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Villar made billions in ’07 illegal stock deal–Erap By Charlie V. Manalo and Angie M. Rosales 04/23/2010

Friday, April 23, 2010

Enrile: Manny earned P26B peddling influence with PSE on stocks

Villar made billions in ’07 illegal stock deal–Erap


By Charlie V. Manalo and Angie M. Rosales
04/23/2010

With less than three weeks to go before the elections, yet another big scandal is rocking the boat of Nacionalista Party standard bearer Sen. Manny Villar as former President Joseph Estrada, together with Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, bared that Villar, when he was Senate President, earned P26 billion, P5 billion of which he had reportedly earmarked for his presidential campaign, stemming from an alleged irregular transaction in 2007 involving his holding company’s shares.

At a press conference held yesterday, Estrada accused Villar of pressuring corporate regulators into allowing him to sell stocks of his listed holding company, in clear violation of stock market rules. This move was made by Villar in 2007 to enable him to raise funds for his planned presidential campaign.

Estrada said Villar made P5 billion just like that, because it was an irregular transaction.

Estrada’s accusation against Villar was substantiated by documents presented by Enrile as he showed the minutes of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) discussions in 2007 on Villar’s Vista Land and Lifescapes, Inc. Estrada accused Villar of having pressured the PSE officials to allow him to sell his stocks in his listed company holdings.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100423hed1.html


Noynoy’s ex-security aide in hiding, says LP bet out to silence him By Charlie V. Manalo 04/23/2010

Noynoy’s ex-security aide in hiding, says LP bet out to silence him


By Charlie V. Manalo
04/23/2010

The man who took the bullet for Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino at the height of the 1987 failed coup attempt is said to have gone to ground following his charges that his former boss is hunting him down in an apparent attempt to “silence” him.

Joseph Galleta, a member of the so-called “Yellow Army,” has secured himself and his family after he was informed that Aquino was looking for him to prevent him from disclosing in public that after saving the LP bet’s life on Aug. 28, 1987, he was neglected and was dropped like a hot potato by Noynoy and the Aquino-Cojuangcos.

Members of the Yellow Army were former security men of Hacienda Luisita who were brought to Malacañang and operated under the command of the Presidential Escort Unit.

A neighbor of Galleta, requesting anonymity, revealed that Noynoy’s former security aide became “the subject of a manhunt” after he started talking against Aquino, particularly his ordeal following that fateful morning that completely changed his life.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100423hed2.html

Bangit nixes junta idea, says it’s a political suicide By Mario J. Mallari and Aytch S. de la Cruz

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Generals take a stand EDITORIAL 04/23/2010

Generals take a stand



EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
04/23/2010

The tug of war between Gloria and Noynoy to win the support of the military for an extra-constitutional power grab, a caretaker junta on the one hand and another coup d’etat masked as another people power on the other, may result in both political opportunists cancelling out each other.

The command conference at Camp Aguinaldo the other day tackled, among others, contingency plans in the event of a failure of elections and that the military top brass who are mainly members of Class 1978 did make a vow not to allow a government that would not be coming out of the elections -- which is both Gloria’s junta as being sold by Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales in his rounds on military camps and Noynoy and his yellows’ planned power takeover through another Edsa revolt. And why not, since the Noynoy Aquinos of the world, along with the yellows of this same world, never respect the rule of law, believing in the rule of force to get what they want.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100423com1.html


Inconsistency, thy name is yellow FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 04/23/2010

Inconsistency, thy name is yellow



FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
04/23/2010

Of all the highly political groups, the most inconsistent in their arguments are the civil socialites who have now donned the yellow color.

