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Obsessed EDITORIAL 03/10/2011

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Obsessed

EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
03/10/2011
Perception-wise, it appears that even some high court justices, along with Malacañang, are supportive of the move of a congressman to file impeachment cases against at least eight Supreme Court (SC) justices, as someone from a high court justice office appears to be leaking information and documents to a favorite Yellow-tainted magazine that is also after the neck of some SC justices.

The quarrel does not seem to be merely between the SC and Noynoy’s Malacañang, but also a quarrel among certain justices, as gleaned from certain opinions that have been publicized..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110310com1.html

FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 03/10/2011

FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
03/10/2011
Noynoy Aquino is again bitching against the media, not realizing, as usual, that he is not only bringing down the Philippine media abroad, but worse for him, he, a president on a state visit to an Asean country, is making himself look ridiculous and very unpresidential by slamming the media.

While in Jakarta, Indonesia, there went Noynoy, blasting away at the media for reporting on negative news instead of reporting positive news; rumor-mongering and focusing on his “love life.”

“There were several times I had good news to announce. Instead they (media) came out with reports about my love life. I asked why they focus on my love life — who I’m courting, where we eat, and what we talk about?” he said, adding that what media should have focused on was the positive news on the government’s fight against dengue. Gee, did he eliminate dengue? Or was it because the rains had not come as yet?.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110310com2.html

Libyan no-fly zone decision poses operational problems ANALYSIS 03/10/2011

Libyan no-fly zone decision poses operational problems

ANALYSIS

03/10/2011
BRUSSELS — Putting into effect a no-fly zone over Libya, whether operated by Nato or a coalition of the willing, would require careful planning and forethought and involve some risk.

The problems lie in the many variables and their logistical consequences.

Nato has in its own right or through its member states a large number of ways of ensuring an aerial exclusion zone in the skies over Libya.

There are AWACS (airborne warning and control system) aircraft to monitor air and sea space; electronically-equipped warplanes to neutralize ground-to-air defenses; and fighter-bombers to intercept Libyan aircraft violating the no-fly zone or to destroy ground-to-air missiles..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110310com3.html

Quiapo among US list of ‘notorious’ markets BLURBAL THRUSTS Louie Logarta 03/10/2011

Quiapo among US list of ‘notorious’ markets

BLURBAL THRUSTS
Louie Logarta
03/10/2011
AFP corruption whistle-blower Heidi Mendoza, whom the public has embraced over her exhibited fortitude in divulging to the world the unsavory dealings in the military snake pit and in the process placing her safety on the line, would naturally wish to go back to the Commission on Audit where she had grown her spurs after more than 20 years’ service.

During a recent speaking engagement in her former alma mater Sacred Heart College in Lucena City, the headstrong Ms. Mendoza had said that she indeed is hankering for the post of CoA chairman, to which she is said to have been nominated for in 2008 but was edged out by other contenders, as this would be the culmination of a lifelong ambition.
“I am praying for it,” Ms. Mendoza was quoted by media as saying while fielding questions at the end of the student forum..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110310com4.html

Getting rid of the enemy: Population VIEWPOINTS Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz 03/10/2011

Getting rid of the enemy: Population

VIEWPOINTS
Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz
03/10/2011
It is not really an improbability that the incumbent administration with its known and secret allies in the present legislative department, will go down in Philippines history as the subtle but ardent enemy of the people — more concretely in its disdain if not hatred for the Filipino population. This may sound too radical and wherefore could be saddled with but fertile imagination if not downright fantasy.

How could the public officials concerned be against population when they are in fact counted among them because their own parents did not prevent their conception nor procure their abortion? Why would the government be the enemy of population when a good number of them are sadly looked upon as but chattel to offer and deploy for foreign employment? And it is also true of OFWs who precisely form part of the Filipino population..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110310com5.html

Blood runs thicker than wateron Libyan frontline focus 03/10/2011

Blood runs thicker than wateron Libyan frontline

focus

03/10/2011
RAS LANUF — Doctor Salem Langhi slices open the blood-soaked camouflage trousers of a wounded Libyan rebel and starts tending to a gaping red hole in the man’s leg.

Colleagues rush two persons into the emergency room on stretchers as ambulance sirens blare outside. One is unconscious with an apparent bullet wound to the head while the other is bleeding from the stomach.

Life and death are all in an afternoon’s work for the volunteer doctors at the hospital in Ras Lanuf, where a team of volunteers from rebel-held eastern Libya has braved the violence just a few kilometers (miles) away.

