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Noynoy’s ex-security aide, family missing By Charlie V. Manalo 04/25/2010

Sunday, April 25, 2010

 Noynoy’s ex-security aide, family missing


By Charlie V. Manalo
04/25/2010

A day after reportedly sending feelers to a ranking official of the Philippine National Police (PNP) that he was ready to surface as long he is extended police protection, the former security aide of Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy’ Aquino was nowhere to be found in his temporary shelter in Metro Manila.

A reliable source said yesterday morning Joseph Galleta and his wife were not in their shelter when some friends went there to visit them.

“We tried to contact them in their cellphones but in vain. We’re both puzzled and at the same time apprehensive. We checked with some people living in the area and they told us there was nothing unusual that happened in their area,” the source said.

Galleta was reportedly ready to surface and “spill the beans” on Aquino who he accused of neglecting him even though he saved the presidential bet’s life at the height of the Aug. 28, 1987 failed coup attempt.

Last Friday, a police official who refused to be named said Galleta, through an emissary, inquired of his chances of getting police protection if he surfaced to recount what really transpired on Aug. 28 and what happened to him afterwards.

Galleta lost his right eye after he was shot in the head with an M-14 by a rebel soldier who was targeting Aquino.
Soldiers on board the backup vehicle were killed during the incident. Galleta claimed that his life and those of his loved ones are in danger, forcing them to vacate their residence in Tarlac and for them to transfer from one place to another to evade unidentified men who are reportedly looking for him.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100425hed3.html

GMA gov’t taps MILF rebs to protect polls, voters 04/25/2010

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RSF plans to bring Ampatuans release to UN rights body 04/25/2010

RSF plans to bring Ampatuans release to UN rights body


04/25/2010

An international federation of journalists issued a warning to the government that it will question before a United Nations body the actions undertaken by the government on suspects in the Maguindanao massacre mainly the withdrawal charges against Zaldy and Akmad Ampatuan, members of the clan suspected to be behind the politically-motivated murder of 57 individuals.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders or Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) wrote President Arroyo last April 23 to bring up “your government’s decision to withdraw certain charges against Zaldy and Akmad Ampatuan, brothers of the leading suspect, has dismayed the families of the victims and journalists’ organisations.”

“We hope you will give renewed assurances that impunity will not prevail in this case, which unfortunately is what has happened in many other cases of journalists murdered in your country,” RSF wrote.

If you do not do this, Reporters Without Borders will again refer this matter to the United Nations, in particular, to the UN Human Rights Council, RSF warned Arroyo.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20100425nat1.html

Manny and Willie show EDITORIAL 04/25/2010

Manny and Willie show



EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
04/25/2010

The formula that Nacionalista Party (NP) standard bearer Manuel Villar Jr. relies on, in seeking to win the presidency is woefully patterned after Wowowee, the noontime no brainer aired daily that made Villar’s chief celebrity endorser Willie Revillame an overnight billionaire.

The NP apparently does not hide this fact since Villar’s major sorties revolve around the holding of the Revillame circus complete with the huge giveaways which are a thinly-veiled way to buy votes wherever the pair goes, tagging along Manny Pacquiao.

The reason for this Villar-Revillame Wowowee concert-rallies is obviously to pack Villar’s political rally with thousands. Yet one wonders: Who is the crowd coming for? Revillame and Villar’s prizes, or Villar and his campaign spiel?.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100425com1.html

Simplified FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 04/25/2010

Simplified



FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
04/25/2010

Nacionalista Party presidential bet Manny Villar says he broke no law, did not use his influence and position as Senate president to coerce anyone into giving in to what he had wanted, which was then to have the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) to free his locked-up shares in order to sell these shares in the stock market at the time of his company coming out with its Initial Public Offering.

Let’s simplify things.

If there was no intent on the part of Villar to go around the rules of the game, such as getting his lock-up shares freed by the SEC and the PSE, why did he then have to call SEC board members and PSE officials, to the point of reportedly even getting the PSE chairman to barge into a board meeting — just for the purpose of getting what he wanted?.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100425com2.html

Gandhi’s sex life laid bare in new book FEATURE 04/25/2010

Gandhi’s sex life laid bare in new book



FEATURE

04/25/2010

NEW DELHI — A new book on Mahatma Gandhi has delved into the intimate life of the Indian icon whose famous vow of chastity did not prevent him sleeping with naked women and conducting bizarre sex “experiments.”

“Gandhi: Naked Ambition” by British historian Jad Adams sheds new light on the spiritual leader and independence hero whose spartan existence and resistance to earthly pleasures are an integral part of his popular image.

