Ensuring fraud and poll failure FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 03/07/2010

Ensuring fraud and poll failure FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 03/07/2010 For a body that claims it wants to conduct fraud-free, peaceful and orderly elections come May 10, 2010, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is certainly doing its best to ensure fraudulent and disorderly polls marked with violence, which is much too strange. The truth is, the Comelec had a lot of time to ensure honest and orderly polls — even under an automation system. It had even more time to cleanse that voters registration list of double, multiple, dead and other ineligible registrants, yet Comelec never did so, even when its officials certainly know that year after election year, more ghost voters are added to the voters’ list.   Even more strange is the fact that despite being shown glaring evidence of double, multiple and dead registrants on one city and province amounting to 40,000, and by its accredited watchdog yet, there went the Comelec officials, rejecting the idea of expunging these registrants from the list, saying they cannot exclude them, as they have no authority to do so, since it is the courts that have that authority to come up with exclusion proceedings — an excuse which is clearly a lot bull.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune ALTERNATE URL: http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20100307com2.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL Estrada finds momentum FRONTLINE Ensuring fraud and poll failure ENQUIRY ‘Gusto ko happy ka!’ BLURBAL THRUSTS No stink in Century Park deal ANALYSIS Rogue waves, towering terror on the high seas FEATURE Cyprus Maronites battle to preserve rare ancestral language VIEWPOINTS Assumptions for May 2010 polls

‘Gusto ko happy ka!’ ENQUIRY Demaree J. B. Raval 03/07/2010

‘Gusto ko happy ka!’ ENQUIRY Demaree J. B. Raval 03/07/2010 I must admit that when I first heard of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s new slogan, “Gusto ko happy ka!’ I asked myself how someone as brilliant and experienced as JPE could settle for something as unelaborate or unadorned — or tacky, according to some people who have grown accustomed to expect political slogans as a statement of egoism and self-deification. You know, the usual variations of “I am the greatest; I am the purest; I am the wisest.” Or like the “C’est moi” song in the musical Camelot where Lancelot beats his breast and boasts: I’m far too noble to lie. That man in whom These qualities bloom, C’fest moi, c’est moi, ‘tis I. I’ve never strayed from all I believe; I’m blessed with an iron will. Had I been made the partner of Eve, We’d be in Eden still. Having known him for a considerable length of time — including those when I was in and without the Senate, when I had observed him pluck an elaborate phrase out of thin air while thinking on his feet — I sort of expected something more profound to come from him. Until I heard him over the radio. In countless interviews, the Senate President took time to explain his thoughts behind this catch phrase that has become so popular that even overseas Filipinos or residents of remote towns in the Visayas have all become familiar with it... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune ALTERNATE URL: http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20100307com3.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL Estrada finds momentum FRONTLINE Ensuring fraud and poll failure ENQUIRY ‘Gusto ko happy ka!’ BLURBAL THRUSTS No stink in Century Park deal ANALYSIS Rogue waves, towering terror on the high seas FEATURE Cyprus Maronites battle to preserve rare ancestral language VIEWPOINTS Assumptions for May 2010 polls

No stink in Century Park deal BLURBAL THRUSTS Louie Logarta 03/07/2010

No stink in Century Park deal BLURBAL THRUSTS Louie Logarta 03/07/2010 At first glance, the graft charges filed recently before the Office of the Ombudsman against Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, Vice Mayor Isko Moreno as well as several other City Hall officials for the alleged questionable sale of the Century Park Hotel for a cool P1 billion to mega-tycoon Lucio Tan appear to be quite serious, since reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment is the prescribed punishment in the Revised Penal Code for those who may be found guilty of the crime of plunder (for amounts in excess of P50 million). According to the information, the impleaded officials had violated the law by selling the hotel and the 4.5-hectare property on which it stands for a measly P1 billion when it could have easily gone for P3 billion, meaning the city government had been shortchanged. The city councilors were included in the complaint for approving a resolution which allowed the Mayor’s Office to sell the disputed property to Maranaw Hotels and Restaurant Corp. owned by Tan.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune ALTERNATE URL: http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20100307com4.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL Estrada finds momentum FRONTLINE Ensuring fraud and poll failure ENQUIRY ‘Gusto ko happy ka!’ BLURBAL THRUSTS No stink in Century Park deal ANALYSIS Rogue waves, towering terror on the high seas FEATURE Cyprus Maronites battle to preserve rare ancestral language VIEWPOINTS Assumptions for May 2010 polls

Cyprus Maronites battle to preserve rare ancestral language FEATURE 03/07/2010

Cyprus Maronites battle to preserve rare ancestral language FEATURE 03/07/2010 NICOSIA — With his twice-weekly lessons, Elias Zonias is fighting to preserve the ancestral language of Cyprus’s dwindling Maronite community, described by experts as a “treasure” but now threatened with extinction by rapid demographic change. Every year the number of children at the island’s only Maronite school has been shrinking, he says, highlighting the difficulty of keeping alive his native tongue, a unique form of Arabic that is strongly influenced by the Aramaic spoken by Jesus and his followers. “I feel that I’m lucky because I’m part of a small group of people who speaks this language well,” says Zonias, 41, a cheerful father of three with a passion for photography.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune ALTERNATE URL: http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20100307com6.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL Estrada finds momentum FRONTLINE Ensuring fraud and poll failure ENQUIRY ‘Gusto ko happy ka!’ BLURBAL THRUSTS No stink in Century Park deal ANALYSIS Rogue waves, towering terror on the high seas FEATURE Cyprus Maronites battle to preserve rare ancestral language VIEWPOINTS Assumptions for May 2010 polls