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Which version? EDITORIAL 04/26/2011

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Which version?

EDITORIAL
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04/26/2011
Noynoy is getting kudos and wide support for his stand on his announced embrace of what he calls his responsible parenthood measure while the Catholic bishops are up in arms against his preferred policy to curb population in this country.

But it must be asked: Just what kind of bill is Noynoy truly pushing, and just what is it that the bishops are so against?

There are two different bills’ interpretation, one of which is the House’s, known as the Reproductive Health bill, that calls for access to cheap, if not free contraceptives, which would be given by the government through health centers and clinics..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110426com1.html

Who lied? FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 04/26/2011

Who lied?

FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
04/26/2011
Ping Lacson insists that his travel documents he used to return to the country are authentic.

Said he: “As far as I know and as far as I’m concerned, I came face to face with the consul who issued my travel documents so I know they are authentic. They are still with me but I don’t want to go into details.”

Lacson claimed to have used Travel Document No. 34258 to return to the country but the document was not issued by any Philippine consulate.

But if he still has the documents that would prove them to be authentic, why does he refuse to produce the documents and have them checked by the Department of Foreign Affairs, especially since the DFA has claimed that his travel documents were not issued by any of the Philippine consulates, whether from Hong Kong, Xiamen or wherever..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110426com2.html

Syrian regime will not give ground ANALYSIS 04/26/2011

Syrian regime will not give ground

ANALYSIS

04/26/2011
CAIRO — The authorities in Syria have no intention of giving ground in the face of massive anti-regime protests and will continue repression despite pledges of reform, analysts say.

“From the very beginning the Syrian regime in place since 1963 has been using a dual strategy of political management and security management. On the one hand it promises reforms, and at the same time it imposes a security crackdown,” said Caroline Donati, author of the book The Syrian Exception.

Activists said 120 people were killed on Friday and Saturday as security forces cracked down on protesters and mourners.

The crackdown followed pledges of reform by President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez when he died in in 2000..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110426com3.html

Two-faced on terrorism AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Ken Fuller 04/26/2011

Two-faced on terrorism

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW
Ken Fuller
04/26/2011
On July 14, 2009, this column discussed the case of the Cuban 5. At that time, Fernando L. Gonzales, Rene S. Gonzales, Antonio R. Guerrero, Gerardo N. Hernandez and Ramon S. Labanino had been in US prisons for 11 years, having been convicted of “espionage.”

In reality, all they had done was infiltrate anti-Castro terrorist networks in Florida, and in June 1998 Cuban officials had handed over the evidence they had collected to Federal Bureau of Investigation officials invited to Havana to receive it. Instead of hailing the five men as heroes in the war against terrorism, US officials hunted them down and arrested them, having in the meantime tipped off the terrorists. When I last wrote on this subject, the US Supreme Court had declined to even consider the five’s appeals, provoking a letter from the Philippine Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 to Obama in which the latter was urged to grant them an amnesty..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110426com5.html

Poles flock to Vatican for beatification of ‘their’ pope FEATURE 04/26/2011

Poles flock to Vatican for beatification of ‘their’ pope

FEATURE

04/26/2011
WARSAW — Travelling on a fleet of planes, trains and cars, more than 50,000 Poles are expected to flock to the Vatican for the beatification on Sunday of “their” saint-to-be, Polish-born Pope John Paul II.

The funeral of Karol Wojtyla in April 2005 drew half a million Poles.

While his fast-track beatification — a key step towards canonisation as a saint — is a cause for joy among his countrymen, it nonetheless isn’t generating the same kind of mass pilgrimage to Rome this time around.

“I think there will be between 50,000 and 60,000 Poles in Rome for the beatification ceremonies,” Marcin Szklarski, a Polish tour operator specialising in religious pilgrimages, told AFP..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110426com7.html

Band-aid solution VIEWPOINTS Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz 04/26/2011

Band-aid solution

VIEWPOINTS
Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz
04/26/2011
Band-aids are little strips of tapes with a little gauze placed on little wounds hopefully to cause some cure. Needles to say, their key reality feature is “little.” It is little in size and coverage, little in scope and finality.

Band-aids wherefore are irrelevant and futile for big wounds with big bad implications and big ill consequences. In the day-to-day life of a people wrestling with so many and immense socio-economic problems, “Band-Aid Solutions” thereto are not simply vanity but downright inanity. Even elementary reason says that solutions should be at par with the nature and import of the problems crying for pursuant attention and action.

