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Prosecutors told: Read Corona’s ruling on Marcos ill-gotten wealth

2012-02-02T07:00:00.000+08:00

Source: ABS-CBNnews.com

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/01/24/12/prosecutors-told-read-coronas-ruling-marcos-ill-gotten-wealth

MANILA, Philippines – When prosecutors submit their position paper on issues surrounding Chief Justice Renato Corona’s alleged ill-gotten wealth, there’s one document they can cite in their favor: Corona’s own decision on the case of the Marcos ill-gotten wealth which resulted in the forfeiture to the Philippine treasury of money hidden in Swiss banks.

In her latest blog entry, journalist and blogger Raissa Robles said prosecutors might not know that they can use Corona’s own decision on the Marcos ill-gotten wealth to prove their case.

Robles said Corona’s “landmark decision on July 15, 2003″ on the Marcos wealth stashed in Swiss banks made the following points:

“He said the burden of proof lies with the person being accused of having amassed such wealth.

“He also said the court should disregard technicalities thrown by the defendant’s side.

“And he said it was enough to compare a respondent’s SALNs (Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth) and ITRs (Income Tax Return) with the wealth in question to determine the latter’s illegal origin. If disclosed income and assets were far less than the questioned wealth, then the latter is ill-gotten.”

Robles said Corona also showed in his decision “how to connect the dots using the SALN and the ITR.”

Robles said Corona, in his ruling, “concluded that the Marcoses’ Net Worth was US$957,487.75 or under ONE MILLION DOLLARS. He then compared this amount to the US$356 million secreted by the Marcoses in five foundations which maintained various Swiss accounts.”

Robles said: “Because of all these, CJ Corona ruled that – In the face of undeniable circumstances and the avalanche of documentary evidence against them, respondent Marcoses failed to justify the lawful nature of their acquisition of the said assets. Hence, the Swiss deposits should be considered ill-gotten wealth and forfeited in favor of the State in accordance with Section 6 of RA 1379…,” Robles said.

For more about Robles’ new blog entry, click here: From his own mouth:
CJ Corona’s guidelines in the use of SALNs & ITRs to prove ill-gotten wealth

JDV talks of GMA role in NBN-ZTE

2012-02-01T07:00:00.000+08:00

BY PETER TABINGO

MALAYA

Former Speaker and Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr. testified yesterday at the Sandiganbayan Fourth Division that he joined President Gloria Arroyo, her husband Mike and former Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. on a visit to the corporate headquarters of ZTE Corp., in Shenzen, China in November 2006 where they dined and played golf with the company’s officials.

De Venecia’s testimony was part of the prosecution’s evidence in the graft trial of Abalos for his alleged unlawful intervention in the overpriced $329 million NBN-ZTE contract.

Under direct examination by Assistant Special Prosecutor Jacinto dela Cruz Jr., De Venecia told the graft court that he received a surprise invitation from Arroyo to play golf while he and his wife Gina were vacationing in Hong Kong during the Halloween break of 2006.

“I didn’t ask where. I thought it was nearby. It was already when we were on the road that she said we were going to Shenzen,” De Venecia said.

He said he joined the Arroyos and Abalos for breakfast at the golf clubhouse and some Chinese personalities that he later came to know were city officials of Shenzen and officials of ZTE.

He said they played a round of golf with Abalos and “two or three” Chinese going in the first flight while he stayed with the Arroyo couple in the second flight.

After the game, De Venecia said their group went to have lunch at the ZTE headquarters.

He said he was “surprised” about the presence of Abalos as neither of the Arroyos informed him that the Comelec chairman would be there.

He said in his mind, he attributed it to the fact that Abalos was an avid golfer.

During lunch, he said a banker whose name he could no longer recall made a pitch that their bank was prepared and willing to provide a “concession loan” to a project proposal of the ZTE in the Philippines.

The Office of the Ombudsman, in separate graft charges filed last December against the Arroyos, former Transport Secretary Leandro Mendoza and Abalos, said the golf game and lunch with ZTE officials constituted criminal offenses for the Arroyo couple because it exhibited their unusual interest in the NBN project.

Prosecutor Dela Cruz marked as evidence a picture taken of the Arroyos, Abalos, De Venecia and a Chinese national on the golf course.

The picture was included in the publication of “Global Filipino – An Authorized Biography of Jose De Venecia Jr.”

Aside from the presence of Abalos, De Venecia said he also noted the absence of media during the visit to Shenzen.

“One of the revelations was, there were no members of the Press. I have joined the former President on many previous trips…practically the entire Malacañang Press Corps was there,” he recalled.

On cross examination by defense lawyer Gabriel Villareal, De Venecia admitted his son, businessman Joey de Venecia III, had told him about his interest in bidding for the NBN project as early as August 2006.

He said he felt proud about Joey’s enthusiasm for the project because his proposal was based on the build-operate-and-transfer scheme that would entail no initial expense on the part of the government.

During the trip to Shenzen, the former Speaker said then President Arroyo told him she thought Joey’s proposal was “very good (maganda).”

