• 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

......................................................................................

The Daily Tribune

(Without Fear or Favor)

Specials:

Bulatlat.com

World Wildlife Fund for Nature-Philippines

The Philippines Matrix Project

Left with two options EDITORIAL 01/04/2011

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Left with two options

EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
01/04/2011
No matter the rosy investment pledges and figures being announced by Noynoy Aquino, foreign investors are not likely to plunk their money into the country if the Aquino government does not pay off the owners of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) 3 what is due them — more so today, after the owner, Piatco partner, Fraport, won its ICSID case against the Philippine government after the Washington Ad Hoc committee nullified the earlier International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Tribunal’s decision with finality — which means no more appeal.

The truth is, the Philippine government has been getting a free ride for at least three years with its expropriation of NAIA 3 without, however, paying the owners compensation.

Worse, the government — from the Arroyo to the Aquino government — has been exercising ownership, which the Philippine high court has already banned government from exercising..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110104com1.html

Menace to civilized society FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 01/04/2011

Menace to civilized society

FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
01/04/2011
Just what business is it of the religious superiors to act as intervenors as they call on the high court to reverse its decision on the Hubert Webb, et al. acquittal?

That really is going too far, for the religious and clerics, and even for Lauro Vizconde and his sympathizers, because what they don’t seem to realize is that if the high court as much as takes up their call to reverse its ruling and convicts the already acquitted individuals, this is going to plunge the entire judicial system in big trouble and subject it to something akin to mob rule and dispense with the rule of law, as well as turning the justice system into a mockery by doing away with the principle of double jeopardy.

This has already happened once, during Cory Aquino’s time, when a big mistake was committed by the Supreme Court (SC) at the time it ordered the retrial of the accused soldiers in the Ninoy Aquino slay case after their acquittal of the charges at the Sandiganbayan. The high court is not likely to admit that the principle of double jeopardy was violated, even as it justified the retrial as a mistrial..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110104com2.html

Revolutionary book that inspired Gandhi turns 150 FEATURE 01/04/2011

Revolutionary book that inspired Gandhi turns 150

FEATURE

01/04/2011
WASHINGTON — It was 150 years ago that the book Unto This Last was published, a groundbreaking work that turned economic thinking on its head and profoundly influenced the views of many including Mahatma Gandhi, the father of Indian independence.
Gandhi first read the subversive masterwork of political economy by John Ruskin in 1904, during a train trip in South Africa where he was living at the time.

“The book was impossible to lay aside, once I had begun it,” wrote the progenitor of the non-violence resistance movement years later in his autobiography.

“It gripped me. Johannesburg to Durban was a 24-four hours’ journey. The train reached there in the evening. I could not get any sleep that night. I determined to change my life in accordance with the ideals of the book,” Gandhi wrote..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110104com3.html

Indeed, how he loved me NO HOLDS BARRED Armida Siguion-Reyna 01/04/2011

Indeed, how he loved me

NO HOLDS BARRED
Armida Siguion-Reyna
01/04/2011
Leonardo Tiongson Siguion-Reyna was described by his youngest son in the necrological services held the last night of the wake, Dec. 22, of the year just past, as one who “disdained emotional display. How ironic that he married an emotional woman. How logical for them to beget three proudly and happily schizophrenic children.”


And how my dear departed husband adored me, noted Teddy Boy Locsin, in New York with wife Louie, so it was his friend, my daughter Monique, who read his tribute. The last few paragraphs you must permit me to share with you.

“While holding together and growing a great law firm over several generations of ambitious lawyers, he never let down his colleagues and friends. But mostly he never stopped loving his wife nor did his ardor for her diminish. His eyes never wandered except in jest..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110104com4.html

Would you believe it? AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Ken Fuller 01/04/2011

Would you believe it?

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW
Ken Fuller
01/04/2011
With the holidays, I thought I might touch upon religion, even if in an unconventional manner, but — would you believe it? — inspiration failed to arrive until Dec. 23. It came in an e-mail from a friend, providing a link to Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, Jonathan Miller’s 2004 three-part series for BBC4, now available on YouTube.

Miller begins by tracing the origins of belief in the supernatural. This was rather more than a case of primitive societies ascribing that which could not be explained to various gods, for from the word go religion has been used to underpin the power and influence of rulers. Thus, in the words of one of the contributors, in a society devoted to ancestor-worship the prestige of various “dead old men” was invoked to bolster that of certain “live old men.”.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/

‘Barkada Inc.’ VIEWPOINTS Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz 01/04/2011

‘Barkada Inc.’

VIEWPOINTS
Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz
01/04/2011
This is interesting — if not really intriguing. There was once that well known and famous conglomeration aptly called “Kamag-Anak Incorporated.” The then government was primarily anchored on the popularity of a family member — plus a dynasty of the wealthy and the powerful in the country. Without the least intention at all of offending anybody in anyway, as expected, rightly and effectively governing a nation cannot be premised on but popularity.

Together with integrity, competence is a prime requisite — especially on the part of the none other than the Head of Government. The said required competence has a special relevance precisely on account of the executive power thereto appended. An incompetent executive is all that it takes to disorient a people and to ruin a country. Let it be said though that the inherent weakness of a democracy is when elections are basically popularity contests — wherein competence is wherefore irrelevant.

