Gloria Macapagal Arroyo RESIGN !

Gloria Forever!

2009-12-03T11:10:00.001+08:00

The following paragraphs are from my column of Sept. 22, 2009 titled Festung Gloria:

There is no truth to the rumor that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo tells me in advance what she is going to do.

But I have a pretty good batting average when it comes to predicting what she will do.
After she promised on December 30, 2002, practically on the grave of Jose Rizal, that she would not run in the 2004 presidential elections, I wrote in my column of May 22, 2003 titled She Will Run, that she would. And she did.

Long before anyone thought of the possibility that President Gloria would use Charter Change to remain in power through a shift to the parliamentary system, I wrote in my column of May 17, 2005 titled Prime Minister Gloria? that she would. And she did.

In mid 2006, her then loyal ally, House Speaker Jose de Venecia launched two simultaneous operations to shift to parliamentary. One was a People’s Initiative, led by De Venecia factotum Raul Lambino and his Sigaw ng Bangaw to gather six million signatures endorsing a shift to parliamentary.

The other was a shameless attempt, led by JdV himself, to convene the Lower House into a constituent assembly, without the participation of the oppositionist Senate, to railroad a shift to parliamentary. Both attempts were shot down by the Supreme Court.

But how does President Gloria segue from president to prime minister? In my column of October 03, 2007, titled Dominatrix (referring to Gloria’s hold on the timid and mousy Romulo Neri), I wrote:

“A model (for GMA) may soon emerge in, of all places, Russia.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin was first elected in May 2000 from a field of ten candidates, with the support of the outgoing president, the late Boris Yeltsin. In March 2004, Putin was re-elected president with an astounding 71% of the votes. His presidential term ends in March 2008 and he is barred by the Russian Constitution from running for a third term.

“But – surprise! surprise! – he announced last Monday, Oct. 01, that he will run for a seat in the Russian parliament in the coming parliamentary elections on December 2, and that, as head of the ruling United Russia party, he had a ‘realistic’ chance of becoming prime minister……”

So as early as October 2007, I predicted that President Arroyo will follow the Putin Formula and run for a seat in Congress in May 2010 while she is still the sitting President.”

End of excerpts from my article Festung Gloria.

Now that President Arroyo has filed her certificate of candidacy for congresswoman of the second district of Pampanga, my predictions about her moves have come to pass with alarming - even to myself - accuracy.

Yes, there will be presidential elections in May 2010. No, she will not have her presidential term extended. But yes, she will run for – and win - a seat in Congress while she is the sitting president, like Vladimir Putin in Russia. But in practical terms how does she transit from president to prime minister?

There are two possible scenarios.

Scenario One. The elections in May 2010 will be the first ever computerized elections nationwide and there are just too many things that can go wrong. The more than 150,000 schoolteachers who will operate the system are totally unfamiliar with it. Many of them have never seen or operated a computer in their lives. Is there enough time to familiarize them with it? The system needs 80,000 technicians, one for each cluster of precincts. Do we have 80,000 computer technicians? The machines will not be ready until January 2010, at the earliest. Would there be enough time to train the 80,000 computer technicians in time for the May elections?

Many towns (and their voting precincts) do not have electricity or telephone connections. Even if the computerized counting machines were equipped with back-up batteries that will last supposedly for 18 hours, that may not be sufficient for remote communities that take hours to reach by foot, banca and/or carabao.

Keep in mind that there will be about 300 candidates’ names on the ballot. How long will it take each voter to go through such a long ballot? Is there enough time for 200 voters per precinct to go through 300 names, before the batteries go dead? This will not be like India where voters vote by party, and the parties’ easily recognizable symbols are what voters mark. Here voters choose individuals who most likely do not belong to the same party. Our electoral laws allow even our presidential and vice-presidential choices to come from different parties.

There are just too many things that can go wrong, or be made to go wrong, and likely will. That is Murphy’s Law, and it is in the Philippines, more than in any other country outside Black Africa and Haiti, where everything that can go wrong invariably does.

There is a strong possibility, therefore, that even if we do hold computerized elections in May 2010 and even if we assume good intentions on the part of the Comelec factotums and the schoolteachers, we would likely have chaos, real and/or manufactured, on May 10 that will result in a failure of elections.

This is especially true for the national offices at stake – president, vice-president, senator – because of the sheer volume of voters expected, 40+ million.. Even a ten percent failure rate would render the exercise a total failure that cannot be resolved by a back-up manual count because of the sheer number of voters and the geographical spread involved.

The situation is not so dire in the local offices at stake – congressman, governor, vice-governor, mayor, vice-mayor etc - in which a ten percent failure rate can be swiftly resolved by a back-up manual count, confined as it would be to small areas and their small local populations.

If because of even only a ten percent failure rate, there is no proclamation of a new president, a new vice-president, and 12 new senators by June 30, 2010, we will have no new government in place and we will have a constitutional crisis.

Section 7, Article VII of the Constitution says “Where no President and Vice-President shall have been chosen or shall have qualified, or where both shall have died or become permanently disabled, the President of the Senate or, in case of his inability, the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall act as President until a President or a Vice-President shall have been chosen and qualified.”.

In a failure of election scenario sketched above, there is no President or Vice-President proclaimed on June 30. There will also be no Senate President. The incumbent Senate President, Juan Ponce Enrile, is in office only up to June 30. He is running for re-election on May 10, but if there is failure of elections for national offices, no new Senate President will be chosen either because there will be no new Senate.

That leaves the Speaker of the House of Representatives as next in the line of succession, and I give you one guess as to who that Speaker is going to be. .

Scenario Two. If there is civil unrest and/or an insurrectionary situation before, during or immediately after the May 10 exercise, because of expectations of or the reality of failure of elections, then this would be a perfect justification for National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales’ transition revolutionary government to kick in.

On at least two public occasions, Gonzales floated this scenario in which a revolutionary government, with the approval and participation of key sectors of society – the Churches, the military, civil society, the business community etc – would take over the reins of government, with the active presence and participation of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and with the likely help of PMA Class of 1978, of which she is an honorary member.

Many Palace insiders, including Executive Secretary Eduardo Ertmita, feigned ignorance of and disdain for the Gonzales scenario. But the fact that President Arroyo appointed Gonzales acting defense secretary when Gilbert Teodoro resigned the post to run for the presidency, shows that Gloria implicitly approves of it. And why not?

Whether via Scenario One (constitutional) or Scenario Two (extra-constitutional), Gloria would remain in power beyond June 30, 2010. One of the first acts that House Speaker or Revolutionary President Gloria will predictably push will be to convene a constituent assembly (ConAss) – remember there will be no Senate in both scenarios – to shift to parliamentary so that she becomes Prime Minister, who holds that office as long as her party retains majority of seats in parliament.

In the Philippine context, that means she would likely be Prime Minister for Life. Gloria Forever!!! *****

Con-Ass List of Signatories [mga di dapat suportahan sa 2010]

2009-11-22T14:24:00.001+08:00

list of the bastards Honorable Kamara De Representantes of the Philippines signed a House Resolution No. 1109 aka Constituent Assembly. sino bang makakatangi sa offer na 20M sa isang perma lang!???

National Capital Region
- Vincent P. Crisologo, Quezon City
- Matias V. Defensor, Jr., Quezon City
- Mary Ann L. Susano, Quezon City
- Nanette Castelo-Daza, Quezon City
- Bienvenido M. Abante Jr., Manila
- Jaime C. Lopez, Manila
- Maria Zenaida B. Angping, Manila
- Maria Theresa B. David, Manila
- Amado S. Bagatsing, Manila
- Daniel R. De Guzman, Marikina City
- Marcelino R. Teodoro, Marikina City
- Eduardo C. Zialcita, Parañaque City
- Henry M. Dueñas, Jr., Taguig
- Alvin S. Sandoval, Malabon City-Navotas City
- Jose Antonio F. Roxas, Pasay City
- Oscar G. Malapitan, Caloocan City
- Mary Mitzi L. Cajayon, Caloocan City
- Roman T. Romulo, Pasig City
- Rexlon T. Gatchalian, Valenzuela City
- Magtanggol T. Gunigundo I, Valenzuela City

Cordillera Administrative Region
- Manuel S. Agyao, Kalinga
- Elias C. Bulut, Jr., Apayao
- Mauricio G. Domogan, Baguio City
- Samuel M. Dangwa, Benguet
- Solomon R. Chungalao, Ifugao

Ilocos Region
- Thomas M. Dumpit Jr., La Union
- Victor Franciso C. Ortega, La Union
- Arthur F. Celeste, Pangasinan
- Conrado M. Estrella III, Pangasinan
- Marcos O. Cojuangco, Pangasinan
- Victor F. Agbayani, Pangasinan
- Ma. Rachel J. Arenas, Pangasinan
- Eric D. Singson, Ilocos Sur
- Ronald V. Singson, Ilocos Sur
- Roque R. Ablan, Jr., Ilocos Norte
- Cecilia S. Luna, Abra

Cagayan Valley
- Florencio L. Vargas, Cagayan
- Manuel N. Mamba, Cagayan
- Junie E. Qua, Quirino
- Carlo Oliver D. Diasnes, Batanes
- Rodolfo T. Albano, Isabela
- Edwin C. Uy, Isabela

Central Luzon
- Jose V. Yap, Tarlac
- Jeci A. Lapus, Tarlac
- Monica Louise Prieto-Teodoro, Tarlac
- Lorna C. Silverio, Bulacan
- Pedro M. Pancho, Bulacan
- Reylina G. Nicolas, Bulacan
- Ma. Victoria Sy-Alvarado, Bulacan
- Arturo C. Robes, San Jose del Monte City
- Albert C. Garcia, Bataan
- Herminia B. Roman, Bataan
- Joseph Gilbert F. Violago, Nueva Ecija
- Ma. Milagros H. Magsaysay, Zambales
- Antonio M. Diaz, Zambales
- Aurelio D. Gonzales, Jr., Pampanga
- Juan Miguel M. Arroyo, Pampanga
- Anna York P. Bondoc, Pampanga
- Carmelo F. Lazatin, Pampanga

CALABARZON
- Danilo E. Suarez, Quezon
- Wilfrido Mark C. Enverga, Quezon
- Michael John R. Duavit, Rizal
- Adeline Rodriguez-Zaldarriaga, Rizal
- Angelito C. Gatlabayan, Antipolo City
- Roberto V. Puno, Antipolo City
- Eileen Ermita-Buhain, Batangas
- Mark Llandro L. Mendoza, Batangas
- Victoria H. Reyes, Batangas
- Jesus Crispin C. Remulla, Cavite
- Elpidio F. Barzaga, Jr., Cavite
- Maria Evita R. Arago, Laguna
- Edgar S. San Luis, Laguna

MIMAROPA
- Antonio C. Alvarez, Palawan
- Carmencita O. Reyes, Marinduque
- Eleandro Jesus F. Madrona, Romblon
- Ma. Amelita C. Villarosa, Occidental Mindoro
- Rodolfo G. Valencia, Oriental Mindoro

Bicol Region
- Rizalina Seachon-Lanete, Masbate
- Narciso R. Bravo, Jr., Masbate
- Antonio T. Kho, Masbate
- Al Francis C. Bichara, Albay
- Reno G. Lim, Albay
- Luis R. Villafuerte, Camarines Sur
- Felix R. Alfelor, Jr., Camarines Sur
- Diosdado Ignacio Jose Maria Macapagal-Arroyo, Camarines Sur
- Joseph A. Santiago, Catanduanes
- Jose G. Solis, Sorsogon

Western Visayas
- Florencio T. Miraflores, Aklan
- Genaro M. Alvarez, Jr., Negros Occidental
- Jeffrey P. Ferrer, Negros Occidental
- Ignacio T. Arroyo, Jr., Negros Occidental
- Jose Carlos V. Lacson, Negros Occidental
- Alfredo D. Marañon III, Negros Occidental
- Raul T. Gonzalez, Jr., Iloilo City
- Niel C. Tupas, Jr., Iloilo
- Ferjenel G. Biron, Iloilo
- Arthur Defensor, Sr., Iloilo
- Judy J. Syjuco, Iloilo
- Janette L. Garin, Iloilo
- Joaquin Carlos Rahman A. Nava, Guimaras
- Fredenil H. Castro, Capiz

Central Visayas
- Roberto C. Cajes, Bohol
- Edgardo M. Chatto, Bohol
- Pryde Henry A. Teves, Negros Oriental
- Pablo P. Garcia, Cebu
- Pablo John F. Garcia, Cebu
- Ramon H. Durano VI, Cebu
- Nerissa Corazon Soon-Ruiz, Cebu
- Benhur L. Salimbangon, Cebu
- Eduardo R. Gullas, Cebu
- Antonio V. Cuenco, Cebu City
- Raul V. Del Mar, Cebu City

Eastern Visayas
- Roger G. Mercado, Southern Leyte
- Eufrocino M. Codilla, Sr., Leyte
- Carmen L. Cari, Leyte
- Andres D. Salvacion Jr., Leyte
- Trinidad G. Apostol, Leyte
- Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, Leyte
- Reynaldo S. Uy, Samar
- Sharee Ann T. Tan, Samar
- Teodolo M. Coquilla, Eastern Samar
- Paul R. Daza, Northern Samar
- Emil L. Ong, Northern Samar
- Glenn A. Chong, Biliran

Zamboanga Peninsula
- Rosendo S. Labadlabad, Zamboanga del Norte
- Cecilia G. Jalosjos-Carreon, Zamboanga del Norte
- Cesar G. Jalosjos, Zamboanga del Norte
- Victor J. Yu, Zamboanga del Sur
- Antonio H. Cerilles, Zamboanga del Sur
- Dulce Ann K. Hofer, Zamboanga Sibugay

Northern Mindanao
- Vicente F. Belmonte, Jr., Lanao del Norte
- Abdullah D. Dimaporo, Lanao del Norte
- Rolando A. Uy, Cagayan de Oro City
- Marina P. Clarete, Misamis Occidental
- Herminia M. Ramiro, Misamis Occidental
- Yevgeny Vicente B. Emano, Misamis Oriental
- Pedro P. Romualdo, Camiguin
- Candido P. Pancrudo Jr., Bukidnon

Davao Region
- Franklin P. Bautista, Davao del Sur
- Marc Douglas C. Cagas IV, Davao del Sur
- Arrel R. Olaño, Davao del Norte
- Antonio F. Lagdameo, Jr., Davao del Norte
- Isidro T. Ungab, Davao City
- Vincent J. Garcia, Davao City
- Prospero Nograles, Davao City
- Thelma Z. Almario, Davao Oriental
- Nelson L. Dayanghirang, Davao Oriental
- Rommel C. Amatong, Compostela Valley
- Manuel E. Zamora, Compostela Valley

SOCCSKSARGEN
- Datu Pax S. Mangudadatu, Sultan Kudarat
- Arnulfo F. Go, Sultan Kudarat
- Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, Cotabato
- Bernardo F. Piñol, Jr., Cotabato

CARAGA Region
- Glenda B. Ecleo, Dinagat Islands
- Philip A. Pichay, Surigao del Sur
- Florencio C. Garay, Surigao del Sur
- Francisco T. Matugas, Surigao del Norte
- Guillermo A. Romarate, Jr., Surigao del Norte
- Edelmiro A. Amante, Agusan del Norte
- Jose S. Aquino II, Agusan del Norte

Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
- Pangalian M. Balindong, Lanao del Sur
- Faysah Omaira M. Dumarpa, Lanao del Sur
- Yusop H. Jikiri, Sulu
- Munir M. Arbison, Sulu
- Simeon Datumanong, Maguindanao
- Nur G. Jaafar, Tawi-Tawi

Party- Lists
- Narciso D. Santiago III, Alliance for Rural Concerns
- Edgar L. Valdez, Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives
- Ernesto C. Pablo, Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives
- Robert Raymund M. Estrella, Abono
- Nicanor M. Briones, Agricultural Sector Alliance of the Philippines, Inc.

DSWD DO NOT DELAY!

2009-10-23T21:33:00.002+08:00

Dear friends,

I’m asking your help to spread the word. Tulungan po ninyo akong ikalat ito. Beyond this, we should also demand action. I disabled a plugin so you can copy the photos of relief goods rotting in DSWD warehouses. You can link this post to your blogs, facebook, websites etc. You can also email the photos.
Philippine News (US based Philippine newspaper) will use this as its front page story this week. Every Filipino has the right to know where the tons of donations from the UN and other counties go. Kahit po nakakahiya sa mga nag-donate. Kung sa ganitong paraan, matutulungan natin ang mga nasalanta, then by all means, let’s do it.
For those who have the time, please try to volunteer sa DSWD warehouses. Getting in was not easy. A friend had to put in a word for us. Let’s see kung madali nang makapasok sa DSWD warehouse ang mga volunteers.
Please read on and good luck to us.

Ella

(This post was last edited Oct 22, 12:30 pm)

Kahapon, tinanong ng Philippine News si DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral:

Editor of Philippine News: Why are the relief goods in DSWD warehouses not moving?
DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral: Wala kasing volunteers.

This short interview was done over the phone. Philippine News wanted to hear her side pero ayaw niyang makipag-usap sa press. After four tries, pinasabi na lang niya ang maikling sagot na ito sa secretary niya - “Walang volunteers”.
I don’t want to accuse her of corruption but at the very least she is showing signs of being totally incompetent. We are in a state of calamity where every second counts. May namamatay araw-araw dahil sa sakit.
In my opinion, these deaths could have been prevented if Secretary Cabral had tried a little harder to do her job.

DON'T FORGET TO CLICK HERE

Deaths from Philippine storms nears 1,000

“Tropical Storm Ketsana left 420 dead and 37 missing when it flooded 80 percent of Manila on September 26, a disaster the government said affected 4.35 million people.
Some areas are still flooded three weeks later and 189,000 people remain in evacuation centres,
Typhoon Parma hit the northern Philippines on October 3 and lingered as a tropical storm for a week, triggering landslides that killed 438 people and leaving 51 missing mostly in mountain communities.
The government agency said Parma affected 4.16 million people, including more than 32,000 who remain at evacuation centres.”

• • •

During the first week after the storm, lumabas ang “bayanihan spirit” ng mga Pinoy.
“Makatulong lang kahi’t konti,” katwiran nila.
Kung walang volunteers, ano ‘to, komiks?

From Stella Arnaldo’s blog:

“At the offices of many civic groups and private organizations, hundreds of people showed up to volunteer in packing relief goods.
At the Tulong Bayan center at the Expo Centro in Cubao, Most of the volunteers were adolescents as young as 10 years old, along with their kuya or ate in high school and college.
They came in huge numbers, many of them barkadas, classmates or siblings, dressed just in their tees and shorts, wearing their Havaianas. All were just enthusiastic to do their share!

Photos by Leah Navarro

Even grade school kids pitched in to help!

Youth volunteers repack detergents for distribution

Making beds from carton boxes

GMA asked world for donations

Our government begged the world for more donations. Sumagot ang buong mundo sa ating panawagan. In less than three weeks, dumaong ang mga barko, ibinaba mula sa mga cargo planes, i-diniliver ng mga trak at container vans ang sandamakmak na relief goods. Cash donations were in the millions of dollars.
But these donations must be coursed through DSWD.
Nagpalabas ng directive ang pangulo. Individuals, private companies and other nations were ENCOURAGED to send their donations to DSWD. I blogged about it here and the video of her announcement here.
This PGMA directive sounded suspicious to me then. Now I know why. Here’s the story.
A group of eight people, your ate Ella included, went to one of DSWD warehouses to help in repacking relief goods. We know they need volunteers pero hindi namin akalaing WALANG TAO TALAGA SA LOOB NG WAREHOUSE!
As in sa isang humongous warehouse (1000++ sq.m) NA PUNONG-PUNO NG RELIEF GOODS HANGGANG BUBONG, ISANG DSWD employee lang at ISANG SECURITY GUARD ang tao!!

Kailangang magpa-register at i-schedule ang volunteering

UNICEF Registration (as a volunteer)
The warehouse can only take as much as 50 volunteers at a time or per shift. Here you will find that there is a 4-hour shift, and an option for a 6-hour shift for the volunteers to indicate their availability.

What “volunteers”? Nasaan?
Aside from the 8 of us? Nope, there was nobody there. Bakit kailangan ang scheduling? Feeling hindi ba magkamayaw at nagu-unahan ang mga volunteers?
I know somebody who wanted to volunteer many times. She was always bumped off, laging nirere-schedule kasi “there were too many volunteers” daw. At tuwing Sunday lang daw puwede. What the hell is going on here?
Nakatambak ang donations ng UNICEF sa warehouse, local and international
Mga banig na dapat ay nahihigaan ng mga nasalanta. Mga imported camp beds na hindi na yata masisilayan ng mga biktima. Mga kumot na hindi naman nakabalot sa katawan nila. At mga pagkaing hindi sumasayad sa sikmura nila.
The relief goods are not going anywhere
We arrived at about 8 am and left by midafternoon and yes, you guessed it right. Kami pa rin ang tao bukod sa isang DSWD employee sa loob ng warehouse maghapon. Walang ibang dumating.
The relief goods are not moving. By the way things look, they are not going anywhere. Hindi maglalakad mag-isa ang mga donations na ito papunta sa mga evacuation centers.

LET THE PICTURES DO THE TALKING

Note: Pinagbawalan kaming kumuha ng pictures sa loob ng warehouse. I wonder why.

“Not a creature was moving, not even a mouse.”

Parang haunted warehouse ang dating. May multo na yata.

Kahit na daig pa ang tindahan sa Divisoria sa dami ng naka-stack na kaldero

At walang katapusang kaldero pa ulit

Kahit halos natakpan na ang mga bintana sa dami ng mga kahon

Kahit umabot na hanggang kisame ang stack ng mga kahon

(Close up ng Coleman camp beds sa previous photo) Hindi ito kasama sa ni-repack naming goods. Para sa mga “special victims” kaya ito? Ire-repack kaya ang mga “imported” camp pads na ito ever?

Sabagay, may BANIG naman para sa “ordinary victims”. Ito ang kasama sa inimpake namin. Sayang ‘yung imported.

Ano kaya ang laman nito? Hindi rin pinabuksan. Pang-special victim din kaya ito? (teka, dito nga pala galing ‘yung mga kumot)

Mahiwagang mga kahon from Japan Aid.

(close up ng mahiwagang kahon) Hindi rin ito kasali, of course. Hindi namin alam kung ano ang laman nito. “Imported” are not included, we have concluded.

Marami ito, mga laruang kasinlaki ng tao. Hindi nakunan ng pic kasi nasa tabi ng sikyo.

PORK AND BEANS? Yup, you’d think kasama ito sa relief bag. Pork and beans lang ‘to, puwede na sigurong ipamigay,

Naaah! “Imported” pork and beans from Spain po ito. Sorry, hindi pa rin included

Now let’s take a look at what a victim will get from DSWD

Look Ma, sampung lata ng sardinas! How generous! Kaldero ang unang ilalagay sa sako. Sabong panglaba (bar soap) at sampung sardinas sa ilalim. Siyam na sabon sa gilid ng kaldero. Local goods lahat syempre.

Tapos papatungan ng isang tuwalya at isang pack ng sanitary napkin.

Sisiksikan ng tatlong rolyo ng kumot(?) ang blue water jug tapos ipapatong sa kaldero sa loob ng sako.

Last but not the least, lalagyan ng dalawang banig.

Sabay tatahiin na ang sako. O di ba, parang asong tinapunan ng buto ang mga nasalanta? Eniwey, busog naman sila sa SAMPUNG lata ng Mega sardinas

YOU THINK?? WTF is the matter with these people? Mag-iisang buwan na mula nang masalanta ang mga kababayan natin. ISANG BUWAN!! Do you mean “do not delay ang dati nang delayed”?? Shet.

Anong ginagawa ng mga donations na ito sa warehouse?? APAT na warehouse ang nasa loob ng compound na ‘yon! APAT na warehouse na punong-puno ng inaalikabok na relief goods! Relief goods na ayaw yata ibigay sa mga nasalanta. Halatang-halata.

Marami pang pabubulukin

Wow! May bagong shipment na naman! At the rate DSWD is moving, next year na madi-discover kung ano ang laman ng mga kahong ito.

“The first of two of the largest high-energy food shipments from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) arrived in the country two days ago for victims of storm “Ondoy” and typhoon “Pepeng.”
The biscuits were fortified with essential vitamins and minerals for supplementary feeding to children, pregnant women and the elderly in evacuation camps. Another 100 tons of biscuits will arrive on Oct. 24, in a continuing effort to provide food assistance to flood victims.
Sige, ideretso ‘nyo ulit ‘yan sa DSWD warehouse. Para AMAG naman ang abutin ng biskwit… at sapot ng gagamba.

Conclusion

Sa maghapon namin sa warehouse,nakagawa kami ng 150 sacks of relief goods. 150 bags of relief goods lang ang lumabas sa warehouse na ‘yon that day. At nandoon pa rin sa loob ang mga imported relief goods, safe, sound and packed as the day they arrived.
Nakisakay kami palabas sa isang DSWD delivery van. Gusto sana kaming ihatid ng driver hanggang Makati pero wala raw siyang sobrang gasolina. Ibinaba na lang niya kami sa gitna ng EDSA. Millions of dollars in donations, walang extrang pang-gasolina.
Susulpot din siguro ang laman ng mga mahiwagang kahon at mapapasakamay din ng mga tao…sa ARAW NG ELEKSYON. O mabibili na nila ang mga imported goods na ‘yon sa mga puwesto sa Quiapo at Divisoria.

Suggestions lang po sa DSWD:

• Alam ‘nyo palang walang mag-volunteer sa inyo, bakit hindi kayo mag-hire ng mga tao? Bayaran ‘nyo ng arawan para mag-repack. Ang daming walang trabaho, makakatulong pa kayo. Hindi naman malaking kabawasan ‘yon sa bilyong pisong donasyon na natanggap ninyo.

• Isa pa, gaano ba karami ang mga sundalo natin? Hindi ba puwedeng ipagawa sa kanila ‘yan? Baka isang araw lang, tapos na ang problema ‘nyo

• Bakit hindi ‘nyo ibigay ang trabaho sa mga NGO, churches, private charities, TV stations? I’m sure they are more than willing to help. Time is of the essence. Huwag kayong suwapang. Obvious ba, hindi ‘nyo naman kaya.

Kung talagang gugustuhin ninyong makarating agad sa mga kawawang biktima ang mga donasyong ‘yon, nagawa ‘nyo na ‘yan. Maraming paraan…kung talagang gusto ‘nyo lang.
You are the government. You have the power, the resources and the money. You just have to really care.

STATEMENT of Young Artists on PGMA’s Order of National Artists Selection Anomaly

2009-08-24T11:50:00.001+08:00

We, young artists and cultural workers condemn the manipulation of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime in the selection of this year’s Order of National Artists and hold her accountable for abuse of power and victimizing the Filipino people in a psychological “all-out war”.

Ms. Arroyo’s July 6 presidential proclamation on her engineered list and announced in July 29 through its Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita is a sham that the youth would rather not easily forgive and forget especially that the national culture and arts is at stake...

Herself beset by anomalies as Executive Director of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and as Presidential Adviser on Culture, Cecille Guidote-Alvarez made it to the Order alongside three other names while Music scholar Dr. Ramon Santos was deleted from the original list of the Council of Experts composed of, as mandated by law, the Board of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the NCCA and National Artists.

Alvarez is popular in the arts community for malpractices, favoritism, questionable dissemination of public fund, the controversy on the illegal transfer of P2.5 billion National Endowment Fund for Culture and the premature appointment of then DepEd Underseceretary Vilma Labrador who is now the NCCA Chair and stunt defender of Ms. Alvarez’s designation in the Order. It was also in Ms. Alvarez’s term that during the 2005 National Cultural Summit with the theme “Breaking the Cycle of Corruption, Poverty, Pollution and Violence that progressive artists were harassed and barred from staging a lightning performance depicting the pressing issues of the country, such as corruption.

Contrary to Ms. Alvarez’s alibi that her National Artist designation is not a political gift from GMA, Malacañang’s shameless move is of the obvious, both a political and a gift in the name of public fame and funds.

The Order of National Artists is set as the highest national recognition given to Filipinos who have made significant contributions to the development of Philippine arts and a National Artist is granted a sum of P100,000 upon awarding, a monthly stipend of P24,000, medical support, a P1-million project grant for a year and privileged burial at Libingan ng mga Bayani.

In exchange for the gift, it is possible that the monetary grant would be channeled to cultural outputs that may only serve the interests of an already isolated and unpopular GMA regime in desperate moves to stay in power and escape accountability to her corruption issues, among others.

It must be noted that in the exposé of the Arroyo’s anti-insurgency program called Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL), psychological war materials proliferated in the form of komiks, powerpoint presentations, stage performances, video flash, commercial tv ads and full length film in a form of teleserye where one untitled series was a direct attack to workers striving to live in a state of unemployment, contractualization and labor exploits and the other series titled, “Ligaw na Pangarap” aimed to harass students who chose to be critical and vigilant in a time of worsening commercialized education. The number of victims of human rights violation and enforced disappearances rose to alarming figures since OBL was implemented in 2002.

The Filipino people don’t need a leader like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and a national artist like Cecille Guidote-Alavarez, who no matter how much foundation they apply on their face offcam, no matter how ironed their scripts are, no matter how spectacular their visual and human exhibits are, they cannot deceive sensible and thinking artists. We call to disregard the conferment of Arroyo’s picks in the Order of National Artist, an investigation to the “honors committee” that the Malacañang claims to nominate Alvarez and a culture of respect to a democratic process to the recognition.

