• 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...
    11 years ago

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CHR, Military in Standoff on Morong 43 Case By RONALYN V. OLEA

Saturday, April 24, 2010

CHR, Military in Standoff on Morong 43 Case


By RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat.com

For the third time, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) refused to comply with the order of the Commission of Human Rights (CHR) to present the 43 health workers who were arrested in a raid at a farm house in Morong, Rizal last February 6. Not surprisingly, the military officials who are named respondents to the complaint were also a no-show during the hearing.

The subject of the CHR hearing? A complaint for human rights violations filed by the 43 health workers dubbed as the Morong 43.

This time, the CHR found it offensive. CHR Chairwoman Leila de Lima said the non-appearance of the military respondents and their non-compliance to the order should be included in the contempt proceedings.
To buttress its argument that to participate in the CHR hearings would cause it to violate the sub judice rule, the AFP filed a petition before the Court of Appeals to stop the CHR from conducting its hearings on the complaint.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/04/23/chr-military-in-standoff-on-morong-43-case/

Legislated Wage Hike a Long Overdue Aid for Subsistence and Social Justice By MARYA SALAMAT Bulatlat.com

Legislated Wage Hike a Long Overdue Aid for Subsistence and Social Justice

By MARYA SALAMAT
Bulatlat.com

In his twenties, Ronilo, who requested that his name be withheld for fear of reprisal, is one of the approximately 17,600 long-time contractual employees of Dole Philippines in Cotabato, southern Philippines. Dolefil is a subsidiary of the profitable global giant Dole Food company, but Ronilo only gets the minimum wage amounting to P245 ($5.526 at the current exchange rate of $1=P44.33) a day if he makes the company quota. He should be able to plant more than 33,200 pineapples per working day. He gets lower than the minimum wage if he failed to meet his quota. To meet it, Ronilo and others like him had to work for more than eight hours a day without overtime pay. At the Dolefil’s integrated cannery and packaging plant in Polomolok, Cotabato, other long-time contractual employees like Ronilo work to cut, clean and package so much fresh fruits during their eight-hour working day, for the same minimum wage.

Ronilo is an example of the ‘kapit sa patalim’ (latch on to a knife) kind of worker: workers who in their desperation to get any job have been forced to take on back-breaking, low-paying work, said Jose Teruel, president of the 5,000-strong union of the rank-and -file employees in Dole Philippines, the Asosasyon sa mga Mamumuo sa Dolfil Alang sa Kalingkawasan sa Nasud, or Amado Kadena.... MORE  

Source: Bulatlat.com


URL: http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/04/20/environmental-groups-list-arroyo%E2%80%99s-crimes-against-the-environment-and-the-people/

Environmental Groups List Arroyo’s Crimes Against the Environment and the People By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL Bulatlat.com

Environmental Groups List Arroyo’s Crimes Against the Environment and the People

By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
Bulatlat.com

Various environmental groups slammed the biodiversity conservation award given to Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo by International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF) and Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Katribu party list first nominee Beverly Longid said it was insulting. “It is insulting that those big corporations who are also responsible for the massive destruction in the environment are awarding so-called environmental awards. Second, it is doubly insulting that Arroyo would receive such an award when she has done nothing to protect the environment; in fact she has done the opposite. Arroyo cannot claim to be green when she has a bloody record of human rights violations all over the country.”

In response, Katribu and the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment also gave two awards to Arroyo –the #1 Eco Thug Award and the Kalabasa Ecological Award. Kalabasa is the term used by Filipinos to mean failure.... MORE

SourceBulatlat.com


URL: http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/04/20/environmental-groups-list-arroyo%E2%80%99s-crimes-against-the-environment-and-the-people/

Farmers urge SC to resolve Luisita row, cite fears of Noynoy presidency By Benjamin B. Pulta 04/24/2010

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Villar jail-bound----Erap By Charlie V. Manalo 04/24/2010

Villar jail-bound----Erap


By Charlie V. Manalo
04/24/2010

BUTUAN CITY — Instead of bagging the much coveted political position in the land, Nacionalista Party presidential bet might be bound for incarceration following revelations made by former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile the NP standard bearer, Sen. Manuel “Manny” Villar, pressured corporate regulators into allowing him to sell locked-up stocks of his listed holding company, in violation of stock market rules, in 2007, earning billions of pesos in the process.
In an interview, Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) standard bearer Estrada said he personally believes Villar could be jailed if he is found to have unduly used his powers, then as a Senate President, to influence and pressure the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) to bend the lock-up restriction so he could sell his stake in Vista Land and Lifescapes Inc. after it got listed on the bourse.
“Yes, he could be jailed for that,” said Estrada.
Aside from violating the laws governing stock offerings and listing, Estrada noted that Villar also violated another law by directly lobbying with the PSE board in behalf of his company..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune


URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100424hed1.html

Marcos rights victims score major victory in US court 04/24/2010

Marcos rights victims score major victory in US court


04/24/2010

Filipino victims of human rights violations during the term of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos have scored a major victory after that the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (CA) ruled to reverse a decision of a Texas federal judge dismissing their class lawsuit to obtain possession of 4,000 acres of a Marcos estate being held in the name of entities controlled by his alleged cronies.