And now, following the same lineage in Philippine government, there is said to be something akin to the Kamag-anak Inc. — with some kind of a twist. This time it is dubbed the “Barkada Inc.” Those who coined this phrase, do not exactly deserve to be blamed nor denounced, much less damned by those intimately concerned in such a more and more decidedly perceived reality in the present administration. Never mind if the present government is said to work like a “Student Council” according to a well known and respected political figure. Never too if another famous and much appreciated political personality said that the incumbent administration has but 2011 to shape up or ship out — or something like it..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110104com6.html

Afghan clowns raise laughs in war-torn Kabul focus 01/04/2011

Afghan clowns raise laughs in war-torn Kabul

focus

01/04/2011
KABUL — Two Afghan policemen stand paralyzed by fear in front of a plastic cup. But this is not some farcical scene from the battle against the Taliban — it is a sketch from a new clown show in Kabul.

The performance, put on by nine members of the Azdar troupe, seems improbable in a country locked in a nine-year battle between US-led Nato troops and the Islamist militants.

But it is part of increasing efforts to foster a revival of Afghan theater, which enjoyed a golden age in the 1960s and 1970s before being hit hard by war and the closure of theaters under the hardline Taliban Islamists, who took power during the mid-1990s..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110104com7.html

Noy defiant, won’t return NAIA 3 to owners By Aytch S. de la Cruz 01/04/2011

CALLS $50M FEES TO LAWYERS A ‘MISSTATEMENT’

Noy defiant, won’t return NAIA 3 to owners

By Aytch S. de la Cruz 01/04/2011

The Aquino government has no plans to give back to the owners and operators of the controversial Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA-3) its facilities, thus defying the final decision handed out by an Ad Hoc Committee in Washington which case was lost by the Philippine government and its foreign and local lawyers.

President Aquino, in a text message sent to the Tribune, called the information contained in the Tribune report as “misimpressions,” including the assertion that the lawyers who represented the government in this case had misused the $50-million amount paid to them for their legal services, but had the matter referred to Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr.

But a source from Philippine International Air Terminal Co. (Piatco) said it is the President who appears to suffer from “misimpressions” and challenged Malacañang to check on the Commission on Audit’s (CoA) records where it will definitely show that the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) funded the $50 million legal fees, which were in turn received by the government lawyers, among whom were retired Justice Florentino Feliciano and then lawyer Lourdes Sereno, now an associate justice who was rewarded with the high court post by Aquino who claimed it was she who had won in the Piatco ICC case against government..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110104hed1.html

DoJ chief admits fumble, says no Alfaro extradition By Benjamin B. Pulta 01/04/2011

DoJ chief admits fumble, says no Alfaro extradition

By Benjamin B. Pulta 01/04/2011

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima made a complete turn-around yesterday saying Vizconde massacre witness Jessica Alfaro cannot be extradited to the country without a criminal case filed against her which was in contrast to an earlier statement she made having the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) star witness possibly being compelled to return to the country as witness in the reinvestigation of the 20-year-old case following the Supreme Court’s acquittal of Hubert Webb and the others who had been convicted in connection with the killings.

The government is having difficulty in contacting Alfaro, who reportedly is in Canada.

De Lima now says that extradition is not an option because she (Alfaro) was a witness and not a suspect.
De Lima had said the Department of Justice (DoJ) is exploring the possibility of extraditing Alfaro back to the Philippines if she refuses to cooperate..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110104hed2.html

Senators chide Chavit; House says son should resign By Angie M. Rosales and Gerry Baldo 01/04/2011

Senators chide Chavit; House says son should resign

By Angie M. Rosales and Gerry Baldo 01/04/2011

The camp and colleagues of fugitive Sen. Panfilo Lacson yesterday assailed Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson for challenging critics of his son to focus instead on the case of Lacson whom he dared to be expelled first.

Singson was on the defensive mode following reports of some congressmen being quoted as having said that his son, Ilocos Sur Rep. Ronald Singson (1st district), could be expelled from the House of Representatives if he pleads guilty to drug-trafficking charges in Hong Kong.

Lacson’s lawyer Alexander Poblador raised a howl over the pronouncements made by the provincial governor saying that there is really no basis to compare the senator with the younger Singson..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110104hed3.html

DND accepts amnesty bids; Lim nixes admission of guilt proviso By Mario J. Mallari 01/04/2011

DND accepts amnesty bids; Lim nixes admission of guilt proviso

By Mario J. Mallari 01/04/2011

The Department of National Defense (DND) yesterday formally started receiving applications for the amnesty offered to rebel officers and soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) involved in at least three military uprisings during the administration of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo.

AFP spokesman Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. said the 90-day application period as specified in the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of President Aquino’s Proclamation 75 officially started Monday.
“They (DND) have accepted starting today requests or submissions for amnesty… this will be consolidated and processed by the Department of National Defense,” he added..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110104hed5.html

House panel okays bill to declare Chinese New Year holiday 01/04/2011

House panel okays bill to declare Chinese New Year holiday

01/04/2011
The House committee on revision of laws chaired by Pangasinan Rep. Marlyn Primicias-Agabas has recently approved for floor deliberation a consolidated measure declaring Chinese New Year as a special non-working public holiday.

The bill, a consolidation of House Bills 1072, 611 and 2715, seeks to recognize the great contributions of the Chinese-Filipino in Philippine society and their rich cultural traditions..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110104nat4.html

Saudi joins ICG in Mindanao peace talks By Michaela P. del Callar 01/04/2011

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

Death toll from rains rises to five 01/04/2011

Death toll from rains rises to five

01/04/2011
The death toll from heavy rains swamping the eastern Philippines has risen to five following a fresh landslide, the government said yesterday.

A one-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl were buried and killed in a landslide on the island of Leyte last Sunday, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said in its latest bulletin.

Floods and landslides over the weekend forced more than 1,000 families to flee their homes in Leyte and nearby Samar island, with soldiers mobilized to conduct rescues and clear roads, it added..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110104nat2.html

Blog Archive