“We are spreading the love message. We’re volunteers and we’re with the same cause as these guys,” says Langhi, who in his normal life is an orthopaedic surgeon in Benghazi, the eastern Libyan town where the rebels are based..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110310com6.html

Last village standing evokes Singapore’s rural past FEATURE 03/10/2011

Last village standing evokes Singapore’s rural past

FEATURE

03/10/2011
SINGAPORE — Quietly tucked away in a corner surrounded by high-rise apartments and rows of bungalows is a rustic village where the old Singapore still survives.

Dogs and cats run freely and chickens cluck noisily as children play around colorful, zinc-roofed houses made of wood and cement, undisturbed by the din of cars zipping by on an expressway just a few meters away.

Welcome to Kampong Lorong Buangkok, the last surviving village on the Singapore mainland.

Its days are numbered but until development forces residents to move, the village gives visitors a glimpse of what life was like in the 1950s before Singapore became one of Asia’s most modern and wealthiest cities..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110310com7.html

Proposed CA review of confirmation process gains Senate momentum By Michaela P. del Callar 03/10/2011

Proposed CA review of confirmation process gains Senate momentum

By Michaela P. del Callar 03/10/2011

Senators yesterday backed a proposal to strictly scrutinize the financial assets and background of members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines who will undergo the Commission on Appointments (CA) after multi-million pesos worth of ill-gotten wealth belonging to military generals and their subordinates were uncovered.
Sen. Franklin Drilon, assistant majority floor leader of the bicameral body, said documents submitted to the CA by former AFP comptrollers Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia and Lt. Gen. Jacinto Ligot
indicate that they had insufficient income while they were in the military to purchase several properties and own bank accounts with hundreds of millions of pesos in deposits.

“The House and Senate investigation on the corruption in the Armed Forces, to my mind, reveals a weakness in our process here in the Commission on Appointments,” Drilon said during the mass confirmation of 90 military officers. “I share part of the blame.”.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110310hed2.html

Noy greedy for power —House minority 03/10/2011

JPE VOUCHES FOR SENATE INDEPENDENCE IN IMPEACH TRIAL

Noy greedy for power —House minority

03/10/2011

Instead of augmenting his knowledge and will to resolve the country’s most pressing problems, members of the minority bloc in the House of Representatives yesterday accused President Aquino of being a power-hungry president preoccupying himself with arrogating himself with more powers which has the effect of his undermining the democratic system.

In their weekly press briefing, the House opposition camp led by Minority Leader, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, Zambales Rep. Ma. Milagros “Mitos” Magsaysay and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez accused the Aquino administration of leading an orchestrated attempt to abuse its power as manifested by Aquino’s blatant interference in the impeachment case against Chief Ombudsman Merceditas “Merci” Gutierrez slated to be elevated to the plenary for a vote, with Aquino totally disregarding the separation of powers between the co-equal branches of the executive and the legislative..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110310hed1.html

RP stages Spratlys war games with Malaysia, US By Mario J. Mallari 03/10/2011

RP stages Spratlys war games with Malaysia, US

By Mario J. Mallari 03/10/2011

The Philippines and Malaysia will be holding joint exercises in the South China Sea next week amid the “tension” brought about by last week’s harassment of a Philippine exploration vessel by two Chinese patrol boats at the disputed Spratly group of islands in Palawan.

There is also an exercise slated between the RP and United States military 11 days after the MalPhi Laut, military officials said.

Navy spokesman Capt. Giovanni Carlo Bacordo, however, maintained that the March 16 to 26 MalPhi Laut, the annual bilateral naval exercise between the two navies, is not a response to the March 2 incident at the Reed Bank on the disputed Spratlys islands.

“It has nothing to do at all because this was planned six months before,” he said..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110310hed3.html

TRO not a basis for SC justices’ ouster By Benjamin B. Pulta 03/10/2011

TRO not a basis for SC justices’ ouster

By Benjamin B. Pulta 03/10/2011

Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas, vice chairman the House commmittee on justice, may be itching to impeach the eight Supreme Court magistrates on claimed grounds that three high court justices, publicly perceived to favor Malacañang in their dissenting opinions, were not given their copies of the petition of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on the House of Representatives committee on justice to stop the impeachment hearings, sometime in September last year, but that the status quo ante (SQA) was quickly issued by the majority of the justices.

This is the ground on which Fariñas is said to be basing his impeachment complaint against the eight justices.
Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal yesterday said that the SC justices cannot be ousted on the basis of a TRO or an SQA issued on a case pending before it.

