A coup in the IMF? DIE HARD III Herman Tiu Laurel 05/20/2011

A coup in the IMF?

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

05/20/2011
Then the international cable channels first reported breaking news of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest for alleged sexual assault, my reaction must have been typical of most: Another powerful man caught in a scandalous bind; serves him right. The assumption of guilt was too easy, especially since the IMF and its bureaucrats have the image of being instrumentalities of financial and economic tyranny all over the world.
Then, I had a quick rethink and pulled the reins in, especially when Strauss-Kahn was denied bail and later placed in solitary confinement — virtually incommunicado.

This can look very much like the Monica Lewinsky affair, which prompted Bill Clinton’s bombing of Yugoslavia to divert attention, as well as Eliot Spitzer’s “soft assassination” to stop the then New York governor from completing investigations into finance executives’ and investment bankers’ shenanigans in the run-up to the 2008 Wall Street crash.

I may not have given the news of Strauss-Kahn’s arrest a second thought had it not been for a deeper suspicion that something was fishy. Many of those in the highest echelons of power have proclivities they help each other hide. The shit only hits the fan when something disrupts the harmony.

Strauss-Kahn, like Spitzer, is tackling issues involving the global financial mafia in the European financial crisis. A scandal like this could actually be symbolic of a significant policy rupture within the global power elite. I researched the matter and found two significant articles — the first by Mike Whitney entitled “IMF chief Strauss-Kahn caught in ‘honey trap’” and the second by Michael Bucci, “‘Soft assassinations’: Strauss-Kahn and Eliot Spitzer.”

Strauss-Kahn does have enemies in high places: He is the presumptive front-running candidate of the French Socialist Party, seen to have an edge over the rapidly sinking and unpopular French President Nicolas Sarkozy, caught in his stalemated Libya attack amid worsening domestic economic conditions and workers’ protests.

Sarkozy, known as the candidate of the global oligarchy, is very cozy with the US neo-conservatives who have been pushing the hawkish war agenda on the global stage. Under his watch, they have taken France into two African imbroglios (Libya and Côte d’Ivoire), all for their interlocking defense and oil industries.

At the same time, the Euro currency bloc is in the midst of massive financial and economic readjustments that have instituted traditional monetarist financial and economic measures painful to the working class but extremely beneficial to the banking cartel through multibillion bailouts.

Whitney sees Strauss-Kahn as beginning to redirect the IMF away from this traditional monetarist IMF policy, saying, “…if Strauss-Kahn was set up, then it was probably by members of the western bank(ing) coalition, that shadowy group of self-serving swine whose policies have kept the greater body of humanity in varying state(s) of poverty and desperation for the last two centuries. Strauss-Kahn had recently broke(n)-free from the ‘party line’ and was changing the direction of the IMF. His road to Damascus conversion was championed by progressive economist Joseph Stiglitz in a recent article titled ‘The IMF’s Switch in Time’… (that says) ‘The annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund was notable in marking the Fund’s effort to distance itself from its own long-standing tenets on capital controls and labor-market flexibility. It appears that a new IMF has gradually, and cautiously, emerged under the leadership of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.’”

Whitney sums up “Strauss-Kahn (as) trying to move the bank in a more positive direction, a direction that didn’t require that countries leave their economies open to the ravages of foreign capital that moves in swiftly — pushing up prices and creating bubbles — and departs just as fast, leaving behind the scourge of high unemployment, plunging demand, hobbled industries and deep recession. Strauss-Kahn had set out on a ‘kinder and gentler’ path, one that would not force foreign leaders to privatize their state-owned industries or crush their labor unions. Naturally, his actions were not warmly received by the bankers and corporatists who look to the IMF to provide legitimacy to their ongoing plunder of the rest of the world. These are the people who think that the current policies are ‘just fine’ because they produce the results they’re looking for, which is bigger profits for themselves and deeper poverty for everyone else.”

To conclude, Michael Bucci quotes French economist and socialist Jacques Attali: “The most likely outcome is that this case will stick… Even if he pleads not guilty, which he may be, he won’t be able to be (a) candidate for the Socialist primary for the presidency and he won’t be able to stay at the IMF.” Bucci then continues, “But farther behind the curtain might be found investment bankers and international financiers (the Spitzer “soft assassins”). While Messrs. Spitzer and Strauss-Kahn might share a common reprehensible lust, this group (the international financial mafia) represents the world’s top criminals. Like Al Capone and the Chicago mob, they continue to remain immune and prevail, while the audience is glued to sex, money and maids.”

What we are seeing may be an IMF coup in the form of a sex scandal. Reports have it that the detained IMF chief is already under suicide watch (a pretext for you know what). Let’s refocus on the real issues in this L’affaire Strauss-Kahn and wage a campaign to free him if we must. Most importantly, let’s redouble our efforts to rid this world of the menace that is the global financial mafia.

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)



(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)


Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110520com5.html

Soliman, Abad in House line of fire on CCT probe By Charlie V. Manalo 05/20/2011

P2B AUGMENTATION MAY BE ILLEGAL — LAGMAN

Soliman, Abad in House line of fire on CCT probe

By Charlie V. Manalo 05/20/2011

Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman and Budget Secretary Butch Abad may likely find themselves in hot water after House members bared their intention to hold an inquiry into the P2-billion additional budget allotted for the controversial conditional cash transfer (CCT) program bloating its appropriation this year to P23 billion.

In a phone interview, House Minority Leader Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said he would seek clarification from the House appropriations committee on how much was the amount exactly approved for the CCT.

“I would have to ask the appropriations committee on how much was the amount exactly approved for the CCT and how much has been spent so far and how is it being spent,” Lagman said. “We have to know these things as well as the basis for increasing the CCT budget by P2 billion.”.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110520hed1.html

De Lima ready for face-off with Lacson 05/20/2011

De Lima ready for face-off with Lacson

05/20/2011
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima is ready to face Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson and be grilled by the lawmaker when she submits herself for confirmation process before the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA).

“Of course I’d like to say that I’ll be ready always even if it’s not Lacson who will interrogate me in the CA.

“I don’t take things personally. I just want that my rights are also protected when I appear before proceedings like that. I’m sure that even a Justice secretary also has some rights,” she told Senate reporters during a chance interview yesterday.

Lacson has accused De lima of supposedly going after him and nailing him down in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110520hed3.html

Solon seeks probe of BIR’s delay in taxpayers’ tax refund claims By Angie M. Rosales 05/20/2011

Solon seeks probe of BIR’s delay in taxpayers’ tax refund claims

By Angie M. Rosales 05/20/2011

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV yesterday sought the conduct of an investigation on the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) over its alleged failure to act expeditiously on pending tax refund claims.

The neophyte lawmaker said his decision to file Resolution No. 474 was prompted by complaints on “inordinate delay of processing of tax refund applications.”

Trillanes said that in one newspaper, it said that it takes several months before a revenue officer is assigned to process a taxpayer’s refund claims and once a recommendation is made, it will go through a lengthy review processes.

