.

They also claimed that Bacalzo has been receiving protection money from jueteng, the most common form of illegal gambling in the country. He has also been implicated in drug trafficking..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100915hed5.html

Ethics complaint against Lacson filed 09/15/2010

Ethics complaint against Lacson filed
09/15/2010
An anti-crime group yesterday filed a complaint against fugitive Sen. Panfilo Lacson before the Senate committee on ethics and privileges in connection with his departure from the country and continued absences from the upper chamber in the face of a standing warrant of arrest issued against him for the Dacer-Corbito double murder case.

In a 14-page complaint, the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) is asking the Senate panel to investigate the lawmaker for his failure to surrender himself to the proper authorities; fleeing the country to evade arrest; and his continued absence from the upper chamber’s sessions. 

The complainants said Lacson had “tainted the prestige of the Senate” and was “guilty of dereliction of duty.”

They added Lacson “may be guilty of violating Presidential Decree 1829 (obstruction of justice) and abandonment of office, which are both penal offenses.”.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100915hed6.html

New faces, same style EDITORIAL 09/14/2010

New faces, same style

EDITORIAL

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09/14/2010
When such accusations of corruption, and naturally, jueteng, are aired, and with the fingers pointing to the presidential aides, the usual reply to such accusations is for the accuser to provide proof and substantiate the charges for the Palace to act on them.

Communications chief Sonny Coloma came out to state that retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz should show the Palace proof of his charges, adding that there are no sacred cows in the Aquino government.

That was pretty much the line of the Arroyo government, every time charges against Palace officials were aired.

It certainly looks like Aquino’s Malacañang is just a clone of Arroyo’s Malacañang, despite all those empty promises of change and reform in the new government, and the promise to eradicate corruption..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100914com1.html

Getting even? FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 09/14/2010

Getting even?

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

09/14/2010
One of the promises of Noynoy Aquino, with reference to reforms in government institutions, was the strengthening of the judiciary — to ensure justice for all under his regime, or so he claimed.

Yet it is clear that such pledge is merely another empty promise made by him, as his budget for next year has ensured that the judicial branch of government does not even comprise of just one percent of the total budget some P1.6 trillion.

But in the case of the Social Welfare and Services Department, its budget zoomed to some 127 percent, with the bulk of the funds allocated to the cash transfer program, which theoretically will be giving the “poorest of the poor” some P1,400 monthly.

Everyone knows that this cash transfer program is nothing but a deep well of corruption, as it is almost impossible for Dinky Soliman’s agency to even pinpoint the poorest of the poor beneficiaries. Just who will be identifying them, if not the local executives. What guarantee is there that once identified, these beneficiaries would really be receiving them? Receipts? Signatures can be faked..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100914com2.html

US post in Afghan hamlet a ‘bullet magnet’ focus 09/14/2010

US post in Afghan hamlet a ‘bullet magnet’

focus

09/14/2010
CHAHAR QOLBAH — In Chahar Qolbah, a deserted hamlet on the edge of the village of Jelawar in southern Afghanistan, US paratroopers have taken over an old Taliban base and turned it into a forward combat post.

Patrol base Lugo, named after one of the soldiers’ comrades who was killed in action, is “a bullet magnet,” joked one of the men from Alpha Battery 1-320 of the 101st Airborne Division

The post is in the Arghandab Valley in the heart of Kandahar province — cradle and bastion of the Taliban insurgency.

Riddled with bullets and some of it in ruins, the building has been transformed into a fortified camp, with machine gun posts on the roof, sandbags, camouflage netting and sniper nests.

“When we moved in, we found weapons and underground medical facilities. They were treating their wounded here,” platoon commander Lt. George Babcock said as he showed the cellar..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100914com3.html

Honeymoon is over? NO HOLDS BARRED Armida Siguion-Reyna 09/14/2010

Honeymoon is over?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Armida Siguion-Reyna

09/14/2010
You read this on the 76th day that President Benigno Aquino III is in office, or 24 days to go before his honeymoon with all of us ends. How will he do after the traditional 100 days of harmony for the Chief Executive is over?

The stance of my paper is clear. Without fear or favor, said our masthead, from the time of Arroyo. Without fear or favor, still, in this presidency. And yet while I had declared observing a honeymoon with P-Noy, not once did I get an order, a request, or whatever, to go hit him. My editor respects my position, I likewise respect the paper’s clear-cut preference to stay on activist track — which is why I found Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda’s scare tactics and harangue against our reporter so disappointing. 