Villareal pointed out to the graft court that based on the affidavit submitted to the Senate Blue Ribbon inquiry on the NBN-ZTE deal, the younger De Venecia stated he submitted his proposal only on December 2006 while the Shenzen trip took place a month earlier.

The elder De Venecia explained there were already discussions about the project even before his son Joey formally submitted his proposal in behalf of Amsterdam Holdings Inc.

The former Speaker said aside from what transpired in Shenzen, he did not speak with Arroyo about the ZTE contract again “until many, many months later” when he asked her to cancel the contract because by then reports of massive irregularities relative to the project had come out in the media.

Prosecutors said they will present two or three witnesses at the next hearing on March 5 and 6, including engineer Dante Madriaga, a former ZTE consultant who has testified he had personal knowledge that former President Arroyo received kickbacks during the signing of the NBN-ZTE contract.

http://www.malaya.com.ph/01252012/news2.html

Plunder sought vs Arroyo, Uriarte over PCSO scam

2012-01-31T07:00:00.000+08:00

By Angie M. Rosales

The Daily Tribune

The Senate blue ribbon committee has recommended the filing of plunder cases against former President Gloria Arroyo and former Philippine Charity Sweeps-takes Office (PCSO) general manager Rosario Uriarte for the misuse of some P244.5 million of the lotto agency’s intelligence funds, Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, chair-man of the Senate body, said.

Additionally, Arroyo and Uriarte should likewise be charged with technical malversation for using confidential or intelligence funds as “blood money” for two overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) sentenced to death in Kuwait, Guingona said.

The Senate committee report, at the same time, did not find any violation of the Constitution in the donations of vehicles to various Catholic priests since the donation was for a public, and not a religious, purpose and that these were not for the personal use of any religious leader.

While they were public officers, Arroyo and Uriarte teamed up to rob PCSO of at least P244.5 million.

“Arroyo made mere marginal notes and caused the release of millions of pesos to her partner, Uriarte who was in charge with the disbursement, use, and liquidation of excessive amounts of intelligence funds,” according to the report.

Uriarte’s memorandums of request for millions of pesos cited the need to address threats against the operations of the PCSO.

However, her own certifications immediately revealed that the funds were allegedly also used to address terrorism, bomb threats, and bilateral security relations, the report stated.

“Because of the excessive amounts released, the blue ribbon committee asked for proof of lawful use of public funds. However, neither Gloria Arroyo nor Rosario Uriarte ever presented the actual receipts and documents to prove that these funds were indeed used lawfully,” Guingona said.

The committee in the report stated strongly belief there is probable cause that intelligence funds were iillegally diverted into the pockets of Arroyo.

Despite facing a possible case for plunder, not a single receipt has been presented by Arroyo or Uriarte to save themselves, the report added.

The committee emphasized the fact that particularly for the year 2010, an election year, the PCSO used up P137.5 million of the P150 million that was approved by the former president at the beginning of the year.

“For the same year, PCSO’s intelligence fund budget was larger than the intelligence fund budget of the Philippine Army, ISAFP-GHQ, DND, Navy, and the NBI,” the report added.

The report also stated other findings of the Senate committee after the hearings it held on the issue: the PCSO during Arroyo’s term spent excessively for public relations and advertising based on findings of the Commission on Audit together with the testimonies during the hearings.

Billions were spent on promoting betting in lotteries that could have been spent more wisely on charity, according to the report.

The extravagant expenses for the sole purpose of promoting legal gambling are superfluous and pointless by the fact that there will always be people who will do anything to take a stake for the chance of winning big, it added.

On the equipment lease agreement (ELA) for PCSO’s online lottery system, the report said the hearings held on the PCSO irregularities revealed that a company named International Totalizator System (ITS) initially offered to sell lotto equipment to PCSO for $25 million.

“However, instead of buying the equipment from ITS, the PCSO conducted a public bidding to lease – not buy – the same equipment from private suppliers. The decision to lease instead of purchase continues to impose a great financial burden to the Philippines. Instead of spending $25 million to purchase the machines, the government instead has paid the private suppliers approximately $148 million in rental fees and will continue to pay exorbitant amounts until the contract ends in 2015,” the report added.

Despite proper bidding, the resulting award of the contract not only to the winning bidder but also the two other losing bidders is questionable, it added.

The report recommended that the Ombudsman holds further investigation on the transaction.

There have been unaccountable remittances of the Small Town Lottery (STL) share to Congressmen and to the Philippine National Police (PNP), the report averred.

It found mismanagement in the execution of PCSO’s ambulance program as local government units (LGUs) of a higher class category were prioritized compared to the lower class category of LGUs.

Co-minggling of funds by PCSO was also revealed which violated the PCSO Charter that provides that apportioning of net receipts into three funds: the prize fund, the charity fund, and the operating dund.

The Contractual Joint Venture Agreement (CJVA) between TMA Group of Companies (TMA) and the PCSO entered into for the purpose of establishing the first thermal coating plant in the Philippines should be cancelled for being grossly prejudicial to the Philippines, the report added.

Violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices were in fact committed by members of the former board of the PCSO.

When the Prime Gaming Philippines (PGPI) purchased the property of TF Ventures – a company partly owned by Manuel Morato – the latter was relieved of the burden of paying for the corporate debts owned by TF Ventures to the banks, it said.