The report also said that the BIR, in checking compliance of documentary requirements, conducts an audit on all internal revenue taxes of the taxpayer, not only on the particular tax for which a refund has been claimed and this, more often than not, leads to assessment of alleged deficiency on taxes..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110520nat2.html

130 political parties mum on Marcos burial 05/20/2011 None of the 130 political parties accredited by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has replied to Vice President Jejomar Binay’s survey letter seeking their official stand on whether or not former President Ferdinand Marcos should be given a hero’s burial. With a June deadline ahead, Binay, who was given the responsibility to decide on the matter, hopes to get their feedback, noting it is crucial to his recommendation to President Aquino. Binay said he “would still wait for the official stand of the political parties until this week.” A final decision on the Marcos burial issue will finally put to a close several years of debate on the request of the Marcos family for the remains of the late dictator to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

130 political parties mum on Marcos burial

05/20/2011
None of the 130 political parties accredited by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has replied to Vice President Jejomar Binay’s survey letter seeking their official stand on whether or not former President Ferdinand Marcos should be given a hero’s burial.

With a June deadline ahead, Binay, who was given the responsibility to decide on the matter, hopes to get their feedback, noting it is crucial to his recommendation to President Aquino.

Binay said he “would still wait for the official stand of the political parties until this week.”

A final decision on the Marcos burial issue will finally put to a close several years of debate on the request of the Marcos family for the remains of the late dictator to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110520nat7.html

Oathtaking of KKK-LP coalition M E T R O F I L E 05/20/2011

Oathtaking of KKK-LP coalition

M E T R O F I L E

05/20/2011
Right photo shows Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim greets Datumona Diamla Saripada Mamangcao (left), chairman of KKK-LP Coalition Lanao del Sur Chapter at the oathtaking of the KKK-LP Coalition at the Bulwagang Villegas, Manila City Hall.... MORE
Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110520met5.html

Customs exec says car smuggling in RP started during GMA’s term By Benjamin B. Pulta 05/20/2011

Customs exec says car smuggling in RP started during GMA’s term

By Benjamin B. Pulta 05/20/2011

A Customs official has blamed the past administration for the rampant car smuggling in the country.

The Bureau of Customs is reeling from an expose on the possible involvement of its officials in a highly organized international car theft smuggling ring focusing on luxury vehicles coming at a time when there is an acute failure to meet revenue targets.

Speaking to newsmen, Deputy Customs Commissioner Gregorio Chavez said his agency “is conducting a probe into smuggled cars and hopefully we can terminate the probe and file cases against the importers and Customs officials who may have colluded with the smugglers.”

Chavez clarified even before the assumption of Commissioner Angelito Alvarez a “warrant of seizure has already been issued by the Bureau of Customs.”.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110520met1.html

Manoling: QI sold EDITORIAL 05/19/2011

Manoling: QI sold

EDITORIAL

Click to enlarge

05/19/2011
The gritty former chairman of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), Manoling Morato, again made his presence felt recently, this time exposing what he believes are budding anomalies involving among the staunchest supporters of Noynoy.

This time around, however, Manoling gathered bloggers instead of members of the traditional media, likely as a result of his perception that major newspapers and broadcast outfits are protectors of the administration.

One of those in the interview related that Manoling gave an explosive insight into the backroom dealings among Noynoy’s circle of supporters, as he particularly trained his sight on the PCSO, which obviously he still has allies informing him of what is transpiring within the walls of the lotto and sweepstakes agency..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110519com1.html

Hypocrisy FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 05/19/2011

Hypocrisy

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

05/19/2011
Having been slapped down — and rightly so — by the Catholic bishops whom he had threatened to charge with sedition on their call for civil disobedience, Noynoy, through his mouthpiece, has suddenly turned biblical.

As bishops likened Noynoy to King Herod, who ordered all first borns of Jews to be killed, owing to his stand in the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, there went Edwin Laceirda and his group, claiming that they were astounded by the bishops’ statements, which they described as “highly inflammatory.”

Despite the bishops not “behaving accordingly,” Noynoy claimed he preferred to give the bishops bread, instead of throwing stones at them.

As Laceirda put it: Noynoy had told him: “Let’s not throw stones. Let’s give them bread.”

As for the disagreements, he said: “we will respect them for that. We will not throw stones. We will continue to throw bread at them ... We will turn the other cheek, as what we’ve always done. The President is very respectful of the bishops. We expect men of faith to behave accordingly.”.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110519com2.html

Prospects for Japan firms clouded by quake focus 05/19/2011

Prospects for Japan firms clouded by quake

focus

05/19/2011
TOKYO — Some of Japan’s biggest firms remain unable to forecast their prospects for the coming months due to the impact of March’s massive earthquake, which is expected to plunge the economy into recession.

Automakers such as Toyota, electronics giants such as Sharp and airline All Nippon Airways skipped annual forecasts citing uncertainty over the scale of disruption that will also be seen in Japan’s first quarter GDP data Thursday.

“While the earthquake occurred late in the quarter, the contraction in activity after the earthquake will likely be enough to bring down the growth rate in Q1 deep into negative territory,” noted BNP Paribas’ chief Japan economist Ryutaro Kono.

The economy shrank an annualized 2.0 percent in the first three months of this year, economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires said, marking the second-straight quarterly contraction as production, exports and consumption tumble..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110519com3.html

Parasitic BCDA BLURBAL THRUSTS Louie Logarta 05/19/2011

Parasitic BCDA

BLURBAL THRUSTS

Louie Logarta

05/19/2011
Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez and Deputy Commissioner Gregorio Chavez have been slapped with libel, grave misconduct and abuse of authority raps by a Davao businessman in retaliation for a P5-billion smuggling charge that they had earlier lodged against him and Phoenix Petroleum Philippines.

The other week, Customs lawyers, upon the say so of Alvarez, filed a complaint with the Department of Justice against licensed broker Jorlan Cabanes and Phoenix for allegedly smuggling oil products from Thailand amounting to some P5.14 billion from June 2010 to April 2011.

Lawyers for Phoenix president and CEO Dennis Ang Uy, whom the BoC also included in the smuggling complaint, are said to be contemplating on the same course of action to protect their client’s good name and reputation..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110519com4.html

Power, entitlement fuel sexual misdeeds — experts focus 05/19/2011

Power, entitlement fuel sexual misdeeds — experts

focus

05/19/2011
WASHINGTON — The list is almost too long to name. One-time US presidential contender John Edwards. Israel’s former president Moshe Katsav. Golf superstar Tiger Woods.

IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn has joined a plethora of men at the pinnacle of power and the top of their game who have faced ruin thanks to a sex scandal.

Many of them manage to shake off the allegations, and Strauss-Kahn, the powerful head of the International Monetary Fund, has denied all charges of sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid.

But sexual pathology expert Sharon O’Hara says there are countless cases of men with an unquenchable appetite for sex who have let their compulsion for sexual conquest get the better of them..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110519com6.html

Army dogs wage war on illegal Palestinian workers FEATURE 05/19/2011

Army dogs wage war on illegal Palestinian workers

FEATURE

05/19/2011
RAMADIN — Palestinians desperate for work in Israel will go to extremes to sneak past the West Bank barrier, but now they face a new hurdle — army attack dogs sent to sniff them out.

Workers say the use of dogs to hunt down anyone trying to enter Israel illegally is a new phenomenon which has only been occurring for about two months.

