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Ruling does not apply to other postings — SC 03/29/2010

Monday, March 29, 2010

Ruling does not apply to other postings — SC


03/29/2010

The Palace cannot refer to the Supreme Court ruling that President Arroyo’s posting of the next Chief Justice is not covered by the election ban on appointments in justifying the mass appointments and dismissals in the executive department, Court Administrator and SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said.

The March 17 decision of the high court did not necessarily give her the authority to appoint other government officials during the period covered by the election appointments ban, according to Marquez.

“The decision as concurred in by nine justices, and which is not yet final, only exempts appointments to the SC from the ban,” Marquez added.

Section 15, Article VII of the Constitution bars the President from making appointments two months before and after the May 10 elections.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100329hed2.html

Caloocan folk storm out to mob Erap convoy By Gerry Baldo and Jason Faustino 03/29/2010

Caloocan folk storm out to mob Erap convoy


By Gerry Baldo and Jason Faustino
03/29/2010

Poor families — and there were tens of thousands of them — greeted former President Joseph Estrada’s motorcade in Caloocan City before the country plunged into darkness for the Earth Hour Saturday night, bringing light to the campaign of the once ousted leader who is bidding to reclaim his post in his vow to continue serving the poor masses who never turned their backs on him.

Not even a “road spike” attack on some vehicles which joined Es-trada’s motorcade succeeded in hobbling the campaign, which was also highlighted by the unexpected tandem of the city’s two former mayors — Baby Asistio and Rey Malonzo — who have settled their political differences not only to back Estrada’s presidential bid but also to challenge what they claimed as a “rotten administration.”

Malonzo also once played critic to Estrada at the height of the impeachment proceedings in 2001 before they were aborted by a civilian-backed military coup d’ etat that installed Gloria Arroyo in Malacañang.

Malonzo, who is now a vice mayoralty candidate supporting his erstwhile opponent Asistio’s mayoralty bid, however, have jumped fences and joined Estrada, whom he claimed “continues to enjoy the support of the masses.”... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100329hed4.html

Gloria’s scheming never stops EDITORIAL 03/29/2010

Gloria’s scheming never stops



EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
03/29/2010

Whoever in Malacañang said that Gloria would comfortably retire in Pampanga after being elected as member of the House of Representatives in the coming elections either was joking or is a total fool.

The actions being taken lately by Gloria have shown that she is far from over in her pursuit of political perpetuity through plotting and manipulation and that a House seat is only a furtherance of that ultimate goal.

The midnight appointments and the bastardization of the party-list system both of which Gloria exploited to build up new alliances and preserve old ones prove that the predatory traits of Gloria will go on as long as she is in the political stream.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100329com1.html

Crystal clear intent FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 03/29/2010

Crystal clear intent



FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
03/29/2010

More often than not, the intention of survey firms, when they take on political surveys, especially pre-poll surveys a year or two away from the scheduled presidential elections, is to make presidents, or become what is known as “kingmakers.”

Why else would they come up with presidential surveys a year before, if not to create that illusion of the so-called “public opinion” (which is hardly the opinion of the national electorate) favoring so and so as the president of their choice?

At that particular time surveys were being taken, the polls were still far-off, and presidential and vice presidential bets had not even firmed up their decisions to run, or not run.

What purpose then did those surveys serve then? A so-called “snapshot” of the time? But for what purpose, if not to condition the minds of the public that indeed, these “presidentiables” are the choice of the people to run in the far-off polls.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100329com2.html

Afghanistan: Peace in the north, war in the south FEATURE 03/29/2010

Afghanistan: Peace in the north, war in the south



FEATURE

03/29/2010

MAZAR-I-SHARIF — Thousands of Afghans took to the streets of northern cities to welcome their new year in a joyous celebration of music, dancing and fireworks.

Less than 700 kilometers to the south, residents of poverty-stricken villages, towns and cities riddled with mines and plagued by bombings know only war as they struggle for survival.

In Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of the northern province of Balkh, authorities estimate that half a million people gathered for Nowruz, a 3,000-year-old Zoroastrian festival marking the Persian new year.