The Arroyo regime and her tandem in culture of corruption, Ms. Alvarez, seem to underrate the collective power of the cultural sector, who, with the solidarity of the majority basic sectors, have championed in history struggles such as the defense of freedom of expression and civil liberties. Temporal was our Black Friday grief of the Death of the National Artist Awards as we remain in staging protest art, productions and actions for democratic cause. Arroyo’s recklessness is her own demise in power.

SINAGBAYAN is Sining na Naglilingkod sa Bayan, an organization of young writers, enthusiasts in various art disciplines and cultural workers committed to serve the arts for the education and organization of basic sectors. It has been in the forefront of advocating a nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented arts and culture since the turn of the millennium.

Rep. Mikey Arroyo, President Obama ate in a hamburger joint at turo-turo oh, kaya ba ng nyo ba yan ha!?

2009-08-21T00:54:00.005+08:00

For US President Barack Obama, eating in a hamburger joint DOES NOT AT ALL disrespect the presidency.

But President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's son, Congressman Mikey, said it would. In fact, he said, “You want your president to eat in McDonalds or some turo-turo (food stand)? I think there's more dignity in having your president and her cabinet members and members of the Lower House to eat in a decent restaurant.”

see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng7spMHEolE

Who is right, do you think? The leader of the mightiest nation on earth? Or the son of an accidental third world president?

Early this year on January 10, 2009, Mr Obama ate at Ben's Chili Bowl in Washington DC, the kind of joint that Congressman Mikey sneers at. Mr Obama was accompanied by the DC mayor.

MORE HERE >> http://raissarobles.blogspot.com

The Filipino is worth DINING for

2009-08-11T10:19:00.002+08:00

ARROYO ONE TIME DINNER WORTH 1 MILLION PESOS. WTF!!!!

2009-08-09T20:31:00.006+08:00

yung ginamit lang naman dito eh TAX ng sambayang pilipino, mahirap man o mayaman tax nating lahat to. ang lufet noh, parang EB ng mga demonyo.

Bakit kung tignan mo yung administrative cases nung lawyers eh barya lang naman yan.. P40,000, P30,000, P20,000. eh yung iba nga diyan sila gloria and FG ang lalaki nang pera na paguusapan, bakit sina First Gentleman Arroyo who is a lawyer at yun si Justice Sabio bakit sila hindi pinanagot, kahit nasa millions yung atraso nila...

INTERES nga ba ng kararamihan ang mahalaga?

2009-07-26T12:39:00.000+08:00

bakit kaya. kapag ang Executive Order or E.O na magtatakip para katotohanan at para sa PANSARILING INTERES gaya ng E.O 464 eh permado agad ni gloria wala pang 24hrs. PERO kapag ang Executive Order or E.O na magbibigay para maibaba ang mga presyo ng gamot INTERES NG KARARAMIHAN eh patay na yung may sakit hirap na hirap paring permahan ni gloria, parang lumalabas na kontrolado ng mga pharmaceutical company ang galaw ng gloria, hindi po ba mas magandang isabatas nalang yan para magkaron ng permanenteng solusyon at wag yung discount lang ang ibigay na panandalian lang.

Cha-CHa Ibasura... Trapo isuka...!

2009-06-16T14:54:00.003+08:00

Lagpas isang dekada na ang pamamayapag ng mga eletista sa halalang sa simula pa lang ay kontrolado na nila... kaya't hindi nakapagtataka na iilang pamilyang eletista lamang ang humahawak sa poder ng kapangyarihan sa ating Bansa mula sa Lokal na Pamahalaan sa mga Probinsya hanggang sa Palasyo ng Malakanyang... samahan mo pa ng mga oligarkiyang takam na takam rin sa kapangyarihan at mga pribelehiyong kapalit ng kanilang pagsuporta sa mga politiko...

Panahon na ulit ng Halalang Eletista... mapula na ang kanilang mga hasang... lahat ng panloloko sa mga botante ay ginagawa na nila upang sila ay muling magpakilala... handa na uli silang magtunggalian upang pag-agawan ang poder ng kapangyarihan na tanging layunin lamang ay maprotektahan ang kanilang mga pansariling interes...

Ano ba ang aasahan ni Juan Dela Cruz sa sarsuela ng mga eletistang ito... tuwing may halalan ay ganito na ang eksenang bumubulaga sa ating mga Filipino... sa aking palagay ay hindi sa ganitong uri ng halalan giginhawa ang buhay ng mga Mang Pandoy ng ating Lipunan... nasubukan na natin ito ng ilang beses at wala namang nabago...

Sa Eletistang Halalan ang tanging nagagawa pa lang natin ay ang palitan ang mukha ng namumuno... ngunit parehong pangalan parin... mula sa parehong angkan... parehong dugo... parehong uring eletista parin... sa maikling salita ay pinalitan natin ang isang Eletista ng isa pang Eletista... ang isang Trapo ng isa ring Trapo... may mababago ba sa ganitong paulit-ulit na pangyayari... wala... ginagago na lang tayo ng Trapo at Eletistang Sistemang ito...

Lahat sila ay Trapo... kahit ang Oposisyon na naghahangad na pumalit kay Gloria ay mga Trapo rin... bistado sila sa kanilang pamamaraan ng pamumulitika... lahat sila ay gumagamit ng pera... baril... bayarang sanggano... at mga gimik na "feeling artista"... at sino man ang makipag-alyansa sa mga Trapo ay siguradong Trapo rin... kahit na baguhang kandidato ngunit gumagamit ng pamamaraan ng isang Trapo ay Trapo rin... kahit pa isa kang progresibo kung ang gawi mo ay gawain ng isang Trapo ikaw ay kabilang na rin sa mga Trapo... "birds of the same feather cheat, terrorize, rule, and steal together!"

Ngunit wala na ba talagang pag-asa... nangangahulugan ba na titigil na tayo sa paggamit ng ating karapatang mamili ng ating mga pinuno... makokontento na lang ba tayo sa pagiging "matatalinong botante"... payag ka na bang mamili ng lang ng isang "lesser evil" mula sa mga "evil" na kandidato... tira-tira lang ba ang pwede nating makuha sa halalang ito... ano ba ang tingin natin sa ating mga sarili... daig pa tayo ng mga aso... ang ating mga alagang aso ay hindi pwede ang tira-tira... tayo payag na tira-tira na lang ang pagpipilian...

Panahon na upang lumaban... panahon na upang ibagsak ang trapong paghahari... panahon na upang wakasan ang kanilang pamamayagpag... at ang ating gagamiting sandata ay ang mismong Halalang kanilang nilikha... ipatitikim natin sa kanila ang pait ng pagkatalo... ipamamalas natin sa kanila ang tunay na lakas ng masa... ipakikita natin ang ating kakayanang makapagluklok ng mga kandidatong magsusulong ng tunay na pagbabago... ng isang sistemang may pagmamalasakit sa uring manggagawa...

Sabi nga ng iba... Kaya Natin ito!... kung nais natin ng pagbabago ay dapat na itong simulan ngayon pa lang... labanan natin ang mga Trapo... tayo ang humanap ng ating mga kandidato... tapusin na natin ang pananahimik... nasimulan na natin sa pamamagitan ng pagkundina sa Con-Ass at Cha-Cha... ituloy natin ang laban... iangat natin ang ating panawagan... ang Con-Ass at Cha-Cha ay bunga lamang ng Eletista at Trapong Sistema... itong sistema na ito ang ating dapat buwagin...

Huwag Iboto ang mga Trapo at Eletista!
Ang Anti Trapo Movement ating ikasa na!
Ngayon ang panahon upang tayo ay magkaisa!
Isulong Rebolusyon ng Masa hindi Cha-Cha!

http://sakay2007.multiply.com

50 cents Text to others promo

2008-07-29T18:42:00.000+08:00

For those who was not able to see, hear or read the SONA yesterday, the President said that she was able to convince the telcos to cut inter-sms or text messaging rates by half. That means from P1.00.. its now down to just 0.50 cents.

Let’s take a closer look at this. Its a “PROMO”. Meaning it’s not a permanent thing yet.

Here’s SMART’s promo about it.

Smart released an info about their “text to others” promo on major broadsheets yesterday… the day of the SONA.

You need to register to avail of this promo. to do that, type: TO20 then send to 2827.

Meanwhile, if you are a Globe or Touch Mobile Subscriber, you will also need to register. Text TO<space>20 and send to 2868.

For both networks, you have to maintain 21.00 balance before you register. After registering, P20.00 will be slashed from your load. You then have to maintain P1.00 for you to still be able to avail of the promo. Once you are registered, you will now have 40 sms credits for you to be able to use to send text messages to other networks. And it will be valid for 1 day only (24 hours).

Just a reminder, 1 sms mesage means 150 characters.

After you consume all the 40 sms credits, any message sent to other networks after that will be charged with the regular rate of P1.00 per sms.

So to summarize:

1. You need to register
2. You need at least P21.00 available load
3. After successful registration, you will be given 40 sms credits to other network
4. 0.50 cents will apply if you

* Still have load (at least 1.00)
* You are still enrolled in the promo (1 day only)
* You have not yet consumed the 40 sms credits.

Here’s more info for Globe’s promo (and i think is also applicable to SMART subscribers - but i’m not sure of that)

* Text to others will be prioritized over free text messages. Meaning even if you still have free sms credits but you are enrolled to the promo, your sms credits for text to others will be consumed first.
* You can also use text to others even if you are also registered or using UNLITEXT
* Multiple registration for Text to others promo is allowed. Meaning you can register again and again even if you aven’t consumed your first 40 sms credits from your first registration. If you register again, you will then have another 40 on top of your first registration and the period covered will be extended based on your last registration.

Both promos started last JULY 28, 2008 and will end OCTOBER 22, 2008 unless extended.

Oh, SUN cellular’s sms cut is a permanent offer. Its called Budget Text.

You just need P5.00 and you will then have 10 sms credits ti use for other networks. But, you still have to register to use it. Text BGT<space>5 and send to 223. Another way is to dial *230*2*17#. This will enable you to purchase Budget Text 5.

So, it looks like only SUN made the reduction in SMS rates a permanent thing. But if you’ll listen or watch the speech of the President yeterday, she was so happy announcing it and like what i said here, it was one of the most applauded part of her speech.

By the way, i assume that registration to these promos are free. I haven’t verified that yet.

Also, you won’t see this promo or details of it in any website of the participating networks. But they were saying that they were not forced to give this promo.

I am for the reduction of the cost of SMS messages. Reduce the cost within the same network and those for other networks as well. But making it free will clog the network. Right SUN? =p

Thanks to brader Dom for the GMA meNAme pic.

best lie millions ever heard - full transcript ng sona

2008-07-29T12:04:00.000+08:00

STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO DURING THE 2ND REGULAR SESSION OF THE 14TH CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

28 July 2008

Thank you, Speaker Nograles. Senate President Villar. Senators and Representatives. Vice President de Castro, President Ramos, Chief Justice Puno, members of the diplomatic corps, ladies and gentlemen:

I address you today at a crucial moment in world history.

Just a few months ago, we ended 2007 with the strongest economic growth in a generation. Inflation was low, the peso strong and a million new jobs were created. We were all looking to a better, brighter future.

Because tough choices were made, kumikilos na ang bayan sa wakas. Malapit na sana tayo sa pagbalanse ng budget. We were retiring debts in great amounts, reducing the drag on our country's development, habang namumuhunan sa taong bayan.

Biglang-bigla, nabaligtad ang ekonomiya ng mundo. Ang pagtalon ng presyo ng langis at pagkain ay nagbunsod ng pandaigdigan krisis, the worst since the Great Depression and the end of World War II. Some blame speculators moving billions of dollars from subprime mortgages to commodities like fuel and food. Others point of the very real surge in demand as millions of Chinese and Indians move up to the middle class.

Whatever the reasons, we are on a roller coaster ride of oil price hikes, high food prices and looming economic recession in the US and other markets. Uncertainty has moved like a terrible tsunami around the globe, wiping away gains, erasing progress.

This is a complex time that defies simple and easy solutions. For starters, it is hard to identify villains, unlike in the 1997 financial crisis. Everyone seems to be a victim, rich countries and poor, though certainly some can take more punishment than others.

To address these global challenges, we must go on building and buttressing bridges to allies around the world: to bring in the rice to feed our people, investments to create jobs; and to keep the peace and maintain stability in our country and the rest of the world. Yet even as we reach out to those who need, and who may need us, we strive for greater self-reliance.

Because tough choices were made, the global crisis did not catch us helpless and unprepared. Through foresight, grit and political will, we built a shield around our country that has slowed down and somewhat softened the worst effects of the global crisis. We have the money to care for our people and pay for food when there are shortages; for fuel despite price spikes.

Neither we nor anyone else in the world expected this day to come so soon but we prepared for it. For the guts not to flinch in the face of tough choices, I thank God. For the wisdom to recognize how needed you are, I thank, you Congress. For footing the bill, I thank the taxpayers.

The result has been, on the one hand, ito ang nakasalba sa bayan; and, on the other, more unpopularity for myself in the opinion polls. Yet, even unfriendly polls show self-rated poverty down to its 20-year low in 2007.

My responsibility as President is to take care to solve the problems we are facing now and to provide a vision and direction for how our nation should advance in the future.

Many in this great hall live privileged lives and exert great influence in public affairs. I am accessible to you, but I spend time every day with the underprivileged and under represented who cannot get a grip on their lives in the daily, all-consuming struggle to make ends meet.

Nag-aalala ako para sa naka-aawang maybahay na pasan ang pananagutan para sa buong pamilya. Nag-aalala ako para sa magsasakang nasa unang hanay ng pambansang produksyon ng pagkain ngunit nagsisikap pakanin ang pamilya. I care for hardworking students soon to graduate and wanting to see hope of good job and a career prospect here at home.

Nag-aalala ako para sa 41-year old na padre de pamilya na di araw-araw ang trabaho, at nag-aabala sa asawa at tatlong anak, at dapat bigyan ng higit pang pagkakakitaan at dangal. I care for our teachers who gave the greatest gift we ever received – a good education – still trying to pass on the same gift to succeeding generations. I care for our OFWs, famed for their skill, integrity and untiring labor, who send home their pay as the only way to touch loved ones so far away. Nagpupugay ako ngayon sa kanilang mga karaniwang Pilipino.

My critics say this is fiction, along with other facts and figures I cite today. I call it heroism though they don't need our praise. Each is already a hero to those who matter most, their families.

I said this is a global crisis where everyone is a victim. But only few can afford to avoid, or pay to delay, the worst effects.

Many more have nothing to protect them from the immediate blunt force trauma of the global crisis. Tulad ninyo, nag-aalala ako para sa kanila. Ito ang mga taong bayan na dapat samahan natin. Not only because of their sacrifices for our country but because they are our countrymen.

How do we solve these many complex challenges?

Sa kanilang kalagayan, the answer must be special care and attention in this great hour of need.

First, we must have a targeted strategy with set of precise prescriptions to ease the price challenges we are facing.

Second, food self-sufficiency; less energy dependence; greater self-reliance in our attitude as a people and in our posture as a nation.

Third, short-term relief cannot be at the expense of long term reforms. These reforms will benefit not just the next generation of Filipinos, but the next President as well.

Napakahalaga ang Value Added Tax sa pagharap sa mga hamong ito.

Itong programa ang sagot sa mga problemang namana natin.

Una, mabawasan ang ating mga utang and shore up our fiscal independence.

Pangalawa, higit na pamumuhunan para mamamayan at imprastraktura.

Pangatlo, sapat na pondo para sa mga programang pangmasa.

Thus, the infrastructure links programmed for the our poorest provinces like Northern Samar: Lao-ang-Lapinig-Arteche, right now ay maputik, San Isidro-Lope de Vega; the rehabilitation of Maharlika in Samar.

Take VAT away and you and I abdicate our responsibility as leaders and pull the rug from under our present and future progress, which may be compromised by the global crisis.

Lalong lumakas ang tiwala ng mga investor dahil sa VAT. Mula P56.50 kada dolyar, lumakas ang piso hanggang P40.20 bago bumalik sa P44 dahil sa mga pabigat ng pangdaigdigang ekonomiya. Kung alisin ang VAT, hihina ang kumpiyansa ng negosyo, lalong tataas ang interes, lalong bababa ang piso, lalong mamahal ang bilihin.

Kapag ibinasura ang VAT sa langis at kuryente, ang mas makikinabang ay ang mga may kaya na kumukonsumo ng 84% ng langis at 90% ng kuryente habang mas masasaktan ang mahihirap na mawawalan ng P80 billion para sa mga programang pinopondohan ngayon ng VAT. Take away VAT and we strip our people of the means to ride out the world food and energy crisis.

We have come too far and made too many sacrifices to turn back now on fiscal reforms. Leadership is not about doing the first easy thing that comes to mind; it is about doing what is necessary, however hard.

The government has persevered, without flip-flops, in its much-criticized but irreplaceable policies, including oil and power VAT and oil deregulation.

Patuloy na gagamitin ng pamahalaan ang lumalago nating yaman upang tulungan ang mga pamilyang naghihirap sa taas ng bilihin at hampas ng bagyo, habang nagpupundar upang sanggahan ang bayan sa mga krisis sa hinaharap.

Para sa mga namamasada at namamasahe sa dyip, sinusugpo natin ang kotong at colorum upang mapataas ang kita ng mga tsuper. Si Federico Alvarez kumikita ng P200 a day sa kaniyang rutang Cubao-Rosario. Tinaas ito ng anti-kotong, anti-colorum ngayon P500 na ang kita niya. Iyan ang paraan kung paano napananatili ang dagdag-pasahe sa piso lamang. Halaga lang ng isang text.

Texting is a way of life. I asked the telecoms to cut the cost of messages between networks. They responded. It is now down to 50 centavos.

Noong Hunyo, nagpalabas tayo ng apat na bilyong piso mula sa VAT sa langis—dalawang bilyong pambayad ng koryente ng apat na milyong mahihirap, isang bilyon para college scholarship o pautang sa 70,000 na estudyanteng maralita; kalahating bilyong pautang upang palitan ng mas matipid na LPG, CNG o biofuel ang motor ng libu-libong jeepney; at kalahating bilyong pampalit sa fluorescent sa mga pampublikong lugar.

Kung mapapalitan ng fluorescent ang lahat ng bumbilya, makatitipid tayo ng lampas P2 billion.

Sa sunod na katas ng VAT, may P1 billion na pambayad ng kuryente ng mahihirap; kalahating bilyon para sa matatandang di sakop ng SSS o GSIS; kalahating bilyong kapital para sa pamilya ng mga namamasada; kalahating bilyon upang mapataas ang kakayahan at equipment ng mga munting ospital sa mga lalawigan. At para sa mga kalamidad, angkop na halaga.

We released P1 billion for the victims of typhoon Frank. We support a supplemental Western Visayas calamity budget from VAT proceeds, as a tribute to the likes of Rodney Berdin, age 13, of Barangay Rombang, Belison, Antique, who saved his mother, brother and sister from the raging waters of Sibalom River.

Mula sa buwang ito, wala nang income tax ang sumusweldo ng P200,000 o mas mababa sa isang taon – P12 billion na bawas-buwis para sa maralita at middle class. Maraming salamat, Congress.

Ngayong may P32 na commercial rice, natugunan na natin ang problema sa pagkain sa kasalukuyan. Nagtagumpay tayo dahil sa pagtutulungan ng buong bayan sa pagsasaka, bantay-presyo at paghihigpit sa price manipulation, sa masipag na pamumuno ni Artie Yap.

Sa mga LGU at religious groups na tumutulong dalhin ang NFA rice sa mahihirap, maraming salamat sa inyo.

Dahil sa subsidy, NFA rice is among the region's cheapest. While we can take some comfort that our situation is better than many other nations, there is no substitute for solving the problem of rice and fuel here at home. In doing so, let us be honest and clear eyed – there has been a fundamental shift in global economics. The price of food and fuel will likely remain high. Nothing will be easy; the government cannot solve these problems over night. But, we can work to ease the near-term pain while investing in long-term solutions.

Since 2001, new irrigation systems for 146,000 hectares, including Malmar in Maguindanao and North Cotabato, Lower Agusan, Casecnan and Aulo in Nueva Ecija, Abulog-Apayao in Cagayan and Apayao, Addalam in Quirino and Isabela, among others, and the restoration of old systems on another 980,000 hectares have increased our nation's irrigated land to a historic 1.5 million hectares.

Edwin Bandila, 48 years old, of Ugalingan, Carmen, North Cotabato, cultivated one hectare and harvested 35 cavans. Thirteen years na ginawa iyong Malmar. In my first State of the Nation Address, sabi ko kung hindi matapos iyon sa Setyembre ay kakanselahin ko ang kontrata, papapasukin ko ang engineering brigade, natapos nila. With Malamar, now he cultivates five hectares and produces 97 cavans per hectare. Mabuhay, Edwin! VAT will complete the San Roque-Agno River project.

The Land Bank has quadrupled loans for farmers and fisherfolk. That is fact not fiction. Check it. For more effective credit utilization, I instructed DA to revitalize farmers cooperatives.

We are providing seeds at subsidized prices to help our farmers.

Incremental Malampaya national revenues of P4 billion will go to our rice self-sufficiency program.

Rice production since 2000 increased an average of 4.07% a year, twice the population growth rate. By promoting natural planning and female education, we have curbed population growth to 2.04% during our administration, down from the 2.36 in the 1990's, when artificial birth control was pushed. Our campaign spreads awareness of responsible parenthood regarding birth spacing. Long years of pushing contraceptives made it synonymous to family planning. Therefore informed choice should mean letting more couples, who are mostly Catholics, know about natural family planning.

From 1978 to 1981, nag-export tayo ng bigas. Hindi tumagal. But let's not be too hard on ourselves. Panahon pa ng Kastila bumibili na tayo ng bigas sa labas. While we may know how to grow rice well, topography doesn't always cooperate.

Nature did not gift us with a mighty Mekong like Thailand and Vietnam, with their vast and naturally fertile plains. Nature instead put our islands ahead of our neighbours in the path of typhoons from the Pacific. So, we import 10% of the rice we consume.

To meet the challenge of today, we will feed our people now, not later, and help them get through these hard times. To meet the challenges of tomorrow, we must become more self-reliant, self-sufficient and independent, relying on ourselves more than on the world.

Now we come to the future of agrarian reform.

There are those who say it is a failure, that our rice importations prove it. There are those who say it is a success—if only because anything is better than nothing. Indeed, people are happier owning the land they work, no matter what the difficulties.

Sa SONA noong 2001, sinabi ko, bawat taon, mamamahagi tayo ng dalawang daang libong ektarya sa reporma sa lupa: 100,000 hectares of private farmland and 100,000 of public farmland, including ancestral domains. Di hamak mahigit sa target ang naipamahagi natin sa nakaraang pitong taon: 854,000 hectares of private farmland, 797,000 of public farmland, and Certificates of Ancestral Domain for 525,000 hectares. Including, over a 100,000 hectares for Bugkalots in Quirino, Aurora, and Nueva Vizcaya. After the release of their CADT, Rosario Camma, Bugkalot chieftain, and now mayor of Nagtipunan, helped his 15,000-member tribe develop irrigation, plant vegetables and corn and achieve food sufficiency. Mabuhay, Chief!

Agrarian reform should not merely subdivide misery, it must raise living standards. Ownership raises the farmer from his but productivity will keep him on his feet.

Sinimula ng aking ama ang land reform noong 1963. Upang mabuo ito, the extension of CARP with reforms is top priority. I will continue to do all I can for the rural as well as urban poor. Ayaw natin na paglaya ng tenant sa landlord, mapapasa-ilalim naman sa usurero. Former tenants must be empowered to become agribusinessmen by allowing their land to be used as collateral.

Dapat mapalaya ng reporma sa lupa ang magsasaka sa pagiging alipin sa iba. Dapat bigyan ang magsasaka ng dangal bilang taong malaya at di hawak ninuman. We must curb the recklessness that gives land without the means to make it productive and bites off more than beneficiaries can chew.

At the same time, I want the rackets out of agrarian reform: the threats to take and therefore undervalue land, the conspiracies to overvalue it.

Be with me on this. There must be a path where justice and progress converge. Let us find it before Christmas. Dapat nating linisin ang landas para sa mga ibig magpursige sa pagsasaka, taglay ang pananalig na ang lupa ay sasagip sa atin sa huli kung gamitin natin ito nang maayos.

Along with massive rice production, we are cutting costs through more efficient transport. For our farm-to-market roads, we released P6 billion in 2007.

On our nautical highways. RORO boats carried 33 million metric tons of cargo and 31 million passengers in 2007. We have built 39 RORO ports during our administration, 12 more are slated to start within the next two years. In 2003, we inaugurated the Western Nautical Highway from Batangas through Mindoro, Panay and Negros to Mindanao. This year we launched the Central Nautical Highway from Bicol mainland, through Masbate, Cebu, Bohol and Camiguin to Mindanao mainland. These developments strengthen our competitiveness.

Leading multinational company Nestle cut transport costs and offset higher milk prices abroad. Salamat, RORO. Transport costs have become so reasonable for bakeries like Gardenia, a loaf of its bread in Iloilo is priced the same as in Laguna and Manila. Salamat muli sa RORO.

To the many LGUs who have stopped collecting fees from cargo vehicles, maraming, maraming salamat.

We are repaving airports that are useful for agriculture, like Zamboanga City Airport.

Producing rice and moving it cheaper addresses the supply side of our rice needs. On the demand side, we are boosting the people's buying power.

Ginagawa nating labor-intensive ang paggawa at pag-ayos ng kalsada at patubig. Noong SONA ng 2001, naglunsad tayo sa NCR ng patrabaho para sa 20,000 na out of school youth, na tinawag OYSTER. Ngayon, mahigit 20,000 ang ineempleyo ng OYSTER sa buong bansa. In disaster-stricken areas, we have a cash-for-work program.

In training, 7.74 million took technical and vocational courses over the last seven years, double the number in the previous 14 years. In 2007 alone, 1.7 million graduated. Among them are Jessica Barlomento now in Hanjin as supply officer, Shenve Catana, Marie Grace Comendador, and Marlyn Tusi, lady welders, congratulations.

In microfinance, loans have reached P102 billion or 30 times more than the P3 billion we started with in 2001, with a 98% repayment record, congratulations! Major lenders include the Land Bank with P69 billion, the Peoples' Credit and Finance Corporation P8 billion, the National Livelihood Support Fund P3 billion, DBP P1 billion and the DSWD's SEA-K P800 million. For partnering with us to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit, thank you, Go Negosyo and Joey Concepcion.

Upland development benefits farmers through agro-forestry initiatives. Rubber is especially strong in Zamboanga Sibugay and North Cotabato. Victoria Mindoro, 56 years old, used to earn P5,000 a month as farmer and factory worker. Now she owns 10 hectares in the Goodyear Agrarian Reform Community in Kabasalan, Zamboanga Sibugay, she earns P10,000 a week. With one hectare, Pedro and Concordia Faviolas of Makilala, North Cotabato, they sent their six children to college, bought two more hectares, and earn P15,000 a month. Congratulations!

Jatropha estates are starting in 900 hectares in and around Tamlang Valley in Negros Oriental; 200 in CamSur; 300 in GenSan, 500 in Fort Magsaysay near the Cordero Dam and 700 in Samar, among others.

In our 2006 SONA, our food baskets were identified as North Luzon and Mindanao.

The sad irony of Mindanao as food basket is that it has some of the highest hunger in our nation. It has large fields of high productivity, yet also six of our ten poorest provinces.

The prime reason is the endless Mindanao conflict. A comprehensive peace has eluded us for half a century. But last night, differences on the tough issue of ancestral domain were resolved. Yes, there are political dynamics among the people of Mindanao. Let us sort them out with the utmost sobriety, patience and restraint. I ask Congress to act on the legislative and political reforms that will lead to a just and lasting peace during our term of office.

The demands of decency and compassion urge dialogue. Better talk than fight, if nothing of sovereign value is anyway lost. Dialogue has achieved more than confrontation in many parts of the world. This was the message of the recent World Conference in Madrid organized by the King of Saudi Arabia, and the universal message of the Pope in Sydney.

Pope Benedict's encyclical Deus Caritas Est reminds us: "There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love for neighbour is indispensable."

Pinagsasama-sama natin ang mga programa ng DSWD, DOH, GSIS, SSS at iba pang lumalaban sa kahirapan sa isang National Social Welfare Program para proteksyonan ang pinaka-mahihirap mula sa pandaigdigang krisis, and to help those whose earnings are limited by illness, disability, loss of job, age and so on—through livelihood projects, microfinance, skills and technology transfer, emergency and temporary employment, pension funds, food aid and cash subsidies, child nutrition and adult health care, medical missions, salary loans, insurance, housing programs, educational and other savings schemes, and now cheaper medicine—Thanks to Congress.

The World Bank says that in Brazil, the income of the poorest 10% has grown 9% per year versus the 3% for the higher income levels due in large part to their family stipend program linking welfare checks to school attendance. We have introduced a similar program, Pantawid Pamilya.

Employers have funded the two increases in SSS benefits since 2005. Thank you, employers for paying the premiums.

GSIS pensions have been indexed to inflation and have increased every year since 2001. Its salary loan availments have increased from two months equivalent to 10 months, the highest of any system public or private—while repayments have been stretched out.

Pag-Ibig housing loans increased from P3.82 billion in 2001 to P22.6 billion in 2007. This year it experienced an 84% increase in the first four months alone. Super heating na. Dapat dagdagan ng GSIS at buksan muli ng SSS ang pautang sa pabahay. I ask Congress to pass a bill allowing SSS to do housing loans beyond the present 10% limitation.