“Even if the TRO or SQA is issued without some justices having read the petition or issued on the same day the petition is filed, this is not a ground for impeachment since the act does not constitute betrayal of public trust or any of the grounds for impeachment,” Macalintal said.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110310hed4.html

HK survivors, victims’ kins demand RP send witnesses 03/10/2011

HK survivors, victims’ kins demand RP send witnesses

03/10/2011
Survivors and relatives of victims of the botched hostage rescue at the Quirino Grandstand last Aug 23 where eight Hong Kong tourists died issued a joint letter yesterday demanding that the Philippines send witnesses to the inquest on the incident being held in the territory and to provide crucial evidence, such as a DNA sample of gunman and hostage-taker Rolando Mendoza and at the same time called for an immediate reply from Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.

More Philippine authority goof ups surfaced yesterday in the ongoing inquest being held in Hong Kong as the territory’s experts who collected evidence a week after they testified that key evidence on the bus were either moved or were missing.

Reports stated that local examiners did not follow procedures in conducting autopsies on the victims of the bloodbath.

Hong Kong’s Department of Health senior forensic pathologist Joey Lam Wai-man said he witnessed shoddy autopsies carried out on Wong Tze-lam and his wife, Yeung Yee- wa, by Philippine National Police medico-legal officers before their bodies were repatriated, reported the Hong Kong Standard..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110310hed5.html

Noy follows GMA in rewarding generals By Aytch S. dela Cruz 03/10/2011

Noy follows GMA in rewarding generals

By Aytch S. dela Cruz 03/10/2011

They may be political foes, but President Aquino appears to be following in the footsteps of his predecessor, former president, Rep. Gloria Arroyo by way of rewarding outgoing chiefs of staff with a civilian government post, thereby militarizing his government.

Former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Ricardo David has
been officially appointed by Aquino as head of the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID) starting Monday, March 14.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda made the announcement at a news briefing yesterday after David formally accepted the appointment, thus continuing the practice of retired military brass serving in the civilian government. This after David’s eight-month stint in the AFP.

“Mr. David’s integrity and professionalism will be instrumental in the efforts of the Immigration authorities to cleanse its ranks and purge its services of past abuses and misuse of authority. The President is pleased that Mr. David is taking on these new challenges in the civilian sphere,” Lacierda said..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110310hed6.html

Judge floors fugitive sex offender 03/10/2011

Judge floors fugitive sex offender

03/10/2011
A British judge grabbed a convicted sex offender by the throat and pinned him to the floor to stop him escaping from court, a trial heard Tuesday.

Judge Douglas Marks Moore, 60, wrestled 34-year-old Paul Reid twice as he attempted to flee from Woolwich Crown Court in London last August.

Reid made his desperate bid for freedom after giving evidence in his trial, jurors at the Old Bailey, the central criminal court in London, heard.

As the fugitive went through the door, the judge grabbed him round the throat to try to bring him down..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110310hed7.html

CoA questions eight GSIS board members over P88-M pays in 2009 By Charlie V. Manalo 03/10/2011

CoA questions eight GSIS board members over P88-M pays in 2009

By Charlie V. Manalo 03/10/2011

Eight members of the Board of Trustees of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) might find themselves in the hot seat after the Commission on Audit (CoA) revealed they have received in excess of P11.018 million each in 2009.

CoA said the compensation “can be considered as excessive spending of the Pension Fund” because under Section 42 of the GSIS Act of 1997 (RA 8291), Board members were only entitled to P2,500 per diem when they attend board meetings and maximum monthly representation and transportation allowances of P10,000.

“The said provision made no mention of any other allowances/benefits to be received by the member of the board. It is explicit that the member of the board is entitled only to per diems and reasonable RATA. (But) the review of Personnel Services account for 2009 upon complete submission of the supporting payrolls on Sept. 16, 2010 showed that … P88.150 million, or an average of P11.018 million each, was expended for the compensation of the other eight members,” CoA said in its report..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110310nat1.html

Police retrieve Cabunilas corpse from rubble 03/10/2011

Police retrieve Cabunilas corpse from rubble

03/10/2011
New Zealand police had released the name of one of the 11 Filipinos who perished in last month’s devastating 6.3-magnitude quake in Christchurch.

Ivy Jane Cabunilas, 33, was among those buried in the collapsed CTV building when the quake struck on Feb. 21, police said. Cabunilas was the first Filipino fatality identified by New Zealand authorities.

Other fatalities named were Rachel Elizabeth Conley, 27, of the United States of America; Dian Mary Falconer, 54, of Christchurch; Adam Stephen Fisher, 27, of Belfast, Christchurch; Marian Isabella McKirdy Hilbers, 49, of Christchurch; Kelly Lynn Maynard, 43, of Christchurch; Michael Stuart Coulter Styant, 41, of Christchurch; and Stephen Robert Wright, 46, of Christchurch..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110310nat4.html

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