They excoriated the Supreme Court for affirming its decision granting the incumbent Malacañang tenant the power and authority to appoint the next chief justice. They insist that their interpretation of the constitutional provision on midnight appointments ban as applied to the SC justices is the correct one, concluding that the high court, with this recent affirmation of its earlier ruling, merely proved to be a puppet of Malacañang and a rubber stamp.
Stated differently, it is these frigging yellow civil socialites who should be the sole interpreter of the Constitution and the law-and interpret them to favor their demands.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune


URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100423com2.html


Himalayan trail takes trekkers across top of world focus 04/23/2010

Himalayan trail takes trekkers across top of world



focus

04/23/2010

KATHMANDU — It is being billed as the ultimate trek, a thigh-busting 157-day walk over the spine of Nepal’s mighty Himalayan range that will take its participants to some of the most remote spots on the planet.

From next year, adventurers seeking to push themselves to their limits will be able to take part in the first guided walk along the Nepal section of the Great Himalayan Trail.

The 1,700-kilometer (1,050-mile) trek, which kicks off in February 2011, is being run by World Expeditions, a global adventure travel company that has been taking trekkers to Nepal for more than three decades.

But the trailblazer is British trekker Robin Boustead, who has spent much of the last decade trying to put together a viable walking route across the top of the world.

Last year Boustead finally completed the arduous walk along the length of Nepal’s Himalayas, fulfilling a long-held ambition to forge a viable route through the mountains.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100423com3.htm


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My vote NO HOLDS BARRED Armida Siguion-Reyna 04/23/2010

My vote



NO HOLDS BARRED
Armida Siguion-Reyna
04/23/2010

Elections are but three Mondays away. Here now are my choices.

For president, Joseph Ejercito Estrada. For vice president, Jejomar Cabauatan Binay.
Hecklers will cackle the two are my friends so I’m going for them. I’ll have the walang magawa know the friendship was once upon a time not even there.
The man also known as Erap was never chummy with me the way he was with Fernando Poe Jr., Charito Solis, Nida Blanca and now, Eddie Garcia. He treated me as an industry “outsider” until much, much later. When I fielded Mga Bilanggong Birhen in the 1977 Metro Manila Film Festival, I tangled with him — he was yet San Juan mayor — over the matter of deadlines. Bystanders in that clash still remember my “Ba’t nag-deadline pa kayo, kung di rin lang susundin?”
.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune


URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100423com4.html


An expressways lie-in to freedom DIE HARD III Herman Tiu Laurel 04/23/2010

An expressways lie-in to freedom



DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
04/23/2010

What lightened up my day this week was an e-mail being circulated and reaching me, calling for organizing and mobilizing the people to protest against the tollways (North, South and other expressways) VAT. These tollways VAT impositions will again set off a chain reaction of price hikes, particularly in the food sector where our biyaheros of vegetable, pork, chicken, fruits and rice will be hit very hard again (on top of tong on the road and exorbitant toll fees). The latest SWS hunger survey again showed the hunger incidence on the historic high level, and this is certain to worsen with the tollways VAT imposition. I am very happy that the Bantay Gobyerno led by Ike Señeres, my fellow GNN (Global News Network presentor) is leading the protest organizing. Ike had started involving the provincial bus lines and I suggested we link up with the biyaheros. This is going to be a really good fight again.

The war against unjust, onerous, oppressive taxes has been at the forefront of my struggles the past two decades. It all started with the ATM I organized, the Anti-Tax Movement way back in the early 1990’s when we voiced out the public opposition to the earliest version of the Value Added Tax disguised in the then Bobby de Ocampo-led Finance department’s CTRP, Comprehensive Tax R(d)eform Movement. I always added the letter “d” to emphasize the doublespeak that the IMF-WB hatchet men engage in when they speak of “reform” which actually means “deform.” From the progressive income taxation system we were led to the regressive VAT system that taxes consumers and, therefore, the middle and lower classes much, much more than the very rich which proportionately pay insignificant taxes as a result.

The VAT has been expanded from luxury goods to a growing list of essential goods and services, to basic necessities such as power and water, and now they want to impose it on our tollways fees — which will actually add another layer to all other goods that need to traverse the expressways, goods and services already heavily loaded their individual VAT. Every time they expand VAT coverage and increase the VAT rate they say it is the last time they will do so, but that is always followed by a new excuse — such as the budget deficit, and then “Ondoy,” and now often we hear “Climate Change” — to increase and expand the VAT. It’s time we realize that is all a hoax and a scam, this VAT taxation, to keep the nation in permanent and ever deepening tax enslavement. It is the global oligarchs’ way to hoodwink nations into accepting self-destruction through financial starvation.