Bago ako naging Pangulo, isa't kalahating milyong maralita lamang ang may health insurance. Noong 2001, sabi natin, dadagdagan pa ng kalahating milyon. Sa taong iyon, mahigit isang milyon ang nabigyan natin. Ngayon, 65 milyong Pilipino na ang may health insurance, mahigit doble ng 2000, kasama ang labinlimang milyong maralita. Philhealth has paid P100 billion for hospitalization. The indigent beneficiaries largely come from West and Central Visayas, Central Luzon, and Ilocos. Patuloy nating palalawakin itong napaka-importanted programa, lalo na sa Tawi-Tawi, Zambo Norte, Maguindanao, Apayao, Dinagat, Lanao Sur, Northern Samar, Masbate, Abra and Misamis Occidental. Lalo na sa kanilang mga magsasaka at mangingisda.

In these provinces and in Agusan Sur, Kalinga, Surigao Sur and calamity-stricken areas, we will launch a massive school feeding program at P10 per child every school day.

Bukod sa libreng edukasyon sa elementarya at high school, nadoble ang pondo para sa mga college scholarships, while private high school scholarship funds from the government have quadrupled.

I have started reforming and clustering the programs of the DepEd, CHED and TESDA.

As with fiscal and food challenges, the global energy crunch demands better and more focused resource mobilization, conservation and management.

Government agencies are reducing their energy and fuel bills by 10%, emulating Texas Instruments and Philippine Stock Exchange who did it last year. Congratulations, Justice Vitug and Francis Lim.

To reduce power system losses, we count on government regulators and also on EPIRA amendments.

We are successful in increasing energy self-sufficiency—56%, the highest in our history. We promote natural gas and biofuel; geothermal fields, among the world's largest; windmills like those in Ilocos and Batanes; and the solar cells lighting many communities in Mindanao. The new Galoc oil field can produce 17,000-22,000 barrels per day, 1/12 of our crude consumption.

The Renewable Energy Bill has passed the House. Thank you, Congressmen.

Our costly commodity imports like oil and rice should be offset by hard commodities exports like primary products, and soft ones like tourism and cyberservices, at which only India beats us.

Our P 350 million training partnership with the private sector should qualify 60,000 for call centers, medical transcription, animation and software development, which have a projected demand of one million workers generating $13 billion by 2010.

International finance agrees with our progress. Credit rating agencies have kept their positive or stable outlook on the country. Our world competitiveness ranking rose five notches. Congratulations to us.

We are sticking to, and widening, the fiscal reforms that have earned us their respect.

To our investors, thank you for your valuable role in our development. I invite you to invest not only in factories and services, but in profitable infrastructure, following the formula for the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway.

I ask business and civil society to continue to work for a socially equitable, economically viable balance of interests. Mining companies should ensure that host communities benefit substantively from their investments, and with no environmental damage from operations.

Our administration enacted the Solid Waste Management Act, Wildlife Act, Protection of Plant Varieties, Clean Water Act, Biofuels Act and various laws declaring protected areas.

For reforestation, for next year we have budgeted P2 billion. Not only do forests enhance the beauty of the land, they mitigate climate change, a key factor in increasing the frequency and intensity of typhoons and costing the country 0.5% of the GDP.

We have set up over 100 marine and fish sanctuaries since 2001. In the whaleshark sanctuary of Donsol, Sorsogon, Alan Amanse, 40-year-old college undergraduate and father of two, was earning P100 a day from fishing and driving a tricycle. Now as whaleshark-watching officer, he is earns P1,000 a day, ten times his former income.

For clean water, so important to health, there is P500 million this year and P1.5 billion for next year.

From just one sanitary landfill in 2001, we now have 21, with another 18 in the works.

We launched the Zero Basura Olympics to clear our communities of trash. Rather than more money, all that is needed is for each citizen to keep home and workplace clean, and for garbage officials to stop squabbling.

Our investments also include essential ways to strengthen our institutions of governance in order to fight the decades-old scourge of corruption. I will continue to fight this battle every single day. While others are happy with headlines through accusation without evidence and privilege speeches without accountability, we have allocated more than P3 billion – the largest anti-graft fund in our history – for real evidence gathering and vigorous prosecution.

From its dismal past record, the Ombudsman's conviction rate has increased 500%. Lifestyle checks, never seriously implemented before our time, have led to the dismissal and/or criminal prosecution of dozens of corrupt officials.

I recently met with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US agency that provides grants to countries based on governance. They have commended our gains, contributed P1 billion to our fight against graft, and declared us eligible for more grants. Thank you!

Last September, we created the Procurement Transparency Group in the DBM and linked it with business, academe, and the Church, to deter or catch anomalies in government contracts.

On my instruction, the BIR and Customs established similar government-civil society tie-ups for information gathering and tax evasion and smuggling monitoring.

More advanced corruption practices require a commensurate advances in legislative responses. Colleagues in Congress, we need a more stringent Anti-Graft Act.

Sa pagmahal ng bilihin, hirap na ang mamimili – tapos, dadayain pa. Dapat itong mahinto. Hinihiling ko sa Kongreso na magpasa ng Consumer Bill of Rights laban sa price gouging, false advertising at iba pang gawain kontra sa mamimili.

I call on all our government workers at the national and local levels to be more responsive and accountable to the people. Panahon ito ng pagsubok. Kung saan kayang tumulong at dapat tumulong ang pamahalaan, we must be there with a helping hand. Where government can contribute nothing useful, stay away. Let's be more helpful, more courteous, more quick.

Kaakibat ng ating mga adhikain ang tuloy na pagkalinga sa kapakanan ng bawat Pilipino. Iisa ang ating pangarap – maunlad at mapayapang lipunan, kung saan ang magandang kinabukasan ay hindi pangarap lamang, bagkus natutupad.

Sama-sama tayo sa tungkuling ito. May papel na gagampanan ang bawat mamamayan, negosyante, pinunong bayan at simbahan, sampu ng mga nasa lalawigan.

We are three branches but one government. We have our disagreements; we each have hopes, and ambitions that drive and divide us, be they personal, ethnic, religious and cultural. But we are one nation with one fate.

As your President, I care too much about this nation to let anyone stand in the way of our people's wellbeing. Hindi ko papayagang humadlang ang sinuman sa pag-unlad at pagsagana ng taong bayan. I will let no one – and no one's political plans – threaten our nation's survival.

Our country and our people have never failed to be there for us. We must be there for them now.

Maraming salamat. Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat.

what can be more callous than this?

2008-07-04T13:33:00.003+08:00

While Typhoon Frank devastated the country and claimed more than 650 lives including the poor victims of the MV Princess of the Stars sea tragedy, illegitimate President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her 74 junketeers mindlessly spend billions of taxpayers' money to visit Bush and watch Pacquiao fight in the US.

MONEY SPENT MINDLESSLY
- USD 1.5 M JUNKET!
- 300-5000 - Willard Hotel rate
- 30 rooms booked
- 400-500 - Dinner per plate
- 207++ - Airline rate per person
- 800-1000 - Rental per car
- 30 cars rented
- 250 consulate officials mobilized
span id="fullpost">

THE PERKS
- P100,000 - each congressman gets monthly travel allowance
- P1,620 - travel tax exemption when traveling with the President

WHO ARE THE 74 JUNKETEERS?
- Representative Province
- Rep. Narciso Santiago III, Alliance for Rural Concerns Party List
- Group
- Rep. Monico Puentevella, Bacolod
- Rep. Albert Garcia, Bataan
- Rep. Mark Llandro L. Mendoza, Batangas
- Rep. Hermilando Mandanas, Batangas
- Rep. William Irwin Tieng, Buhay Party List Group
- Rep. Jose Zubiri III, Bukidnon
- Rep. Lorna Silverio, Bulacan
- Rep. Mitzi Cajayon, Caloocan
- Rep. Diosdado "Dato" Macapagal Arroyo, Camarines Sur
- Rep. Joseph Santiago, Catanduanes
- Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., Cavite
- Rep. Antonio Cuenco, Cebu
- Rep. Eduardo Gullas, Cebu
- Deputy Speaker Raul Del Mar, Cebu City
- Rep. Rommel Amatong, Compostela Valley
- Speaker Prospero Nograles, Davao City
- Rep. Antonio Lagdameo, Davao Del Norte
- Rep. Marc Cagas, Davao Del Sur
- Rep. Nelson Dayanghirang, Davao Oriental
- Rep. Teodolo Coquilla, Eastern Samar
- Rep. Andres Salvacion, Leyte
- Rep. Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, Leyte
- Rep. Trinidad Apostol, Leyte
- Rep. Ma. Zenaida Angping, Manila
- Rep. Amado S. Bagatsing, Manila
- Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr., Manila
- Rep. Rizalina Seachon-Lanete, Masbate
- Rep. Herminia Ramiro, Misamis Occidental
- Rep. Yevgeny Emano, Misamis Oriental
- Rep. Rozzano Rufino Biazon, Muntinlupa
- Rep. Joseph Gilbert Violago, Nueva Ecija
- Deputy Speaker Ma. Amelita C. Villarosa, Occidental Mindoro
- Rep. Anna York Bondoc, Pampanga
- Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr., Pampanga
- Rep. Juan Miguel Macapagal Arroyo, Pampanga
- Rep. Conrado Estrella III, Pangasinan
- Rep. Ma. Rachel Arenas, Pangasinan
- Rep. Eduardo C. Zialcita, Parañaque
- Rep. Roman Romulo, Pasig City
- Rep. Mary Ann Susano, Quezon City
- Rep. Nanette C. Castelo-Daza, Quezon City
- Rep. Danilo Suarez, Quezon Province
- Rep. Junie Cua, Quirino
- Rep. Arturo B. Robes, San Jose Del Monte
- Rep. Roger Mercado, Southern Leyte
- Rep. Munir Arbison, Sulu
- Rep. Rex Gatchalian, Valenzuela City
- Rep. Antonio Diaz, Zambales

Senate
- Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago
- Sen. Richard Gordon

Cabinet
- Sec. Arthur Yap, Agriculture
- Sec. Rolando Andaya, Budget
- Sec. Gov. Amando Tetangco, Central Bank
- Sec. Gilbert Teodoro, Defense
- Sec. Ronaldo Puno, DILG
- Sec. Jesli Lapus, Education
- Sec. Lito Atienza, Environment
- Sec. Margarito Teves, Finance
- Sec. Alberto Romulo, Foreign Affairs
- Acting Sec. Marianito Roque, Labor
- Sec. Ignacio Bunye, Presidential Spokesman
- Sec. Jesus Dureza, Press
- Sec. Peter Favila, Trade

Shall we leave our country in the hands of such uncaring people?
It's time to take back our country!
Mahiya kayo sa lahi niyo mga walang bayag at kaluluwa... (sa babae: mga walang tingel! POTA di na kayo naawa!!!)
- gumagalang TORIO!!! (irepost niyo para malaman ng sambayanan!!!)

kalayaan saan at kailan?

2008-06-11T23:58:00.005+08:00

Maraming nagsasabi na ang Pilipinas ay isang Malayang Bansa... may mga nagsasabi namang hindi ganap na Malaya ang Pilipinas... bukas laman nanaman ng mga talakayan ang isyu na ito...
Ang Pilipinas ay Malaya kung ang pag-uusapan ay ang ipinagdiriwang natin tuwing ika-12 ng Hunyo... ang deklarasyon ng Kalayaan na isinagawa sa Kawit nuong 1898... siguro masasabi ngang lumaya tayo mula sa pananakop ng Espanya... ngunit totoo nga bang lumaya na tayo mula sa dayuhang impluwensya pagkatapos ng Hunyo a-dose?

Hindi naging ganap na malaya ang Pilipinas kung babalikan natin ang ating kasaysayan... masakit man na aminin ngunit ang bansang Amerika na ngayon ay ating hinahangaan ay siya mismong hindi kumilala sa Kalayaang idineklara ni Aguinaldo sa Kawit... matuturing na isang uri ng pagtratraydor sa Pilipinas ang ginawang Tratado ng Amerika at Espanya sa Paris nuong Disyenbre taong 1898... anim na buwan makalipas ang sinasabing proklamasyon ng kalayaan sa kawit... isang sampal sa ating mga Filipino ang naganap na bentahan na ito... kabastusang hindi na natin nagawang singilin pa...

Humahanga ako sa kabayanihan ng mga Filipinong ipinapanalo ang Rebolusyong inumpisahan ng Supremo... ang mga Filipinong nagbuwis ng kanilang dugo upang linisin ang bansa sa kamay ng mga berdugong mananakop na kumamkam ng hindi lamang ng ating yaman bagkos pati na ng ating saring pagkakakilanlan... ipinagpupunyagi ko na may isang yugto sa ating kasaysayan na nagpumilit tayong ipagsigawan sa buong mundo na tayo ay isang malayang bayan... hindi man pinakinggan kahit na ng ating kinilalang kaibigan ay taas noo ko pa rin itong ipinagyayabang...

Ngunit naghihinayang ako na hindi naging ganap ang kalayaang ito dahil na rin sa mga pangsariling interes ng mga makapangyarihang dayuhan na itinuring na mababang uri ang hindi nila kakulay... ang nagpapaniwala sa atin na sila ang ating dapat tularan upang maging tanggap sa buong mundo at masabing sebilisado... nanghihinayang ako dahil narin ipinaubaya natin sa isa pang dayuhan ang ating kasarinlan...

Bakas pa sa mga panahong ito ang ating pagpapa-ubaya... hindi man sa mga dayuhang mananakop ay bakas pa rin ito sa ating tila kawalang paki-alam sa mga kaganapan sa ating lipunan... hindi na natin nakukuhang magalit sa talamak na korupsyon sa ating Lipunan... pinababayaan na nating malubog sa kumunoy ng kawalang pag-asa ang Bansa kapalit ng sarili nating katahimikan sa buhay... mas pinili nating huwag maki-sangkot upang hindi madumihan ang ating mga kamay... ipinagmamalaki pa nating sapat na ang ating mga buwis bilang alay sa bayan... malaya nga tayo sa mga mananakop ngunit busabos naman tayo ng ating kawalang paki-alam...

Hindi pa nga ganap na malaya ang Pilipinas... tanaw pa natin ang anino ng mga dayuhang lumapastangang sa ating pagkatao... naaamoy pa natin ang kanilang malawak na impluwensya sa pagpapatakbo ng ating bansa... dayuhan pa rin tayo sa sarili nating Bayan...

Hindi pa nga ganap na malaya ang Pilipinas... mahimbing pa rin ang tulog ng karamihan sa atin sa gitna ng kahirapan... bulag pa rin tayo sa mga panloloko sa atin ng mga nasa pamahalaan... laruan pa rin tayo ng mga naghaharing uri sa ating Lipunan...

Pilipinas... kailan ka tuluyang lalaya sa mga mapagkunwaring dayuhan at sa mga anak mong nagbubulag-bulagan...

Ika-12 ng Hunyo taong 1898... deklarasyon ng kalayaan... isang yugto sa ating kasaysayan... isang araw lang na kaganapan...

- sakay2007

Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran : PAALAM

2008-05-22T05:15:00.005+08:00

Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran has been diagnosed as "brain dead" at the Far
Eastern University hospital in Quezon City after falling from the roof of his
home in Barangay Muzon Tuesday morning.

Ofel Beltran, the congressman's
daughter, told radio dzMM that her father fell as he was on his way down 14
feet from the ground. The daughter said her father fell face first to the
ground. The incident took place around 6 a.m., she said. Ofel said they
initially brought her 75-year old father to the Caloocan Doctors Hospital, where
he was revived after a cardiac arrest. "We decided to transfer him to the
FEU (Far Eastern University) hospital, but along the way nag-[cardiac] arrest
siya," Ofel told the radio station. She said her father suffered four more
cardiac arrests before his pupils dried up and was diagnosed as brain dead by
doctors. "Humihinga siya pag sinasaksakan ng gamot, kapag
nire-resuscitate. This time, mukhang hindi na kaya...," Ofel said before breaking down into during the interview.

She said all members of their family are already at the hospital.

The congressman was a former labor leader before being selected by the party-list group as one of its representatives.

---

paalam na sayo Ka Bel.. :(

Kapiling mo na ngayon ang mga Pilipinong martir sa paraisong inanak ng iyong paninindigan!

kita-kita nalang hanga sa susunod na kabilang buhay.

Mabuhay ka, Ka Bel!
Mananatiling buhay ang mga ipaglalaban mo sa aming alaala.

Prelude to 2010

2008-05-22T03:15:00.003+08:00

In his presentation last week at the Asian Institute of Management, on the 2010 presidential elections, political analyst Tony Gatmaitan made his usual pitches about the Lucena-Lingayen corridor, the relative strengths of the Kampi-Lakas, NP, LP, NPC and PDP-Laban and their announced or expected nominees, the role of radio and TV ads in the campaign, etc. He spoke in a lecture sponsored by the Futuristics Center, of which I am a director.

Tony Gat did drop a bombshell of sorts that few in the audience may have expected, to wit, that Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno was the “secret candidate” of Lakas-Kampi.

As one of the reactors to Tony Gat, I agreed that Puno was indeed a potential successor to President Arroyo – I did mention it in an earlier column – but my sense is that it will not happen in 2010 because President Arroyo intends to stay in power beyond that year, either as prime minister under a parliamentary set-up, or as president without term limits if we retain the presidential system.

That is really the reason for the continued and insistent agitation for charter change in both the Lower House and, now, the Senate, even after the people’s initiative of the Sigaw ng Bangaw was junked by the Supreme Court, and even after the obscene maneuver of then Speaker Jose de Venecia to convene the Lower House into a constituent assembly, without the participation of the oppositionist Senate, to amend the Constitution, was hooted down by the public, in 2006..

Puno can plan on 2016 or 2022. So also should Mar, Manny, Ping, Loren, Dick, Sonny, Bayani, Erap, Jejomar and other ambitious wannabes, unless an act of God or Allah or Mars (the Roman god of war) intervenes and spoils the best laid plan of mice and men (and power-drunk women).

I reminded the audience of the uncanny accuracy of my crystal ball. On Dec. 30, 2002, President Arroyo promised that she would not run in 2004. In my article titled She Will Run, published in May 2003, I wrote that she would, and she did.

After the party caucus of Kampi in February 2005, in which then Kampi President Ronaldo Puno stated the strategic goal of Kampi to become the biggest political party by 2007 – three years before the end of GMA’s non-extendable presidential term – I wrote in Prime Minister Gloria? and GMA Forever, both published in 2005, that President Arroyo was planning to remain in power beyond 2010, as prime minister.

And, sure enough, in 2006 we saw the separate maneuvers of Sigaw ng Bangaw and De Venecia to engineer a shift to parliamentary. These articles are archived and can be read in my website www.tapatt.org, unless someone is blocking access to it.

So when I say that President Arroyo is planning to remain in power beyond 2010 – by doing a Vladimir Putin – I am not speculating idly..

And what would be the issues in 2010? Tony Gat had his usual laundry list. I have mine.

I am concerned with only two issues: a) food sufficiency or insufficiency and its impact on a rapidly multiplying population; and b) the possible resumption of hostilities in Mindanao and Sulu.

I reminded the audience that by the year 2014 (or only six years from now), we will number 100 million; and by the year 2050 (or only 42 years from now), we will number 199 million. Where in the world will we find the food (and the water, the energy, the fuel, the schools, the housing and the jobs) for such a massive population, when we can barely provide for a population of “only” 90 million?

In its Medium Term Development Plan, made public – I believe – in September or October 2001, the Arroyo administration articulated its strategic goal of focusing on only three sectors: agriculture, tourism and information technology.

The welcome proliferation of call centers and business processing enterprises, not only in Metro Manila but in many other urban centers in the provinces, is proof that President Arroyo was very successful in this sector, whether or not her administration did anything concrete to promote this industry..

The second preferred sector, tourism, is only a middling success. We drew in only 3.0 million tourists in 2007. Vietnam overtook us last year with 4.2 million. Indonesia surpassed us long ago; it now draws in six million, even though we each drew in one million in 1991. Let’s not even compare ourselves with Thailand (13 million tourists), Malaysia (16 million) and Hong Kong (26 million).

It is in agriculture that the Arroyo administration must be rated a failure. I cannot imagine how any government could claim to focus on agriculture without making a specific effort to be self-sufficient in the most important crop, rice.

Especially since we are host to the International Rice Research Institute, to become the biggest rice importer in the world is an irony beyond comprehension. It is like Italy becoming the world’s biggest importer of pasta.

President Arroyo has vowed to make the country self-sufficient in rice by the year 2010. Why didn’t she think of this in 2001? If she had, there would have been specific measures taken as early as 2001 to increase production and to limit population growth. ..

As for Mindanao and Sulu, this problem looms as an 800-pound gorilla, more menacing than the food and population issue. The peace between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Manila government has been tenuous at best. It now looks ephemeral and dicey.

Malaysia, a major player in the international monitoring team that has kept that peace, has just withdrawn most of its military contingent from Mindanao. Do the Malaysians know something that we don’t?

It certainly looks that way. In any negotiation, when one party wants to break off the negotiations without bearing the onus for the break-off, it will make demands that it knows the other party cannot meet, and thus put the blame on the other party for the impasse.

That seems to be the case here as the talks bogged down on the issue of ancestral domain. The Bangsamoro have demanded that their ancestral domain should include Palawan, clearly an unacceptable demand. Will the MILF now break off negotiations and resume hostilities? Even if the peace holds, there are other issues that complicate the problem.

Certainly the majority Christian populations in urban centers in the present Autonomous Regions of Muslim Mindanao (ARRM) do not relish the prospect of being included in the ancestral domain of the Bangsamoro. Will they now re-arm as they did in the 1970s?

There is also the rivalry between the MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF from which the MILF had split in the 1990s. The MNLF wanted to set up a secular state, the MILF prefer an Islamic state under Sharia Law.

And keep in mind that the problem of Moro secession flared up in the 1970s after President Ferdinand Marcos’ plan to invade Sabah (North Borneo) was exposed

after the so-called Jabidah Massacre in which the core of that invasion force was massacred in Corregidor Island. As payback, Malaysia, with the aid of British intelligence, stoked the fires of separatism that lasts to this day. Malaysia has been accused of being partial towards the MILF.

Do the Malaysians know something that we don’t? We will find out before 2010. Sen. Pimentel’s espousal of federalism before the end of President Arroyo’s term may be an attempt to stave off secession. But to the Bangsamoro, it may be too little too late. To them, it may look more like a sign of weakness. It is either Palawan or nothing.

- tony abaya

Php 500 per Vote

2008-05-02T04:01:00.003+08:00

It is not my intent to deprive destitute and hungry Filipinos – of whom there are millions – of the few crumbs that the Arroyo Government plans to throw in their direction from its scandalously over-stocked banquet table.

My purpose in this piece is to point out the fallacies and false promises of this initiative, and to suggest instead what I think would be a better alternative.

According to Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral, in the April 27 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, her department will soon dispense monthly cash hand-outs to the 300,000 poorest families in the 20 poorest provinces.

The basic dole-out will be P500 per poorest-of-the-poor family, plus P300 per child, with a maximum of three children per family. Thus the maximum dole-out will be P1,400 per family per month, to 300,000 families. Since almost all Filipino families have more than three children, that would amount to P420 million a month, or P5.04 billion in one year.

If they were to start this program – called Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino (APP) – this month, by April 2009, its budget of P5 billion would have been exhausted.
And then what?

Having accustomed 300,000 poor families (or at least 1.8 million destitute people) to receiving monthly cash hand-outs for one year, without their doing an honest day’s work, can President Arroyo afford to stop?

Of course, not. She has to keep going. And because millions of other destitute people would be clamoring for their share - to the point of causing civil unrest in the face of escalating food and fuel prices - she would have to expand APP to cover, not just 300,000 families, but perhaps three million families, or even more.

(Both the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have estimates of the number of Filipinos living on less than $2 (P85) a day. They number much more than three million. A Social Weather Stations survey in February 2007 showed that 3.4 million households – or more than 20 million Filipinos – had experienced hunger at least once in the previous three months. That number must have increased even more in 2008.)

Keep in mind that 2009 is the run-up to the 2010 presidential elections. Keep in mind that the initiative to amend the Constitution is still on track. A ChaCha Road Show was launched by Albay Gov. Joey “Bitch” Salceda last February 11 and is still on the road.

Sen. Nene Pimentel and his 11 apostles, have unwittingly (or perhaps wittingly) aided the Arroyo Game Plan by pushing for a ChaCha to convert the Philippines from a unitary state to a federal union, and he wants this to happen before the end of President Arroyo’s term in 2010..

Is Sen. Pimentel really so naïve that he cannot see that, once his federalism ChaCha constituent assembly is convened, the Gloria in Excelsis Dado cumbancheros in Congress will chime in: “Since we are already debating federalism, we might as well debate parliamentary also.”
The overwhelming Kampi and Lakas majority in the Lower House would, to no one’s surprise, shout in unison: “We should! We should!” and then burst into the Hallelujah chorus, if they knew the words.

Now what can Sen. Pimentel and his 11 senatorial apostles possibly do to stem the parliamentary tide and prevent President Arroyo from doing a Vladimir Putin to remain in power beyond 2010? Absolutely nothing. The numbers would be stacked against them.
It is in this light that one must view the Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino (APP), which can also be seen to mean Ang Pangulong Pang-habangbuhay.

In my view, it is a devious and manipulative scheme to buy signatures for the ChaCha referendum in 2009, and votes for the parliamentary elections in 2010 or, alternately, presidential elections without term limits..

At P500 per vote per month, or P5 billion per year, that is equivalent to just the $130 million (P5.4 billion) overprice in one contract, the aborted ZTE deal. Only God and the Chinese know how much overprice there was in the 26 other contracts that the Arroyo Government signed with them.

But aside from the political machinations implicit in the APP, there is also the mendicant attitude that such dole-outs cultivate in the minds of the recipients.

This is a classic illustration of the truism that if you give fish to a starving person, he or she will be able to stave off starvation for one day. But the following day, that person will be starving again.

But if you were to teach that person how to catch fish, he or she would not go hungry again. The APP is the fish that President Arroyo wants to give to the poor every month, without teaching them how to catch fish for themselves.

Lastly, there is the problem of implementing such a literally cash-rich program, which will attract all kinds of scam artists faster than anyone can say Magkano ba ang akin? Let’s face it. We have not been adjudged the Most Corrupt Country in Asia for the past two years for nothing.
Unless President Arroyo can find an army of nuns – the type who saved Jun Lozada from being silenced or killed – to run this program, I would assume that a great part of its budget will magically attach themselves to the sticky fingers of officials and bureaucrats, from Malacanang to the lowest barangay. Perhaps that is the main idea.
If I were president, I would not give hand-outs even to the poorest of the poor. I would instead organize them into manufacturing and service co-operatives, to produce goods and services for which there is a real need and demand.

By Antonio C. Abaya
Written on April 30, 2008
For the Standard Today,
May 01 issue

Fr. Archie Intengan's sexual ethics class

2008-04-16T18:50:00.001+08:00

Posted in Manuel Buencamino by uniffors on the April 15th, 2008

We were not surprised to hear that former Jesuit provincial, Fr. Romeo "Archie" Intengan, had turned into a pamphleteer for the Palace and its ZTE partners.

An ideologue who will bed with anybody who supports his syncretic political construct, the Philippine Democratic Socialist Party, Intengan was going around the country distributing a brochure called ZTE Primer.

The primer, as Enteng Romano of the Black and White Movement points out, suggests three things:

1) That Jun Lozada lied when he claimed he was abducted; this, of course, assumes that the government account of the incident is true

2) That Jun Lozada's and the other whistleblowers' testimonies are all hearsay and therefore have no value

3) That the Senate hearings should now be stopped and charges in court should be filed instead.

Intengan must believe that Freedom of Speech includes the right to tell lies anywhere anytime, as this item lifted from the BnW blog reveals:

Incidentally, the ZTE Primer was distributed to students of Fr. Intengan's class on Sexual Ethics at Ateneo some time in March. During the class, Intengan declared that Lozada was part of a destabilization plot and his kidnapping was a hoax. He also played the wiretapped conversation between Jun Lozada and Joey de Venecia. And to think that Intengan advocates the rule of law in his primer.

What the !?! Those kids paid tuition to learn "sexual ethics," presumably the Catholic variety, but Intengan taught them something else:

you may not have sex outside of marriage but you may screw your country anytime!

Lozada pours heart out in blog

2008-04-14T22:44:00.003+08:00

MANILA, Philippines -- The Senate's star witness in its probe into the controversial national broadband network (NBN) deal with ZTE Corp. said he and members of his family remain not only a target of threats to their lives but also of lies and black propaganda allegedly perpetrated by the Arroyo administration.

"I have paid and I'm still paying a very high price for the piece of truth that I have put out for the people to see," Lozada said in a "reflection paper" posted on the blog of the civil society group Black and White Movement, one of the groups supporting him.

In the paper, Lozada recounted how he fared in the "two months of Calvary" he experienced since he returned from a few days in Hong Kong and testified in the Senate on what he knew about the NBN-ZTE deal.

He claimed the Arroyo administration continues to hound him with lies and innuendo to ruin his reputation and credibility.

"This is in full steam and venom right now, courtesy of Malacañang mercenaries disguised as journalists and their special operatives handlers. This highly paid group has successfully buried the kidnapping and attempted rub-out case under a rubble of lies that they unceasingly manufacture against me, from poison letters, komiks, media attacks to black propaganda special operatives, waiting to pounce on every opportunity they can to destroy the trust that the public may have given me," Lozada said.

Lozada's confidence in Arroyo administration has so eroded that he told the Court of Appeals on Friday he would reject any offer of protection from the police or the National Bureau of Investigation.

In the paper, Lozada said he felt the media have failed to portray his and his family's private sufferings from the "ceaseless harassment from death threats, character demolition, legal suits to black propaganda."