It can be inferred that PGPI’s resulting assumption of the debts of Morato’s company is partly an act of gratitude extended to Morato, who was a member of the Board that approved the Equipment Lease Agreement of PGPI’s related company, PGMC.

Further investigation must be pursued on possible conflicts of interest by Morato and his dealing with PGPI.

The report also raised possible election Offenses committed by Morato.

Also among the recommendations of the report were:

* The PCSO Charter must contain penal provisions, imposing criminal, civil, and administrative liabilities for acts in violation of the charter, committed by its employees and private individuals;

* The PCSO management must improve its accounting system to ensure that no further unlawful co-minggling of funds shall occur in the future;

* PCSO funds must be allocated only to various national programs which are relevant to the mandate of the agency.The current board of the PCSO must immediately undetake an extensive assesment and evaluation of the programs and projects to ensure that public funds are used within the scope of this agency’s mandate;

* The Commission on Audit should come up with new auditing guidelines for confidential and intelligence funds which should include, among others, the following provisions: a requirement to submit, in classified and sealed envelopes, the vouchers/receipts/other documents evidencing the expenses charged against a specific allocation of confidential or intelligence fund, a certification by the officer in charge of liquidation that these envelopes can be accessed for lawful purposes, a sealed copy of the proposals/requests submitted in support of the request for confidential or intelligence funds, which may be accessed for lawful purposes.

* A law must be passed establishing a Treasury Single Account which can help government track and discover, on a timely basis, transactions which may appear irregular based on the frequency of fund releases and the amount of the said releases.

* The PCSO’s budget for public relations/advertising purposes should not exceed 1.8% of its gross sales. The PCSO is not a private corporation that needs a huge advertising budget.

* Passage of a law that would augment PhilHealth funds with PCSO funds.

* PCSO should stop giving shares of the proceeds of its operations to the PNP because it is not primarily mandated to implement projects within the mandate of the PCSO.

* Shares from PCSO’s operations that are released to congressional and/or other local government units should be strictly regulated. Without proper liquidation, future releases should not be made; and

* The PCSO management should ensure that the strictest standards are established and observed to ensure that public funds are devoted only for public and non-secular purposes.

Let this serve as a reminder to all that public funds are sacred as it is imbued with public interest. Public funds could only be spent for authorized public purposes and can never be used as a private piggy bank.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/

The Gatdula cause célèbre

2012-01-30T07:00:00.000+08:00

PerryScope
By Perry Diaz

Claiming innocence, former police general Magtanggol Gatdula, who was fired as Director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), vowed to fight back to clear his name of allegations of kidnapping and extortion.

However, he conceded that when the President lost trust and confidence in him, that was his signal to go out. And that’s precisely the crux of the matter: President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III expects his appointees to walk a straight line – “daang matuwid” — in the performance of their jobs.
According to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, Gatdula was relieved from his post following the recommendation of a DOJ fact-finding panel — which investigated the alleged kidnapping and extortion of Noriya Ohara, a 33-year-old Japanese national — to file charges against him and other NBI officials involved in the caper.

The DOJ report said that Gatdula participated in the planning and cover-up of the alleged crime last October 29 in which NBI agents abducted Ohara, who is in the country illegally. According to the report, the NBI agents demanded a P15-million ransom from Romulo Marzan’s family with whom Ohara was staying. The NBI agents threatened the Marzans with criminal charges for harboring an illegal alien. After haggling over the ransom amount, which took place in the NBI office, the Marzans paid the agents P6 million.

During the investigation, Ohara incriminated Gatdula before the DOJ panel whom she positively identified from a picture of Gatdula hanging on the wall of the office of Mario Garcia, chief of the NBI-Security Management Division (SMD), where she was initially brought in after her abduction.

“Rescue” operation
But here is the stinger: Garcia, who led the operation, claimed that it was to “rescue” Ohara. He said that Gatdula went to the SMD office only to look at Ohara saying, “Help her with what she needs.” However, Gatdula told the panel that his visit to the SMD office was a “routine inspection” and that he didn’t remember meeting or seeing Ohara.

In regard to the “rescue” operation, Garcia said that somebody gave him a letter written in Nihongo purportedly from Ohara in which she alleged that she was being abused by the Marzans. But Ohara told the panel that she was coerced into writing the letter. When the letter was translated, it was a request for help about her properties!

The DOJ report established the motive behind the “rescue” operation: The Chief Consul of the Japanese Embassy told the panel that Ohara inherited a huge inheritance from her father. In June 2009, she fled to evade her father’s creditors and the Japanese government who wanted to collect her inheritance tax. She entered the Philippines illegally via Guam. She then assumed a false identity and purchased a house in Las Piñas City, which was registered in the name of Romulo Marzan’s sister, Rosemarie, who became her friend. In 2011, Ohara went to live with the Marzans in Bugallon, Pangasinan. It was in Bugallon where Ohara was “rescued” by the NBI agents.