But it is a development which has quickly spread fear and anger among the worker population living in the south Hebron Hills, one of the poorest areas in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli army readily admits to using dogs in its operations in the West Bank, but says they are only brought in as a way of protecting the sprawling separation barrier from Palestinian vandals looking to create openings which would allow “terrorists” to infiltrate Israel..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110519com8.html

RP least competitive in entire Asia-Pacific 05/19/2011

GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS RANKING SLIDES 2 NOTCHES

RP least competitive in entire Asia-Pacific

05/19/2011
Despite the frequent breast-beating of President Aquino about the economic gains under his administration and the reforms it supposedly introduced in the business sector, the Philippines was ranked the least competitive country in Asia-Pacific with its global ranking this year falling two notches to 41st place from last year’s 39th in the World Competitiveness Scoreboard.

The annual ranking of the Swiss-based International Institute for Management and Development (IMD) graded an Asian territory, Hong Kong, in a tie with the United States as being the most competitive this year.

In Asia, the Philippines was last among 13 countries ranked with a 63.291 out of a perfect 100 which was lower than that of Indonesia at 12th with a 64.61 score; India, 11th with a score of 70.649; Thailand, 10th with a score of 74.886, and Japan, 9th with a 75.214 score.

At the top of the rung were Hong Kong, first with a perfect 100; Singapore, second with 98.557; Taiwan, third with 92.011; Australia, fourth with 89.259; Malaysia, fifth with 84.12, and China, sixth with 81.1..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110519hed1.html

House eyes probe as Palace confirms hike in CCT budget By Charlie V. Manalo and Aytch de la Cruz 05/19/2011

House eyes probe as Palace confirms hike in CCT budget

By Charlie V. Manalo and Aytch de la Cruz 05/19/2011

A ranking member of the House opposition said the minority in the chamber may seek an inves-tigation into the alleged additional P2 billion infused into the contro-versial conditional cash transfer (CCT) program being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

At a press briefing, House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman expressed surprise when informed that Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman, during her presentation before the House appropriations committee last Tuesday, admitted the CCT budget was raised from the originally-approved P21.19 billion to P23.39 billion. This despite the fact she did not raise the number of CCT beneficiaries pegged at 2.3 million families..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110519hed2.html

Roxas not to overshadow Binay’s functions—Palace By Aytch S. de la Cruz 05/19/2011

Roxas not to overshadow Binay’s functions—Palace

By Aytch S. de la Cruz 05/19/2011

Vice President Jejomar Binay already wears so many hats in President Aquino’s government, Malacañang said yesterday in an apparent bid to allay Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero’s concerns that former Sen. Mar Roxas might overshadow the elected second highest official of the land once he gets appointed as Presidential Chief of Staff.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda reminded everyone that Binay already heads the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and acts as the President’s special adviser on overseas Filipino workers’ (OFWs) concerns as well.

Also, just recently, Binay was designated by Aquino to chair the Presidential Task Force Against Illegal
Recruitment which was reactivated only last May 6 by virtue of Executive Order 41 released by Malacañang..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110519nat1.html

Italy court acquits Pinay charged for drug smuggling By Michaela P. del Callar 05/19/2011

Italy court acquits Pinay charged for drug smuggling

By Michaela P. del Callar 05/19/2011

A Filipino woman, caught with close to 50 grams of metamphetamine, locally known as shabu, was acquitted of drug smuggling in Italy, the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

On May 4, the judge of the Civitavecchia Tribunal, on the strength of the evidence presented by the Philippine embassy-hired lawyer found the woman not guilty of drug charges. The Filipina was on house arrest during her trial which lasted seven months.

The 59-year-old was apprehended on Oct. 4, 2010 upon arrival at Italy’s Fiumicino Airport when authorities found 49.50 grams of shabu stashed inside a portable DVD player that she was asked to carry for a fellow overseas Filipino worker in Rome.

She was incarcerated at the Civitavecchia prison from the day of her arrest until her trial on Oct. 18 of the same year where she was granted house arrest for medical reasons..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110519nat2.html

Movie actor’s vehicle caught overspeeding on ‘Killer Highway’ 05/19/2011

Movie actor’s vehicle caught overspeeding on ‘Killer Highway’

05/19/2011
Movie and television star Richard Gutierrez reportedly berated traffic enforcers of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority who flagged down his vehicle for overspeeding on Commonwealth Avenue, also known as “Killer Highway,” in Quezon City.

Reports said the actor allegedly cursed and pointed fingers at some MMDA traffic officials who arrested his driver for overspeeding.

MMDA area supervisor Max Villa was quoted as saying, “Captain Barbell (Gutierrez) is hot-headed today, he showered MMDA officials with unkind words after his driver was caught overspeeding on Commonwealth Avenue.”

MMDA camera and speed radar guns located on Commonwealth Avenue recorded a 70-80 kilometer per hour speed in Gutierrez’s vehicle, the report said..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110519met2.html

‘Overloading’ blamed for frequent malfunctioning of LRT trains 05/19/2011

‘Overloading’ blamed for frequent malfunctioning of LRT trains

05/19/2011
Authorities of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) have blamed “overloading” for the frequent malfunctioning of their trains.

LRT Administration (LRTA) spokesman lawyer Hernando Cabrera said overloading causes LRT and Metro Rail Transit (MRT) trains to break down, especially during rush hours.

“Sa peak hour overloaded tayo... kaya ng sistema pero kung bugbog na bugbog na doon nasisira ang spare parts at components,” Cabrera said.

Last Wednesday, an LRT-2 train on C.M. Recto Avenue in Manila suffered an engine problem — an air leak — forcing train authorities to ask the passengers to get down the train..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110519met5.html

A free ride it wasn’t EDITORIAL 05/18/2011

A free ride it wasn’t

EDITORIAL

Click to enlarge

05/18/2011
It can’t be helped but notice the degree of urgency in Noynoy’s tour of the US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson where practically the whole Aquino Cabinet was present.

Presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang said that the invitation to tour the carrier had been made a long time ago but it was only accepted fairly recently such as the exact moment when the US asked Noynoy and his wards to board the carrier last Friday.

Carandang, however, cannot deny that the invitation was so sudden that Noynoy did not even have time to cancel the courtesy call of boxing legend Manny Pacquiao who arrived from his US bout with Shane Mosley on the same day that the tour was suddenly on the agenda for the day of Noynoy.

The militants speculate that the whisking away of Noynoy to the US ship out in the high seas prior to the docking of the US battle fleet in Manila had something to do with the recent visit of US government officials at Subic Bay to explore the possibility of an interim base while a massive military installation is still being set up in Guam..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110518com1.html

Asking for more trouble FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 05/18/2011

Asking for more trouble

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

05/18/2011
If the Noynoy administration, in the last 11 months, was already chaotic and much too rent with factionalism, expect a worsening situation in Malacañang with the formal entry of losing vice presidential candidate Mar Roxas as Noynoy’s chief of staff.

That will of course be denied by both warring factions in the Palace, as they have denied the power play that has been going on even before Noynoy assumed the presidency, but the reality is that Mar and his Liberal Party mates, having finally achieved power, are not about to give it up after Noynoy ends his term in 2016.