The book has been released in Britain and will be available soon in India where it is bound to make waves in a country where Gandhi’s image is fiercely protected and a source of national pride.

That his attitudes to sex were censorious and unusual is well known. He wrote of his disgust at himself for having intercourse with his wife Kasturba, aged 15, when his father died in 1885.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100425com3.html

Ampatuan’s warden promoted BLURBAL THRUSTS Louie Logarta 04/25/2010

Ampatuan’s warden promoted



BLURBAL THRUSTS
Louie Logarta
04/25/2010

The jail officer who allowed Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. to hold a full-fledged press conference inside the Camp Bagong Diwa detention facility in Taguig City, where he is being temporarily detained pending the resolution of his trial in connection with the infamous Maguindanao massacre last Nov. 23, 2009, got off with just a rap on the knuckles instead of a harsher penalty which he was supposed to have gotten.

To the jaundiced eye, it was all too obvious that S/Insp. Lloyd Gonzaga, deputy warden of the Quezon City Jail Annex, was being treated with kid gloves by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) which has supervision and control over the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) because according to reliable sources the controversial (bizarre was how the Tribune described it) press dialog was actually cleared by a top-ranked official of Camp Crame’s National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO). 

In other words, Gonzaga actually didn’t act inappropriately in permitting Ampatuan to meet the media in the maximum security prison, as the DILG would have us believe. Because he wasn’t that stupid to unilaterally decide on such a delicate.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100425com4.html

Endorsement, endearment and elitism TABLETS OF STONE Larry Faraon, OP 04/25/2010

Endorsement, endearment and elitism



TABLETS OF STONE
Larry Faraon, OP
04/25/2010

It is a toss between and “L” sign or a “V-Pogi” sign — a pendulum of political convenience by the Ampatuans. With the totally negative vibrations these treacherous murderers in history exude, it is political suicide for anyone to get their endorsement or endearment. Setting aside evil and malicious machinations of whoever would politically benefit from these endorsements, there is in fact some sense to the Ampatuans’ decision to adopt the “Yellow Boy.”

Obviously, there is some streaming alibi or compelling reason for the Ampatuans to believe that they are better off with Noynoy Aquino rather than with Manny Villar and of course, hardly a chance with President Estrada who in the 1998 presidential elections rejected their “delivery of electoral services” for the popular president, since he won by 11 million votes without the cheating machinery of the Ampatuans in Maguindanao. Besides, Erap is indomitable in his resolve to exterminate the likes of the Ampatuans, in the rebel and warlord infested Mindanao..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

  URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100425com5.html

Don Quijote de la Mancha VIEWPOINTS Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz 04/25/2010

Don Quijote de la Mancha



VIEWPOINTS
Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz
04/25/2010

There was once in Spain this supposedly man of distinction and intelligence. Those times, he dressed well, and stood with poise and pride. He even had some kind of an aide who was rather chubby and endearing. They were an inseparable pair. Where one was, there the other would be. There names were well known. Their persons were celebrated — somehow. They were Don Quijote de la Mancha — the “boss” — and Sancho Panza — the “boy.”

They were a harmless lovable pair. Nothing bad or unjust was said or heard about them. Together they went from one place to another, in their quiet and peaceful town. They offended no one, and no one either offended them. Both of them had their own horses to ride on, viz., the big one for the “boss” and the small one for the “boy.” The boss Don Quixote even had an armor suit. And the boy Sancho had the proper uniform armaments like the knights and their aides of the old days, they were a sight for sore eyes. There was only one problem — one big problem all right..... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100425com6.html

Katla, the ‘witch’ volcano, looms over Iceland FEATURE 04/25/2010

Katla, the ‘witch’ volcano, looms over Iceland



FEATURE

04/25/2010

SOLHEIMAJOKULL GLACIER — A metal sign reads: “Warning! The glacier can be dangerous.” A rumbling growl from under the mountains speaks far louder.

Solheimajokull glacier is part of the ice cap sealing Katla, a volcano 10 times more powerful than neighboring Eyjafjoell, whose eruption last week clogged Europe’s skies with ash and grounded the continent’s airlines.
If Katla blows up, the current eruption will resemble “a small rehearsal,” Iceland’s president, Olafur Grimsson, warned.

The frightening reputation of Katla is mirrored in a savage landscape of black volcanic ridges, blue ice, and snow swept and hardened by powerful winds.

Reaching the glacier requires a four-wheel-drive vehicle, or mountaineering equipment and snowmobiles to go further. During a visit Thursday, a huge raven on a boulder was the sole living creature visible.... MORE  

SourceThe Daily Tribune


URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100425com7.html

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