The southern province of Helmand could not have been more different as 15,000 US, Nato and Afghan troops battled Taliban insurgents in the biggest offensive of a war now in its ninth year.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100329com3.html

Midnight Express DIE HARD III Herman Tiu Laurel 03/29/2010

Midnight Express



DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
03/29/2010

Just as in the Dark Princes’ pre-election fast-tracking of a P100-billion stimulus package plus tax perks for their giant firms courtesy of Finance Secretary Gary Teves, so are other vital measures doing a fast-break in these proverbial “last two minutes.”

Last Friday, the public got wind of a Bureau of Internal Revenue decision to impose on April 1 the 12 percent eVAT on toll fees for the north and south expressways, only a week after it was broached in media and just a month away from the polls. One really wonders why it was timed for April Fools’ Day.

But considering that we were also greeted on that day with the Comelec’s removal of the PCOS vote confirmation and receipt process as headlined by the Tribune, is that still much of a surprise?

To top it all, Malacañang announced 15 new “midnight” appointments, ranging from an ambassadorial posting to some newly created tourism and civil aviation offices, as well as board seats in two historical bodies.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100329com4.html

A wife’s undying love for her man on death row FEATURE 03/29/2010

A wife’s undying love for her man on death row



FEATURE

03/29/2010

WASHINGTON — Even as the minutes ticked down before her husband was due to be put to death, Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner never lost hope that he would win a reprieve.

On the telephone earlier that day “I told him ‘I’m sure that you are going to live,’” the French anti-death penalty campaigner said. “He said to me ‘If you could see what I see all around me, you wouldn’t say that.’”
Nevertheless, her words proved prophetic.

“He was three meters from the death chamber,” she said referring to the room where prisoners are strapped to a gurney and injected with a poisonous cocktail that first puts the inmate to sleep, then paralyzes him, then causes his heart to stop beating.

Mere minutes and inches from death, word came from the US Supreme Court late Wednesday granting a last minute stay of execution and allowing her husband, Henry “Hank” Skinner, to live another day.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100329com5.html

Arrests of Chavez critics raises fears over free expression focus 03/29/2010

Arrests of Chavez critics raises fears over free expression



focus

03/29/2010

CARACAS — The arrests of an opposition politician and the owner of a television network for statements critical of the government of President Hugo Chavez has rekindled debate here over free speech and democracy in Venezuela.

Chavez supporters deny that the President’s critics are being persecuted, but others see the latest developments as a concerted attempt to silence opposition voices.

“Having an opinion in Venezuela is a crime punished with the loss of freedom. We reject everything that restricts freedom of expression in the country, and the witch hunts against those who assume dissident positions,” said Juan Jose Molina, an opposition member of the National Assembly.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100329com6.html

Killing dreams HE SAYS Aldrin Cardon 03/29/2010

Killing dreams



HE SAYS
Aldrin Cardon
03/29/2010

In one corner of the Bustillos Plaza in Sampaloc, Manila, there now stands a commemorative marker honoring Edgar Mirasol Jopson, the once moderate student leader with the “arneow accent” despised by the “natdem” crowd, who branded him an agent of the clerico-fascists — a counter-revolutionary, but who nonetheless proved his dedication to the patriotic fervor lit in the hearts of many of his generation, and died for it.

No, he was killed by agents of government, who, in 1982, were yet to turn their backs on their master, a dictator named Marcos, who four years later, would be toppled in a revolt far similar from the one that was helped sparked by a microphone-grabbing scene between Edjop, as Jopson was called, and the natdem (national democrat) leader Gary Olivar, who, decades after what became known as the First Quarter Storm, we would see in Malacañang, the very same Palace he had branded as home to despots and tyrants, becoming an apologist for another oppressor, one who stole the presidency from the people and continues to do so by mocking the laws and institutions presidents before her have sworn to protect.
.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100329com7.html

No lessons learned SHE SAYS Dinah S. Ventura 03/29/2010

Gloria’s scheming never stops



EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
03/29/2010

Whoever in Malacañang said that Gloria would comfortably retire in Pampanga after being elected as member of the House of Representatives in the coming elections either was joking or is a total fool.

The actions being taken lately by Gloria have shown that she is far from over in her pursuit of political perpetuity through plotting and manipulation and that a House seat is only a furtherance of that ultimate goal.

The midnight appointments and the bastardization of the party-list system both of which Gloria exploited to build up new alliances and preserve old ones prove that the predatory traits of Gloria will go on as long as she is in the political stream..... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100329com8.html

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