Gatdula claimed that his dismissal was politically motivated. But the President said that Gatdula was fired because of insubordination. He said that after Ohara’s detention at the NBI had become public, Gatdula was ordered to transfer Ohara to the Bureau of Immigration because of her status as an illegal alien. But Gatdula did not carry out the order; thus, he was fired.

Political angle
It is interesting to note that Gatdula is a member of the politically powerful Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC). INC endorsed and supported P-Noy during the 2010 presidential elections, which was a “command vote” for P-Noy. INC members are known to vote as a solid bloc for whomever the INC leadership endorses.

It appears that as a result of the INC endorsement, P-Noy appointed many INC members to high government positions. One of them was Magtanggol Gatdula. However, recent events seem to manifest a cleavage in P-Noy’s alliance with INC.

INC was allied with former Ombudsman Merceditas “Merci” Gutierrez who resigned after the House of Representatives impeached her and before the Senate impeachment trial began. P-Noy’s overt act to remove Merci as Ombudsman did not please the INC leadership. And then there was the case of INC member Artemio Tuquero who was on the shortlist for Merci’s replacement.

In my article, “Gloria’s Trojan Horse” (July 20, 2011), I wrote, “There is one candidate for Ombudsman who I believe is Gloria’s ‘Trojan horse,’ presented to P-Noy to make sure that if he’s appointed Ombudsman, Gloria would remain untouchable for the next seven years.” I was referring to Tuquero who was favored by some of P-Noy’s political allies including Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero and Executive Secretary Pacquito “Jojo” Ochoa Jr. However, P-Noy decided against appointing Tuquero. Instead he appointed his personal choice, retired Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales.

Coincidences
Did it surprise anyone that when former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was charged with electoral sabotage, she hired the legal services of Tuquero to defend her? And did it come as a surprise that when the House of Representatives impeached Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona – Gloria’s midnight appointee — he hired an INC member, Serafin Cuevas, as his lead counsel?

In politics, nothing happens by accident. The series of “coincidences” seem to point to the political realignments that are forming as the 2013 election is heating up and the 2016 presidential election is looming in the horizon. But De Lima said that Gatdula’s dismissal had nothing to do with his religious affiliation. Of course, it had nothing to do with his religious affiliation. But nobody is saying that politics had nothing to do with it.
Which makes one wonder: Is Gatdula the sacrificial pawn in P-Noy’s king’s gambit? If so, who would play the “king”?

(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)

# # #

“The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people!” – Napoleon

Chief Justice Corona personally met with World Bank officials, bank documents show

2012-01-29T07:00:00.000+08:00

Read the SC expenses rejected by the WB

My Exclusive by Raissa Robles

Last Monday January 16, Chief Justice Renato Corona denounced as “a huge lie” a leaked World Bank report stating that the WB had rejected the charging of plane fares, dinners, hotel expenses incurred under CJ Corona’s watch. These expenses amounting to US$199,900 were charged against a US$21.9 million WB loan to fund a project for speeding up justice and “enhancing institutional integrity.”

CJ Corona very categorically said:

This (alleged diversion of funds) happened before I became Chief Justice. I was not responsible for this. This happened a decade ago and I have been Chief Justice for just a year and a half.

However, the 97 pages of documents prepared by the WB – which I have obtained – shows that the questionable diversion of funds from the Judicial Reform Support Project (JRSP) took place only last year. The documents – consisting of an Aide Memoire and Annexes – detail the expenses for which the WB demanded reimbursement because these were not in line with the justice project.

Among the rejected expenses were meals of members of the judiciary of Guam and their Philippine counterparts.

Justice Delayed, Still Better than None

2012-01-28T07:00:00.000+08:00

Telltale Signs

By Rodel E. Rodis

The families of Bubby Dacer and Emmanuel Corbito have been waiting for justice for more than 11 years since November 24, 2000 when operatives of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), then under the command of Gen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, abducted, tortured and executed Dacer and Corbito. Their families may take comfort in the news this past week that a family that has waited even longer for some measure of justice finally found it when the new Ombudsman reversed the actions of her predecessors and filed charges against 10 Philippine Navy officers for the murder of Navy Ensign Philip Andrew Pestaño on September 27, 1995.

I first wrote about this case on December 10, 2007 (“Death of an Ensign”) after reading an account of it by Jesuit educator Fr. James Reuter (“Justice at 3 A.M.”). Pestano, an idealistic graduate of the Ateneo de Manila High School in 1989, entered the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), and graduated as an Ensign in the Philippine Navy in 1993, when he was then assigned as a cargo master on a Navy ship.

Sometime in 1995, Fr. Reuter wrote, Pestaño discovered that “the cargo being loaded onto his vessel included logs that were cut down illegally, were carried to the ship illegally, and were destined to be sold, illegally… Then there were 50 sacks of flour, which were not flour, but shabu (methamphetamine) – worth billions. Literally, billions … And there were military weapons which were destined for sale to the Abu Sayyaf.” As cargo master of the ship, Pestaño refused to approve the illegal cargo despite orders from his superior officers that he do so.

According to Fr. Reuter, “Pestaño’s parents received two phone calls, saying: “Get your son off that ship! He is going to be killed!” When Phillip was given leave at home, his family begged him not to go back. Their efforts at persuasion continued until his last night at home, when Phillip was already in bed.”