What is puzzling is the fact that even as Noynoy is aware of the existence of the two warring factions, that add to the ineffectiveness of his administration, he appears to be encouraging factionalism and chaos, as he opens up a new position in his Cabinet for Mar, as his chief of staff, a position moreover that is a superfluity, since there is already an executive secretary and certainly, there is no need for a chief of staff, since this would be a duplication of functions.

It has been stated by Malacañang that an administrative order (AO) creating the position of chief of staff for Mar would serve to clarify the different functions between the executive secretary and the chief of staff, but not even an AO is going to solve that kind of political problem..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110518com2.html

A ‘Tower of Babel’ entirely of books in Argentina FEATURE 05/18/2011

A ‘Tower of Babel’ entirely of books in Argentina

FEATURE

05/18/2011
BUENOS AIRES — Marta Minujin, Argentina’s most famous artist, is known for artwork that is both out-sized and outlandish.

Her latest creation might also be described as vertigo-inducing — a spiraling, 25-meter-tall tower meant to pay homage to the written word.

In the Plaza San Martin, in the heart of the Argentine capital, Minujin has erected her latest work — “The Tower of Babel” — built from 30,000 books, most of them donations from some 50 embassies.

“I don’t know why we have to have different languages,” she says, adding that she sees her mission as an artist as being to “unite all people.”.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110518com3.html

Temporary home HE SAYS Aldrin Cardon 05/18/2011

Temporary home

HE SAYS

Aldrin Cardon

05/18/2011
“Accidentally” eavesdropping in a conversation between two kids who happened to share my table in a coffeeshop, I learned that both have landed jobs in a call center, and they were celebrating their chance to move on from university to competitive life by raising two big plastic cups of expensive frap.

Both were excited with their first job, which one of them called her “temporary home” as she has a “bigger dream” of landing a job overseas, where she said the grass is greener.

The other, whom I heard is a nursing graduate, also hopes to work overseas — “hopefully in the United States,” but she has yet to take her board and the other tests required before she could qualify to serve abroad. She is also aware of the cutthroat competition among the hundreds of thousand other nurses seeking jobs elsewhere..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110518com4.html

Changing world SHE SAYS Dinah S. Ventura 05/18/2011

Changing world

SHE SAYS

Dinah S. Ventura

05/18/2011
In the 1990s, call centers were unheard of and those looking for jobs, scouring the newspapers’ classified ads, would often encounter those tempting calls for “marketing executives” with initial salaries starting at P15,000.

Many of those who fell for these ads soon found out that they had to go through “training” for — tada! — selling encyclopedias.

With the rise of the Internet and consequent decline of those same encyclopedias came another wave of job market demand, this time in the field of Information Technology (IT). This trend was one reason IT courses became so popular among the youth, with parents very often urging their youngsters to take up the course so they could also find high-paying jobs abroad.

Then came the nursing wave, with doctors already practicing deciding to study once more so they could find jobs abroad. Such has been our story as a nation — with skilled Pinoys leaving by droves to find greener pastures in other countries — for so many decades now..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110518com5.html

Syria seen stoking Golan unrest to mask crackdown ANALYSIS 05/18/2011

Syria seen stoking Golan unrest to mask crackdown

ANALYSIS

05/18/2011
DUBAI — Syria has tried to deflect attention from two months of protests threatening its autocratic regime by stoking protests that have breached its long-quiet border with Israel, analysts said.

Thousands of people on Sunday rallied on Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria, as well as in the Gaza Strip and West Bank to mark the anniversary of the Jewish state’s creation in 1948, known in Arabic as “Nakba” or “catastrophe.”

Hundreds of protesters from Syria entered the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, prompting a volley of fire from the Israeli army that left four people dead and hundreds injured, Syria’s official SANA news agency said.

It was one of the most violent incidents since Israel and Syria signed an armistice in 1974..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110518com6.html

The terrifying ordeal in Suite 2086 focus 05/18/2011

The terrifying ordeal in Suite 2086

focus

05/18/2011
NEW YORK — It was around midday on a lazy spring Saturday in New York. But behind the closed doors of a luxury hotel suite, a chambermaid was allegedly being brutally attacked in a horrific ordeal that would shock the world.

Her ordeal may well spell the end of the stellar career of veteran French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who now faces up to 25 years behind bars if convicted. He denies the allegations.

During several long, terrifying minutes, the 32-year-old maid said she was grappled and groped, had her breasts and intimate parts fondled, her panties ripped and was forced to endure as her attacker tried to push his penis into her mouth.

Shocked and in terror, she finally escaped and ran panicked from the $3,000-a-night suite 2086 of the Sofitel in midtown Manhattan, telling staff and friends that she had been indecently mauled by the man inside in a degrading and frightening assault..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110518com7.html

Noy’s favored justice eyes Ombudsman post By Benjamin B. Pulta 05/18/2011

MARCELO ALLIES ALSO GUNNING FOR DEPUTY POSITION

Noy’s favored justice eyes Ombudsman post

By Benjamin B. Pulta 05/18/2011

Supreme Court (SC) Senior Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, who is up for retirement and widely perceived as close to President Aquino having sworn him into office instead of Chief Justice Renato Corona, expressed her interest to be the next Ombudsman.

Carpio-Morales, who was handpicked by Aquino to administer his inaugural oath last year, has accepted her nomination to the Ombudsman post through a letter sent to the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC). This was confirmed yesterday by her son and chief of staff Umberto Morales.

The magistrate wrote the SC ruling that would have allowed the impeachment of resigned Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez in the House of Representatives.

Carpio-Morales was nominated to the Ombudsman post by three groups: UP Law Alumni Association, Transparency International Phils. and Women Lawyers Association of the Philippines Inc. Aquino reportedly offered the Ombudsman post to Morales in an earlier occasion they had attended with retired Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110518hed1.html

Miriam unfazed by Pacquiao’s stand against RH Bill By Angie M. Rosales 05/18/2011

Miriam unfazed by Pacquiao’s stand against RH Bill

By Angie M. Rosales 05/18/2011

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago remains unperturbed by the entry of boxing champion and Sarangani Rep. Manny Pacquiao’s into the public arena over the controversial Repro-ductive Health (RH) bill.
Even if Pacquiao campaigns against the measure, in which the senator is known to be among the main proponents in the upper chamber, his participation will likely not have any significant bearing, she said.

“I don’t think so,” Santiago said when asked if she’s threatened by the possibility of Pacquiao will be able to sway public support against the measure, adding that “this is a literate country.”

“We know, we concede that he knows more about boxing than possibly anybody alive, particularly in the welterweight department, which is considered to be ‘the’ boxing title. But still, we cannot be know-it-alls. And it will be very misleading to use his celebrity status to enter into what.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110518hed4.html

Filipino sailor found dead after pirates attack 05/18/2011

Filipino sailor found dead after pirates attack

05/18/2011
A Filipino sailor was found dead aboard a Marshall Island-flagged chemical tanker, four days after it was attacked by pirates off the coast of Benin in West Africa, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday said.

It added Philippine officials are monitoring investigation on the circumstances of the death of Christopher Cortez Ceprado, who was among the 18 all-Filipino crewmen of MT Sea King that was boarded by heavily armed brigands last May 7 in Cotonou.