The estate is reputedly worth between $100 million and $150 million and was being kept under the name of the Campos and Tan families. 

The US court, in its April 5 ruling, said the class judgment of the Hawaii District Court against the Marcos estate was valid in Illinois and was properly transferred to Texas. 

The Fifth Circuit CA decision transcends the Texas case because the Republic of the Philippines, Philippine National Bank (PNB) and the Campos family had argued in litigation in other jurisdictions that the class victims no longer had a valid judgment.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20100424nat1.html

Tinsay, Bro. Eddie lead in Hong Kong exit polls 04/24/2010

Tinsay, Bro. Eddie lead in Hong Kong exit polls


04/24/2010

Bangon Pilipinas party senatorial candidate Alex Tinsay and standard-bearer, Bro. Eddie Villanueva have dominated the recent overseas absentee voting exit polls in Hong Kong.

Supporters of the Bangong Pilipinas welcomed the good news that has reached the party’s headquarters in Manila, saying it only goes to show that Filipinos even abroad recognize Villanueva as a person who can be trusted with the country’s government as he has shown faithfulness to God.

Based on the exit polls of the Hong Kong elections, Tinsay, a veteran broadcast journalist, ranks fifth in the race for the 12 vacant senatorial positions.

Another broadcast journalist and Christian who is running in the senatorial derby, Kata Inocencio, has garnered 215 votes, based on the same exit polls.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20100424nat4.html

Private citizen Villar? EDITORIAL 04/24/2010

Private citizen Villar?



EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
04/24/2010

Reacting to reports that Nacionalista Party (NP) standard bearer Sen. Manuel “Manny” Villar, when he was Senate president, met with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in relation to getting his 180 day lock-up shares being freed and sold on a secondary level within the same period his companies’ IPO (Initial Public Offering) hit the stock market, which was then on a boom cycle, a Villar company official admitted that indeed Villar did meet with these officials, but claimed he met with them, not as Senate president, but as a private individual.

This is the hoariest explanation given yet from Villar’s camp, after Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) presidential candidate former President Joseph Estrada and Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile exposed the Villar scam that not only probably impoverished the overseas Filipino workers who had bought the shares, in anticipation of making money (OFWs were targeted by Villar and his companies as share buyers with a roadshow yet), but also a lot of other stock market players who may have lost a lot of money, not even aware of the fact that, as they were buying up the shares, Villar was dumping his shares, and making billions out of it.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100424com1.html

Ghost precincts, ghost votes FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 04/24/2010

Ghost precincts, ghost votes



FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
04/24/2010

Ghost precincts certainly exist, and it would do no good for the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to deny this, especially as it was Smartmatic and its site surveyors that came out with this report of non-existent polling precincts.

It stands to reason that, since it is Smartmatic that has been contracted — said at an additiona cost of half a billion pesos — by the Comelec for it to deliver the ballots in all these precincts, the list of precincts came from no one else but the poll body itself, and when these sites were surveyed, these precincts were not found. And if not found as listed, they are clearly non-existent, and therefore are ghost precincts.

But Comelec, through its spokesman, James Jimenez, quickly said that this claim of ghost precincts in the country and even in Metro Manila, was absolutely false, despite the fact that Smartmatic surveyors failed to locate 57 polling centers that are school sites-based.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100424com2.html

1-AANI from the soil and the sea ENQUIRY Demaree J. B. Raval 04/24/2010

1-AANI from the soil and the sea



ENQUIRY
Demaree J. B. Raval
04/24/2010

Last Wednesday was my turn to restock the depleted contents of the family fridge, so I had to negotiate my way through the cacophonous rumpus and ruckus of the seafood section of Nepa-Q-Mart. I was contemplating with my usual Ilocano frugal state of mind whether to settle for the lowly galunggong or to dent my wallet with the purchase of the tastier but more expensive lapu-lapu when my attention was drawn toward a group handing out leaflets. I thought two of them looked familiar and, sure enough, they turned out to be former UP students of mine.

One is now a lawyer based in Samar, and he told me that he has been practising there since passing the Bar in 1993. His clients: the fisher folk in that depressed province in the Visayas. He was honest enough to admit to me that the financial returns for his lawyering may not be that good as compared to his compañeros in the big city. But the psychic rewards, he said, are more than he could ask for — especially when he sees the joy that lights up the faces of his poor clients. Solving fishermen’s legal problems and helping improve their lives were enough to keep him locked to that kind of law practice.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100424com3.html

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