“His father came to him and said: “Please, son, resign your commission. Give up your military career. Don’t go back. We want you alive. If you go back to that ship, it will be the end of you!” But Phillip said to his father: “Kawawa ang bayan! (Pity the country)” And he went back to the ship.”
“The scheduled trip was very brief – from Cavite to Roxas Boulevard – it usually took only 45 minutes. But on September 27, 1995, it took one hour and a half. When the ship arrived at Roxas Boulevard, Ensign Pestaño was dead.”

Within a day, the Navy investigators determined that Pestaño had committed suicide because a “suicide note” was found in his cabin. Phillip’s family objected to this finding as they pointed out that the note was not in his handwriting and he was an honor student at Ateneo and engaged to be married in a few months.

After two years of prodding by Pestaño’s family the Philippine Senate conducted an investigation on the Pestaño death in 1997. In the course of the Senate investigation, witnesses testified that before he died, Pestaño refused to authorize the loading of 14,000 board feet of illegal hardwood logs in Tawi-Tawi even though its governor, Gerry Matba, had a gift for his good friend, Admiral Pio Carranza.

Over Pestaño’s objections, the illegal logs were loaded in Tawi-Tawi and off-loaded in Cavite just before the ship sailed for its home port in Manila in what would normally be a 45 minute trip. The trip lasted more two hours in what was later described as an “unusual dogleg route”.

After hearing from numerous witnesses, the Senate Report (#800) concluded: “Pestaño did not kill himself aboard the BRP Bacolod City… He was bludgeoned unconscious and then shot to death somewhere else in the vessel. His body was moved and laid on the bed where it was found.”
“The clear absence of blood spatters, bone fragments or other human tissues is physical evidence more eloquent than a hundred witnesses,” the Senate report observed. “It is impossible for a person who has just sustained a fatal head injury to walk from some other place in his room, lie on his bed and drop dead…”

“He was killed by an assailant, necessarily aboard the BRP Bacolod City”, before it docked at the Navy HQ on Roxas Boulevard. The attempt to make it appear Pestano killed himself inside his stateroom was so deliberate and elaborate that one person could not have accomplished it by himself.”

The Senate Committee also found it suspicious that without conducting an investigation, the Navy ruled within 24 hours that it was suicide. Naval intelligence commander Tirso Danga insisted on the suicide claim when he testified before the Senate committees on human rights and national defense hearings on May 5 to Sept. 3, 1997.

Murder, concluded the committees led by Sen. Marcelo Fernan. Pestaño was bludgeoned, shot and his body rigged to appear as a suicide.

The cover-up of the murder of Pestano exacted other victims. Among them was Petty 0fficer (PO2) Zosimo Villanueva who was the officer who tipped Pestaño on the presence of illegal cargo on the ship, specifically about “the concealed bulk of illegal drugs (hidden) in the more than 20 sacks of rice cargoes aboard the ship.” A week after Pestaño’s murder, Villanueva was dispatched by his superiors on mission where he mysteriously “washed away in a sea mishap”.

Another casualty was Ensign Alvin Parone who was the officer who called Pestaño’s parents to warn them of plans to kill their son. He was also killed, then Sen. Alfredo Lim said, “a victim of another unsolved murder.”

Also missing and presumed dead is Petty Officer (PO3) Fidel Tagaytay who was the duty officer on board Pestaño’s ship. When he was summoned to testify before the senate, he disappeared. His wife, Leonila, has been desperately searching for him, begging the authorities to investigate his disappearance. He is “absent without leave” is all the Navy brass will tell her.

The Senate directed the Office of the Ombudsman, then headed by Aniano Diserto, to “identify the persons who participated in the deliberate attempt to make it appear that Pestaño killed himself.”

Desierto ignored the Senate’s directions. After he was replaced by Merceditas Gutierrez, the Pestano investigation met with the same indifference as Gutierrez refused to even meet with the parents of Pestano.

When the parents of Pestano signed an impeachment complaint against Gutierrez, she finally acted. As Raul Pangalangan wrote in his Inquirer column, “She dismissed it. To add sting to the injury, she served her dismissal order on Pestaño’s parents the day after they signed the impeachment complaint against her.”

The Pestano family filed a Motion for Reconsideration of the case dismissal by Gutierrez and this motion was acted upon by Conchita Carpio-Morales, the Ombudsman recently appointed by Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III

On January 10, 2012, Morales reversed the decision of her predecessor and filed murder charges against Capt. Ricardo Ordoñez; Cmdr. Reynaldo Lopez, Hospital Man 2 Welmenio Aquino, Lt. Cmdr. Luidegar Casis, Lt. Cmdr. Alfrederick Alba, Machinery Repairman 2 Sandy Miranda, Lt. Cmdr. Joselito Colico, Lt. Cmdr. Ruben Roque, PO1 Carlito Amoroso and PO2 Leonor Igcasan.

More Navy officers are culpable not just for the crime of murder but for the cover-up and for the murders of those gallant officers who refused to participate in the conspiracy.