Ceprado’s remains were brought to the mortuary in Cotonou.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110518hed6.html

Preparations ongoing in case volcanoes erupt By Mario J. Mallari 05/18/2011

Preparations ongoing in case volcanoes erupt

By Mario J. Mallari 05/18/2011

Preparations for possible eruption of Mt. Bulusan and Mayon Volcano are ongoing with the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) identifying 39 evacuation centers in the provinces of Sorsogon and Albay in case evacuation becomes necessary.

Also, more than 3,000 military troops are now on alert as possible responders should eruption happens.

NDRRMC executive director Undersecretary Benito Ramos noted the increase in the number of volcanic quakes recorded at Mt. Bulusan in Sorsogon by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) during the past days.

According to Ramos, local DRRMCs in Sorsogon have already identified 18 schools and churches as possible evacuation centers while 21 in Albay..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110518nat4.html

CA rules to grant search warrant on ‘death caves’ By Benjamin B. Pulta 05/18/2011

CA rules to grant search warrant on ‘death caves’

By Benjamin B. Pulta 05/18/2011

The Court of Appeals (CA) has ruled to grant an appeal by government lawyers seeking a search warrant to investigate three caves inside a compound in Davao City where victims of summary execution by the so-called “Davao Death Squad” are supposedly buried.

In its 14-page decision, the appellate court found the government’s petition impressed with merit and reversed a lower court judge’s ruling stating that respondent Judge William Peralta committed “a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction” when he terminated, “without sufficient reasons,” a valid search warrant which he himself issued..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110518nat3.html

House okays proposal allowing studes with unpaid tuition to take exams By Gerry Baldo 05/18/2011

House okays proposal allowing studes with unpaid tuition to take exams

By Gerry Baldo 05/18/2011
Students who could not afford to pay their tuition in time for the mid-term and final examinations need not worry now that the House of Representatives has approved a proposal to impose sanctions on schools, colleges, and universities that require students to pay their tuition before taking the exams.

Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara, chairman of the House committee on higher and technological education, said the House has already approved in principle the proposal to protect students from tradition of “no permit, no exam” policies in colleges and vocational schools.

Angara said members of his panel are now preparing the committee report that will be submitted to the plenary for the approval for second reading. Once approved, schools will have no reason to bar a student not to take an exam on the basis of his or her non-payment of the tuition.

The bill, however, provides that unpaid tuition will be charged an interest of not more than six percent per annum..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110518met2.html

Showing of violent, obscene TV programs to be regulated By Charlie V. Manalo 05/18/2011

Showing of violent, obscene TV programs to be regulated

By Charlie V. Manalo 05/18/2011

Violent and obscene scenes in television shows will soon be regulated and be allowed to air only after 10 in the evening.

House Bill 3671, authored principally by Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo to be known as “Children’s Media Protection Act,” shall establish a television violence and non-educational sexual themes rating code.

“The existing laws lack the required provisions to block violent and sexually themed non-educational programming to protect the welfare of children,” Castelo said.

He added the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) is not authorized to prescribe ratings for violence and non-educational sexual themes in television programming and rules for signals containing specifications for blocking violent and sexually themed non-educational programming..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110518met1.html

Mob rule builds up anew EDITORIAL 05/17/2011

Mob rule builds up anew

EDITORIAL

Click to enlarge

05/17/2011
The voluminous Sandiganbayan decision approving the plea bargain agreement between former military comptroller Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia and the prosecutors said a lot about Noynoy and his allies’ lack of respect for legal procedures as they would rather appeal to the emotions of the public when it comes to delicate legal issues.

Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz was also on the Sandiganbayan’s back since the start of its deliberation on the Garcia case, seeking its intervention in the case which was handled from the start by the prosecutors in the Office of the Ombudsman..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110517com1.html

The good news FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 05/17/2011

 The good news

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

05/17/2011
Finally, we may yet get rid of the Jurassic ways of fiscals in determining a complaint and elevating it to the courts for trial.

Reports say that the Supreme Court is now considering amendments to the rules of court that would require a higher standard of evidence before a suspect can be indicted.

Thus far, too many complaints based on mere affidavits would be enough for the prosecutors to state that there is probable cause, which immediate result is for the complaint to reach the courts, where years and years of litigation follow. This is especially true in libel complaints, where mostly government officials file complaint after complaint against journalists who are their critics, and as a way of harassing them and making them shut up in their criticisms.

In most cases, the fiscals hardly ever dismiss the libel complaint outright, and merely on the basis of the complaint affidavit, which generally has attached to it, the photocopy of the article which the complainant claims is libelous, even when clearly it is not..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110517com2.html

Film shows no happy ending for N. Korea refugees FEATURE 05/17/2011

Film shows no happy ending for N. Korea refugees

FEATURE

05/17/2011
SEOUL — North Korean refugee Jeon Seung-Chul, battling terminal stomach cancer in South Korea in 2008, had a final request for a film student friend: make a movie about my life even if I never get to see it.

Park Jung-Bum has done just that with The Journals of Musan, a raw and gritty look at a refugee’s struggle to survive in the new world of South Korea.

“This is like my letter for Jeon Seung-Chul,” said Park, whose former college roommate died later in 2008 at the age of just 30.

“Seung-Chul went through so many hardships to come to the South...only to die so young. I felt I had to do something for his memory.”.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110517com3.html

Zombie economics and the comp-ad meme AN OUTSIDERS VIEW Ken Fuller 05/17/2011

Zombie economics and the comp-ad meme

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW

Ken Fuller

05/17/2011
James K. Galbraith’s The Predator State (2008), to which I referred two weeks ago, sets out to demolish a number of damaging myths, arguing that tax-cuts don’t work, monetarism is discredited and dead, and, as we saw in the previous column, that US efforts to achieve a balanced federal budget or a trade surplus are pointless and impossible under the current global financial regime. Much of this is, of course, directed at a US audience, but some of his attacks on recent dogma are of relevance to the Philippines.

He points out that the Washington Consensus, “a set of universal precepts of sound money, balanced budgets, deregulation, privatization and free trade,” has virtually crippled those countries which have embraced it most fervently and is now “almost universally repudiated in principle and increasingly evaded in practice.” Well, I could be wrong, but I don’t think most Philippine opinion-formers, let along policy-makers, have yet joined this chorus of repudiation. The same can be said regarding the doctrine of “comparative advantage” (or comp-ad, as we’ll call it)..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110517com4.html

‘Divide et impera’ VIEWPOINTS Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz 05/17/2011

‘Divide et impera’

VIEWPOINTS

Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz

05/17/2011
Time and again, it is clearly and repeatedly said that there is smoke in Malacañang. And as the saying rightly goes, where there is smoke, there is fire. And where there is fire, there is danger. In other words, there are open talks that Malacañang is presently occupied by two antagonistic political factions. The “Samar” and the “Balay” are the expressed titles mentioned dividing Malacañang occupancy.

Meant to house but one executive family, the said house is pitifully divided between two antagonistic sections. Intended for the use of but one administrative body, therein are instead two closely organized groups with one continuously trying to outdo or undo the other. This is an open secret.