The Philippines is facing the national predicament of well regulated salaries and somehow regulated basic commodity prices vis-à-vis actually deregulated oil prices. The Filipinos find it harder to find work and/or employment but infallibly pay indirect taxes from birth to death. There are more and more hungry and desperate people in the country. There are wherefore more and more dissatisfaction and anger that make them march in the streets, hold rallies, show their dismay and shout their protests. There are wherefore understandably more and more spirited groups of citizens with different vision-missions but with one and the same cause, viz., alienation from the present national leadership and bed-fellows..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110426com6.html

Ping insists travel papers genuine By Angie M. Rosales 04/26/2011

EVEN AS DFA DENIES CONSULATE ISSUED LACSON DOCUMENTS

Ping insists travel papers genuine

By Angie M. Rosales 04/26/2011

Insisting on the authenticity of the travel documents with which he used to enter the Philippines after hiding from the law for over a year, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson yesterday told reporters he had personally applied before Philippine authorities abroad for his travel documents that enabled him to fly back to the country last month.

The senator debunked Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFA) officials’ claims that he was not issued any travel document since the authentic document has not yet been released by the agency when he returned last March 26.

“It doesn’t make sense. I had been cleared (from the case) and I would have been traveling from a foreign country (then). So why would I opt to use a fake travel document? Had I resorted to that and had been apprehended, I would have spent time in jail when I could freely do so (travel with official documents). So it doesn’t make sense..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110426hed1.html

Cardinal Vidal junks dialogs with Noy on RH bill 04/26/2011

Cardinal Vidal junks dialogs with Noy on RH bill

04/26/2011
A cold way appears to have frozen relations between the local Catholic Church leaders and the Aquino administration, as a cardinal yesterday said it is useless to hold dialogs with President Aquino and his officials, since a stand for the use of artificial contraceptives has already been taken by the chief executive on the Reproductive Health (RH) measure.

Cebu Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, in a radio interview said the dialogs between the Church and the Aquino government on the controversial reproductive health bill should no longer be pushed.

Over Church-run Radio Veritas, Vidal said there is no longer any reason to continue with the dialog after Aquino had already made clear his stand that, while he is against abortion, he nevertheless is leaving the decision to couples on the use of contraceptives..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110426hed3.html

SC empowers poll execs to resolve Roxas raps vs Binay By Benjamin B. Pulta 04/26/2011

SC empowers poll execs to resolve Roxas raps vs Binay

By Benjamin B. Pulta 04/26/2011

Poll officials have been given the go-signal by the Supreme Court to act as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) the authority to copy the compact flash (CF) cards used in the May 10, 2010 national and local elections to resolve the protest case lodged by former Sen. Mar Roxas against Vice President Jejomar Binay.

In a resolution signed by lawyer Enriqueta Vidal, the PET granted the request of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rene Sarmiento who asked for the authority to copy the CF cards for purposes of producing the ballot images when the need arises in the recount of ballot in some protest cases.
The CF cards are now in the authority of PET..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110426nat2.html

Lacson denies asking forgiveness from Erap By Angie M. Rosales 04/26/2011

Lacson denies asking forgiveness from Erap

By Angie M. Rosales 04/26/2011

Who needs your mercy? Certainly not I.

Thus was the belated reaction given yesterday by Sen. Panfilo Lacson to the statements made by his former appointee in the Philippine National Police (PNP), ousted President Joseph Estrada during the latter’s 74th birthday celebration last April 19.

“I didn’t ask for his forgiveness and I have no reason to ask for it. That’s why I don’t understand it when he said he had already forgiven me,” the lawmaker told reporters in an interview.

Lacson was referring to Estrada’s previous comments that he had already forgiven the senator who earlier insinuated in a privilege speech some two years ago, his allegedly involvement in jueteng and smuggling operations in while still in office as well as in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110426nat4.html

PNP unveils historical marker at Camp Crame 04/26/2011

PNP unveils historical marker at Camp Crame

04/26/2011
The Philippine National Police (PNP), together with the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), unveiled yesterday morning a historical marker for the PNP national headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

The unveiling was led by the ceremony’s guest of honor and speaker, former President Fidel Ramos, together with PNP chief Director General Raul Bacalzo and NHCP Board of Commissioner Dr. Maria Serena Diokno.

The ceremony’s guests were Sen. Gringo Honasan, Gen. Reynaldo Mapagu, vice chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110426met5.html

QC to penalize hospitals detaining poor patients 04/26/2011

QC to penalize hospitals detaining poor patients

04/26/2011
The Quezon City government will soon penalize any medical institutions that will continue to defy at least two related existing laws that protect those that seek medical help especially the poor patients, a member of the Sangguniang Panlunsod said yesterday.

Quezon City’s 2nd District Councilor Alfred Vargas III filed two proposed measures that will sanction hospitals and similar establishments in the city for continuously violating Republic Acts 9439 and 8344.

RA 9439 prohibits the detention of patients in hospitals and medical clinics on grounds of non-payment of hospital bills or medical expenses while RA 8344 penalizes medical establishments that refuse to administer appropriate initial medical treatment and support in emergency or serious cases due to lack of amounts for deposit unlawfully imposed on patients..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110426met2.html

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