Fr. Reuter wrote: “Some military men are killed in battle. They are given a hero’s burial. But Phillip died for a much deeper cause – he was trying to preserve the integrity of our Armed Forces. He died out of loyalty to the Philippines, in an effort to keep the oath that he made when he graduated from the Philippine Military Academy.”

Justice was delayed for more than 15 years for the Pestano family but it finally came. The Dacer and Corbito families are hoping that they too will see justice some day.

(Send comments to Rodel50@gmail.com or send them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800 ).

Is it DOJ or ES?

2012-01-27T07:00:00.000+08:00

BY AMADO P. MACASAET

MALAYA

‘Bautista cannot claim he is a representative of the PCGG because the sequestration of POTC has been lifted.’

LONG before Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa dreamed of it, the supervision of the Presidential Commission on Good Government was transferred from the Office of the President to the Department of Justice.

The 35 percent ownership by the state of Philippine Overseas Telecommunications Corp. (POTC) was transferred to the Department of Finance for privatization.

Simple logic should have made Andy Bautista, chairman of the PCGG who is aspiring to become Solicitor General, understand that the government representation in the board of POTC and its wholly-owned subsidiaries should be nominated by the Department of Finance to which the shares of the state were transferred.

If the DoF names Bautista, chairman of PCGG, and elected to the board by the 35 percent interest of the state, that should be it. He is a duly elected member of the board, not a representative of the PCGG.

But then Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa issued Executive Order No. 42 allowing the nominees of the state in POTC and its subsidiaries to name or nominate their replacements who could very well be nobody else but themselves. Bautista refuses to leave the POTC and its subsidiaries as representative of the PCGG, not of the state which is a beneficial owner of 35 percent of POTC. Bautista insists that he sits in the boards of POTC and its wholly-owned companies on the strength of EO No. 42 issued by Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa.

Bautista is known to be a bookish lawyer. If he goes by the book like his peers say he does most of the time, he should clearly understand that POTC is no longer under sequestration. The controversy over placing the company under sequestration has been resolved.

After the Marcos government fell in February 1986, Jose Y. Campos, known to be a close friend of Ferdinand Marcos but never known to have used his influence for his personal gain, turned over two companies, both stockholders of POTC, to the PCGG and claimed with proof that he was holding or keeping them for Marcos and his family.

The case reached the Supreme Court which formally ruled that indeed, the 35 percent participation of the two companies in the satellite operation was deemed to have been acquired with ill-gotten wealth.

Consequently, the Supreme Court awarded the 35 percent to the state. I have a copy of the stock certificate in the name of the Republic of the Philippines.

Because the state is a 35 percent stockholder, it is entitled to representation in the boards of POTC and its subsidiaries. There is no question about that.

The monstrosity is in EO No. 42 issued by Ochoa authorizing the PCGG chairman, Andy Bautista, at this time, to pick their own replacements and the nominees to the sequestered companies.

When the issue of the 35 percent ownership by the two Marcos companies in POTC was resolved in favor of the state the sequestration of POTC was deemed lifted. There are documents that so state.

Yet as stockholder, the state is entitled to representation in the board. Representations in the board can never be interpreted as sequestration. But Bautista continues to believe so.

He believes that the Executive Order of his friend, the Executive Secretary, is the law that must apply in selecting the representatives of the state in POTC.

Bautista’s looming presence in the boards of POTC and subsidiaries is by virtue of his being chairman of PCGG, not a representative of the state.

I disagree. Since the sequestration is deemed lifted, the election of the members of the board, including representatives of the state, should follow the corporation law. Annual stockholders meetings are held.

Since the 35 percent ownership of the state has been transferred to the Department of Finance, it should be the DoF that should name the state nominees to the board. The Executive Order is anomalous, in fact illegal, for the simple reason that it allows Bautista to replace the nominees of the PCGG to companies like POTC which is no longer sequestered.

There can be no such thing as membership in the board by Executive Order. It is always by election by the stockholders in the annual stockholders meeting. Bautista elected himself by virtue of an Executive Order that does not sit with the Corporation Law. He cannot claim he is a representative of the PCGG because the sequestration of POTC has been lifted. But he believes so using the illegal EO as basis.

It is clear by his refusal to leave POTC as nominee of the PCGG that Bautista, a dean of law in a populous university of law, ignores the Corporation Law and abides by the Executive Order of Ochoa.

The EO considers POTC as sequestered. That is patently wrong. How did Ochoa come to think that a company like the POTC where the state has a 35 percent stake remains sequestered?

The PCGG is not authorized to name its representatives to companies no longer sequestered. It is the Department of Finance that is authorized to make the nominations to the board because it holds the 35 percent investment of the government.

The presence of a PCGG nominee is not necessary since the state has been awarded its due.

Who does Andy Bautista suspect is capable of dissipating the assets? It cannot be anybody else but himself if he sits not as a member of the board but as a nominee of the PCGG.

It is on record that from the time POTC and its subsidiaries were managed by their beneficial owners, including Katrina Ponce Enrile, the firms have amassed profits in the hundreds of millions of pesos.

On the other hand, when the companies were under sequestration, Philcomsat Holdings Corp. a wholly owned subsidiary, was bled dry.