And this is not only shameful to the two groupings but also damaging to multi-million Malacañang constituencies who dutifully pay them and who are wherefore expected to serve them — not to fight among themselves..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110517com5.html

From palace to prison for India’s high and mighty focus 05/17/2011

From palace to prison for India’s high and mighty

focus

05/17/2011
NEW DELHI — India’s notorious Tihar Jail in New Delhi is currently home to a clutch of VIP inmates suspected of corruption as police win rare permission to go after the “big fish” in recent cases.

The forbidding complex, home to militants and murderers, offers little in terms of comfort for its new white-collar guests, who are forced to share tiny cells with basic toilets in sweltering heat.

Prison chief Neeraj Kumar told AFP that the powerful connections of his new charges, which include the country’s former telecom minister and the head of the Indian Olympic Association, have won them no special treatment.

“It’s just a speculation in the media that we have a VIP jail,” Kumar said from his office at Tihar where 11,700 inmates, including 470 women and 500 foreigners, are squeezed into facilities designed to hold half this figure..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110517com7.html

Extreme makeover: Are humans reshaping Earth? FEATURE 05/17/2011

Extreme makeover: Are humans reshaping Earth?

FEATURE

05/17/2011
LONDON — If alien geologists were to visit our planet 10 million years from now, would they discern a distinct human fingerprint in Earth’s accumulating layers of rock and sediment?

Will homo sapiens, in other words, define a geological period in the way dinosaurs — and their vanishing act — helped mark the Jurassic and the Cretaceous?

A growing number of scientists, some gathered at a one-day symposium this week at the British Geological Society in London, say “yes.”

One among them, chemistry Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, has even suggested a new name: The Anthropocene..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110517com6.html

Suspected smuggler’s black book lists political kingpins By Charlie V. Manalo 05/17/2011

Suspected smuggler’s black book lists political kingpins

By Charlie V. Manalo 05/17/2011

Prominent political names and members of the Armed Forces were found on the list of a suspected smuggler of luxury vehicles and guns yesterday during a hearing of the Customs subcommittee of the House committee on ways and means sparked by a report of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on the vehicle theft in the United States saying some of the stolen vehicles surfaced in the country.

During the hearing, Allan Lynnard Bigcas presented a so-called “black book” containing an account of his business dealings. The black book contained names and aliases of alleged provincial officials in Mindanao whom authorities believed to have had business deals with Bigcas.

Among those included in the list were a certain “Noah Dimaporo, Mayor Ali, Mayor Dimaporo, Boy Plaza, a certain Pepe and certain Colonel Pimentel.” Two certain Jalosjoses were also included on the list..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110517hed2.html

Spratlys conflict involving US not likely: envoy By Michaela P. del Callar 05/17/2011

Spratlys conflict involving US not likely: envoy

By Michaela P. del Callar 05/17/2011

An American diplomat yesterday said the chance of an armed conflict breaking out in the disputed Spratlys in the South China Sea that would prompt Washington to help its ally, the Philippines, is remote or may never happen.

Ambassador David Carden, visiting US Permanent Ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), however, stressed that Asian countries with overlapping claims should involve other stakeholders like the United States to try to resolve the problem despite China’s objection to foreign intervention.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during an Asean Summit in Hanoi in 2010 called for unfettered international access to the waters and articulated the need for the bloc “to have a mechanism in place to resolve its disputes and to bring in stakeholders,” Carden said..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110517hed3.html

Palace turns biblical on RH but bishop blasts Lacson By Aytch S. de la Cruz 05/17/2011

Palace turns biblical on RH but bishop blasts Lacson

By Aytch S. de la Cruz 05/17/2011

While Malacañang suddenly turned biblical over the Reproductive Health (RH) bill debate saying that it will retaliate by giving bread to those who throw stones against it, some Catholic bishops lambasted Sen. Panfilo Lacson, an ally of President Aquino, for alleging that the Church uses the pulpit to cam-paign against the controversial bill.

“You have no right to dictate us what to do on RH bill issue... Priests use the pulpit particularly on issues involving life,” Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles said in a radio interview.

For his part, Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes said it is the Church’s obligation to inform the public about the ill effects of the bill to health and morality.

“We are obliged to because that’s against the truth. He (Sen. Lacson) has no right to tell us what to do. We are the preachers of the God’s words,” Bastes said..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110517hed6.html

DepEd ready to adopt new curriculum 05/17/2011

DepEd ready to adopt new curriculum

05/17/2011
With the aim to improve the quality of education, the Department of Education has expressed readiness for the mandatory kindergarten curriculum and additional two years in high school once the bill is approved in the Senate.

DepEd Assistant Secretary Tonisito Umali yesterday made the disclosure during the weekly “Kapihan sa Diamond Hotel.”

Umali said the basic education program would now be 13 years from the existing 10 years which was formulated in 1926.

In the new curriculum, children aged 5 must be enrolled in kindergarten before being admitted to first grade in elementary, while in high school an additional two years would be added to the existing four years making it to six years..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110517nat5.html

MILF to rescue Sino trader kidnapped by KFR gang 05/17/2011

MILF to rescue Sino trader kidnapped by KFR gang

05/17/2011
The secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is considering the launching of rescue operation against a kidnap-for-ransom gang now holding a Filipino-Chinese businesswoman under captivity at an MILF-controlled area in Maguindanao province.

MILF spokesman for military affairs Eid Kabalu said the secessionist group is mulling over rescue operation as part of their commitment to the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group (AHJAG) agreed upon with the government under the ongoing peace negotiations.

“At present, we are contemplating an action…our responsibility to take positive action is given (under AHJAG) whenever there is this kind of incident,”Kabalu said.

“The Ad Hoc Joint Action Group functions to isolate and interdict criminal elements operating in Mindanao and so the mandate of MILF is given whenever things like these happen…we have basis to act on the issue like kidnapping,” Kabalu explained..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110517nat2.html

San Juan solon calls on private colleges, universities to refrain from hiking tuition By Gerry Baldo 05/17/2011

San Juan solon calls on private colleges, universities to refrain from hiking tuition

By Gerry Baldo 05/17/2011
A lawwmaker from San Juan City yesterday called on private colleges and universities to refrain from increasing tuition given the current economic hardships brought about by the unabated rise in the prices of petroleum products.

According to San Juan City Rep. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, educational institutions should defer implementation of tuition hike, saying parents have enough burdens to carry with the cost of living becoming exorbitant.

This statement was in reply to the recent announcement of the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) that 282 private colleges and universities are to actualize tuition increments this coming school year.

“Private institutions should put into mind the ongoing and simultaneous price increase of basic commodities,” Ejercito said. He is a member of the House committee on youth and sports..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110517met3.html

Lawmakers want stiffer penalties imposed on reckless PUV drivers, negligent operators By Charlie V. Manalo 05/17/2011

Lawmakers want stiffer penalties imposed on reckless PUV drivers, negligent operators

By Charlie V. Manalo 05/17/2011

Two lawmakers from the Visayas have raised the urgent need to review the country’s penal laws that are related to road accidents as they noted there might be a need to impose stricter penalties on public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers and operators involved in fatal accidents.