Lozada said he continued to be hurt by the pain of seeing his children cry their hearts out upon seeing the news of his past mistake, the frustration of seeing his children lose their academic honors because they were unable to go to school for almost a month.

He also worried that he and his family would never have a normal life ever again.

Lozada lamented that some people unfairly criticized the "public smiles" he displayed during his tours in Metro Manila and the provinces. In fact, he said, such smiles concealed his "private agonies" and were never meant to project himself as a politician aspiring for a public office.

"To those who get turned off when they see me on media portrayed like a politico, I'm asking for forgiveness because I don't have training in public appearances. But what if you put yourself in my shoes? My family and I have already suffered from my decision to serve the country, yet you find fault with me for smiling in public? I do not want to be self-righteous, but may I ask you to reflect on these questions before you judge me," Lozada said.

The engineer dared his detractors to answer four questions: What have you done to correct corruption? What have you given up to fight corruption? What have you gained from corruption? What have you done to uplift the victims of corruption?

Lozada insisted that no politician was using or funding him. In fact, he added, one of his "best kept secrets" was that the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines, which is providing him and his family sanctuary, imposed a condition that "I should not be associated with any political party or with any political figure or else they will be forced to take us out of their sanctuary program."

According to Lozada, he used to take lightly many accusations against him until his close friends in the religious community told him about an Ateneo-based priest who portrayed him as "such a wily person who has outwitted the entire nation by staging his own kidnapping, rescue and even his Senate appearance."

Similar presentations have been made in retreats for some religious congregations, he added.

"That is why I am now not surprised when officiating priests in our celebration of the Mass will show me texts from their brother priests telling them not to be used by Lozada and his politician handlers, and much to my relief, these priests who have actually heard me share my personal reflections would assure me that they will be the one to set right their misinformed brothers of their community," he said.

Lozada surfaced last February to reveal what he knew about the $329.48-million broadband deal mess. His alleged abduction caused a sensation and high-ranking government officials appeared before the Senate to dispute his claims.

Lozada also said Filipinos should continue to reiterate their sovereign right by demanding that the Arroyo administration tell the whole truth about the aborted deal.

"The failure of this administration to let out the other pieces of truth being held by the government should lead to a demand for accountability by those who will be found betraying the trust of the people, for without truth and accountability there will be no justice in the land," he said.

Lozada ended his piece with an exhortation: "I have now come to realize this is not about Jun Lozada. It is about every Filipino fighting for what is right against an unjust order, it is about every Filipino demanding from its government the truth amidst the lies and deceit, it's about every Filipino rallying to battle against the evil that has long imprisoned the Filipino people."

By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Tumaya ka na ba?

2008-04-08T02:43:00.002+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzBZhX9twtg&fmt=6

Listen to the speech of Jun Lozada delivered during the Mass for Truth at the Most Holy Trinity Parish Church, April 6, 2008

thanks to polatenna

Oras na MTV

2008-04-08T02:39:00.002+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdPfiOcsc5Q&fmt=6

Pilipino, nasan ka? (ask of Jun Lozada's nephew for the Filipino People)

2008-04-07T17:01:00.003+08:00

May Multiply ka. Ibig sabihin, kahit papaano, meron kang paraan para makagamit ng internet. Ibig sabihin, lamang ka sa ilan pang libong Pilipino na ni hindi pa nakakahawak ng computer sa tanangbuhay nila.

Malamang, kabilang ka sa middle class. Marami sigurong maaaring maglarawan sa middle class. Maaaring ito ang mga taong may kaya, mga taong nakakakain naman ng tatlong beses isang araw, mga taong may tinutuluyang bahay at sariling kotse, mga taong paminsan minsa'y nakakalabas para magpalamig sa mall o manood ng sine. Maaari din namang sila ay ang mga taong nasa gitna lagi ng lahat ng isyu. Mayroong mga "leftist" kung tawagin na di sang-ayon sa gobyerno, ang administrasyon naman ang panig ng gobyerno. Ang middle class ay ang nasa gitna: walang pinapanigan.

Pero sa panahon ng tagumpay, sino ang mga taas noong nagsasabi na Pilipino sila? Ang middle class din. Nang magtagumpay ang mga Pilipino nang mapatalsik ang diktaturya ni Marcos, middle class ang nasa "gitna" ng mga pangyayari. Nang mapatalsik, natulog muli ang middle class. Ginising lang marahil muli nang patalsikin si Erap. Hindi ang konting mayaman sa bansa, hindi ang milyon-milyong masang Pilipino, kundi ang middle class, ang nagtipon noon upang maiparinig ang kanilang saloobin, upang iparating na wala nang moral na kapasidad ang presidenteng Erap upang mamuno sa bansa.

Sa madaling sabi, sino ba ang middle class? Diyata'y ito ang mga taong nakikisakay sa siguradong tagumpay, ngunit hindi kikilos sa panahong ginagawa pa ang kalsada patungo sa tagumpay. Pare-parehong tanong ang ibinabato ng middle class bago sila kumilos: Sino ang papalit? Bubuti ba ang buhay pag pinalitan natin ang pangulo ngayon? Alam kong hindi na maganda ang pinaggagagawa ng presidente sa bansa natin, pero anu pa ba ang dalawang taon na lang na pag-aantay?

Sa panahon ngayon ipinapalabas na may rice shortage sa bansa. Tila kasalanan ng gobyerno kung tutuusin. Tila ikagagalit ng mga Pilipino na pati ang bigas na nasa hapag kainan nila araw-araw ay tumataas na rin ang presyo ng husto. Pero sa totoo, wala namang rice shortage sa bansa. Nililihis nito ang atensyon ng mamamayang Pilipino sa isyu ng korupsyon na dumidiin sa administrasyong Arroyo. Sabagay, bakit mo nga ba naman papansinin ang isyu ng korupsyon, na alam mo naman mula't sapul na meron, pero di direktang naaapektuhan ang buhay mo, samantalang ang presyo ng bigas na direktang nakakaapekto sa buhay mo eh nagtataas araw araw. Ngayon, pag humupa na ang isyu sa bigas, dahil ilalabas ng gobyerno ang itinago nila sa publiko, kahit paano eh gagaan ang loob ng mamamayan sa gobyerno dahil nagawan nila ng paraan ang patuloy na pagtaas ng presyo ng bigas kahit na ito'y isang "pandaigdigang krisis".

Sinabi ng tito ko kahapon sa misa na ang karamihan ng Pilipino ay dasal ng dasal sa Diyos na sana tumama sila sa Lotto, pero di naman sila tumataya. Siya ngayon ay nakataya na. Hinihikayat nya ang iba pa na makitaya rin naman at huwag lamang makisakay.

Bilang parte ng middle class, sa kung anu mang depinisyon naibigay na, uupo ka na lang ba at maghihintay na mei biyayang mangyari? Hindi ko rin alam kung paano matatapos itong gulong to, pero hindi rin naman ito matatapos kung hindi susundan ang mga nasimulan. Kayo, hindi, tayong nasa middle class ang isa sa pinakamaimpluwensyang pwersa sa bansang ito. Pag kumilos tayo ay siguradong may mararating tayo. Pero hangga't uupo lang tayo at maghihintay ng biyaya, pare-pareho lang tayong madurusa.

Sa mga pinaggagagawa kong ito sa multiply, sa pagbblog at pagreply sa kung saan saan, marami akong biglang nakilala. Hindi ako nagrereklamo, natutuwa ako at kahit paano, nararamdaman kong may namamalasakit para sa amin, sa kapakanan ng tito ko, pero higit sa lahat, eh nagmamalasakit para sa bansa. Ilan sa mga nakilala kong ito, nakausap ko na, at napagkasunduan naming kailangan pa namin ng tulong. Isang pagtitipon ang napagpasyahan naming idaos upang marinig ang panig ng "middle class' sa sitwasyong ikinahaharap ng bansa natin ngayon. Pero sana hindi ito maging una't huling pagtitipon.

Nais ko rin sanang iparating na hindi ako parte ng kahit anong grupo. Nananatili akong sarili kong pagkatao, pamangkin ni Jun Lozada, anak ni Arturo Lozada, simpleng taong graduate ng UST, nagtatrabaho para makapag-ipon sa di nalalayong hinaharap. Hinihikayat ko ikaw na nagbabasa nito, at kung sino pang kaibigan mo, na dumalo sa pagtitipong ito, hindi para maging parte ng isang aktibistang grupo, hindi para hingan ng pantustos, hindi para pumirma ng kontrata, kundi para lamang marinig ang tunay na pulso ng middle class. Para naman hindi magmukhang survey sa TV ang persepsyon namin sa middle class.

Mangyayari ang pagtitipon sa Institute of Political Studies sa #111-D Malakas St. Quezon City (sa mei Philippine Heart Center) sa April 19, mga alas-dos ng tanghali.

Magtulungan tayong kumilos. Iparinig ninyo ang nasa isip ninyo.

Tumaya naman tayo.

Jun Lozada's nephew

Biking Priest

2008-04-07T16:20:00.002+08:00

'Biking priest' in Manila to deliver letter to Arroyo
04/07/2008 | 08:29 AM

MANILA, Philippines - Redemptorist "biking priest" Amado "Picx" Picardal arrived in Manila Sunday for the Manila and North Luzon legs of his 56-day, 4,750-kilometer bike tour for peace.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said Monday that Picardal will deliver his letter of concern to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in Malacañang on April 27.

"On April 27, on his way back from Northern Luzon, he will bike around Manila and deliver (his) letter to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo," the CBCP said on its website Monday.

Picardal is expected to tour Northern Luzon then make his Malacañang delivery on his way back from the north, it said.

Earlier, Picardal said that while he does not expect President Arroyo to receive him or his letter personally, he will make its contents public once he formally submits it to the Palace.

He said his letter to Mrs Arroyo will denounce her and her government for perpetuating a "culture of death."

"Delivering a letter to Malacañang is just a side trip and I don't expect the President to meet me or to read the letter - it is just symbolic. I will make the contents of the letter public - in it I will
denounce the President for perpetuating the culture of death and corruption and for being a hypocrite (she goes to Mass everyday and claims that it is God's will that she is president). Although I want her to resign, I will not be demanding her resignation because I know that it will be futile - she will continue to cling to power at all cost," he said in his Web log in March.

Also, he said his letter will tell Arroyo she will face the judgment of history and of God, and her worst punishment will be to live the rest of her life in shame and disgrace.

"But I don't want to focus all my energy in just denouncing the president," he said.

Picardal left Davao City last March 24, has received good response from bishops, priests, lay people, and follow bikers who joined him along the way from different places.

He has been urging people to "denounce the culture of death," and "uphold the value of life."

During sermons at masses he held in his "stopovers," Picardal lamented that the spate of killings of journalists and activists, destruction of the environment and corruption in all levels of the county.

Picardal plans to stop in one parish each night, to offer Mass and preach about life and peace.

His tour is from Davao across Central and Western Visayas to the tip of Northern Luzon and traversing the Cordilleras on his way back to Davao through Southern Luzon, the Eastern Visayas and Eastern Mindanao.

The remainder of his tour would cover Manila (Baclaran), Cabanatuan, Bayombong-Ilagan, Tuguegarao, Aparri-Claveria, Laoag, Bangued, Malibcong, Lubuagan, Bontoc, Abatan, Baguio, Alaminos, Iba, Zambales, Balanga, Bataan, Manila (Baclaran), Lucena, Calauag, Daet, Naga,
Sorsogon, Matnog, Allen-Catarman, Samar, Catarman- Gamay, Oras, Llorente, Tacloban, Ormoc, Hilongos, Leyte, Liloan, Surigao, Butuan, San Francisco, Agusan, Mangagoy, Cateel, Davao Oriental, Cateel-Compostela Nabunturan, and Davao.

"I do this because we live in a land where the value and sanctity of life is disregarded, a society where the culture of death and violence prevails. There are various manifestations of this culture of death and I would like to focus on abortion, the ongoing-armed conflict in the countryside, the spate of killings of militants, journalists and suspected petty criminals, the environmental destruction and graft and corruption," he said. - GMANews.TV

So much for Gloria's "programs" Intel rethinking stay. Bakit kaya?

2008-04-05T13:20:00.002+08:00

So much for Gloria's sorties abroad to " sell the
Philippines" (apparently only the Chinese but
only because contracts were all in their favor. They may be trying to
fool the Filipino people that they travel (at taxpayers expense,
bring wives, staff and other non-essentials as they say they
traveling to "GET INVESTMENTS) As long as the MOB got their cut,
nothing else mattered, as everything was in their favor. Also, it is
no secret that the dollars they use for the travel are acquired at an
exchange rate that THEY dictate. It's sickening, if you were to find
out the pesos they paid for each dollar they used for their travel
expense).

Anyway, what the hell are they traveling for, pretending to get new
investors, if a huge plant that set up south of Manila, and I refer
to the if non-polluting businesses Intel, who hires a LOT of Pinoys
are now meeting about getting the hell out of 'Dodge'. If Intel,
which has been here for years is pondering leaving, how can now the
government claim to be succeeding in inviting foreign money into this
corruption-tainted heavily polluted by crooks, scoundrels and
scalawags to put their money here. Just getting the red tape over
with will cost them a heck of a lot of money, and this is even before
breaking ground. After having to deal with the National Corruption
Agencies for getting their permits, licences, clearances from
agencies like Atienza's Department of Environment and National
Resources, among others, next in line is, depending on their
location, are the many matters with local governments. These
ignoramuses, instead of appreciating the facts that they
will have increased local taxes and have gainful employment for their
constituents, would rather butcher the piglet now rather than wait
for the real blessings will flow. Let the pig grow, if you can follow
my drift. Galing mo, Gloria. You have been able to educate even the
merest baranggay tanod on how to make kotong, and made your allies
and Generals some of the richest Filipinos on the face of the earth.
Yet you want to continue to teach these classes till way past the
year 2010. And your biggest sin of all is how you corrupted your
children and taught
them how to steal, cheat and lie. Your own children. I do not know
if there is room in hell for people
like that. Most probably they will have to create a special below
hell compartment for your kind..

BUSINESSWORLD

BY MARIA KRISTINA C. CONTI, Reporter
Intel rethinking RP options

MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR INVESTOR INTEL, concerned with the growing
requirements of its domestic business unit, is weighing "options" for
a final decision to either stay in or leave the Philippines.

Intel Technology Philippines Inc.’s senior management discussed its
long-term options with employees last Wednesday night, in a meeting
initially expected to be about financial results.

"In an effort to keep employees informed, Intel has updated its
employees that significant investments would be required to ensure
the long-term viability of its factory building in Cavite," a
statement Intel released yesterday quoted its media relations
manager, Ma. Teresa L. Pacis, as saying. "Intel would like to
reiterate that it has made no decision on this matter and is
currently exploring multiple options."

Philippine journalist threatened with death following report about mining threat to forest

2008-04-05T13:16:00.001+08:00

Alert - Philippines
4 April 2008
Source: Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), Manila

A Palawan-based journalist was threatened with death on 3 April
2008 after he wrote that a mining company was blocking plans to
declare a forest in Brooke's Point, Palawan, as a protected area.
Palawan is an island southwest of Manila.

Redempto Anda, a "Philippine Daily Inquirer" correspondent and an
editor for the local newspaper "Palawan Star", received the threat
through his mobile phone. The text message said that the person
after him was protecting the interest of a certain "Kapitan"
(Captain).

"Watch your back you have been tempting the gods! Don't even think
they will take it kindly that you are on a personal crusade against
the KAPITAN," the text message he received read.

Anda later received another message saying, "Be kind to an animal?
Yes we will, through mercy killing! Good luck."

The messages were sent through the mobile number 09267869353, which
has since been disengaged.

Anda said in a phone interview that the threat came after his story
on the plans of the mining company MacroAsia was published in the 1
April issue of the "Philippine Daily Inquirer".

Anda's story said that MacroAsia, the flagship company of business
tycoon Lucio Tan, was planning to launch a large-scale nickel
mining project at Mt. Mantalingahan in Brooke's Point, Palawan,
despite government plans of declaring it a protected area.

Anda quoted the Palawan NGO Network (PNNI) as saying that MacroAsia
was "manipulating" some tribal leaders, who are members of Brooke's
Point Federation of Tribal Councils, to stop the declaration of the
mountain as a protected area.

Anda said the threat affected him in "a big way." "I won't be
writing stories on mining for the meantime," he said.

After receiving the message, Anda immediately reported it to the
local police as well as to the management of the "Philippine Daily
Inquirer". The management, he said, has decided that he should "lie
low for the meantime" on mining stories.

He also approached the management of MacroAsia regarding the threat
he received. But MacroAsia denied any involvement.

Kaya pala taya ng taya si GMA sa Lotto

2008-04-05T13:13:00.001+08:00

Ito siguro yun sinanabi ng President na walan ng problema at 7. something yun economic figures. Siguro hindi sya nagbabasa ang dyaryo kaya parating OK lahat ng balita. Sa madaling salita mali tayong lahat, all 65% of us at tama siya, isang tao na napakahirap paniwalaan.

Galing sa BUSINESSWORLDONLINE (itong araw na ito)

Today’s Headlines
Budget shortfall hits P32.9 billion in February

The government stayed in the red for the second consecutive month
this year in incurring a P19-billion February deficit, bringing the
shortfall so far to P32.9 billion and raising concerns whether this
year’s balanced budget goal would be met.

Officials, however, cited collection improvements, with Finance
Secretary Margarito B. Teves saying he expected the government to
’’get back on track" in the next few months.

He said the administration was keeping the balanced budget goal amid
external concerns which are pushing the government to boost spending
via frontloaded infrastructure projects and support for the food sector.

"With prudent fiscal management, we are better prepared to weather
external shocks and help protect the economic gains that we have
achieved so far," Mr. Teves said.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) collected P50.9 billion in
February, 23.4% higher year on year. Collection growth was also
recorded on the side of the Bureau of Customs (BoC), which took in
P15.7 billion, 16.6% higher than in February 2007.

For the first two months of the year, the BIR booked P107.6 billion,
18.3% higher than last year, while the BoC collected P30.4 billion,
20.6% better than a year earlier.

"Although we have incurred a higher deficit in the first two months
of the year, we are encouraged by the strong revenue growth posted by
the BIR and the BoC and we are hoping to get back on track with our
deficit program in the coming months," Mr. Teves said.

The government ended February 2007 with an P11.1-billion surplus,
with revenues boosted by a P25.8 billion extraordinary income from
the sale of its shares in Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp.

Mr. Teves, meanwhile, said "Revenues from other offices, which
included privatization proceeds, went down by 78.1% to P6.7 billion
from P30.8 billion in February last year. However, if we exclude
privatization receipts, total revenues from other offices actually
increased by P1.7 billion in February this year from P5 billion last
year."

Other offices include the Land Transportation Office, which collects
the motor vehicle users’ tax, the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources, which collects forest charges, and the Bureau of
Fire Protection, which collects fire code charges. Its collection
includes proceeds from government asset sale under the Privatization
and Management Office (PMO).

"Privatization proceeds in February were very minimal. These were
small assets sold by the PMO," Finance Undersecretary Crisanta
Legaspi said.

Government spending in February was P100.8 billion, 28.3% higher than
the P78.5 billion posted in the same month last year, due to higher
interest payments on Treasury bills issued to government financial
institutions and local government units.

Interest payments for February amounted to P39.9 billion, or roughly
40% of the total spending for the month. Interest payments climbed by
50.7% compared to the P26.5 billion paid for the same purpose in
February 2007.

Expenditures for the first two months of the year climbed 11.5% to
201.7 billion versus the spending in the same period last year. Of
the total spending, P69.9 billion went to interest payments, which
grew by 19%.

-araymanila

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESIDENT GLORIA MACAPAGAL ARROYO!

2008-04-05T09:42:00.003+08:00

(Sa wikang Waray)

Pagbati hin Gloria
Ni Fhen M.

Ha im’ kaadlawan han Tugastugasan
Am’ pinapadangat hingyap han kadam-an:
Panlawas nim’ Gloria unta mag’ maupay
Pag-abat ha dughan gumaan-gaanay
‘Yaw pagpaora ha ulo nga masuolay.

Baboy ha kongreso ha im’ nakahanda
Daw sugad boaya nga nagpakatupa
An iya mantika pag-ikmat kun sobra
Yana la marasa, buwas lalamonon ka.

Gloria pamatii ungara ha imo:
Mga problema pugngon undangon nimo
Aada makakab-ot kun di ka na pangulo!

(Pagsasalin sa wikang Tagalog/Filipino)

Pagbati ng Gloria
Nitong buwan ng Abril sa iyong kaarawan
Aming ipinapaabot ang mithiin ng sambayanan:
Nawa’y maging matiwasay ang iyong kalusugan
Gumaan lumuwag ang iyong dibdib pakiramdam
At huwag tangkilikin ang kirot ng pilipisan.

Nakahanda para sa iyo ang mga baboy sa kongreso
Tila bagang mga buwitreng nag-aanyong karnero
At sa mantika niya’y maghinay-hinay
Ngayo’y malinamnam datapwat bukas lalamunin ka.

Pakinggan mo Gloria ang aming daing mithiin:
Lumayas ka sa iyong mga suliranin
At ito’y ganap kung hindi ka na pangulo!

- nagmamahal sidaypanulat

----------------------------------------------

ito ang araw
ng iyong unang pag-uha
kung saan nagsaya
ang korap mong ama
pagka't sa wakas
may magmamana ng lakas
may susunod sa yapak
itong butihing anak
na magpapatuloy sa pagsadlak
sa masang dusa ang tinatahak

ito ang araw
na isinilang ang bugaw
na magbebenta sa Inang Bayan
sa dayuhang ganid at gahaman
hinigitan pa itong si Hudas
o si Pilato sa kanyang paghuhugas
sa salaping hindi ang anak ng bayan
kundi bulsa ng iilan ang makikinabang
kaluluwa ni Pilipina at anak na si Juan
siyang gagawing kolateral, pagpapasasaan!

ito ang araw
na ngayon lamang natanaw
kung gaano kapanglaw
at sa atin ay naagaw
kabang-yamang pinuhunanan
ng pawis at dugo ng mamamayan
kakayanin pang tao ay ipadukot
at gagamit ng pananakot
manatili lamang sa kapangyarihan
kahit na ito'y lantarang kasamaan!

kaluksa-luksang araw
ng Abril sa lahat ng mga araw
pagka't isinilang ang bata
na ngayo'y naging medusa
na naghahari sa ating republika
naghahasik ng lagim, sila ng kanyang asawa
kupit dito at kupit duon, wala na ngang takot
milyon milyong dolyar ang kanilang hinahakot
kailan kaya matatapos ang gabing mapanglaw
upang ang masang nagaaklas ay mabigyang tanglaw!

ito ang araw nang pagluluksa
at hindi ng pagdiriwang ng madla
subalit nawa matapos na ang pagtangis
halina't markahan ang petsang mabangis
at sabihin sa ating mga sarili
ito nga ang araw na tadhana mismo ang magsisisi
dahil tatayo na ang bayan at magpapahid ng luha
titindig at magsasabing tapos na ang pagluluksa
ngayon na, oras na, panahon na---
alis dyan at maniningil na ang masa!.
- nagmamahal otsopya

----------------------------------------------

Prayer Bday For Gloria

Aba Naman Gloria,
Puno Ka Na ng GRASYA!
Ang Yaman ng Bansa ay SUMAIYO na.
Sa Husay ni GARCI Naging Pekeng PANGULO ka!
Bukod kang MANDARAYA sa Babaeng lahat.
Pinagpala ring MANGURAKOT, ASAWAT ANAK,
kayat wala ng natira sa AMEN!

- nagmamahal toning11

Our dearest birthday wish for you, our Excellency, is to RESIGN! God bless you and your family!

ps: MODERATE THE GREED!!!

Military Officer: in a middle of CLIMAX while in the middle of MEETING

2008-04-05T08:36:00.003+08:00

hahaha

huling-huli, hndi na makapag hintay si sir.

hoyy sir intelligence fund ginagamit po dyan, binabarayan ng sambayanang pilipino sa tax!.

kaya kayo napapatay kapag oras ng labanan eh. hndi nakikinig sa meeting.

isipin nyo ah. soldier palang yan, mas malala pa siguro yung pinaka head nila.

GMA Formula: It's a numbers game. Divide the Institutions

2008-04-03T08:26:00.001+08:00

Results:

EQ Poll:The most trusted Philippine institutions:

The Presidency:1%

The Senate:40%

The House of Representatives:0%

The Supreme Court:9%

Military:1%

Church:8%

Press: 13%

Sorry, none of the above:39%

Votes cast :137 votes

The Church:Only five (5) "noisy " bishops are for her resignation.The 100 plus bishops are for GMA because of her support for their "poverty alleviation" programs
via PAGCOR gambling/PCSO lotto funds.

The Senate: Majority Bloc is aligned with the Administration in spite of Genuine Opposition win in the last Senatorial elections.Formidable Majority bloc of 15 senators(9 administration senators+ 2 "independents" + Villar,Estrada,Cayetano &
Escudero).

Business Groups: Only Makati Business Club is supporting the "Truth and Accountability" Movement.Donald Dee and the three stooges are rabid GMA supporters.

The Lower House:Completely controlled by the three "speakers"(Speaker Nograles and the two Arroyo sons).

Judiciary:The Arroyo Court is expected to vote along partisan lines (9-6) on court cases affecting her administration.

The Military:GMA has the complete loyalty of her political generals.

eq

The limits of executive privilege

2008-03-31T05:01:00.001+08:00

Executive privilege can never be used to hide a crime or wrongdoing.

Executive privilege is the implied constitutional power of the President to withhold information requested by other branches of the government. The Constitution does not expressly grant this power to the President but courts have long recognized implied Presidential powers if "necessary and proper" in carrying out powers and functions expressly granted to the Executive under the Constitution.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and as Chief Executive, the President is ultimately responsible for military and national security matters affecting the nation. In the discharge of this responsibility, the President may find it necessary to withhold sensitive military and national security secrets from the Legislature or the public.

As the official in control of the nation's foreign service by virtue of the President's control of all executive departments, bureaus and offices, the President is the chief implementer of the foreign policy relations of the State. The President's role as chief implementer of the State's foreign policy is reinforced by the President's constitutional power to negotiate and enter into treaties and international agreements.

In the discharge of this responsibility, the President may find it necessary to refuse disclosure of sensitive diplomatic secrets to the Legislature or the public. Traditionally, states have conducted diplomacy with considerable secrecy. There is every expectation that a state will not imprudently reveal secrets that its allies have shared with it.

Cabinet discussions

There is also the need to protect the confidentiality of the internal deliberations of the President with his Cabinet and advisers. To encourage candid discussions and thorough exchange of views, the President's communications with his Cabinet and advisers need to be shielded from the glare of publicity. Otherwise, the Cabinet and other presidential advisers may be reluctant to discuss freely with the President policy issues and executive matters knowing that their discussions will be publicly disclosed, thus depriving the President of candid advice.

Executive privilege, however, is not absolute. The interest of protecting military, national security and diplomatic secrets, as well as Presidential communications, must be weighed against other constitutionally recognized interests.

There is the declared state policy of full public disclosure of all transactions involving public interest, the right of the people to information on matters of public concern, the accountability of public officers, the power of legislative inquiry, and the judicial power to secure testimonial and documentary evidence in deciding cases.

The balancing of interests – between executive privilege on one hand and the other competing constitutionally recognized interests on the other hand - is a function of the courts. The courts will have to decide the issue based on the factual circumstances of each case. This is how conflicts on executive privilege between the Executive and the Legislature, and between the Executive and the Judiciary, have been decided by the courts.

The Judiciary, however, will consider executive privilege only if the issues cannot be resolved on some other legal grounds. In conflicts between the Executive and the Legislature involving executive privilege, the Judiciary encourages negotiation between the Executive and Legislature as the preferred route of conflict resolution. Only if judicial resolution is unavoidable will courts resolve such disputes between the Executive and Legislature.

Past presidents covered

Information covered by executive privilege remains confidential even after the expiry of the terms of office of the President, Cabinet members and presidential advisers. Thus, a former President can assert executive privilege.

The character of executive privilege attaches to the information and not to the person. Executive privilege is for the benefit of the State and not for the benefit of the office holder. Even death does not extinguish the confidentiality of information covered by executive privilege.

Executive privilege must be exercised by the President in pursuance of official powers and functions. Executive privilege cannot be invoked to hide a crime because the President is neither empowered nor tasked to conceal a crime. On the contrary, the President has the constitutional duty to enforce criminal laws and cause the prosecution of crimes.

Executive privilege cannot also be used to hide private matters, like private financial transactions of the President. Private matters are those not undertaken pursuant to the lawful powers and official functions of the Executive.

However, like all citizens, the President has a constitutional right to privacy. In conducting inquiries, the Legislature must respect the right to privacy of citizens, including the President's.

Specific information

Executive privilege must be invoked with specificity sufficient to inform the Legislature and the Judiciary that the matter claimed as privileged refers to military, national security or diplomatic secrets, or to confidential Presidential communications.

Executive privilege must be invoked after the question is asked by the legislative committee, not before. A witness cannot raise hypothetical questions that the committee may ask, claim executive privilege on such questions, and on that basis refuse to appear before the legislative committee.

If the legislative committee furnished in advance the questions to the witness, the witness must bring with him the letter of the President or Executive Secretary invoking executive privilege and stating the reasons for such claim.

There are other categories of government information which are considered confidential but are not strictly of the same status as those falling under the President's executive privilege. An example of such confidential information is the identity of an informer which is made confidential by contract between the government and the informer.

The privilege character of the information is contractual in nature. There are also laws that classify the identity of an informer as confidential. The privilege character of the information is conferred by the Legislature and not by the Executive's implied power of executive privilege under the Constitution.