It is necessary to note that Ochoa belongs to the law office where the wife of Sen. Bongbong Marcos is a senior partner. Is the EO of Ochoa intended to perpetuate the presence of a PCGG nominee in POTC and its subsidiaries so that the looting may continue?

http://www.malaya.com.ph/01202012/edmacasaet.html

Probe set on SC loan misuse

2012-01-26T07:00:00.000+08:00

By Jess Diaz

The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines – The House of Representatives will conduct its own inquiry into alleged irregularities in the Supreme Court’s use of a $21.9-million loan from the World Bank.

Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said at least two resolutions calling for the inquiry would be included in the order of business for this week.

“We will refer these to the committee on good government, which we will ask to start the inquiry as soon as possible,” he said.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone filed the first resolution, while Bayan Muna Representatives Teddy Casiño and Neri Colmenares authored the second.

Sen. Franklin Drilon, who chairs the Senate finance committee, also wanted a Senate inquiry, but shelved his proposal in view of the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Evardone, a former journalist, said the House has to conduct an inquiry since “it is the House that appropriates loan payments in the annual national budget.”

“It has to make sure that there is proper use of loans and should in fact advice or compel borrower-agencies to make rectifications of reported irregularities before allocating loan payments,” he said.

Quoting a World Bank report, Evardone said irregularities “accelerated in 2011” under the leadership of Chief Justice Corona.

A World Bank team, which reviewed the project from October to November 2011, discovered alleged anomalies in the use of the loan. The team met with 19 judiciary officials led by Corona and Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro.

The team made known its findings to the Supreme Court in a letter it sent last Dec. 28 to Leonardo-de Castro, who overseas the project.

In its report, the team said the overall “project financial management performance was unsatisfactory and the overall project financial management risk was high.”

“The team, after careful review, declares that expenditures totaling $199,000 were ineligible, and requests the borrower (Supreme Court) to arrange to refund, by Jan. 31, 2012, any un-refunded amounts,” the mission said in its report.

It said the 70 ineligible expenses out of 133 constituted a “high proportion, which reinforces the conclusion that there has been a breakdown in the internal control environment pertaining to the project.”

It found out that 15 of the expenses not covered by the loan agreement “related to the Office of the Court Administrator.”

The disbursements included airfare for local and foreign trips, allowances of the traveling officials, hotel food expenses, and payment of seminar speakers’ fees.

The World Bank team also questioned Corona’s appointment of one man as court administrator, head of the Supreme Court’s public information office and chairman of the bids and awards committee.

It did not however name Midas Marquez as such official. Corona authorized Marquez to approve disbursements of up to P200,000, which was later increased to P500,000.

“This senior official due to the combination of his appointments and functions, was the requestor of services, the approver of the terms of reference, the end-users of services (requested), the authorizer of contract extensions, and the authorizer of payments,” it said.

The team pointed out that the situation presented a conflict of interest and did away with internal checks and balances in disbursements and procurement of supplies.

It noted that computer equipment purchases were done “mostly through shopping procedures, mostly outside of the agreed procurement plan, mostly for units located in Manila, and through individual items/small lots, which militate against procurement economy and efficiency.”

The procurement pattern “appears to have emerged since mid-2010 and accelerated in 2011,” it said.

“The apparent lack of standardization of technical specifications for commonly used IT (information technology) equipment (such as laptops) resulted in significant variations in price. For example, the documents reviewed indicate that unit prices for laptops procured ranged from $782 to $1,027 to $1,525 to $3,252,” the team said.

It discovered that 36 percent of the value of procured IT equipment “was not for front-line judges and court personnel who needed such equipment to expedite disposal of backlogs and cases, but for the Supreme Court in Manila.”

“This proportion rises to 62 percent if one considers that most appellate courts that benefited from such purchases were also located in Manila,” the team said.

It said the Regional Court Administration Office in Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu, which the World Bank proposed as a pilot project for reducing case backlogs, received only six percent of the procured IT equipment.

The project “is now being dismantled since the experiment did not realize the benefits it was expected to deliver. It is not clear what will happen to the equipment – the team was not informed of a plan for the alternate use of these assets,” it said.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=769988&publicationSubCategoryId=63

JPE’s ‘corona de gloria’

2012-01-25T07:00:00.000+08:00

BABE’S EYE VIEW

By Babe Romualdez
The Philippine Star

For a man who will be turning 88 this February 14, Juan Ponce Enrile is unquestionably at the highest point of his political career. JPE, as the Senate President is popularly known, is a man whose life has turned around so many times, and during the course of his colorful and storied career, he has proven to be the quintessential survivor — bouncing back just when it seemed it was over.

Most everyone is now familiar with the story of Juanito Furugganan — the boy from Cagayan who worked as a houseboy to put himself through school. The war brought him face to face with the father he had never known and gave him the name — Juan Ponce Enrile — that would figure prominently during critical moments in our nation’s history. The barrio kid’s circumstance was practically reversed, his formidable intellect coming to the fore when he graduated cum laude from Ateneo and obtained a law degree in UP as 1953 class salutatorian.