This, after veteran journalist was killed in a vehicular accident late last week on a major thoroughfare in Quezon City dubbed a “killer highway.”.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110517met1.html

Not exactly Marcos EDITORIAL 05/16/2011

Not exactly Marcos

EDITORIAL

Click to enlarge

05/16/2011
Noynoy’s bluster is becoming too abrasive and unbearable that it is being mistaken as a character similar to that of former strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

While Marcos strikes fear whenever he issues a threat, because more than likely, he would have followed it up with immediate and determined action, as proved too many times.

Not so with Noynoy who has proven thus far that all he says including “them fighting words” as all “hot air” as an eminent former senator had said.

Although there is no doubting that Noynoy is trying hard to portray himself as a strong leader, in a bid to erase his already cemented personality as a weak, know-nothing leader..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110516com1.html

From grey to black FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 05/16/2011

From grey to black

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

05/16/2011
The true nature of Noynoy Aquino is finally surfacing for all to see. He too, like Ferdinand Marcos, wants to portray himself as a democrat and libertarian, but in reality, he has dictatorial tendencies, not just because he issued a threat to charge the anti-Reproductive Health (RH) bill groups with sedition, which he would find fairly impossible to implement, but because many of his past statements and acts have already shown such tendencies.

Recall that whenever Noynoy does not get what he wants, either by way of high court rulings or the ousters of certain officials he dislikes, he and his mouthpieces go all out on a demonization spree against them and paint them as the evil in society, while attempting to project himself and his Yellows as the “good.”

Now Noynoy is being portrayed by the Catholic bishops as an evil King Herod, ordering the killing of all the first born of Jewish couples..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110516com2.html

Enrile’s point C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S Jonathan De la Cruz 05/16/2011

Enrile’s point

C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S

Jonathan De la Cruz

05/16/2011
So, OK. We can understand P-Noy’s rage over the Sandiganbayan Second Division’s decision to uphold the plea bargain agreement between the Office of the Ombudsman and retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia. The Chief Executive fumed that the justices must be “living in a vacuum” and that the ruling itself was “unacceptable” and “legally wrong.” Certainly, there was a flaw somewhere, so this decision has earned such public outcry. But shouldn’t P-Noy and his legal advisers from Presidential Legal Counsel Ed de Mesa to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Solicitor General Joel Cadiz, to name just three of the legal minds who are supposed to provide him legal counsel, take pause and reflect on what really happened here. This development did not happen simply because the justices “could not get it.” No, Sir. Precisely, they had to render that decision on the basis of the records of the case and the hearings conducted over time. They are not supposed to decide on the basis of “public opinion” or the “say so” of other people no matter how powerful and influential they may be. They have to decide “in a vacuum” unperturbed by the passions of the moment or the “public pulse.” No less than Justice Baldos, the ponente, advised that the critics should simply read the decision instead of arguing in ad hominems. She then observed that as justices they are trained to set their eyes only on the facts and records of the case and the transcripts of the hearings unswayed by the cries or even hallelujahs of the crowd..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110516com4.html

To whose benefit? HE SAYS Aldrin Cardon 05/16/2011

To whose benefit?

HE SAYS

Aldrin Cardon

05/16/2011
It may have disheartened tens of thousands, but Health Secretary Enrique Ona’s advice to college freshmen to stay out of nursing schools is clearly an admission of a flawed educational system which, as students were saying even before the First
Quarter Storm of the 1970s, catered mostly to the profitable business side of college and university operations.

It would not be surprising to see a continuation of token protests against an educational system which relies mostly on private capital as government could not prioritize spending for education. Thus, it bows to the whims and demands of private school and university owners, whose primary consideration is profit.

But government has emasculated youth and student power through various means, as it has castrated labor and other forces accepting token returns like low wages. Worse, our youth now sees college education as a privilege reserved only to those whose parents can afford it..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110516com6.html

RH: Robbery holdup bill DIE HARD III Herman Tiu Laurel 05/16/2011

RH: Robbery holdup bill

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

05/16/2011
I have not previously commented on the RH or Reproductive Health Bill since I know it is not a highly essential action that will address the poverty of this nation. First off, the Malthusian argument that population robustness equals poverty is inane, as a simple comparison easily shows:

Japan, with a population of around 130 million (the 10th largest in the world), has a per capita income of $35,500 while the Philippines, with a population of around 94 million (ranking 12th in the world), has a per capita income of only $2,000. Before the 2010 elections, where the previous lame-duck government’s spending-inflated GDP “growth” became the basis for this latest estimate by some economists, ours even hovered lower at around $1,500 to $1,700 per capita.

The point is, the pro-RH proponents’ propaganda, based on an imaginary correlation between poverty and population, is hogwash — characteristic of the pigsty that is Congress, more so when spewed from the mouths of the usual pro-FVR-Gloria Arroyo porkers.

Rep. Edcel Lagman, for one, with the help of his allied NGOs and “cost”-oriented groups, has been taking many people for a ride without revealing the highway robbery built into the RH wagon. Few people know that the original bill presented before Congress already contained a list of brands of contraceptives and other birth control paraphernalia that was only subsequently removed when certain quarters began to smell something scandalously foul.

Big Pharma all over the world, particularly in the Philippines, is well known to provide lavish commissions and paybacks to its agents, promoters, medical prescribers, as well as to political lobby clients and NGOs. Many of these NGOs beholden to foreign funding, such as those linked with Etta Rosales and other Noynoy “leftists,” are with Lagman’s campaign. Ditto the likes of pro-Big Pharma, anti-natural medicine former Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral and former (so he says) Carlyle Group director Fidel Ramos.

The transnational investment group Carlyle, which makes use not only of corporate but also global political clout in promoting its military-industrial interests, is also into pharmaceuticals in a very big way. William Shannon reports: “The Carlyle Group… manages nearly US$13 billion investments in various pharmaceutical laboratory and telecommunication, waterway transport companies.” He further calls it a “tentacular financial complex” and lists its “four most significant companies” (and their principal activities and periodic turnovers in parentheses) as: 1) Empi, Inc. (medical drugs and products, $73 million for year 2000); 2) MedPointe Inc. (drugs and condoms, $223 million estimated for 2001); 3) United Defense Industries Inc. (manufacture of tanks and armored vehicles, $1.18 billion for 2000); and 4) United States Marine Repair (the largest American company of non-nuclear warships, $400 million for 2000).

Disguised in this RH bill are the interests of Lagman and his ilk in the legislature (egged along by the similarly financially lascivious Big Pharma): automatic appropriation of the budget for their pork barrel plus government’s purchase of birth control “devices and supplies” as stipulated in Section 30 of the final draft of the RH Bill which states, “The amounts appropriated in the current annual General Appropriations Act (GAA) for Family Health and Responsible Parenting under the DoH and PopCom and other concerned agencies shall be allocated and utilized… Such additional sums… shall be included in the subsequent GAA.”
You see, more funds will have to be allocated (taken from PhilHealth), with the PDAF or pork barrel requiring additional allocation to the delight of those porkers in Congress, along with Big Pharma selling these “devices and supplies” while obtaining a declaration of such as “essential drugs,” thereby opening these to “tax free” classification.