Bids, contracts

There is also the category of government information that is confidential while the deliberative process of agency executives is on-going, but becomes public information once an agency decision or action is taken. Thus, a committee that evaluates bids of government contracts has a right to keep its deliberations and written communications confidential. The purpose of the deliberative process privilege is to give agency executives freedom to discuss competing bids in private without outside pressure.

However, once they take a definite action, like deciding the best bid, their deliberations and written communications form part of government records accessible by the public.

Confidential information under the deliberative process privilege is different from the President's executive privilege. Military, national security, and diplomatic secrets, as well as Presidential communications, remain confidential without time limit. The confidentiality of matters falling under the President's executive privilege remains as long as the need to keep them confidential outweighs the need for public disclosure.

Then there is the category of government information that must be kept temporarily confidential because to disclose them immediately would frustrate the enforcement of laws. In an entrapment operation of drug pushers, the identity of the undercover police agents, informers and drug suspects may not be disclosed publicly until after the operation is concluded.

However, during the trial, the identity of the undercover police agents and informers must be disclosed if their testimony is introduced in evidence.

Romulo Neri, petitioner

Petitioner categorically admits that his discussions with the President "dwelt on the impact of bribery scandal involving high Government officials." Petitioner's discussions with the President dealt not on simple bribery, but on scandalous bribery involving high Government officials of the Philippines.

In a letter dated 29 November 2007 to the Chairs of the [Senate] Committees, petitioner's counsel declared: His conversations with the President dealt with delicate and sensitive national security and diplomatic matters relating to the impact of bribery scandal involving high Government officials and the possible loss of confidence of foreign investors and lenders in the Philippines. x x x

Petitioner admits, and there can be no dispute about this admission, that his discussions with the President dwelt on a bribery scandal involving high Government officials of the Philippines.

Executive privilege can never be used to hide a crime or wrongdoing, even if committed by high government officials. Executive privilege applies only to protect official acts and functions of the President, never to conceal illegal acts by anyone, not even those of the President.

Public office is a public trust and not a shield to cover up wrongdoing.

By JUSTICE ANTONIO CARPIO

SC ruling on Neri shows a Palace-controlled court: sources

2008-03-27T13:36:00.001+08:00

By ARIES RUFO
abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak

The High Court’s ruling on the executive privilege case of Commission on Higher Education chair Romulo Neri shows a Supreme Court that is controlled by Malacanang, according to several abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak sources.

Supreme Court and legal sources predicted that the 9-6 ruling issued Tuesday, favoring secrecy over public disclosure in the Neri petition, will be the prevailing pattern of vote by the justices for other major political issues that will be raised before the Tribunal, at least for the entire year.

“It is a pattern of concealment,” said Senate private counsel Carlos Medina.

More pro-Arroyo justices to come?
Next year, the number could tilt even more heavily in favor of the Palace with the retirement of nine justices.

Two of those who dissented on the Neri decision—Justices Consuelo Ynares-Santiago and Adolfo Azcuna—are among those retiring.

The retirement of Ynares-Santiago also gives President Arroyo a chance to pack the entire High Court, with the exception of Chief Justice Reynato Puno, with handpicked appointees.

Malacañang lobbied hard to win
Tackling its first major political case under Puno’s stewardship, the SC sustained Neri’s contention that his conversations with the President on the scandal-plagued National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corp. were covered by executive privilege.

It castigated the Senate for “committing grave abuse of discretion” in ordering his arrest for his refusal to appeal at the Senate inquiry. Puno was with the minority side.

It was a case where Malacañang worked overtime lobbying with justices who could provide the swing vote, abs-cbnNEws.com/Newsbreak gathered from court insiders and observers who requested no attribution for fear of reprisal or jeopardizing their pending cases in the Tribunal.

We learned that just before the oral argument last March 4, the justices were evenly divided on the issue, a situation that did not favor Neri since he had to get an absolute majority for his petition to be granted.

Loyalty check applied
It was in the two-week gap that followed that the Palace applied pressure on some justices. One justice reportedly was promised something in exchange for voting for Neri, while the loyalty check was applied on the others.

A justice known to be close to Arroyo was reportedly instrumental in the appointment of newly-named associate justice Arturo Brion, a move that assured the President that Brion would vote for Neri.

Brion, who was appointed only last week, participated in the voting.

Lesson learned from 'Hello Garci'
One of the sources said the Palace learned its lesson from the Feb. 12 “Hello Garci” decision where a majority of nine justices, against six, ruled that the warning of the National Telecommunications Commission and the Department of Justice against the playing of the controversial tape is illegal.

In that case, the Palace apparently did not exert pressure on its appointees in the SC.

One of the sources said Puno was aware that the initial stalemate would not hold, and that the numbers will tilt in favor of Neri. This was why he proposed the compromise solution that would have allowed Neri to testify in the Senate but without being confronted with the three contentious questions where he invoked executive privilege.

The Senate, however, rejected the compromise solution, took the risk, but paid a heavy price.

SC now controlled by Palace?
Simply put, the Neri ruling implies that “the SC is under the control of the President and that Puno does not seem to have the majority of the justices,” the sources said. “9-6 will be the configuration for the rest of the year.”

It is one clear sign, they said, that the SC will be Malacanang’s rubber-stamp in the last two-and-a-half-years of her term. Arroyo is supposed to step down in June 2010.

One source, who has intensive background in the SC, said that from a short-term standpoint, Malacanang may control the Tribunal, but her hold could loosen in the long-term.

The justices, who are her appointees, might see the need to finally exert independence as the end of Arroyo' term nears. “There will be a change of feelings shortly before she steps down.”

Belligerent Bench
But for now, it is an SC that is belligerent against the Senate.

The majority decision, penned by Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo de Castro, brimmed with lectures and unsolicited advice against the Senate, citing its grave abuse of discretion and lack of restraint in issuing the warrant of arrest against Neri.

For instance, the majority opinion said the case should not have reached the SC had the Senate exercised the power of contempt judiciously and sparingly.

“Many of the incidents of judicial review could have been avoided if powers are discharged with circumspection and deference. Concomitant with the doctrine of separation of powers is the mandate to observe respect to a co-equal branch of the government,” the ruling stressed.

The majority of the justices also lectured senators “to cautiously tread into the investigation of matters which may present a conflict of interest that may provide a ground to inhibit the senators participating in the inquiry if later on an impeachment proceeding is initiated on the same subject matter of the present Senate inquiry.”

The senators are zeroing on the criminal culpability of the President for the approval of the anomalous NBN-ZTE project.

DISSENTING JUSTICES - Carpio: Neri talked of bribery

2008-03-27T13:26:00.000+08:00

By Leila Salaverria
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:49:00 03/27/2008

MANILA, Philippines—Justice Antonio Carpio has insisted that former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri had discussed a bribery scandal with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and could not properly invoke executive privilege to cover up the alleged crime.

Carpio was one of six justices who disagreed with the majority in the 15-member Supreme Court that upheld on Tuesday Neri’s claim he could not be questioned on his conversations with Ms Arroyo in the Senate inquiry into the scrapped $329-million National Broadband Network (NBN) project with China’s ZTE Corp.

Nine justices said Neri may rightly remain silent on three follow-up questions by Senate probers after he told Ms Arroyo that former Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos had allegedly offered him a P200-million bribe to endorse the NBN project to hook up government offices nationwide via the Internet. The questions were:

1. Whether the President followed up on the NBN deal.

2. Whether Neri was dictated to prioritize the project.

3. Whether Ms Arroyo gave the go-ahead to Neri to approve the deal in spite of the alleged bribery.

“The invocation of executive privilege on the three questions dwelling on a bribery scandal is clearly unjustified and void. Public office is a public trust and not a shield to cover up wrongdoing. Petitioner must answer the three questions asked by the Senate committees,” Carpio said.

The Supreme Court, voting 9-6, ruled that Neri could not be forced to answer the questions because he had correctly invoked executive privilege. The tribunal nullified the Senate order citing Neri in contempt and ordering his arrest that had prompted him to go to court.

The decision gave Ms Arroyo her first major success in the Supreme Court.

The tribunal had dealt Ms Arroyo a series of setbacks over the past two years in landmark cases involving her crackdown on street protesters in the midst of claims she stole the 2004 presidential election, her declaration of a national state of emergency and her attempt to gag Malacañang and security officials.

Testimony before the Senate has implicated Ms Arroyo and her husband in alleged massive kickbacks in the NBN-ZTE deal, prompting her to cancel the project in the wake of widespread public indignation. The scandal has revived calls for Ms Arroyo’s resignation.

Bribery is a crime

Senate President Manuel Villar has said that Ms Arroyo could be impeached if it could be proven that she allowed the NBN-ZTE contract to proceed even after she came to know that there was bribery involved.

In another dissenting opinion, Justice Consuelo Ynares Santiago said it was Neri himself who informed the Senate during his Sept. 26 appearance that he had told the President of the bribery attempt by Abalos, who has resigned as Commission on Elections chair.

Neri’s counsel had also admitted that if the claim was proven, it would constitute a crime.

“To allow the details of this alleged crime to be shrouded by a veil of secrecy would permit criminal conspiracies at the seat of government. Needless to say, the Constitution could never sanction executive privilege as a shield for official wrongdoing,” Santiago said.

Acting within rights

Justice Conchita Carpio Morales, also dissenting, said Neri should answer the three questions because the context in which they were asked showed that the answers were intended to help enact legislation.

“This is a situation where at least a credible, if not precise, reconstruction of what really happened is necessary for the intelligent crafting of the intended legislation. Why is it that after the petitioner reported the alleged bribe to the President, things proceeded as if nothing was reported? Respondent Senate committees are certainly acting within their rights in trying to find out the reasons for such a turn of events,” she said.

If the public interest is considered, the Senate has a right to know what this is so that this could be taken into account in determining whether the laws on government procurement and the like should be amended, Morales said.

3 interdependent branches

Chief Justice Reynato Puno was among the six justices who dissented. While the powers of the three branches of government are interdependent, Puno said, they have been “fashioned to work interdependently.”

“When there is abuse of power by any of the branches, there is no victor, for a distortion of power works to the detriment of the whole government, which is constitutionally designed to function as an organic whole.”

In his dissenting opinion posted on the court website late Tuesday night, Carpio said Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita’s letter permitting Neri to invoke executive privilege only made a general, instead of a specific, claim that the answers to the questions would impact on diplomatic matters.

“The bare claim that disclosure ‘might impair’ diplomatic relations with China, without specification of external evidence and circumstances justifying such claim, is insufficient to give rise to any presumptive executive privilege,” he said.

Incredulous

Carpio also said Neri did not even know if the Department of Foreign Affairs was involved in the NBN negotiations.

“This is incredulous considering that under the Revised Administrative Code, the DFA ‘shall be the lead agency that shall advise and assist the President in planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and evaluating the total national effort in the field of foreign relations,’” he added.

Carpio shot down as well the statement that the country’s economic relations with China would be impaired, saying such an impairment that involved foreign investors and lenders was not a valid ground for invoking executive privilege.

Ermita also did not claim military or national security secrets as his reason for the invocation, and only cited the confidentiality of presidential conversations and impairment of economic and diplomatic relations, Carpio said.

Expanded grounds

Carpio said Neri, by claiming that his discussions with Ms Arroyo referred to a bribery scandal that affected diplomatic relations and economic and military affairs, expanded the grounds that Ermita had cited.

Carpio said that if Neri answered the three questions, he would not disclose confidential presidential communications, as his counsel admitted during the oral arguments.

Carpio conceded that follow-up questions could call for the disclosure of confidential presidential discussions and diplomatic secrets. But he said executive privilege could only be invoked after the questions were asked.

But he maintained that the privilege may not be used to shield wrongdoing.

“Executive privilege can only be invoked after the question is asked, not before, because the legislative committee may after all not ask the question. But even if the follow-up questions call for the disclosure of confidential presidential discussions or diplomatic secrets, still executive privilege cannot be used to cover up a crime,” he said.

Arrest order invalid

Carpio agreed with the majority that the Senate cannot enforce its Rules of Procedure because it failed to publish this, adding that the Senate is not a continuing body.

Thus, he said, Neri’s citation for contempt and the arrest order issued against him were invalid.

Santiago also said Neri had erroneously assumed that the Senate summoned him to answer only the three questions.

She said that even if he had testified exhaustively during one of the hearings, he was not in the position to conclude that the senators had already obtained from him all the data that they needed.

“He cannot refuse to appear before the Senate committees on the assumption that he will testify only on matters that are privileged. The Senate committees, in the exercise of their constitutionally mandated functions, can inquire into any matter that is pertinent and relevant to the subject of its investigation,” Santiago said.

She also said Neri failed to show that his reason for not answering the questions far outweighed public interest.

Chilling effect

“He failed to show how disclosure of the presidential conversations would affect the country’s military, diplomatic and economic affairs,” she said.

She also disputed the supposed “chilling effect” that the disclosure of the President’s conversation with Neri would produce. She said criticism or outrage was not unusual in a democracy.

“I do not see how the public condemnation and criticism can have an adverse effect on the President’s performance of her powers and functions as Chief Executive ... If at all, the public’s opinion, negative or otherwise, should enhance the President’s performance of her constitutionally mandated duties,” Santiago said.

Senators warn of dangerous precedent; bishops hail SC ruling

2008-03-27T13:22:00.000+08:00

Senators yesterday warned that the Supreme Court decision upholding Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman Romulo Neri's petition will set a dangerous precedent, even as Catholic bishops rallied behind the ruling, saying the rule of law should prevail.

The senators emphasized that the High Tribunal's decision to sustain Neri's invocation of executive privilege will clip the Senate's powers to investigate alleged anomalies in government.

They said future investigations and cases, especially involving executive agreements and foreign-funded projects, would be affected as resource persons from the executive branch could just invoke executive privilege to stonewall investigations and a "never-ending" legal battle on whether certain questions could be asked during hearings would ensue.

But the senators vowed not to give up the fight even if it would spark a constitutional crisis in the future due to the differing interpretations on the issues surrounding the national broadband network (NBN) investigation. They said they could not allow the SC to curtail the Senate in the exercise of its investigative powers by putting "handcuffs" on their "hands and feet" and putting "cover on their mouths and eyes" with its "confusing" and lopsided decision.

"We found some parts very dangerous. The implications of the decision are very heavy and serious," Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, Chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, said. "We're not ready to accept that their decisions are correct," he added.

"Like for example, if the President enters into an executive agreement with foreign countries, the implication of the decision is that she can invoke executive privilege on executive agreements. It expands the scope of the President's powers not to explain or share with the Senate information regarding (such agreements)," Cayetano said.

Sen. Manuel Roxas II, who leads the trade and commerce committee, cited the "chilling effect" of the decision while Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, chairman of the defense panel, said the SC ruling raised more questions than answers. "It will be a shield against transparency and check and balance," Biazon said.

The three committees are in charge of the investigation into the NBN deal.

The senators said they would file a motion for reconsideration as part of the process but some of them expressed doubts that the SC would reverse its decision, given its current composition.

Senators Richard Gordon, Panfilo Lacson, Francis Escudero and Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan said such a situation could not be allowed and the Senate must be protected from the decision of the SC that "encroached" on the functions of the Senate.

Gordon said the ruling was disappointing and a bad precedent because it leaned more in favor of the Palace rather than tilting the balance between the executive and the legislative as co-equal branches of government.

Too much executive power

Cayetano emphasized they would carefully review the SC decision because they found some of the United States jurisprudence were "misplaced" or "misused" by the justices as regards the use of executive privilege.

"It gives the President too much powers. She becomes even more powerful than the Pope," Cayetano said, noting the fact that the decision presumed that the President would be "infallible" when entering into executive agreements.

"The President will be more popish than the Pope," he said. "We cannot accept that agreements that are commercial in nature would not be shared with the Senate," he added.

Cayetano expressed fears the SC decision was fitting into the plan of the Palace to drag the investigation so the people would be weary of it. By 2009, Malacañang believes the focus would already be on the 2010 elections.

He added many legal scholars contacted the Senate and told them that the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Reynato Puno was more persuasive in terms of legal and moral principles.

Pangilinan said they would like to file an appeal in the hope that some of the justices would still change their minds, particularly former labor secretary Arturo Brion, who was appointed to the SC last week.

"Given the current composition of the SC, I don't think the decision will still change. Maybe that was the reason why the chief justice was pushing for a compromise because he knew the majority would decide this way," Escudero said.

Biazon said the SC decision was a "big blow" to the principle of transparency in government as well as check and balance that must be performed by the Senate.

"During the oral arguments on the petition of Secretary Neri, there was a consensus by all the members of the Supreme Court that executive privilege cannot be used to cover up the commission of crimes," Biazon cited.

He said it was important that clarifications be made on the SC ruling so as not to provide a shield for wrongdoings by government officials.

"The members of the legislature are elected by the people as their representatives in the co-equal branch of government. If we cannot ask questions, who will represent the people in cases such as the NBN deal of which the people must be informed?" Biazon argued.

Uphold rule of law

But members of the Catholic Church see it differently.

Bishop Buenaventura Famadico of Gumaca, Quezon, a member of the permanent council of Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said the Church always upholds the rule of law – even in the pursuit of truth on allegations of corruption in government.

"In this case, respect for our constitutional institutions like the Supreme Court is primary. Whatever the Court says, we should follow because we are a people ruled by law. We need to follow the Supreme Court to obtain inner stability in our nation," Famadico said in an interview with Church-run Radyo Veritas.

He explained that the bishops do not see the decision of the Supreme Court as a major hindrance to find the truth on the corruption scandal against the Arroyo administration.

"When we said the truth must be exposed, we wanted it done the right way – legal way. What's important is that we follow due process. Whatever the law says, then we should follow," the prelate stressed in Filipino.

However, the CBCP official admitted that the opposition might see the SC decision as a cover-up for the truth on the NBN controversy.

Balance of power

Former Senate president Franklin Drilon said that the SC's independence was compromised because of the decision.

In a statement, Drilon said President Arroyo might even be emboldened to revive her plan for Charter change through the people's initiative since Malacañang would have the impression that the current SC is "sympathetic" to its side, with the Neri case as precedent.

"This could encourage President Arroyo to go back to the Supreme Court and seek a reversal of its earlier ruling declaring the so-called people's initiative (to amend the 1987 Constitution) unconstitutional," Drilon said.

"We are concerned that this case will now tilt the balance in favor of a sitting President who has a propensity to disregard the law," he added.

Pardoned former President Joseph Estrada, for his part, said, "Executive privilege can be only applied to trade secrets and foreign affairs. It cannot be extended to cover up an anomalous deal such as the NBN. I am frustrated over the result of the SC decision. I hope this will not prompt the people to take the law in their hands."

Estrada added that this was one of the reasons why he did not appeal his case before the high tribunal because he knows he will not get a fair shake, given the presence of newly appointed Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro and Associate Justice Minita Chico-Nazario, both former presiding justices of the Sandiganbayan who handled his plunder case.

De Castro, who convicted him last year for plunder, was the ponente of the SC's ruling on Neri's petition.

Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, on the other hand, said the decision could have the effect of moving people in other directions.

"Under the Arroyo administration, the public has learned to trust the courts as an independent institution. But with this decision, the public may view the judiciary with a certain level of skepticism," he said.

Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño said, "The SC ruling is a very bad precedent with fatal implications on Congress' role as a check and balance on the executive branch. The ruling makes the President virtually untouchable and unaccountable to Congress and the people."

All up to Neri

Meanwhile, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the senators only have themselves to blame for their woes over the SC decision even as he maintained that the ruling was not a hindrance to legislative inquiries as some critics claimed.

He indicated that it will be up to Neri to decide whether he would attend the hearings on the NBN deal since he was assured some degree of protection because of the decision.

"Let's go by rule of law and legal processes. Now that the SC has made a decision, let's respect it. Indeed, since it pertains to the position of the executive branch, of course we're glad that Sec. Neri would be buttressed by that decision and will have the confidence to decide to attend," he said.

He said he spoke with Neri over the phone yesterday and congratulated him but they did not talk about his possible reappearance in the Senate.

He refused to say that the Palace emerged victorious in the decision, saying "it's a victory of who is on the side of law."

Ermita added he respects the plan of some senators to appeal the SC ruling, saying "they're just doing the normal thing" even as he reiterated the Palace's call for ground rules governing congressional investigations.

"Considering that both executive and legislative are serving the interest of the people it would be better if there are parameters so that there will be cooperation on conduct of inquiries of legislative nature so that there will be no adversarial conduct," Ermita said.

He said if concerned lawmakers followed provisions in the law on respecting the rights of resource persons, the issue should not have reached the SC.

"We cannot impose our will on others when there are rules," Ermita said. "Maybe what happened was that some people wanted to show that they were higher than other people…Let's be considerate of other people's feelings." – With Delon Porcalla, Michael Punongbayan, Jose Rodel Clapano, Paolo Romero

By Aurea Calica and Edu Punay, Philippine Star
Thursday, March 27, 2008

Senators vow to continue probe of NBN

2008-03-27T13:15:00.001+08:00

A recent court decision upholding the right to invoke executive privilege does not bar lawmakers from probing alleged government wrongdoing, an opposition senator and two Catholic bishops said Wednesday.

Neither does Tuesday’s Supreme Court 9-6 ruling in favor of a petition by Romulo Neri to exercise such privilege, apparently, prohibit Sen. Panfilo Lacson from presenting another witness to an allegedly corruption-tainted telecommunications project between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corp. Neri was the Socioeconomic Planning secretary when the $330-million national broadband deal was transacted in 2007. The deal has since been scrapped by President Gloria Arroyo over allegations of bribery linking her husband and a political ally. The two “brokers” denied the charges.

Malacañang expressed optimism that the decision would put an end to the broadband controversy.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said he can only hope because specific Senate committees could consider putting a closure but may also opt to invite Neri to testify again.

Ermita called the ruling a victory because the Palace was able to get to the “right side of the law” and that the “rule of law” functions well.

He said senators who refuse to accept the ruling have the right to file a motion for reconsideration.

The Palace supported calls for the adoption of common ground rules for the Senate and the executive branch aimed at fostering harmonious ties between them.

Ermita said they will let Neri decide whether he will attend the next Senate hearing on the broadband deal.

Another “new” witness

Lacson hinted he has another new witness who will testify in the next blue- ribbon committee hearing, tentatively set for April 2.

“There will always be someone who wants to talk,” he said. “It’s just that they have much apprehension.”

During the last hearing, Lacson was surprised by his surprise witness, Leo San Miguel, when San Miguel denied any knowledge of alleged advances by ZTE for the brokers amounting to $41 million. The witness also denied having any information on alleged project overprice as claimed by previous witness Dante Madriaga. He had identified San Miguel as the source of his information.

Lacson called on the Senate to summon Neri to the next hearing, so he can answer questions on the broadband deal other than the three that the High Tribunal said were covered by executive privilege.

“It is just right for the Senate to call Secretary Neri at the earliest time possible,” Lacson was quoted by ABS-CBN. “After all, the Supreme Court ruling did not prohibit us from calling him to our hearing.” Neri now heads the Commission on Higher Education.

Curiosity, disappointmentA

Makati City Mayor and United Opposition President Jejomar Binay said public clamor for the truth behind the broadband controversy “will increase” as a result of the Neri decision.

Besides, Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said, the senators can exercise their “prerogative” to either “close or suspend” their inquiries into alleged anomalies in the government.

Cruz, a known critic of the Arroyo administration, added that the Supreme Court’s decision on Neri’s petition was acceptable since the “truth” behind the broadband deal is known already.

Tagbiliran (Bohol) Bishop Leonardo Medroso, also chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Canon Law of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said they “respect” the 9-6 decision.

“Yes … I read [about] it and it is okay with us … the decision did not say that Neri could no longer attend” Senate hearings on the broadband deal, Medroso told the church-run Radio Veritas.

Unlike the bishops, the High Tribunal’s decision disappointed opposition lawmakers in the House of Representatives.

During the weekly Ayes and Nays News Forum, Antonio Cuenco, Roilo Golez, and Teodoro Casiño said the decision was an “invasion of legislative supremacy.” They proposed that House Speaker Prospero Nograles make a “stand” on the supposed “derogation” of the independence of the three branches of the government.

Nograles, however, said while he does not totally agree with the ruling, he respects it.

“Congress has its power to investigate, but I have to respect the decision of the High Tribunal, although I may admit that I am not happy [with it]. When there is a conflict between the executive and the legislative branches, the judiciary comes in to interpret. That’s how separation of power works,” he said.

The Speaker said he sees no problem with the executive privilege being cited by Cabinet members. “We have no problem with that before [in the House of Representatives]. We would continue to summon potential witnesses in our future congressional investigations. But if they refuse to appear, that’s the time we would have them arrested,” he added.

-Efren L. Danao,
Angelo S. Samonte,Sammy Martin And Jayson Cruz Luna

Cruz refuses to give communion to GMA, First Family

2008-03-27T08:45:00.002+08:00

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz vowed yesterday NOT to give holy communion to Gloria Arroyo, members of her family, and other known "sinners" in the country.

Cruz told the Newsmakers Forum held every Wednesday at the Crowne Plaza in Mandaluyong City that he will encourage the Catholic Church leadership, specifically the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), not to allow any publicly known sinners like Mrs. Arroyo and members of the First Family to receive communion.

"A publicly known sinner and a good number of them receiving communion in public, I think it is a scandal. I would not give communion to people whom I know as a public sinner. No," Cruz said when asked if he will give communion to the Arroyos.

Cruz said it pains him very much to see Mrs. Arroyo and the other publicly known sinners ostensibly going to Church every time the Arroyo government is being dragged in controversy, and receiving communion in public.

"In our moral theology, that is a principle. If one gives communion to sinners the Church is scandalized," Cruz said.

Cruz also admitted that the CBCP is divided over the clamor for Mrs. Arroyo to resign because of monetary considerations.

He said at least eight bishops, including himself, are calling for Mrs. Arroyo to resign because they believe that the Arroyo government has no moral ascendancy to govern because of the rampant corruption involving ranking government officials.

Cruz said that there are also seven bishops who are supporting Mrs. Arroyo, while the majority of the 92 bishops nationwide are neutral.

He said the call of the CBCP for Mrs. Arroyo to allow Commission on Higher Education chairman Romulo Neri to testify before the Senate, abolish Executive Order 464 and to allow the other officials who have knowledge about the national broadband network (NBN) deal to reveal what they know about the scandal, can still change.

"The CBCP's pronouncement is stagnant and static in terms of socio-economic issues. It can change. How could you just remain silent, quiet and stand still after you say the government is morally corrupt and morally bankrupt? It is not a political but a moral duty of the priests. I looked at that as a moral dimension. Once the politicians are already above the Ten Commandments, I will keep quiet. If politicians are exempted from the Ten Commandments, I will keep quiet. But if politicians are still bound by the Ten Commandments, I will continue to speak. The Church is the soul of the nation," Cruz said.

Cruz said God is always in favor of those who follow the Ten Commandments.

By Jose Rodel Clapano, Philippine Star
Thursday, March 27, 2008

Gloria Excommunicated

2008-03-27T08:27:00.002+08:00

"NO COMMUNION for GMA, a public sinner" - Archbishop Cruz

President Arroyo has been virtually excommunicated by an Archbishop, saying she is a “public sinner” who must be denied communion, intimating that it would be making a mockery of the sacred host which, to Catholics, is the body and blood of Jesus Christ effected through transubstantiation, for her to be given any communion.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz yesterday made waves with his announcement of denying the President communion, which is a form of excommunication, or at the very least, a humiliating repudiation of a member of the Catholic flock, excluding her from the grant of the sacrament.

Wikipedia describes excommunication as a religious censure used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community. The word literally means putting (someone) out of communion.

In some churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group. Censures and sanctions sometimes follow excommunication; these include banishment, shunning and shaming, depending on the group’s religion or religious community.

In olden Catholic times, for a member to be excommunicated the church denies the excommunicated Catholic the opportunity to enter heaven.

Predictably, Malacañang yesterday scored Archbishop Cruz for publicly stating that he would deny the President Holy Communion on account of her sins committed against the Filipino people, saying for him to give the sacrament to Mrs. Arroyo would mean that he is not performing the role expected of him by Christ.

This move by Cruz is seen to impact very negatively on the President, even if it is only one bishop who has made public his intention to deny her the host, as Mrs. Arroyo has been portraying herself to be a very “religious and pious” President.

In an interview over ANC cable TV, Deputy Presidential Spokesman Anthony Golez said Cruz is already overstepping the boundaries on the separation of church and state.

“Everybody needs salvation. What’s the reason Jesus Christ came to this world, if not to grant us salvation? We are really hurt over the Bishop’s statement,” Golez said.

He added that “it is so stated in the bible. In fact, the role of the priests and bishops is to save the faithful and not to separate them from the Church. And all of us sinners deserve salvation. It really is hard to believe that we have heard this (denial of the sacrament)from the good bishop,” he said.

Cruz said he believes he is doing the right thing in denying Mrs. Arroyo the sacrament of communion and God help him if he is wrong in doing so, which he does not think so, because it is known that she is a public sinner.

Bishops are autonomous in the area and do not answer to any other bishop or cardinal, including the body of bishops, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) for their actions, as they are accountable only to the Pope.

Pope Benedict is not expected to reprimand Cruz since this denial of communion to a member of the Catholic faithful on the reason given by him is said to be part of a bishop’s duty.

But Golez said everybody is a sinner and predicted that the statement of Bishop Cruz would have a negative effect on the Church’s faithful but not on Mrs. Arroyo.

“This is a free country, but we want to state the observation of a lot of the Catholic faithful who are already turned off when they see a priest leader or church leaders meddling in political issues,” Golez claimed.