I make it clear I want Lacierda’s Boss to succeed. I didn’t vote for him, but how well he does in Malacañang is how well the country will do. For P-Noy to do well enough to stop rallyists of the left and right and center of the spectrum from pouring out into the streets again is what I really want to happen, as heck, I’m soon to turn 80, and my legs won’t anymore take to marching.

Barely after the elections, the Left announced “There’s no honeymoon. The total political exposition of, and opposition to Aquino, and the newly installed ruling Mafia in Malacañang is the top order of the day… a declaration of round-the-clock vigilance and just war against Mr. Aquino, who is no different to Mrs. Arroyo.”.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100914com4.html

Paymasters of the right AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Ken Fuller 09/14/2010

Paymasters of the right

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW

Ken Fuller

09/14/2010
Last month saw a large gathering in Washington as Glenn Beck, a right-wing rabble-rouser on the odious Fox channel, called a rally at the spot where Martin Luther King Jr. made his “I have a dream” speech 47 years earlier. Beck says it was mere coincidence that it was the anniversary of the King speech but that, when he realized it, he decided to use this as his theme. And he did, making the ludicrous claim that his Tea Party audience was heir to the civil rights movement.

Anyone listening to Beck for the first time might have come away with the impression that here was a man who believed that the solution to the USA’s problems lay in the embrace of God and constant prayer. Scoundrels often enlist God in their attempts to win a following for their dubious undertakings, and Beck threw in all the icons — not just God but the founding fathers, Abraham Lincoln, the Constitution, etc.

In reality, of course, Beck has a quite different agenda. Last year in the New York Times, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman called him “Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism.”

The Beck agenda is pretty much the same of that of the Tea Party, a loosely-organized movement which takes its name from the event in 1773 when American colonists threw cases of tea, upon which the British government was demanding a tax, into Boston’s harbor. “No taxation without representation” was the cry. Current Tea Party adherents, though, seem to object to paying any tax intended to fund socially desirable projects like welfare — and, of course, “bailouts,” where they might be on stronger ground..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100914com5.html

India’s lost Buddhist university to rise from ashes FEATURE 09/14/2010

India’s lost Buddhist university to rise from ashes

FEATURE

09/14/2010
NEW DELHI — Indian academics have long dreamt of resurrecting Nalanda University, one of the world’s oldest seats of learning which has lain in ruins for 800 years since being razed by foreign invaders.

Now the chance of intellectual life returning to Nalanda has come one step closer after the parliament in New Delhi last month passed a bill approving plans to re-build the campus as a symbol of India’s global ambitions.

Historians believe that the university, in the eastern state of Bihar, once catered for 10,000 students and scholars from across Asia, studying subjects ranging from science and philosophy to literature and mathematics.

Founded in the third century, it gained an international reputation before being sacked by Turkic soldiers and its vast library burnt down in 1193 — when Oxford University was only just coming into existence.

Piles of red bricks and some marble carvings are all that remain at the site, 55 miles (90 kilometers) from Bihar’s state capital of Patna..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100914com6.html

Logging spells danger for Europe’s last primeval forest FEATURE 09/14/2010

Logging spells danger for Europe’s last primeval forest

FEATURE

09/14/2010
BIALOWIEZA — Deep in the forest, along a dirt road off-limits to tourists, the trunks of centuries-old fir trees lie waiting to be hauled to a sawmill — felled giants from Europe’s last primeval forest.

Further in, old oak and ash trunks wait to be turned into planks, furniture or matchsticks: proof, say ecologists, of illicit logging that is endangering the ancient Bialowieza forest in eastern Poland.

“Some of the trees have been cut down illegally by Poland’s National Forests service, in violation of European Union legislation,” contends Polish environmentalist Adam Bohdan, who with other campaigners has raised the alarm in Warsaw and Brussels.

State forestry officials deny any logging for commercial purposes in Bialowieza, saying only diseased or infested trees are being felled in the vast woodland area which is home to wild bison, lynx and wolves.

“We are also ecologists,” says Andrzej Antczak, head of the Bialowieza forest service. “We log only to protect the forest from bark beetles — insects that pose a grave danger to trees. We want to help nature defend itself and we do it according to Polish legislation,” he insists..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100914com7.html