Furthermore, according to the draft, each congressional district “shall” be provided with a “mobile health care service unit,” which will, of course, sport the names of the congressmen and maybe the NGOs working with them. Legislators say the bill will only cost P3 billion; but when you add all the other funding sources (including the Anti-Poverty Commission, which will be required to chip in), then it will run to over tens of billions of pesos!
Meanwhile, RH bill spinmasters, both foreign and local, have been very good at framing the issue as an emotional cause for “women’s rights,” as a fight for “their own bodies,” etc., which no one can argue against. However, in some women’s groups’ hysteria, what is being missed is that they, too, are being used to swindle this nation of its much fed-upon budget pie.

The Magna Carta for Women already protects women more than a chastity belt can; and even among them, many recoil from the idea of removing constraints on abortion. Moreover, nobody follows the Church diktat against the use of condoms and contraceptives anymore (except for those who are still fearful or ignorant), so what else is at issue?

This is perhaps why RH bill spinmasters have thrown in many red herrings, such as the control of HIV — even when a country such as Thailand still leads the world in HIV incidence despite its well known free condoms program. I am told that this is also the case in Bangladesh.

That said, the prevalence of HIV is a problem of values and social education, not sex education. It’s a problem of media culture too. Some young students having their OJT in my radio program have raised an upsetting problem — that of too many young girls (as young as 12) getting pregnant and selling their bodies for sex. But isn’t that a problem of poverty as well — a poverty spawned not by population per se but by a socio-economic system that is exploitative; that concentrates national wealth in an infinitesimal few; and extracts surplus out of the country in the form of unjust debt and taxes, ad nausea?

Ah, but such is the systemic cancer that the RH robbery hold-up gangs and their foreign partners, with their RH debates, would want to distract us from.

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “The Robbery Holdup Bill”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110516com5.html

Friction certain with Roxas as chief of staff — Angara By Angie M. Rosales 05/16/2011

CHIEF OF STAFF NOT A PALACE TRADITION

Friction certain with Roxas as chief of staff — Angara

By Angie M. Rosales 05/16/2011

The plan of President Aquino to appoint his defeated running mate and Liberal Party (LP) president, former Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, as “chief of staff” in the Office of the President may only complicate the affairs of the administration rather than contribute to its output, especially if the continuing talks of so-called “factionalism” among supporters of Aquino are yet to be fully resolved, Sen. Edgardo Angara said yesterday.

Angara, himself a former executive secretary during the Estrada administration, said the continued existence of factions in the Executive could affect the decision-making of the President.

“And worse, it could also affect (decision-makings on) international relations,” he said..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110516hed1.html

Solon queries rush in MRT-LRT bid prior to forming of GOCC body By Angie M. Rosales 05/16/2011

Solon queries rush in MRT-LRT bid prior to forming of GOCC body

By Angie M. Rosales 05/16/2011

A Senate administration ally warned Malacañang anew against pursuing the planned privatization of two mass railway systems, saying the Executive may be perceived as engaging in a possible case of a “midnight deal.”
Sen. Ralph Recto yesterday urged the Palace to defer the bidding for the P15-billion management contract of the bundled Metro Rail Transit–Light Rail Transit (MRT-LRT) systems until Congress enacts the law setting up the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG).

The lawmaker said government should first have the yet to be convened commission review first the planned auction, among the powers of which is to scrutinize the operations of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) to determine if they should be abolished or privatized subject to the approval of the President..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110516hed2.html

Militants claim Noy carrier visit prelude to permanent US base By Mario J. Mallari 05/16/2011

Militants claim Noy carrier visit prelude to permanent US base

By Mario J. Mallari 05/16/2011

Militant groups are up in arms over the unscheduled visit of President Aquino and members of his staff to the US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, calling it a shameless display of US subservience and part of efforts to convince the government leadership to allow the reestablishment of a permanent military facility at Subic Bay.

Some call the carrier Osama bin Laden’s hearse as it carried the remains of the al-Qaeda leader before being thrown at sea.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) denounced Aquino’s visit to the carrier as a “shameless display of master-puppet relationship.” Aquino was flown by a US military aircraft to international waters for an unscheduled and unannounced rendezvous to board the USS Carl Vinson. The USS Carl Vinson is one of four carriers scheduled to dock at the Manila port for four days starting yesterday..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110516hed3.html

Noy allies get ‘pork’ ahead of others By Gerry Baldo 05/16/2011

Noy allies get ‘pork’ ahead of others

By Gerry Baldo 05/16/2011

Amid complaints that the release of the “pork” barrel funds have been delayed, a member of the majority bloc coalition yesterday accused Secretary Florencio Abad of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) of unduly prioritizing members of the Liberal Party (LP) in the release of the pork barrel funds.

According to San Juan Rep. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, the present Aquino administration is no different from the Arroyo administration in withholding the pork barrel of the political opposition.

“I understand the situation that those belonging to the ruling political party, Liberal Party, and their closest allies received their PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) earlier than most of us did especially since the DBM secretary also belongs to LP,” Ejercito said yesterday.

“However, I do not subscribe to the idea that the previous administration’s practice of vendetta and holding out the PDAF of opposing representatives are being continued by the present administration,” Ejercito added..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110516nat1.html

‘Bebeng’s damage to infra, agri products goes up over P1B 05/16/2011

‘Bebeng’s damage to infra, agri products goes up over P1B

05/16/2011
Damages to properties and agricultural crops left by tropical storm “Bebeng” has breached the P1 billion mark as the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) expressed belief that such amount could still go up as reports from affected areas started to come in.

Reports from the Camp Aguinaldo-based NDRRMC showed that as of 6 a.m. yesterday, a total of P1,370,404,821.61 in infrastructure and agricultural products were damaged after Bebeng battered six regions with heavy rains and strong winds last week..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110516nat3.html

BoC official denies charges against her By Mina Diaz 05/16/2011

BoC official denies charges against her

By Mina Diaz 05/16/2011

A Bureau of Customs official yesterday said the alleged graft charges filed against her before the Office of the Ombudsman were pure harassment to discredit her anti-smuggling campaign.

Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service chief Marissa Rae Galang denied she failed to declare her real property in the Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Networth (SALN) that included a townhouse in Quezon City acquired in 1993.

Galang claimed she acquired the property in 1993, eight years before she joined the bureau.
She also denied falsifying her daily time record in May 2007 when in fact she was in the Republic of Palau as evidenced by Asian Spirit’s Airline passenger manifest..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110516met4.html

House body pushes stiffer penalties for child abusers By Charlie V. Manalo 05/16/2011

House body pushes stiffer penalties for child abusers

By Charlie V. Manalo 05/16/2011

The House committee on the welfare of children has endorsed the swift approval of the proposed Anti-Corporal Punishment Act that imposes stiff penalties on the use of physical and humiliating punishment to discipline or control children.

Authored by Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy, House Bill 4455 was unanimously approved by the House panel as it issued a strong appeal to the House leadership to immediately calendar the proposal for second reading debates.

Herrera-Dy, committee vice chairman, said aside from promoting positive and non-violent methods of disciplining children, HB 4455 also provides the legal framework to the country’s commitment to a number of international commitments to protect the youth..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110516met1.html