The deputy spokesman stressed that even the statements of former senior government officials (FSGO) who had made calls before the international community for its members to be careful in giving donations to the Arroyo government because of its susceptibility to graft and corruption, are uncalled for because the President has been exhausting efforts to address corruption.

“From the very start, our President had been very, very empathic and very forceful on this (graft and corruption) issue. She is for good governance. She has put in so much money in the bureaucracy particularly in the courts, so that those who plan to commit graft and corruption will be stopped and this would ensure that the bureaucracy will be rid of red tape. She has run after tax evaders. The President has been at the forefront of this campaign from the very beginning,” he said.

It is however on record that tax probes on both her children, Rep. Mikey Arroyo and her brother in law, Rep. Ignacio Arroyo, along with the probe on Agriculture Secretary Yap, on tax evasion were stopped, even when the Finance Department then introduced a run after tax evaders program.

Mrs. Arroyo is also largely seen by the general public as protecting herself, her family members and her allies from investigations into corruption and charges of kickbacks and commissions.

For her part, the President,in a speech at the Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga vowed to work hard to further improve the banking and finance system, strengthen tax collection and broaden its tax base, and reduce, if not eliminate, corruption and red tape.

The President made this pronouncement during the 2008 Philippine Development Forum this afternoon at the Fontana Convention Center here.

Among those who attended the forum were Cabinet members, top businessmen, foreign creditors and donor countries.

To cushion the impact of recent global challenges on the Philippines, her administration has laid out programs to sustain the inflow of investments, invest heavily in human and physical infrastructure, strengthen anti-corruption initiatives and cut red tape, and blunt the blow of rising cost of energy, including rice in the world market, particularly to the poor.

“And I thank the World Bank for your interest in our targeted relief to the poorest of the poor,” she said.

The President stressed the use of ODA would be prioritized to further improve the economy, education and the environment as well as provide more jobs and vital services to improve the plight of the poor.

“We will fight for the economy, education and the environment. We will fight to feed the poor, improve job creation, and do everything in our power to mitigate the global forces increasing the price of commodities like oil and rice,” she claimed.

On the fiscal front, the President said there is a need to adjust foreign exchange flows to avoid excessive upward pressure on the peso. “That’s why we have been prepaying our foreign debts to the extent that we don’t lose money on the penalties and that’s why we’re also relying increasingly on the domestic bond market.”

“We are bullish on our economy. We’re optimistic about our future. We’re committed to being a force for good for our nation. And you indeed, our international creditor and donor community are a great contribution to that force for good for our nation,” she said.

But the former senior government officials, numbering 90, issued an open letter to the donor community, focusing on how corruption “sucks scarce resources crucial to development that benefits the poor.”

Cielo Habito, former Ramos Neda chief said it was the right audience to address the issue of corruption as it is the donor issues that should be discussed.

The FSGO claimed that the letter was not meant to alarm the financiers and donors and was meant only to voice their concerns, hoping that the donors align the projects with the realities of the country.

The Political Economic Risk Consultancy, in a survey where expatriates were the respondents, showed the Philippines to have the “most corrupt economy in Asia.”

A Philippine survey also showed that a vast majority of Filipinos believe Mrs. Arroyo to be the “most corrupt president the country has ever had.”

The CBCP also stated in a pastoral letter that the Arroyo government is “morally bankrupt.”

The President, however, has most of the conservative bishops on her side.

This will however not bar Archbishop Cruz from denying her the sacrament of communion.

Sherwin C. Olaes

Legislator bares "Ghost Delivery" of coal

2008-03-27T07:53:00.001+08:00

Yet another bombshell is set to explode after a militant legislator discovered alleged ghost delivery of P320-million worth of coal sold by a local dealer to the National Power Corp. (Napocor).

Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño on Wednesday said he was surprised to learn that coal was bought from an allegedly fictitious buyer.

Casiño added he will file a resolution calling for an investigation of the alleged anomaly perpetrated by top government officials.

“I am shocked to learn that Napocor recently awarded a P320-million contract to what is apparently a paper company called Transpacific Consolidated Resources Inc.,” the lawmaker said. “It is unconscionable for Napocor to be again involved in such a multimillion scam considering that it has a pending case in the Ombudsman involving more than P650 million in overpriced coal purchases.”

“This has shades of the sale of the Masinloc power plant to a fly-by-night Australian company called YNN Pacific that, like Transpacific, had a fictitious office. That sale was eventually nullified,” he added.

Casiño said a congressional investigation is needed, because, he added, “We have to know if there is any irregularity involved, and if there is anything in Napocor’s charter or our procurement laws that have to be changed in order to stop this seeming wanton robbery of public funds.”

Documents revealed that PT Marsiterio Marlloan with its local counterpart, Transpacific Consolidated Resources, won the bidding for three lots of 65,000 metric tons of steaming coal to Pagbilao power plant. The contract amounted to P320,639,104.50—or an average of $124 per metric ton, using P49:$1, the prevailing exchange rate at the time of the deal.

Casiño said Juan Carlos Guadarrama, Napocor’s vice-president and chairman of the bids and awards committee, had sent an invitation to bid to PT Marsiterio Marloan Prakarsat/Transpacific Consolidated Resources Inc., on February 12. The invitation was sent to the firm’s listed office at Danarra Hotel Business Center in Quezon City.

The bid opening date commenced on February 15, and the award was given on February 19.

Biddings for Napocor’s coal procurement started early this year to meet the country’s energy requirement. Napocor has also awarded nine lots of coal amounting to P650,666,016 to Indonesian firm PT Indominco Mandiri on February 11 for Sual power plant.

A check with the Danarra Hotel revealed that the business center has not been in operation since two months ago, and that there was no Transpacific Consolidated Resources holding office there.

Another check with the Securities and Exchange Commission also revealed that Transpacific has no business registration. The country’s procurement law requires bidders to submit articles of incorporation. If the bidder is a foreign entity, a certification from the foreign embassy is required.
Napocor got into trouble last year when it was charged with allegedly overpricing coal purchases amounting to P655 million. Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), Anakpawis, scientist group AGHAM, and People Opposed to Warrantless Electricity Rates (POWER) claimed that Napocor President Cyril del Callar committed graft when the power firm purchased coal from April to July that was allegedly overpriced.

By Sammy Martin, Correspondent

INTER-FAITH PRAYER SERVICE

2008-03-27T06:44:00.002+08:00

The La Salle Brothers

and

The Black and White Movement

invite you to an

INTER-FAITH PRAYER SERVICE

for the healing of President Cory Aquino

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 – 6:00 PM

Bro. Donato Center for the Performing Arts

La Salle Greenhills, Mandaluyong City

Together, let us fervently seek the divine mercy of Almighty God for the
healing of our beloved Cory Aquino.

RSVP: Leah Navarro

Email: leahnavarro@gmail.com

Mobile: 0917.898.1957

Study in Contrast

2008-03-27T06:22:00.002+08:00

IT'S A STUDY in contrast, the way Cory and Gloria have comported
themselves.

Cory came to power by being the Asian Joan of Arc, the housewife who
rose from obscurity and stormed the ramparts of tyranny at the head
of her countrymen. When those ramparts fell, others tried to seize
the crown. Chief of them Juan Ponce Enrile, who figured that his
change of heart at the 11th hour, holing up in Camp Crame with a slew
of rebels, and who was promptly rescued from a fate worse than (his)
life by Jaime Cardinal Sin, had given him a claim to it. The public
did not buy it and gave the mantle to Cory though she had been
nowhere near the camps on those fateful days. She might not have been
there in body, but she was there in spirit, like a gaseous emanation
suffusing every pore of the event.

Gloria came to power by being the Asian whatever, hiding behind the
skirts of Cory and Sin while the battle raged, and emerging from them
when the smoke had cleared to claim the throne. It was the nation's
misfortune that Cory and Sin did not read the signs early on, though
they were writ large on the wall, and helped her get it.

Cory gave up her office when her time was up, like she said she
would. She could have gotten around the constitutional ban on a
second term on some pretext or other, but she did not. Though she
could easily have posed as the country's savior, she did not. She
believed in giving a good example, she believed that the democracy
she helped restore rested on institutions and not on individuals, on
the people and not on messiahs.

Her example was lost on her protégé. Gloria said she would not run
again because if she did she would bring upon this country "never-
ending divisiveness." She lied about the first, she told the truth
about the second.

During the inauguration of her successor, Fidel V. Ramos, Cory
insisted on riding in an ordinary car without escorts, despite pleas
from her aides that she go there with a little more pomp and
circumstance befitting her giant stature. But her logic was
impeccable: She was no longer President Cory, she was Citizen Cory.
Give unto presidents what are the presidents' and to citizens what
are the citizens'.

Though having been put in Malacañang for the second time by Garci and
not by God, Gloria goes everywhere with pomp and circumstance
unbefitting her (legally and morally) tiny stature. The traffic in
Baguio was rerouted to accommodate her. Her justice secretary
justifies the iniquitous use of police escorts and sirens for
government officials by saying their time is more precious than that
of ordinary citizens. Doing what? Lying, cheating and stealing?

Cory is held in the highest esteem abroad, having achieved world-
class status by birthing the political phenomenon of people power,
which countries like Burma are desperately trying to imitate. When
she adds her voice to the universal call for Aung San Suu Kyi to be
released from house arrest and for the Burmese junta to hold free
elections, the world applauds and Suu Kyi herself is eternally grateful.

Gloria has achieved world-class status by turning the Philippines
into the most corrupt country in Asia and the second most dangerous
country in the world for journalists. When she adds her voice--and
rather shrilly too in meetings of world leaders--to the universal
call for Suu Kyi to be released from house arrest and for the Burmese
junta to hold free elections, the world jeers and the Burmese junta
itself is eternally grateful.

Cory is loved by her people, and though she is no longer the
political force she once was (the loss of Sin has diminished her),
she continues to command respect where politics meets morality. Ramos
has been trying hard to look like an elder statesman since he became
ex-president and succeeded only in looking old and overstated. Cory
it is who has stepped into that role without trying, quite apart from
her other role as spiritual leader of the nation.

Gloria is loved by, well, her family and pets, though even her family
and pets might dispute that. As to the rest of the country, Pulse
Asia's latest survey sufficiently shows how Filipinos feel about her:
three out of five of them distrust her, the other two probably being
deaf and mute. Elsewhere in the world you get ratings like those,
whether you are the legitimate leader or not, you slink away in shame
and never show your face in public again. Here, you get ratings like
those, even though you are not the legitimate president--or probably
precisely because of it--you strut around like a presidential Pacquiao.

Cory will not hide her plight from the nation, telling it she has
colon cancer, an affliction that is not of her making. Of course, she
has also asked the nation to respect her privacy and not inquire too
closely about her condition or the medical regimen she means to go
through. She is a profile in courage.

Gloria will not tell the nation of its plight, which is that it is
being ravaged by a cancer of her making. Of course, she keeps asking
the nation to give her more time to find the cure, when an instant
one can be had by her disappearing from view. She is a profile in
outrage.

When Cory announced she had cancer, even tough guys like Alfredo Lim
broke into tears. "She is a good lady, she was a good president," was
all Lim could say, and it was more than enough, it said it all. The
nation wept and prayed that somehow God in His infinite mercy and
wisdom would find a way to keep Cory much much longer than 2010, well
unto the richness of her years.

When Gloria announces she has boils, there will be massive defections
from the ranks of atheists into the ranks of theists. More Filipinos
will believe there is a God.

Cory is a class act.

Gloria is a crass act.

Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:13:00 03/26/2008

Another Manipulation of Malacañang

2008-03-26T10:43:00.002+08:00

SC: Neri can invoke executive privilege

MANILA, Philippines -- Commission on Higher Education chairman Romulo Neri can invoke executive privilege and cannot be compelled to answer three questions the Senate feels is crucial to getting to the bottom of the scandal-tainted national broadband network (NBN) deal, the Supreme Court has ruled.

Voting 6-9, the justices also ruled that the Senate cannot cite Neri or anyone in contempt because the rules of procedure of the 14th Congress had not been published, Supreme Court spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said.

Among those who dissented with the majority decision was Chief Justice Reynato Puno.

The Senate can also summon Neri, but only to answer questions other than the three, which are the same ones contained in a compromise the high court suggested after Neri filed his petition against an arrest order issued against him by the Senate after he refused to attend any more hearings of the inquiry into the cancelled NBN contract between the government and China’s ZTE Corp.

The questions are: “Did the President [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] follow up with you on the ZTE contract? Did she tell you to prioritize the ZTE contract? Despite knowing the flaws of the contract did she tell you to approve it?”

Marquez also said that while the decision only applies, to Neri’s case, executive privilege may still be invoked in similar situations.

Aside from Associate Justice Teresita de Castro, who penned the decision, those who made up the majority were Justices Leonardo Quisumbing, Renato Corona, Dante Tinga, Eduardo Nachura, Ruben Reyes, Nenita Chico-Nazario, Presbitero Velasco and Arturo Brion.

With Puno in dissenting were Justices Antonio Carpio, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, Conchita Carpio-Morales, Adolf Azcuna and Alicia Austria-Martinez.

In his 120-page dissenting opinion, Puno said neither Neri nor Ermita explained how diplomatic secrets would be exposed at the expense of national interest if the CHED chairman answered the three questions.

Neri, in particular, “failed to provide the Court knowledge of the circumstances with which the Court can determine whether there is reasonable danger that his answers to the three disputed questions would indeed divulge secrets that would compromise our national security," Puno said.

The chief justice said invoking privileged communication cannot outweigh the need of the Senate for the information, particularly the answers to the three questions.

"Indisputably, these questions are pertinent to the subject matter of their investigation and there is no effective substitute for the information coming from a reply to these questions. In the absence of the information they seek, the Senate Committees' function of intelligently enacting laws…cannot but be seriously impaired. With all these considerations factored into the equation, we have to strike the balance in favor of the respondent Senate Committees and compel petitioner Neri to answer the three disputed questions," Puno said.

Malacañang immediately welcomed the decision.

“We respect the decision of the Supreme Court,” Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said in a statement.

“We hope that that, looking forward, the Senate and the executive can work out mutually acceptable rules on appearances in Senate inquiries in aid of legislation, which will guarantee the rights of resource persons and parties affected by congressional hearings, as stipulated by the Constitution,” he said.

Deputy presidential spokesman Anthony Golez said the Supreme Court reinforced the independence and co-equality of the three branches of government even as he dispelled speculation Arroyo had influenced the tribunal’s ruling.

He called such an idea “dangerous” and showed disrespect for the high court, “which is against the law.”

"I am disappointed but not discouraged," opposition Senator Alan Peter Cayetano said. "The search for the whole truth must and will continue."

Cayetano chairs the blue-ribbon committee spearheading the NBN probe.

Senator Manuel Roxas II, another opposition lawmaker, said he respected the decision but believed executive privilege "should not be applied to conceal the truth about an anomalous public transaction."

Neri, in his petition and supplemental petition, said his absence from the November 20, 2007 hearing of the Senate inquiry, for which an order for his arrest was issued, was duly answered by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who invoked executive privilege for the then socioeconomic planning secretary “by order of the president.”

Neri said Malacañang was concerned about “the impact of the bribery scandal involving high government officials on the country’s diplomatic relations and economic and military affairs, and the possible loss of confidence of foreign investors and lenders in the Philippines.”

Neri had earlier appeared before the Senate to say former Commission on Elections commissioner Benjamin Abalos Sr. had allegedly offered him a bribe to endorse the NBN project, which was awarded to China’s ZTE Corp. for $329-million.

Neri told the Senate that he told President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo about the bribe offer but refused to say what happened next.

According to other witness testimonies, Neri told friends in private that Arroyo asked him not to accept the bribe but to endorse the deal anyway. Neri has denied that she ordered him to have the deal approved.

The contract was cancelled by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo soon after the Senate opened its inquiry into allegations the deal was tainted by kickbacks and overpricing, to which her husband, Jose Miguel, was also implicated.

During subsequent hearings, a witness claimed Arroyo herself had profited from the alleged kickbacks.

All those accused have denied the allegations. The Office of the Ombudsman is investigating.

The scandal and nationally televised hearings have sparked opposition protests and mounting calls for Arroyo to resign. She has vowed to finish the last two years of her term.

Neri, a respected economist, has become a thorn in the side of senators because of his reluctance to testify about what Arroyo knew about the deal.

Last month, a former consultant and key witness in the probe told the Senate that Neri was so upset when Arroyo ignored his claims of attempted bribery that he considered resigning.

By Maila Ager, Tetch Torres
Associated Press, INQUIRER.net
First Posted 15:23:00 03/25/2008

Bishop: 'Arroyo resign' actions to continue, sans Cory

2008-03-26T10:38:00.001+08:00

MANILA, Philippines - With or without former President Corazon Aquino, the "search for truth" as well as mass actions calling for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's ouster over corruption issues will continue, a senior Catholic bishop said Tuesday.

In a radio interview, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said that despite the setback posed by Mrs Aquino's health conditions, moves to push for President Arroyo's resignation will continue.

Mrs Aquino is a vocal critic of President Arroyo. In fact, the former president has twice called for President Arroyo to step down from her post over corruption allegations in her administration. Mrs Aquino also accompanied ZTE deal probe witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr in some of his public appearances exposing corruption in government.

"Hindi ito madali, alam ko rin ang hirap. Pero hindi tumitigil, nag-umpisa pa lang. Ako naniniwala tutuloy ito (This will not be easy, I know the hardships involved. But these moves will not stop. They are just getting started. And I believe they will be sustained)," Cruz said in an interview on dzBB radio.

Cruz said that in his home province of Pangasinan, he will lead a mass for truth for ZTE witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. on April 4, even if Mrs Aquino will not be present.

In the interview, the prelate also said there is "progressive development" in the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on the matter, moving from calling the government "morally bankrupt" to calling for "communal action."

"Sa tingin ko di umaatras kundi sumusulong. Di pa nga lang nakakadating sa 'GMA Resign' (I believe this will move forward. It's just that it hasn't reached the 'GMA Resign' stage yet)," Cruz said.

"Hindi lang sa Metro Manila kundi sa iba't ibang probinsya (This is not just in Metro Manila but also in the provinces)," he added. - GMANews.TV

Some bishops help make corruption ‘acceptable’

2008-03-26T10:22:00.001+08:00

Among national leaders who agree with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in condemning the administration’s corruption record and in refusing to call for the President’s resignation, are those who criticized the “bishops who, as individuals, have helped make the culture of corruption acceptable.”

About a dozen intellectuals, bankers and businessmen gave The Manila Times their views, crystallized in the words below of National Artist for Literature Frankie Sionil Jose.

Jose, a world-renowned novelist, is a perennial critic of presidents and government officials whom he describes as the people who have perpetuated the country’s system of feudal rich-landlord control of politics and the economy.

“Yes, the CBCP correctly condemns the culture of corruption that has become worse through the decades,” he said. “The Episcopal Conference and the Former Senior Government Officials’ group are right to criticize the Arroyo administration for its lack of zeal in stamping out corruption. The CBCP is also right in not joining the movement for President [Gloria] Arroyo’s ouster.”

“In the first place, we know very well the bishops don’t have a common stand,” added Jose, the founder of the association of Filipino poets, playwrights, essayists and novelists (Philippine PEN). “Some bishops are not sure if [President] Arroyo and her people alone are to blame for the theft of billions from the government treasury. Some think the top local officials—the governors and congressmen—of their provinces and regions are just as culpable as the Palace.”

“But many prelates and churchmen, even those who condemn corruption, have helped make the most corrupt and rapacious leaders acceptable to the people. Together with community leaders, these bishops and archbishops allow these corrupt godfathers and lords of power and politics to serve as guests of honor in town fiestas, Catholic-school convocations and other religious observances, and in national civic activities. Why? Because these lords of corruption are big donors in fund-raising drives,” Jose said.

“The media dutifully report on corruption charges and investigations of these corrupt men. But at the same time they give these lords of Philippine politics and economic life front-page coverage and primetime TV exposure. Witnesses against them disappear or are paid to be silent, and law enforcers and prosecutors are their friends. We, the people, including media practitioners and Church officials, should ostracize them but we don’t,” Jose said.

Social conscience

The president of the investment arm of one of the country’s top five banks told The Times that he appreciated both the CBCP’s assessment of government corruption and the Filipino people’s failure to form a correct and Christian social conscience. He asked The Times not to reveal his name, so as not to be accused of taking sides politically.

“That s why the people are not as outraged as they should be by the massive misuse of public funds and the administration’s failure to solve the poverty problem,” the banker said.

“As a Catholic, I must respect the bishops for not violating the Canon Law and the doctrine of the Church that forbid them from being engaged in active political action,” he added.

“That is really what most businessmen and bankers also want,” the banker said. “They are wary of protests and marches. What we want is good governance, accountability and serious government effort against corruption. Like the bishops, we want her [Mrs. Arroyo] to reform and do the work that she is not doing. If there is people power it must be backed by the great majority of Catholics in every parish.”

A Filipino analyst for a foreign investment institution, who also asked not to be identified, said, “I really do not agree 100 percent with what the CBCP is saying, but I believe along the same lines.

“What I find wearisome is why do we have to go to the streets again to oust somebody?” the analyst asked. “Does it mean every time we do not find something good in the government we must always have to go to the streets? We have to have due process, follow the laws, the Constitution. I think that is also what the CBCP wants. I welcome the Senate inquiries. But we should not act like children and have another EDSA 3.”

United Opposition President and Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay said he is “comfortable” with the CBCP’s position of not advising people for or against the move to pressure President Arroyo to resign.

“The CBCP’s pastoral statement in fact condemned the ‘continuing culture of corruption from top to bottom,’” Binay said. This coincides with the people’s desire to find out the truth, “especially if one knows how to read between the lines.”

Binay said the bishops correctly stopped short of asking the President to resign because it was a political exercise they would rather avoid. He added that though the bishops did not prescribe it, they also did not advice the laity not to do a people power uprising as long as they arrived at their decision after deep prayer, meditation and discussion in the communal setting of their basic ecclesial communities, prayer groups and parishes.

By Rene Q. Bas, Editor In Chief

Trials of murder of two journalists

2008-03-26T10:10:00.000+08:00

Alert - Philippines
24 March 2008
Source: Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), Manila

Trials of murder of two journalists transferred to 'safer' venue

The Philippine Supreme Court granted on 18 March 2008 a petition by
media groups to transfer from Aklan to Cebu City the trials of the
murder of two journalists.

In its letter dated 5 February, the Freedom Fund for Filipino
Journalists (FFFJ) and the National Union of Journalists of the
Philippines (NUJP) asked the High Court for the trials of the Ureta
and Hinolan murders to be transferred from the Regional Trial Court
of Kalibo, Aklan to any court in Cebu City or Makati City "to avoid
a miscarriage of justice and to dispel the impression that a
culture of impunity encouraged by government inaction makes the
Philippines 'the most murderous place for journalists'".

Rolando Ureta was killed on 3 January 2001 by two assailants on a
motorcycle in Lezo town, Aklan, while Herson Hinolan was shot on 13
November 2004 by an unknown assailant outside a carnival in Kalibo,
Aklan, and died two days later at a local hospital.

The FFFJ said that "[b]ecause of the clout and influence of the
accused in the area as shown by their ability to unduly influence
the investigation of the case, witnesses have been reluctant to
break their silence and testify for fear of retaliation. To date,
the masterminds of the crime remain free as none of the law
enforcement agencies dares to enforce the warrant of arrest against
them and/or conduct further investigation to shore up the
prosecution's evidence".

The Ureta and Hinolan families said they were grateful for the
approval of the petition.

"I'm really happy that the case was transferred.... because it would
be hard to achieve justice if [the suspect] was tried here in
Kalibo," Hinolan's widow, Aphrodite, said.

"I feel more encouraged [that justice will be achieved] now that
the case has been transferred to another venue," Ureta's widow,
Emely, said.

The FFFJ is a coalition of six media organizations formed in
response to the tide of journalist killings and consists of the
Center for Community Journalism and Development, Kapisanan ng mga
Brodkaster ng Pilipinas, Philippine Center for Investigative
Journalism, Philippine Press Institute, the US-based newspaper
"Philippine News" and CMFR.

PRAYERS FOR PRESIDENT CORY AQUINO

2008-03-26T09:53:00.001+08:00

For Immediate Release
The Black & White Movement
Contact:
Vicente R. Romano III, 0920.961.5610
Leah Navarro. 0917.898.1857

The Black and White Movement joins the Aquino family in fervent prayers for the healing and speedy recovery of former President Corazon C. Aquino.

To us she is and will always be an exemplar of the unshakable resolve that faith brings, an imperturbable icon of democracy, of an undefeatable confidence in the Filipino. We trust that the good Lord will heed the prayers of a whole nation and grant her divine healing, according to His perfect will.

We pray, too, for the Aquino family, especially her children, that in this most difficult hour God might give them comfort and peace – the kind of peace that transcends all understanding.

We entreat every Filipino, wherever they may be, to be united in prayers for our beloved Cory Aquino.

Statement of Sen. Aquino and his sisters on their mother's health condition

2008-03-26T09:46:00.000+08:00

March 24, 2008

Our mother had suffered from an episode of high blood pressure and difficulty in breathing followed by fever during the week in between Christmas and New Year. Since that time, we became concerned because of her consistent cough, loss of appetite and noticeable weight loss.

Our mom wanted to know what was wrong with her, and with her family by her side, she submitted herself to a check-up and several tests. The results showed that our mother is suffering cancer of the colon.

Our mother has always believed in being up-front. Over and above anything else, she's a woman who has lived her entire life entrusting everything to the Lord, and she has always been a woman of great faith.

Ang pamilya po namin ay kagaya lamang ng sa inyo. Mahal na mahal namin ang nanay namin at handa kaming magbigay ng suporta, lakas, at pagkalinga sa oras ng kanyang matinding pagsubok.

Alam po namin na ang buhay ng aming pamilya ay bahagi na ng kasaysayan ng ating bayan. Desisyon po ng nanay namin na mag-release kami ng statement, para maunawaan ng lahat ang kanyang kasalukuyang kalagayan. Nakikiusap po kami na sana maintindihan ninyo na kailangan ng aming ina, kagaya ng lahat ng pasyenteng nagpapagaling, ng panahon ng katahimikan.

It's a very difficult time for our family, most especially for our mother. We respectfully ask that she be accorded her privacy.

Our mom remains a believer in the power of prayer. We ask for your compassion and for your prayers for our mother's recovery.

--
Maria Carmen G. Mislang
Political Communications Officer
Office of Sen. Benigno S. Aquino III
Rm 526, Senate of the Philippines,
GSIS Financial Center,
Roxas Blvd., Pasay City
Tel. No.: 552-6601 loc 5541/42/83
Fax No.: 552-6601 loc 5540
Email: maimislang@smart.ap.blackberry.net
Mobile No.: 09178916246

Group sabotaging compromise on Sumilao?

2008-03-26T09:35:00.002+08:00

Malacañang officials expressed optimism
yesterday that a compromise agreement between claimant farmers and San Miguel
Foods Inc. (SMFI) over a disputed 144-hectare land in Sumilao, Bukidnon would be
forged anytime soon.

A top Palace official, who spoke on condition of anonymity
since he was not authorized to speak on the matter, however revealed last-ditch
efforts by a group to sabotage the compromise agreement facilitated by some
Catholic bishops.

The official said a non-government organization that is also
giving legal assistance to the Sumilao farmers appears to be trying to block
the agreement in the guise of protecting the claimants.

The source said the lawyers' group has been receiving huge
grants from an NGO in Europe that are supposed
to continue until December.

With a compromise agreement looming, the grant, given in
connection with the group's work on the Sumilao case, is expected to be
terminated.

The official, however, did not identify the lawyers' group
or the Europe-based NGO that has been extending the grants.

"That's why this particular group of lawyers wants to make
noise because their funds would be cut off if the (compromise) agreement would
be signed," the official claimed.

The same official said Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal
Rosales has been helping the Sumilao farmers in their effort to reclaim their
land.

It was not clear how Malacañang reacted to SMFI's petition
last January after President Arroyo issued an executive order last December
which placed the disputed land back under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program (CARP).

Mrs. Arroyo earlier revoked a 1995 Malacañang order that
converted the 144-hectare into agro-industrial use. The land was placed under
CARP in 1994 but the 1995 Palace order allowed its owners, the Quisumbing
family, to sell the property to SMFI.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita claimed he was not aware
of the details of the compromise agreement or of reports that some groups are
trying to sabotage it.

"All I can say is that we are very optimistic that the case
would be finally resolved with this compromise to the satisfaction of all
concerned," Ermita said.

Reports said the agreement would have SMFI set aside some 50
hectares from the original property and over 90 hectares from an adjacent piece
of land.

A farmers' group headed by a militant lawmaker, on the other
hand, warned the Sumilao claimants of the deal being brokered by Malacañang.

"The Sumilao farmers (should be) very wary of the deal with
SMFI that is being brokered by Malacañang. Our brother farmers should be
careful that what happened last December would not be repeated," said Anakpawis
Rep. Rafael Mariano, chairman of the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas
(KMP).

Mariano referred to the promise made by Mrs. Arroyo to
return the disputed property to the farmers after they camped out in front of
the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) following their 60-day, 1,700-kilometer
trek from Bukidnon last December.

Three months later, the Sumilao farmers are back in Manila, urging the
government to make good on the promise made by Mrs. Arroyo to return the
contested property to them.

"What Malacañang is trying to do is once again fool the
farmers to return to Sumilao so that media attention would not be centered on
the land issue," Mariano said.

"If indeed SMFI is serious with the compromise agreement but
at what price? What did (the President) promise (SMFI) for them to finally
agree to a deal, when they even questioned it in the Supreme Court?" Mariano
asked.