The VAT goes mainly to payment of foreign and local debts incurred by government operating on a debt based monetary system. The Philippine government creates money and credit only from borrowing through T-bills and other instruments issued to private or Global Powers controlled multilateral financial institutions such as the IMF-WB (and often as investments of the WB’s arm, the IFC of International Finance Corp. which manipulates country projects through local agents such as, in the Philippines, Christian Monsod). This is no different from the US where the Federal government issues debt instruments too and borrows through the US Federal Reserve which is not federal but a private corporation. The Western dominated dollar-debt system is a huge financial con game built on the US military-coercion capabilities and political-economic blackmail of other nations.

To break this enslavement requires us to inform the Filipino people that we do not need debt to create our nation’s money and credit. A truly patriotic, Filipino-loving leadership in government can and should create its own credit and money, just as Abraham Lincoln did during the American Civil War, the Greenback, and China after its 1949 Revolution, and other examples in history. Freedom from debt begins with self-sufficiency in the basic needs of the nation: Food, energy, industrial capacity. The Philippines is uniquely gifted to achieve all these with its natural resources — ample land and annual rain, all the mineral ores needed, geothermal and natural gas sources, an educated and resourceful nation. The only element lacking is government leadership and political will to develop and be free, and leadership arises only from the people in action.

Soon after the election campaign, we hope to see the movement against the Expressway VAT pop up on the expressways and lie-in and stop traffic briefly to demonstrate the people’s rage against this tollways VAT: “Sobra na, Tama na.” The fight should be carried on to the halls of Malacañang and Congress whoever the occupants shall be. As it is happening in the US with the anti-tax “Tea Parties,” we must forge ahead with an Anti-Tax Movement revival in the Philippines — to lead the country out of financial, economic-political enslavement, and to fulfill its destiny as a progressive, dynamic, self-sustaining and dignified society.

(Tune to 1098AM, Sulo ng Pilipino, M-W-F, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21 on “Comelec Automation: Final Assessment” with Mano Alcuaz and Obet Versola, Talk News TV, Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. to 9 p.m. Visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)


(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100423com5.html


Thailand’s crisis spreads as military train, troops detained FEATURE 04/23/2010

Thailand’s crisis spreads as military train, troops detained



FEATURE

04/23/2010

BANGKOK — Thailand’s political crisis has spread to the rural northeast, where protesters have blockaded a military train and detained hundreds of troops, officials said Thursday.

Hundreds of anti-government campaigners are locked in a standoff with the military after Wednesday halting a train carrying armed soldiers and heavy equipment in the northern capital of Khon Kaen province.

Also in a district of Khon Kaen overnight, hundreds of red-shirted protesters stopped three military buses with troops aboard and forced them to return to their base.

And in a third incident nearby, the army said that 200 soldiers had been detained by protesters and were still being held.

Army spokesman Col. Sunsern Kaewkumnerd said Reds leaders in Khon Kaen would be summoned by the authorities over the train incident and charged with obstruction and and illegal detention.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100423com6.html


Commercial paradigm brings inventors down to earth focus 04/23/2010

Commercial paradigm brings inventors down to earth



focus

04/23/2010

GENEVA — Inventors are often perceived as eccentric, original thinkers inspired by dreams: but many of the 700 inventors at an international fair in Geneva showed skill, pragmatism and good business sense.

“I can have an idea anytime, anywhere, when I wake up or in a restaurant. There’s no rule, ideas come without warning,” 53-year-old Mircea Tudor explained.

But that inspiration has translated into the company he runs in his native Romania, which employs 75 persons and expects to generate a $20-million turnover this year.

Last year he won first prize at the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva, with a mobile truck scanner he designed to speed up and ease customs checks at borders. It is now marketed as far away as India.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100423com7.html

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