The KMP insisted the real solution to the problem of the
Sumilao farmers and all farmers in general is to approve House Bill 3059 or the
Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB).

The KMP said the proposed measure would effectively uplift the
lives of farmers.

Over the weekend, Peter Tuminhay, former chairman of the
Mapalad Multipurpose Cooperative that comprises the first generation of Sumilao
farmers, said they are expecting today the signing of an "agreement" that would
settle the dispute over the 144-hectare property.

Tuminhay said they are confident that SMFI would honor its
word of giving up the land to them "because they initiated the compromise
agreement."

Under the draft agreement, Tuminhay said SMFI would
apportion 50 hectares from the original site, and 94 hectares from an adjacent
piece of land owned by former Sumilao Mayor Rey Baula.

Negotiations with SMFI's parent company, San Miguel Corp.
(SMC), are reportedly set to resume today. – With Katherine Adraneda

By Paolo Romero, Philippine Star

Monday, March 24, 2008

Technorati Tags: sabotaging, compromise, Sumilao, presidentevil, oust gloria, oust, gma, pgma, resign, zte, gloria resign, gloria macapagal arroyo, moderate the greed, jose pidal

SMC, farmers forge deal

2008-03-26T09:29:00.002+08:00

It’s Cardinal Rosales’ wish, says firm’s CEO

By Daxim Lucas, Tarra Quismundo

Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 01:02:00 03/24/2008

MANILA,
Philippines—San Miguel Corp. (SMC) Sunday confirmed that it had reached
an agreement with the Higaonon farmers regarding the long-drawn dispute
over a 144-hectare property in Sumilao, Bukidnon.

In a text message to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, SMC president
and CEO Ramon Ang revealed the important role played by the Catholic
Church, through Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, in
brokering the agreement.

The controversial piece of real estate is owned by San Miguel Foods
Inc. (SMFI), a subsidiary of SMC, Southeast Asia’s largest food and
beverage firm.

Asked to confirm if a deal had been reached between SMC and the farmers, Ang replied: “Yes, it’s Cardinal Rosales’ wish.”

Arlene Bag-ao, the farmers’ legal counsel, said on Saturday that
while the details of the agreement had yet to be finalized, the
contending parties had basically agreed that the land would soon be
returned to the farmers.

“We’re 80-percent sure,” farmer Peter Tuminhay said the same day.

No further details about the deal were made available at press time
Sunday. Requests for information on the draft agreement that will
reportedly apportion to the farmers 50 hectares from the original
contested site, plus another 94 hectares from an adjacent property,
went unanswered.

The SMC corporate communications staff said it had yet to receive instructions on the matter.

But at the San Jose Major Seminary Church on the Ateneo de Manila
University campus, the farmers gathered for an Easter Mass to give
thanks for their nearing triumph in the land dispute that has taken
almost 10 years.

Some 120 farmers and at least 100 of their longtime supporters
marked Christ’s resurrection and prayed for the success of the land
agreement.

“Light is drawing near for our brothers and sisters from Sumilao. We
are hoping that real victory will happen this week. We should thank God
for guiding them through their journey and never allowing them to lose
hope,” Fr. Ben Nebres, president of the Ateneo, said in a message he
delivered mostly in Filipino toward the end of the hour-and-a-half
concelebrated Mass that also drew nuns and students and other
supporters.

“They are examples of courage, faith and determination,” Nebres said.

And then, addressing the farmers, he said: “You never gave up and for that, we salute you.

“We have much hope that your triumph will come and your land will be
returned to you. We also hope that all details will be promptly
arranged.”

The farmers, who walked from Sumilao, a fourth-class municipality
(annual income: P20 million-P30 million) of Bukidnon, to Manila in
October last year to bring their case to Malacañang, begged off from
revealing details of the agreement ahead of a planned joint
announcement with SMFI.

Organizers of the Mass told the Inquirer newspaper that in
compliance with the embargo arrangement and the wish of the farmers and
their supporters that the event be kept low-key, media vehicles were
barred from entering the Ateneo’s Quezon City campus.

The organizers, who asked not to be named in keeping with the
embargo, also clarified that the Mass was not a celebration but “a
thanksgiving” for the glimmer of hope given the farmers.

Text messages about the occasion that made their way to media
offices were also not meant as an invitation for coverage, but were a
call on supporters to attend the Easter Mass, they said.

Extra-special Easter

In his homily, Fr. Danny Huang said Easter Sunday was extra-special
because the Jesuit community and other supporters of the farmers were
celebrating the victory at hand.

“We are here to celebrate, first, Christ’s triumph over death, and,
second, because of the nearing victory of our brothers and sisters from
Sumilao,” Huang said in the homily delivered in Filipino, Visayan and
English.

“The details are still being laid out but it is clear that they will
achieve victory in their fight to reclaim their land,” he said.

Nebres said that while triumph appeared to be at hand, the farmers’ fight had yet to end.

“In my view, the Sumilao farmers still have a long road to take in
seeing the fruits of what they fought for, in realizing their dreams
for their children … We know that agriculture and farming are difficult
and need diligence,” he said.

Calling on the farmers’ supporters, Nebres said: “I hope this is not
the end for us in watching and supporting them. I hope we can still be
with them until they are able to settle down because we know it’s hard
to till land and cultivate crops.”

Neither Nebres nor Huang made mention of the agreement with SMFI.

Equally reticent was Peter Tuminhay, who told the congregation in Filipino:

“We believe we will get the land, but that is not the end. When the
land is there, we have to [cultivate] it and we hope you will be there
to guide us.

“There is much to be done … but we are hoping for your tireless support. You have become our family.”

Palace mum

Even Malacañang was mum on the case in which President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had taken a direct hand.

“Insofar as the Palace is concerned, it has done its part and it’s
leaving it to the two parties to [firm up] the agreement,” said a
Palace insider, who asked not to be named for lack of authority to
speak on the matter.

But the source said that even before the Holy Week break, Malacañang
was aware that the two parties were “already nearing an agreement.”

Thus, Palace officials were puzzled that “noise” was again being made on the issue, the source said.

The insider claimed to have received information that the “noise”
was being sparked by a nongovernmental organization assisting the
farmers.

“Maybe [the NGO] was trying to justify its receipt of a grant [from
a donor] by bringing up the Sumilao issue again,” the insider said.

In December last year, Ms Arroyo authorized the issuance of an order
reclassifying the agro-industrial property as agricultural land covered
by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

Early this month, the farmers returned to Manila and conducted a
“Jericho March” around Malacañang to demand their immediate
installation as owners of the land.

Rosales’ parishioners

There are plans for Cardinal Rosales to travel to Sumilao this
weekend to officiate at a thanksgiving Mass for the farmers who were
his parishioners when he served as bishop of Malaybalay, Bukidnon, for
nearly 10 years.

“He is willing, of course, but arrangements are not yet final,”
Manila Archdiocese communications director Peachy Yamsuan told the
Inquirer in a phone interview.

Rosales, 75, who celebrated his 50th anniversary as a priest Sunday,
was instrumental in getting the contending parties to reach an
agreement over the disputed land. “He really took it upon himself
because the farmers were his parishioners in Malaybalay,” Yamsuan said.

Rosales appointed Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, who
chairs the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ National
Secretariat for Social Action, to head the Church Task Force on the
Sumilao Case and to monitor the farmers’ plight.

It was Pabillo who relayed to SMFI the wishes of both Rosales and the farmers, Yamsuan said.

Told of the text message sent by SMC’s Ang to the Inquirer, Yamsuan
said: “We are thankful for that, and also for the sense of justice and
compassion of Mr. Ang.”

She said the SMC president and CEO should be given “credit” as well for understanding the farmers. With reports from Christine O. Avendaño and Nikko Dizon

Technorati Tags: Cardinal Rosales, Cardinal, Rosales cbcp, presidentevil, oust gloria, oust, gma, pgma, resign, zte, gloria resign, gloria macapagal arroyo, moderate the greed, jose pidal

CBCP slams DAR, Reds,

2008-03-26T09:19:00.002+08:00

BISHOP Broderick Pabillo, chairman of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) -
National Secretariat for Social Action (Nassa), blamed the Department of Agrarian Reform, the landlords and the leftists
for the failure of land reform to improve the lot of poor farmers in the country.

Pabillo said government should consider overhauling the "disorganized" DAR to pave the way for the
implementation of a "real" land reform program. "Sa halip na pumanig sa mga magsasaka, pumapanig sila (DAR) sa mga may-ari.
Sa totoo lang, hindi nagka-reform dahil sa ang mga ahensya ng gobyerno na dapat tumulong ay hindi kumilos," Pabillo said.

He also slammed the landlords: "Sinasabi nila may development na gagawin. But development at the expense of
farmers?" And the communists: "Alam nila kapag successful ang DAR, wala na silang ipaglalaban. Kaya habang walang land reform,
ang unrest na ito'y mangyayari sa mga kanayunan natin."

Pabillo made the remarks after the farmers from Sumilao, Bukidnon, whom it supports, returned to Manila to
press for the cessation of San Miguel Food's development of the 144-hectare land they are claiming into an agro-industrial area.

Over the weekend, the farmers expressed hope that a compromise agreement reportedly being ironed out with
SMFI will do the trick.

Pabillo also reiterated the CBCP's stand that the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program should be extended beyond
June, when its legal life is set to expire.

- Gerard Naval

Technorati Tags: CBCP, BISHOP

Senator calls for unified stand on RP territory

2008-03-26T09:10:00.002+08:00

Philippines—Malacañang and Congress should come up with a “common
stand” to protect Philippine territory through a new baselines bill
asserting the country’s claim to the Kalayaan Islands in the South
China Sea.

MANILA,

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. issued the call in the
wake of announced plans by the two chambers of Congress to conduct
separate inquiries into President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s endorsement
of the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) among the state oil
firms of the Philippines, China and Vietnam, which covers areas within
Philippine territory.

“It would be ridiculous for the Philippines not to include the
Kalayaan Islands within its archipelagic baselines because this is
being made precisely in pursuit of its rights as an archipelagic state
under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),”
Pimentel said in a statement.

The senator was also reacting to the stalled passage of House Bill
No. 3216, which sets the Philippine baselines at a 20-kilometer
(12-mile) territorial sea, 41-km (24-mile) contiguous zone and 340-km
(200-mile) exclusive economic zone.

The bill was approved unanimously on second reading as early as Dec.
13, 2007. But Malacañang obviously “intervened” in stopping its final
passage on third reading in order to incorporate amendments proposed by
the Office of the President’s Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs,
according to Pimentel.

He said the Palace stepped in after Beijing sent a warning note that
HB 3216 putting “the Scarborough Shoal and some other Nansha (Spratly)
reefs and islands inside the baseline of the Philippines will not be
conducive to stability … [and will] also disturb China-Philippine
cooperation in the area.”

Malacañang had earlier expressed agreement with a proposal to remand
the bill for amendment to the House committee on foreign affairs
chaired by Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco, its principal sponsor.

Part of RP

Pimentel pointed out that the Kalayaan Islands had been officially
annexed as part of the Philippines and had been under its actual and
effective control since 1978.

Palawan Rep. Antonio Alvarez, an ally of the administration, on
Sunday warned that his province and the country itself would be
“dismembered” if Kalayaan were excluded from Philippine territory.

According to Alvarez, the administration may be in violation of
Philippine laws if it passes a baselines bill that excludes Kalayaan.

Pimentel said Congress and Malacañang should resolve their
differences over the configuration of the archipelagic map without
compromising or weakening the Philippines’ legal and historic claim to
Kalayaan.

He also said the Senate should give top priority to drawing up the
baselines to complement the House’s effort and to meet the May 2009
deadline set by the United Nations.

“It is incumbent upon us to protect and assert our territorial
rights over the seas around us, and even to the extent of 200 nautical
miles from the edge of our seas as our exclusive economic zone,” he
added.

With the admission by Philippine National Oil Co. president Antonio
Cailao that the entire 142,886-sq-km area covered by the 2005 JMSU was
all within the Philippine territory, Pimentel said: “All the more we
should push for a definition of our territory whatever the opinion of
other countries may be.”

But he warned against unnecessarily straining ties with China and Vietnam.

Pimentel also expressed concurrence with the view of a group of law
professors from the University of the Philippines that Congress should
pass the law drawing up the country’s archipelagic map regardless of
the reservations of China or any other nation claiming the Spratlys.

The group had said all disputes or overlapping claims would anyway be subject to final resolution in accordance with the UNCLOS.

Sovereignty

According to Alvarez, a member of Ms Arroyo’s political party, the
Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino, passing a baselines law that encloses
Kalayaan will “amount to no more than an assertion of sovereignty over
what is ours.”

Kalayaan is “a natural prolongation” of Palawan Island, and they are on the same continental shelf, the lawmaker said.

He said that “to buckle down from this [position] by meekly pointing
to only six islands and treating them independently” would be
“tantamount to giving up our ownership of the entire Kalayaan,
weakening our stance as against the other claimants, and violating our
own laws.”

Alvarez expressed frustration over the administration’s purported intent to exclude Kalayaan from the archipelagic baselines.

He said this was “the only logical effect” of remanding HB 3216 to
the House committee on foreign affairs and “forcing it to adopt a
‘regime of islands’ position … in effect abandoning the current
‘enclosed within baseline’ option provided by the bill.”

“To treat the Kalayaan island group as individual islands and
disjunct from Palawan province is tantamount to dismembering not only
Palawan but also our national territory,” he added.

The other lawmaker from Palawan, Rep. Abraham Mitra, had earlier
said it was important that the archipelagic baselines include the
waters between Palawan and Kalayaan as well.

“The Malampaya exploration is there,” Mitra had pointed out.

Marcos decree

Alvarez said it was then dictator Ferdinand Marcos who declared
Philippine “ownership” of Kalayaan Islands through Presidential Decree
No. 1596 issued in 1978.

“This decree stated that Kalayaan shall have its own local
government, to be known as the municipality of Kalayaan, and shall be
part of Palawan province. This law has never been amended, modified, or
repealed,” he said.

Under PD 1596, Marcos “asserted the country’s sovereignty over
Kalayaan because for him the country owns [it],” Alvarez said, adding:

“It is not a mere claimant. This is quite different from how our government views Kalayaan now. For them, we are mere claimants.

“This is frustrating because, we have long ago established a
municipality there and even made it part of the first congressional
district.”

Mitra said that despite their being allied with Ms Arroyo, he and
Alvarez would continue to push for the passage of HB 3216 in its
present form—with the baselines enclosing the main archipelago,
Scarborough Shoal and Kalayaan.

He said the people of Palawan “will not stand” for the exclusion of Kalayaan from the archipelagic baselines.

“Malacañang will understand. This is local for us,” Mitra said.

By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr., Norman Bordadora
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:13:00 03/24/2008

Technorati Tags: Senator, stand, RP territory, presidentevil, oust gloria, oust, gma, pgma, resign, zte, gloria resign, gloria macapagal arroyo, moderate the greed, jose pidal

Another China loan probed

2008-03-26T07:24:00.001+08:00

MANILA,
Philippines—The Senate will delve deeper into the $5-billion Chinese
loan the Philippine government used to pay for the relocation of
squatters in the North Luzon Railways (NorthRail) and Southern Luzon
Railways (SouthRail) projects and the construction of at least one
million low-cost housing units.

Sen. Loren Legarda said the economic affairs committee which she
chairs would take the lead in the probe of an agreement with China that
was drafted during a meeting between Chinese Embassy officials and
Cabinet members in the residence of former Speaker Jose de Venecia two
years ago.

“The economic affairs committee will conduct a hearing on this. I
hope I am not perceived to be belaboring the point and trying to
squeeze blood out of a turnip except that at first glance, when I saw
this memorandum or this letter, it caught me by surprise because it was
really overstated. The estimates, I think, are way beyond our
imagination,” Legarda said.

Legarda gave the Philippine Daily Inquirer a copy of a Framework of
Cooperation endorsed by De Venecia and signed by four Cabinet
members—Trade Secretary Peter Favila, Finance Secretary Margarito
Teves, former National Economic and Development Authority Director
General Romulo Neri and former Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla—that
was submitted to the Chinese ambassador in March 2006.

The framework, which came out of the January 2006 meeting, outlines
a $32.5-billion program for possible equity and soft loans by China to
the Philippines, including the aforementioned $5-billion.

It estimated the completion of the NorthRail and SouthRail projects
and possible investments in the Mindanao, Panay and Visayas rail
projects could cost another $6.5 billion.

Legarda said if the projects had pushed through, they might have
been worse than the allegedly overpriced National Broadband Network
deal with China’s ZTE Corp. that was pegged at $329 million.

During the last Senate hearing on the NBN controversy, Legarda asked Favila about the Chinese investment program.

By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Lozada still hoping to get his life back

2008-03-26T07:12:00.000+08:00

The key witness in the government's botched national broadband network (NBN) deal is hopeful that his life would go back to normal despite the complexities wrought by his testimony in the corruption scandal.

Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. said he is drawing strength from his family and the people who support him, including former President Corazon Aquino and the nuns of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP).

"My life now is like an empty canvas. But there are many people who have been helping me get back my normal life. If not for the religious, my life probably has been wasted already," Lozada told attendees of the sixth Mass for Truth at the St. Joseph Church in Quezon City on Easter Sunday.

Lozada said he spent the Holy Week reflecting on his life and family with his mother at an undisclosed place.

"I realized that my family life is like a drawing that has been slowly erased. I have no capability to redraw my life. I thought that after giving my little piece of truth, everything would be fine. I really don't understand my life," he said.

But Lozada also appealed to Church officials not to prevent him from speaking at his Mass for Truth series.

"I should be given the chance to speak because people come here to seek out the truth," he said in Filipino.

Some Catholic bishops had barred priests in their respective dioceses from celebrating the Mass for Truth for Lozada. Among them was Archbishop Leonardo Legazpi of Nueva Cacerez in Bicol, who argued that Masses should not be used in advancing political issues and interests.

Aquino, who organized the nine-part Mass for Truth for Lozada, reassured him of her support.

"Whenever we sit together, I always tell him: A little more patience. Don't lose hope," the former president said.

Yesterday's Mass was celebrated by Franciscan Fr. Reu Galoy. Organizers said the Mass next Sunday would be held at the Manila Cathedral School in Tayuman, Manila.
– Edu Punay

JDV says his ties with GMA 'even below zero'

2008-03-26T07:00:00.002+08:00

DAGUPAN CITY – Former House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. told local reporters here the other day that he was being generous with the President when he said their relation is zero.

"It should even be below zero because she had me ousted as speaker and she had me ousted as president of the party (Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats)," he said.

Asked what he meant by zero he said, "No relations, no communications."

The former Speaker said it was Mrs. Arroyo and her husband, First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo, who should be faulted for what happened to him.

He said he has written her two letters, one on the moral revolution which he proposed the President should lead, and second the "assassination" letter against him and Joey (his son) to be investigated.

Joey's testimonies implicated some government officials, including the President's husband, in alleged kickbacks in the $329-million national broadband network (NBN) deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp., which the President consequently cancelled.

Since then, the De Venecias claim they had been receiving death threats.

"But up to now she has not replied (to my letters)," he said.

Despite what happened between them, De Venecia said he is still praying for the President, hoping she will change.

"She must put an end to bribery, scandals and corruption in government," he said.

"This Holy Week should be the beginning of a nationwide national soul searching and a determination to do what must be done. It should not be mere lip service," he added.

He noted that all the President should do is to "cleanse her Cabinet, cleanse Malacañang and cleanse her family."

De Venecia said their long years of friendship and alliance all went to waste because it was the President's fault.

"Maybe God wants to use me as an instrument in another way, as an instrument of change. I still have to do many things and maybe still expose many wrongdoings in many areas of the government," he said.

He warned, "They should not be complacent because we are just starting."

He added that protest actions and calls for Mrs. Arroyo's resignation are mounting, even reaching the provinces now. He said Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz is arranging a forum with ZTE-NBN whistle blower Rodolfo Lozada Jr. on April 4. But if she remains callous, he said, "That's her own lookout."

"We have to be very, very careful because the protest movements, together with the mounting prices of petroleum and rice, is very, very difficult," De Venecia said.

He added that even after his ouster he has not lost his good standing with the international community as shown by his various invitations to speak in political forums abroad.

"As a matter of fact my role is increasing," he said, adding that aside from his position as president emeritus in Lakas-CMD he is still the chairman of the standing committee of all the political parties in the International Conference of Asian Political Parties.

During his different speaking engagements abroad, De Venecia said he always presents the political situation in the Philippines "but without washing dirty linen offshore."

"As I've always said, politics must stop at the rivers' edges. We should not be exporting our dirty linen beyond the three-mile limit, not even beyond the Spratlys," he said.

By Eva Visperas, Philippine Star

panawagan ng NOVALICHES ;)

2008-03-24T11:36:00.007+08:00

PAGBABAGO:
Makatotohanan. Masinsinan. Malawakan.

Tulad ng mga Israelita, tinahak nating mga Filipino sa kasalukuyan ang Disyerto - isang bansang batbat ng talamak na katiwalian, na pinag-uugatan ng kahirapan ng nakararami. Sa paglalakbay na ito, nagbibigay pag-asa ang mga salita ng Panginoon sa pamamagitan ni propeta Isaias: "ako'y magbubukas ng landasin sa gitna ng ilang; maging ang disyerto ay patutubigan. " (Isaias 43: 19). Ang landasing ito na binubuksan ng Diyos, ang tubig na papawi ng uhaw sa katarungan, ay GANAP NA PAGBABAGO - di lamang sa loob ng bawat indibidwal, kundi sa loob ng sistemang pulitikal.

Kaya sa gitna ng walang puknat na paglaganap ng corruption sa bansa, naninindigan kami - ang Sambayanan ng Diyos sa Novaliches - para sa MAKATOTOHANAN, MASINSINAN, AT MALAWAKANG PAGBABAGO.

Ito ang aming panawagan:

Una, ILABAS ANG BUONG KATOTOHANAN. Palabasin at huwag hadlangan ang buong katotohanan tungkol sa ZTE-NBN deal, Fertilizer Scam, ang "Hello Garci" Controvercy, at iba pang mga anomalya;

Ikalawa, MAGBIGAY-SULIT AT PANAGUTIN ANG PINAGKATIWALAAN NG KAPANGYARIHAN. Tuwirang ilahad ang pananagutan ng mga sangkot sa mga isyung nabanggit, at patawan ng karampatang parusa ang mga maysala pati na ang mga nagtatakip sa katotohanan'

Ikatlo, ISULONG ANG MALAWAKANG REPORMA sa mga balangkas at pamamaraan ng pamamahala tulad ng bidding, procurement, loans at mga nahahawig na proseso, upang matigil na at maiwasan pa ang mga oportunidad sa pangungurakot at pandarambong.

Hanggang hindi naisasakatuparan ang tatlong bagay na ito -

hindi kami titigil sa pangangalampag at pagpapahayag ng aming pagtutol sa kasalukuyang pamamaraan ng pamamahala na hindi nakatutugon ng sapat sa pagsupil ng corruption sa bansa'

patuloy kaming manghihimok at manghahamon sa lahat na gumising, magsuri, manalangin, at magpahayag ng protesta sa pamamagitan ng conscientization at truth forums;

ipapahayag namin ang aming protesta sa patuloy naming pagsama sa pagmamartsa sa lansangan, prayer rallies at vigils.

Ituturing naming sagradong tungkulin ang:

suportahan at ipagtanggol ang mga nagtataya ng buhay sa pagbubulgar ng katiwalian sa pamahalaan;

bantayan hanggang maresolba ang mga kaso ng katiwaliang nagaganap at matutuklasan pa mula sa aming mga baranggay hanggang sa Malakanyang;

gamit ang mga mapayapa at demokratikong pamamaraan, tiyaking hindi mananatili sa posisyon ng kapangyarihan ang mga walang kahihiyang magsinungaling, magnakaw at manlinlang.

Gagawin namin ito bilang pagsasabuhay ng aming pananampalatayag Kristiyano, bilang pagmamahal sa aming pagka-Pilipino, at bilang pagmamalasakit namin sa mga mahihirap na siyang patuloy na nasasaktan at nabibigatan sa mga serbisyong naipagkakait sa kanila dahil sa pangungurakot sa yaman ng bansa.

-- resultang pahayag ng ilang linggong FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION ng mga LAYKO at KAPARIAN ng NOVALICHES, simula nuong naganap ang CANDLE LIGHTING CEREMONY AT MISA PARA SA KATOTOHANAN nuong ika 21 ng Pebrero, taong kasalukyan at tinapos ngayong SEMANA SANTA, buwan ng marso.

-- ang focus group discussion ay umikot sa siyam na bikaryato ng dioceses, sa loob ng humigit kumulang limamput pitong parokyang sakop nito. sa pagpupulso sa layko ng novaliches, maraming opinyon ang naglabasan, may panig at di panig, mainit na diskusyon ang pinagdaanan, PERO ito ang pangkalahatang opinyong lumabas na sumasalamin sa tinig ng mayorya.

-- hindi perpekto ang pahayag at hindi kasing tapang ng inaasahan, at maaring may iisa o dadalawa o iilan pang sasabihing "hindi ito ang opinyon ko," pero ang mahalaga, napadaan sa proseso ang pagbabalangkas ng nasabing pahayag, maliwanag na kinonsulta ang mga ordinaryong mananampalataya ng Novaliches, at dahil dito pinaging balido at matibay ang pahayag na ito.

(syota ni juan)

CBCP Editorial - POLITICAL WINTER

2008-03-22T21:26:00.001+08:00

POLITICAL WINTER
CBCP Editorial
22 March 2008

THE Sumilao farmers are back—and vowed to stay in Manila until the promise committed to them by Malacañang last Christmas gets more real than the pledges politicians make during elections. The Yulo farmers, petitioning that 3,811 hectares of the 8,000-hectares Hacienda Yulo be covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), are now on the march, too.

Seemingly awakened by the obnoxious reek of the botched ZTE-NBN mess and the equally stinking Spratley island deals in the offing, student organizations and the urban youth are back on their feet. They were mere fence-sitters and guilty bystanders, like most of us, in the first wave of anomalies surrounding the Macapagal Highway, the Fertilizer scam, the "Hello, Garci" tapes, and the Northrail project, not to mention extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances, which are beyond the ambit of a regularly condoned anomaly. After martial law, they preferred to be computer geeks rather than street parliamentarians. But this time they look geared up for a quarter-storm.

For the first time in Philippine history, cabinet members and high-ranking government officials of past and present administrations have banded together, crossing political lines, and joined the fray in search for the "truth"—or better still, in search for a political solution to the present hitch.

The biblical division among households in Mathew 10:35 is, of course, exegetically different. But divisions within highly-placed institutions in the face of the current socio-political crises are crises, too, that snapped revered traditions and professional courtesy. During martial law, institutional divisions and differences in political persuasions were dignified in the sense that they were ideological. This can be worse, if differences of the day are motivated by hefty financial favors and political comfort because such are devoid of ethics and conviction.

The country is in a political winter. It looks a little short of frightening if one would give a free reign to a scenario where power blocks are trailblazing uncharted schemes to set or unset the central power that slugs on an uneasy chair. The past EDSAs proved the Filipino to be non-violent. But it was otherwise in the battery of revolts during the Spanish regime and the Philippine-American war.

Are we Japan's prostitute Again?

2008-03-22T21:04:00.001+08:00

Overview of the JPEPA

Last September 9, 2006 in Finland, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
and Japanese Prime Minister Junihiro Koizumi signed the Japan-
Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), a bilateral
preferential trade treaty between Japan and the Philippines that
seeks to remove barriers to investments and the trade of goods and
services between the two countries.

by Atty. Tanya Lat

Overview of the JPEPA

Last September 9, 2006 in Finland, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
and Japanese Prime Minister Junihiro Koizumi signed the Japan-
Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), a bilateral
preferential trade treaty between Japan and the Philippines that
seeks to remove barriers to investments and the trade of goods and
services between the two countries. The JPEPA is the first bilateral
trade agreement entered into by the Philippines since the 1946 Parity
Amendment with the United States, and constitutes the Philippine
component of the Initiative for Japan-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic
Partnership, which seeks to strengthen economic integration between
Japan and ASEAN.

The JPEPA is no ordinary treaty, but has in fact been described by
international trade experts as a “mega-treaty.” According to Justice
Florentino Feliciano and Prof. Meilou Sereno, the JPEPA is a combined
Bilateral Investment Treaty and Bilateral Free Trade Agreement that
adopts many key features of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) that took all of ten (10) years to negotiate before finally
being signed by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

While JPEPA negotiations were being undertaken by the executive
branch, Justice Feliciano and Prof. Sereno warned Congress in a
committee hearing of the Special Committee on Globalization that such
a mega-treaty would have difficulties that are “twice as large, twice
as formidable” than if they were negotiated separately, and thus, the
Philippine government needs to be “twice as awake, twice as vigilant”
in determining whether the country is indeed ready to undertake a
treaty of this nature. Prof. Sereno likewise stated that the
Philippine government should not be rushed into concluding and
ratifying the JPEPA, as its implications are “very far-reaching” and
may possibly require full-bodied legislation and/or amendments to
existing legislation.

Despite these warnings, and with very little public consultation and
information, the Philippine government proceeded to sign the JPEPA
after just two (2) years of negotiations. Now that the full text of
the agreement has finally been made public, it is becoming apparent
that the JPEPA is going to be a bad deal for the Philippines,
particularly as far as environmental protection is concerned.

The JPEPA: legalizing trade in hazardous and toxic waste

It is of common knowledge that the Philippines already has a serious
problem with recycling and waste disposal. This problem stands to be
aggravated even further with the projected importation of hazardous
and toxic waste from Japan, which is being encouraged under the JPEPA.

Article 29 of the Basic Agreement of the JPEPA provides that the
following products are to be considered as being wholly obtained or
produced entirely in the Philippines or in Japan and therefore
entitled to preferential treatment granted under the JPEPA:

“(i) articles collected in the Party which can no longer perform
their original purpose in the Party nor are capable of being restored
or repaired and which are fit only for disposal or for the recovery
of parts or raw materials;

“(j) scrap and waste derived from manufacturing or processing
operations or from consumption in the Party and fit only for disposal
or for the recovery of raw materials;

“(k) parts or raw materials recovered in the Party from articles
which can no longer perform their original purpose nor are capable of
being restored or repaired; and

“(l) goods obtained or produced in the Party exclusively from the
goods referred to in subparagraphs (a) through (k) above.”

Such waste products are granted a preferential tariff rate of 0%,
which will be implemented as soon as the JPEPA comes into force and
effect (i.e., after it is approved by the Senate). These specific
waste products are enumerated in the Philippine tariff schedule to
the JPEPA (broken into Tariff Heading No., Description, MFN rate [1]
[Tariff & Customs Code], and JPEPA tariff rate), as follows:

2620.6000 Ash and residues (other than from the manufacture of iron
or steel), containing arsenic, mercury, thallium or their mixtures,
of a kind used for the extraction of arsenic or those metals or for
the manufacture of their chemical compounds - 3% - 0%

2621.1000 Ash and residues from the incineration of municipal waste -
3% - 0%

3006.80 (3006.8010, 3006.8090) Waste pharmaceuticals - 20% - 0%

38.25 (and its subheadings)Residual products of the chemical or
allied industries, not elsewhere specified or included; municipal
waste; sewage sludge; other wastes specified in Note 6 to this
Chapter - 30% - 0%

3825.1000 Municipal waste [2] - 30% - 0%

3825.2000 Sewage sludge - 30% - 0%

3825.3010 Clinical waste [3] - adhesive dressings and other articles
having adhesive layer; wadding gauze bandages, surgical gloves - 30%
- 0%

3825.3090 Other clinical waste - 30% - 0%

3825.4100, 3825.4900 Waste organic solvents - halogenated, and other
- 30% - 0%

3825.6100, 2825.6900 Other wastes from other chemical or allied
industries - containing organic constituents, other - 30% - 0%

3825.5000 Wastes of metal pickling liquors, hydraulic fluids, brake
fluids and anti-freeze fluids - 30% - 0%

6309.00 Worn clothing and other worn articles Prohibited importation
under RA 4653 - 0%

6310.00 Used or new rags, scrap twine, cordage, rope and cables and
worn out articles of twine, cordage, rope or cables, of textile
materials Prohibited importation under RA 4653 - 0%

These waste products - most of which constitute either hazardous or
toxic waste [4] - have been previously identified by the Tariff
Commission as “goods of social and environmental concerns” whose
importation is closely being monitored and controlled. These waste
products have very little recyclable value, if at all, and are
generally intended for disposal. [5]

Tariffs act as border measures that restrict or encourage the entry
of goods: the higher the tariffs, the lesser the tendency to import,
and vice-versa. The reduction of tariff rates on these products to 0%
under the JPEPA operates as a blanket invitation to both Japanese and
Filipino businessmen to engage in trade on such hazardous and toxic
waste products.

The JPEPA: violating international and domestic environmental
commitments

These provisions of the JPEPA not only allow but even encourage trade
in toxic and hazardous waste. This directly conflicts with the
mandate of the State to promote the people’s right to health (Art.
II, Sec. 15) and right to a balanced and healthful ecology (Art. II,
Sec. 16) under the Philippine Constitution.

Moreover, these provisions of the JPEPA directly conflict with the
country’s commitments under the Basel Convention, as well as specific
Philippine environmental laws.

Republic Act No. 6969 expressly prohibits the entry of hazardous
wastes into and their disposal within the country, for whatever
purpose. Even mere entry for purposes of transit is expressly
prohibited. [6] Violations of R.A. No. 6969 are subject to criminal
penalties ranging from 12-20 years imprisonment. [7]

Also, under Republic Act No. 4653, [8] goods under heading nos. 63.09
(worn clothing and other worn articles) and 63.10 (used or new rags,
scrap twine, cordage, rope and cables and worn out articles of twine,
cordage, rope or cables, of textile materials) are prohibited from
being commercially imported into the Philippines. Violations of R.A.
No. 4653 are subject to imprisonment between 2-5 years. [9]

An inexplicable policy turn-around

What is particularly alarming about the decision of the Philippine
government to allow the trade of waste products under the JPEPA is
the fact that initially, the Philippine government had actually
proposed that such waste products be excluded from the coverage of
the JPEPA. During the public hearing conducted by the Tariff
Commission on May 31, 2005, it was revealed that the waste products
enumerated above were given a tariff classification of “X”, which
meant that such products were not to be covered by the JPEPA.

Nine months later however, in an inexplicable policy turnaround, the
Philippine government announced that it was proposing that the tariff
rates on such waste products be slashed to 0%. Despite the vehement
objections raised by both the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources and members of civil society during the Tariff Commission
hearing held in February 2006, these objectionable provisions still
found their way into the final text of the JPEPA.

Representatives from the Board of Investments have reasoned out that
it does not matter if tariff rates on the subject waste products are
reduced to 0%. They argue that since the issue is one of
implementation, proper enforcement measures at the border will keep
prohibited shipments out even if tariff rates are at 0%. However,
this ignores the realities of enforcement measures at our ports. The
provisions of R.A. No. 6969 and R.A. No. 4653 prohibiting the
importation of the mentioned waste products are not reflected in the
Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines (TCCP), and businessmen
will not usually go beyond the text of the TCCP to determine whether
their proposed shipment is prohibited by law or not.

The same is true for customs authorities at the border. Customs
collectors are generally only concerned with the tariff rates and
classifications of the products entering the country, and other
customs-related issuances. They cannot be expected to know
environmental laws and regulations not relating to tariffs or customs
matters such as R.A. No. 6969 or R.A. No. 4653, unless there are
accompanying tariff or customs measures that will implement the
provisions of such laws.

Moreover, the reduction of tariffs to 0% will make border enforcement
measures more difficult. Shipments that are 0%-rated are generally
simply waved through, as customs authorities will choose to focus
their attention on other shipments that will have the potential to
earn more revenue for the government, i.e. importations subject to
tariffs greater than 0%.

Given all these - and without even mentioning the impunity on the
part of unscrupulous businessmen to violate Philippine laws to make a
quick buck - there is a great possibility that these waste products
will find their way into the Philippines notwithstanding R.A. No.
6969 and R.A. No. 4653. Compounded with the economic considerations
of such illegal transactions, the threat to become the dumpsite for
Japan’s trash is very real.

Déjà vu

This will not be the first time that Japanese trash has found its way
to Philippine shores. Just 7 years ago, in July 1999, 122 40-foot
container vans from Japan, reportedly carrying waste paper for
recycling, arrived at the Port of Manila. However, when the container
vans were opened, what government authorities found was not
recyclable paper as stated in the customs declaration but hazardous,
infections and toxic trash: intravenous injections, used adult and
baby diapers, used sanitary napkins, discarded intravenous syringes
used in blood letting, and dextrose, garments, and bandages. This
shameless act of clear dumping of Japanese trash on Philippine soil
resulted in public outrage so great that the Japanese government was
forced to repatriate said waste shipments after formal, high-level
representation between the Japanese and Philippine governments.

Shortly after that fiasco, environmentalists warned that this was not
the first time that toxic waste from Japan had been brought to the
Philippines under the guise of “recycling.” And judging from the
provisions of the JPEPA, this is probably not going to be the last,
since the Philippine government already seems to have forgotten the
lessons of the 1999 Japanese toxic waste fiasco.

Should the Philippine government allow the trade of hazardous and
toxic waste under the JPEPA, then it will be repudiating its sworn
mandate under the Philippine Constitution to protect and promote the
Filipino people’s right to health and right to a balanced and
healthful ecology, and will be violating not just express provisions
of Philippine law, but Philippine commitments under the Basel
Convention as well.

What next?

Even though the JPEPA has already been signed, it is far from being a
done deal as far as the Philippines is concerned. The JPEPA is not
yet in force and effect; approval by 2/3 of the Senate is necessary
before it can be fully implemented.

The challenge then for civil society, particularly Philippine
environmental groups, is to convince at least 9 senators to repudiate
the JPEPA on the ground that the environmental costs involved in the
trade of toxic wastes will outweight whatever economic benefits there
may be under the treaty.

No matter how poor the Philippines may be economically, we are
entitled to our health, safety, dignity and pride as a people. Let us
demand of our government that the Philippines should never become the
dumpsite of any country’s waste other than our own.

[1] MFN stands for “most-favored-nation.” The MFN rate is the uniform
tariff rate that is accorded by the Philippines to all its other
trading partners.

[2] Examples of municipal waste would include used sanitary napkins
and used adult diapers.

[3] Examples of clinical waste would include used bandages and
discarded intravenous syringes.

[4] “Hazardous wastes” are defined under Section 5 (h) of Republic
Act No. 6969 (the “Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes
Control Act of 1990”) as “ substances that are without any safe
commercial, industrial, agricultural or economic usage and are
shipped, transported or brought from the country of origin for
dumping or disposal into or in transit through ay part of the
territory of the Philippines.” They also refer to “by-products, side-
products, process residues, spent reaction media, contaminated plant
or equipment or other substances from manufacturing operations, and
as consumer discards of manufactured products.”

[5] This was manifested by the DENR representative during the Tariff
Commission hearing held on 22 February 2006.

[6] Section 13 (d), R.A. No. 6969; Section 24 (1), Title III, Chapter
VII, Implementing Rules and Regulations of R.A. No. 6969.

[7] Section 14 (b) (i), R.A. No. 6969.

[8] This Act is entitled “An Act to Safeguard the Health of the
People and Maintain the Dignity of the Nation by Declaring it a
National Policy to Prohibit the Commercial Importation of Textile
Articles Commonly Known as Used Clothes and Rags.”

[9] Section 2, R.A. No. 4653. It must be pointed out that while R.A.
No. 4653 is still good law, it is being more honored in its breach
than its observance.

[1] MFN stands for “most-favored-nation.” The MFN rate is the uniform
tariff rate that is accorded by the Philippines to all its other
trading partners.

[2] Examples of municipal waste would include used sanitary napkins
and used adult diapers.

[3] Examples of clinical waste would include used bandages and
discarded intravenous syringes.

[4] “Hazardous wastes” are defined under Section 5 (h) of Republic
Act No. 6969 (the “Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes
Control Act of 1990”) as “ substances that are without any safe
commercial, industrial, agricultural or economic usage and are
shipped, transported or brought from the country of origin for
dumping or disposal into or in transit through ay part of the
territory of the Philippines.” They also refer to “by-products, side-
products, process residues, spent reaction media, contaminated plant
or equipment or other substances from manufacturing operations, and
as consumer discards of manufactured products.”

[5] This was manifested by the DENR representative during the Tariff
Commission hearing held on 22 February 2006.

[6] Section 13 (d), R.A. No. 6969; Section 24 (1), Title III, Chapter
VII, Implementing Rules and Regulations of R.A. No. 6969.

[7] Section 14 (b) (i), R.A. No. 6969.

[8] This Act is entitled “An Act to Safeguard the Health of the
People and Maintain the Dignity of the Nation by Declaring it a
National Policy to Prohibit the Commercial Importation of Textile
Articles Commonly Known as Used Clothes and Rags.”

[9] Section 2, R.A. No. 4653. It must be pointed out that while R.A.
No. 4653 is still good law, it is being more honored in its breach
than its observance.

source: jemy gatdula

Cardinal ? OFF-TOPIC

2008-03-22T20:30:00.001+08:00

For Immediate Release
The Black & White Movement
Contact:

Vicente R. Romano III,
Leah Navarro.

17 March 2008

CARDINAL VIDAL: A CONGRESSMAN IN A CASSOCK

There is a difference between critical collaboration, which allows
prelates to receive state funds while preaching political moderation
from the pulpit, and being a puppet of the president.

His Eminence Cardinal Vidal has used his pastoral authority to
prevent all 300 priests based in Cebu from celebrating Mass for Jun
Lozada without benefit of explanation. Instead, his spokesperson,
Msgr. Achilles Dacay, has asked that the allegation be supported by
"proof". The Black & White Movement believes that this is not a
legal issue; it is a moral and spiritual matter to deny the sacrament
of the Holy Eucharist to a Catholic. And the proof is there – as of
this writing, not a single priest has accepted the invitation to say
a Mass for Truth in Cebu.

Moreover, the cardinal has used his influence to discourage Cebuanos
from meeting Lozada, listening to him and judging him for
themselves. Instead of prudence, Vidal prefers partisanship.

The Black & White Movement is outraged and dismayed by this
unchristian act of the prelate of Cebu.

Cardinal Vidal is a congressman in a cassock. - - END

Gary Granada checkmates the Bishops

2008-03-20T21:26:00.001+08:00

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:25:00 03/18/2008

MANILA, Philippines--I am neither a Catholic nor a Protestant. I do not belong to a huge organization, much less represent one. At best, I am a volunteer of Kaalagad, a small interfaith community. I am writing this letter in the hope that the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines might reconsider its stance regarding Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her government.

But primarily I am writing this letter out of confusion. In previous pronouncements, the CBCP deplored a "most corrupt President" whom, it said, the Church helped install; at the time, it urged everybody to take communal action.

Two weeks later, the CBCP asked the very same President to take the lead in combating corruption. I understand that this was the result of a process of discernment on the part of the bishops. God must have spoken to them and told them to ask a most corrupt leader to rid her most corrupt government of corruption. Do you see who is cheering?

Discernment must be a supernatural mystery, I wonder if it involves executive privilege between God and the CBCP. "Discernment" reminds me of one of Christ's disciples. When he announced that one of them was about to betray him, the culprit himself asked, "Is it I, Lord?"

It is very difficult to discern what is already clear. As a fan of Jesus, I did a bit of discerning myself. Something tells me that the Gospel itself--the good news to the needy, the reign of hope, sufficiency, justness and goodwill--is being undermined by the very institution that owns its franchise. The CBCP has made the Gospel like tasteless salt, no longer good for anything except perhaps to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by people.

Dear CBCP members, two years ago you could have helped prevent a most corrupt President and her gang from continually getting away with lying, cheating, stealing and murder. But you chose to sit it out, and thus helped instead to save Arroyo and Garci. Despite the odds, the people went ahead anyway and marched. And "lost."

Now the CBCP is doing the same. And again the people will march to oust GMA and her conspirators. The triumph of public good might be uncertain. They may not prevail. Just the same, the people will march, in a sense trampling on the tasteless salt of hierarchical religion.

The bishops may want to join them, not as bishops, not as CBCP, but as average believers whose untrained spiritual eyes nevertheless discern God's Will in the obvious.

--GARY GRANADA

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's Seven Deadly Sins Revealed

2008-03-14T18:43:00.002+08:00

We are losing this country to a stonewalling, corrupt, authoritarian-minded President.

No president has pushed the limits of executive power as this one.

Gloria was not elected to the office, she acquired it. Since that time her conduct has been extralegal.

The transparency inherent to democracy that would expose her is obscured through brute manipulation of Congress, the judiciary, the press and of course her stonewalling of all her seven deadly sins....

1) TREASON. The complete sell-out of the Philippines to China.(Spratly Islands, ZTE, SouthRail, NorthRail)

2) GREED The insatiable greed of the Pidal couple as evidenced by the litany of scandals since 2001.

3) THE MOCKERY OF THE ELCTORAL PROCESS.(Hello Garci, Comelec Chairman Abalos as BIG-TIME ZTE broker.)

4) THE DAMAGE TO DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS.We have a president whose psychological makeup inclines her to do as she pleases. Because the House has been bribed, and the Armed Forces roster of top generals stacked with loyalists, she has gotten away with it -- so far.

5) COVER-UPS. Executive privilege has its place but it is not intended to cover a multitude of sins. It is not cover for illegal acts or a means to dodge accountability for mistakes made.

6) HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS.

7) BAD EXAMPLE TO THE YOUTH. This country cannot have a leader who cheats, lies and stonewalls.

We face 2 1/2 more years of this and I fear how much worse it will become in the coming months.

Gloria Arroyo is extremely dangerous particularly now that she is cornered.

The way things are moving, there is infinite opportunity to diddle and dodge -- in effect conducting business pretty much as usual over the next 837 days(when her “term” expires in 2010).

Gloria could change the constitution, much like the way Marcos did it in 1973. Marcos managed to get the Supreme Court to endorse what was an anomalous ratification of a new charter he had tailor made to perpetuate himself in power.

Since Gloria is following the Marcos playbook, page-by-page, I am wary of what the palace gang will do to allow Gloria to hold on to power beyond her “term”in 2010.

If the other branches of government and the Filipino people in general continue in their acquiescence, this country will be on the road to perdition.

We are very concerned about what future misadventures are likely if this administration is not somehow held to account; that is, if Gloria does not resign or legally removed from office before 2010.

eq

Nation under curse

2008-03-13T10:23:00.001+08:00

read nyo kung bakit Pilipinas hndi umaangat-angat sa mga pinagagawa nila Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and family.

1 A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.
2 When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan.
- Proverbs 29:1 to 2

remove the wicked from the king's presence, and his throne will be established through righteousness.
- Proverbs 25:5

Deuteronomy 28:15 to down say

Curses for Disobedience

15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. ^[a] 21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.

30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34 The sights you see will drive you mad. 35 The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

36 The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you.

38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. 42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

43 The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. 44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.

45 All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. 46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. 47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. 51 They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. 52 They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you.

53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. 56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.

58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God- 59 the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. 60 He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. 62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God. 63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!"-because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see. 68 The LORD will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

Ma’am called San Miguel to deny Palace kickback

2008-03-13T09:03:00.001+08:00

Hello Garci’ graduates to ‘Hello Leo’

Where Ma’am once called a poll commissioner to pad 1 million votes to ensure her victory in the presidential polls by subtracting the opposition standard-bearer’s votes to add to hers, it appears that Ma’am again went into a repeat of her phone call mode, this time calling a ZTE broadband witness, Leo San Miguel, a ZTE consultant representing the Philippine group, telling him to deny receiving $41 million in kickbacks by the “Greedy Group plus plus” which reportedly includes the presidential couple, as alleged by another ZTE-National Broadband Network witness Dante Madriaga.

Opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson yesterday disclosed that during the luncheon at the Senate where San Miguel was asked

to join in, after the ZTE-NBN hearing last Tuesday broke up for lunch, the Senate security that was close by heard San Luis talking to someone on his mobile phone, with him clearly saying, ‘Yes Ma’am. Yes Ma’am. I will deny it.”

“Ma’am” usually refers to President Arroyo, especially when followed by a polite “opo” in Tagalog.

It was also discovered and divulged by Lacson that Malacañang got through the witness via lawyer Marcelino Agana IV who works in the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office (PLLO), to ensure that that San Miguel withholds details on the alleged kickbacks and overpricing that accompanied the NBN contract.

It will be recalled that Lacson, during the hearing asked San Miguel pointblank whether he had spoken to any government official on the eve of the Senate hearing and on the day itself, and San Miguel, whom the other NBN witnesses tagged as a member of the Greedy Group plus plus, he, even under oath, flatly denied it.

The Malacañang official in the Senate, confronted by reporters yesterday admitted to having talked to cable television and telecommunications executive San Miguel on the eve of the ZTE hearing last Tuesday as well as in the morning just before his public appearance in the proceedings.

The revelation on Agana came as opposition Lacson leveled new charges, saying that San Miguel was talking to Ma’am during a break in their hearing and was even overheard assuring Ma’am that he will be issuing a denial.

San Miguel, who was billed as Lacson’s surprise witness, was expected to provide detailed information on the millions of dollars in advances to the Greedy Group plus plus that reportedly includes former poll chairman Benjamin Abalos, Sr., businessman Ruben Reyes and retired police Gen. Quirino dela Torre, now claimed by San Luis to be his partner, specifically on the distribution of kickbacks, amounting to $41 million so far.

“I won’t comment at this time (if his testimony will link the First Couple). But suffice it to say, he gave us leads and information….there were names made and information that will provide the paper trail on the millions of dollars that were released as advances,” Lacson said in an interview, referring to the materials San Miguel turned over to him during their meetings.

The senator and San Miguel met at least four times before the latter agreed to finally testify before the three Senate committees investigating the ZTE deal.

San Miguel, as it turned out, divulged nothing, denying even direct knowledge of the alleged cash advances, as well as in meeting personally First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo during the so-called “back off” incident involving the son of former Speaker, businessman Jose “Joey” de Venecia III.

Hours after San Miguel’s appearance in the Senate or after the proceedings that lasted 12 and a half hours, Lacson managed to bring out an explanation on the conduct of the witness, bolstering earlier suspicions that the former was prodded to give a testimony contrary to what he had earlier relayed to the senator.

Lacson was tipped off by members of the Office of sergeant-at-arms (OSAA) of the Senate who were manning the security of San Miguel the entire time Tuesday, saying that the witness was talking to “Ma’am” while they were having their luncheon break.

“He (San Miguel) was overheard by the OSAA talking to Ma’am, saying ‘Yes ma’am’, ‘yes Ma’am’, ‘I will deny it Ma’am.” Lacson said this was what was relayed to him by the OSSA members guarding San Miguel.

“I don’t know who he was talking to, maybe it is his wife but would you call your wife ‘Ma’am’? And he was firm in saying ‘Yes ma’am’, ‘Yes Ma’am’, I will deny it, Ma’am.”

“The more he went into a full denial after lunch. I was hoping after the lunch break that he could slowly be prodded into telling the truth but the more he went into a denial mode,” he said, adding that his denial stand became even stronger after talking to Ma’am.”

Lacson would not directly admit it, merely insinuating the person on the other end of the line was President Arroyo.

“There is only one ‘Ma’am’ who is addressed with ‘opo Ma’am (Yes Ma’am) and saying I will deny it Ma’am,” Lacson said, adding that this was after San Luis had talked with Agana.

Based on the information that reached the senator, Agana supposedly managed to corner San Miguel in the middle of the break and there the conversation with ‘Ma’am’ took place.

Agana, in an interview with reporters, denied Lacson’s allegations, claiming he knew nothing of the issue on the supposed “Ma’am”, but admitted talking to the witness before the hearing, and also before the actual public hearing took place.

Agana said he and San Miguel talked around 7 p.m. or some two hours before the latter met for the last time with Lacson on the eve of the hearing. As to the reason for their meeting, he did not elaborate.

While they did not meet before the proceedings took place, Agana admitted talking to San Miguel by phone while the latter was already on his way to the upper chamber.

“He asked if we could meet somewhere…I told him it won’t be a good idea,” he said.

Agana, however, said that he and San Miguel have been in contact with each other even before the latter was issued a subpoena by the Senate.

San Miguel even told him that the businessman intends to attend the future hearings if called.

“He called me…he said he wanted to tell me something and asked me to proceed to the bills and index section and he said ‘I’m not allowed to give my whole story’,” Agana said in recalling San Miguel’s complaint on the manner in which he is being made to answer questions from senators.

But as to the issue of the alleged person San Miguel talked to on the phone, Agana denied the incident taking place in his presence.

Lacson, despite what happened, said he is yet to give up on San Miguel.

“I’m not giving up on him because everyone has a redeeming value. Holy Week is coming. The outlook may be different by then,” the senator noted.

“I will still do my job, if there is no senator or congressman who will not look for witnesses to stop the anomalies in government,” he vowed.

For its part, Malacañang belied Lacson’s claim it has anything to do with San Miguel’s testimony.

“I don’t see how Malacañang can have access to this guy (San Miguel). You saw how he was grilled for many hours,” Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told a news conference at the Palace.

Ermita, however, failed to explain why a Malacañang official in the Senate, in the person of Agana, would seek out San Luis the night before the hearing and on the day itself.

By Angie M. Rosales

The “Stinking” Spratly Deal

2008-03-12T20:56:00.001+08:00

How important is the JMSU (Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking) in the Spratly islands to China can be seen by how the Asia-Pacific superpower broke its traditional practice of spacing state visits to accommodate Gloria Arroyo in September 2004.

Diplomatic sources said the September 2004 visit to China was a “JDV initiative”, referring to former House Speaker Jose de Venecia. The occasion was “The Third International Conference of Asian Political Parties.”

On the sidelines, but a very important sideline, was the signing of a number of projects including the $400 million North rail project that will connect Manila to Clark and the JMSU.

The source said DFA was feeling uncomfortable being left out in many of the pre-visit talks, particularly the ones related to the JMSU.

They advised Arroyo that the ICAPP was too minor an event for her to go to China. “It should be a state visit,” they said thinking that it would not be possible that year because the Malaysian had just made a state visit. Usually a host country limits the number of state visits in a year.

Arroyo told JDV about DFA’s recommendation. Much to the surprise of the DFA people, JDV was able get an invitation from the Chinese government for Arroyo to make a state visit.

The source said he had the sense that the Northrail project and the JMSU were tied. So when they brought up the problem that agreement is in violation of the constitutional prohibition of foreigners undertaking exploration of the country’s natural resources, as expressed by then Acting Secretary Merceditas Gutierrez, JDV snapped at them.

But JDV’s group did something about Gutierrez concern because the word “exploration” disappeared from the document and the agreement became for a “joint marines seismic undertaking”. Very smart.

A DFA official, who asked not to be named, said the government may be able to get away with the JMSU because it can be argued that no exploration has taken place but if the survey’s results are positive, that would really be a problem. The Philippines has included some 284,000 square kilometers of undisputed Philippine territory in the agreement area and allowing China and Vietnam to explore the country’s natural resources is clearly a violation of the Constitution.

At least six of the eight islands occupied by the Philippine military in the South China are included in the JMSU. As background information, the Kalayaan Island Group which refers to the whole area that the Philippines has staked its claim includes some 53 islets. We have military presence in eight of those islands.

Four of the islands occupied by Vietnam are also included. So are five occupied by China and one, Itu Aba, occupied by Taiwan, non-signatory to the agreement.

JDV and Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo wax ecstatic about the JMSU saying “it manifests responsible diplomacy to ease tension and promote confidence-building in a region where, as noted in the article, the issue of sovereignty of the Spratly Islands remains a potential ‘flashpoint.”

That applies to the disputed area. But how does the government justify the inclusion of 284,000 square kilometers of Philippine territory that are not disputed?

In the agreement, “All the data and information acquired fort he fulfillment of the Seismic work…and their interpretation shall be jointly owned by the Parties. In the event any Party wishes to sell or disclose the above-mentioned data and information after the expiration of the confidentiality term, prior written consent therefore shall be obtained from the other Party.”

China and Vietnam become co-owners of data and information gathered from our own territory! This is not simply a commercial transaction as played down by Malacañang. These are matters involving patrimony and sovereignty. Of exercising supreme dominion over that have been handed to us by our forefathers..

Retired Commodore Rex Robles is being diplomatic when he said,” it has the flavor of treason.” It stinks.

by Ellen Tordesillas

Jun Lozada writes to St. Scholastica nuns

2008-03-12T20:26:00.001+08:00

From: xxxxxx@xxxxx.com>
Date: Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 12:35 PM
Subject: Fwd: Message to Kulasas
To: xxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxx

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: JIL
Date: Mar 12, 2008 12:32 PM

Dear Sr. Mary John,

I wish to thank all the participants for their prayers and support.

I am a witness and a victim of this Gov’t attempts to stop the truth about corruption from reaching the people. They first tried to silence me forever last Feb. 5 and when they failed to kill me physically they are now trying to kill my name to stop the truth from being told.

The gov’t is again doing what they have done on previous scandals and anomalies, bury it! bury it with more lies!

Until now they have not allowed the members of the PNP and PSG who took me from the airport last Feb.5 to come out and testify to answer the following questions:

1. Who ordered them to abduct me from the airport last feb 5?
2. If I was truly a VIP, why were they not identifying themselves when I was asking them who they were?
3. Why did they bring me to SLEX towards Cavite, then to Laguna when I was telling them to bring me home to Pasig?
4. Why was Gen. Razon, lying to the public that I and my sister has written a request for security when we did not? why did he change his story three times?
5. why did Usec. Gaite gave me P500,000 pesos and the palace to have three diff. stories to explain.
6. Why did Usec Gaite gave me a lawyer without my consent who wanted me to sign a false affidavit?

These are the questions the gov’t do not want to be answered because it will lead straight to the people who doesn’t want the truth about the NBN ZTE deal be known by the people, these are the people who wants to keep the Filipinos in the Dark because it there that they reign, it is there that they can continue to steal from the people their money and rob from the people including their hopes for themselves and their children’s children.

I ask all of you, to please not allow this gov’t to bury this abduction case with more lies and to let them get away with it once more. Because you will also let the truth about the NBN ZTE deal get away again, similar to how the truths about Hello garci, Joc Joc Bolante, Macapagal Highway, Marilyn Esperat, Northrail and a lot more have gotten away from you.

Thank you for giving me your time and attention.

Jun Lozada

The Mistress of Ben Abalos

2008-03-12T03:24:00.003+08:00

ayon po sa aming pinagkakatiwalaang source:

The MISTRESS of Ben Abalos is Every Catherine O. Silagon, 39, of Ozamis, a former wife of ANTONIO DEJARESCO of BOHOL.

they have a 9 year old daughter, Katrina Resides in units 901, 902 and 903 Primetown Towers, Rockwell. Has 4 brandnew cars with plate nos. ECS 01, 02, 03, 04 with police driver.

Atty Gabby Villareal is fronting for him.

Bank Accounts:
Metrobank Kalayaan: CA-007309508935
Metrobank Bel-Air: SA-309330906243