Manong Johnny, as many of us fondly call him, got a 91.7 percent rating for the 1954 bar exams with a perfect score of 100 percent in Commercial Law. He distinguished himself as a corporate and litigation lawyer, and began his career in government as Finance Undersecretary in 1966, followed by a stint as Customs Commissioner in 1968. He became Justice Secretary in 1970 and was eventually appointed as Secretary of National Defense — a post he held for over a decade.

JPE was one of the closest associates of Ferdinand Marcos during Martial Law and as Defense Secretary, he was at the height of his power — so powerful, in fact, that there were strong indications he was the “heir apparent” to Marcos. Manong Johnny could have assumed power for himself during EDSA I as head of a proposed revolutionary council but instead, he threw his support for Cory Aquino, perceived to be the real winner of the 1985 snap election.

They say life is a series of ups and downs, and at a certain point, Juan Ponce Enrile fell out of grace, reaching the lowest point of his career when Cory removed him as Defense Secretary after barely six months, having been implicated in the so-called “God Save the Queen” coup plot of November 1986. The August 1987 coup led by Gringo Honasan was more bloody, with 53 casualties and 200 wounded — including the then 27-year-old Noynoy who was on his way to Arlegui when rebel soldiers fired at his vehicle. Noynoy lost three of his bodyguards in the ensuing firefight and sustained five bullets — one of which is still lodged in his neck. Despite denying any involvement, Enrile was subsequently charged with “rebellion complexed with murder.”

To many political analysts, the consequent fall from Cory Aquino’s favor meant the end of Enrile’s career. But history was not through with him yet. Not only were the rebellion charges eventually dismissed, the son of Cagayan successfully ran as senator in 1987 and held his own despite being the lone opposition in the Senate at the time. And whether he ran as Congressman in his home province or as Senator, it was obvious that JPE had become recognized as a key political figure by many Filipinos.

In retrospect, it would seem rather ironic that JPE is now vested with the “unique” burden and responsibility to make the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona credible and believable — no matter the eventual outcome — to everyone, most especially the Filipino public. After all, this impeachment will have an impact not only on the political fortunes of so many players including President Noynoy Aquino himself but most importantly, it will help determine the direction and perhaps the future of this country. No doubt the Senate President — as head of the impeachment court — will have a difficult balancing act in maintaining the independence and credibility of the impeachment court while making sure that due process and the Bill of Rights as enshrined in the Constitution are also observed.

From what people have seen and heard so far, it would seem that JPE is in full control. Enrile has made it perfectly clear that he will conduct the proceedings with fairness and objectivity, assuring the public that the senators are neutral and are merely doing their jobs by clarifying certain points raised by both the prosecution and the defense. Even his opening statement resonated with the public — stressing that as jurors, it is their obligation to examine the facts and evidence and determine whether these sufficiently and convincingly support the charges against Corona.

He had issued a stern warning for everyone to cooperate and maintain order, reiterating his commitment and determination to see the whole thing through “all the way to its completion.” At this point in his life and at this stage in his political career, JPE knows he could very well afford to be thoroughly candid and straightforward — frankly replying that if the public thought the senators were being biased, then “they (the public) can punish us.”

A couple of years ago, we encouraged Manong Johnny to write his biography and the historical facts from his perspective, and we are happy to hear that he is down to the last two chapters. The timing could not be more opportune because once again, JPE finds himself at the cusp of a significant moment in our history. Who knows? This impeachment trial may be part of the last chapter and could very well be the “corona de gloria” — a Spanish phrase that when exactly translated means “crowning glory” — to cap the tumultuous and remarkable political career of Juan Ponce Enrile.

* * *

E-mail: babeseyeview@yahoo.com

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=769982&publicationSubCategoryId=64

‘I have never amassed ill-gotten wealth’

2012-01-24T07:00:00.000+08:00

By Rey E. Requejo

Manila Standard Today

CHIEF Justice Renato Corona on Friday rejected insinuations that he had acquired assets through illegal means and put them under his wife’s and children’s names.

It would have been “careless and stupid” of him to do so, he said.

House prosecutors had claimed earlier this week that Corona failed to declare all his property in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth. They presented several witnesses who claimed he owned pieces of property in Taguig City and Quezon City.

Among those who took the witness stand to provide the documents of Corona’s supposed real estate assets were register of deeds Sedfrey Garcia of Marikina, Carlo Alcantara of Quezon City, Randy Rutaquiao of Taguig, and Constante Caluya Jr. of Makati.

The prosecutors claimed that the documents were for property that Corona had acquired illegally, a claim he denied.

During the impeachment hearing Thursday, Corona’s counsel, retired Justice Serafin Cuevas, questioned the relevance of the land titles to Article 2 of the impeachment complaint, which accuses Corona of failing to file his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth.

Cuevas said the titles were not connected with the issue of Corona’s statements of assets, “but a different aspect of impeachment regarding illegally acquired wealth, to which we have a standing objection.”

The House prosecution panel earlier said the titles were material to the impeachment case.

On Friday, President Benigno Aquino III accused Corona of using “squid tactics” and deflecting the public’s attention from the impeachment proceedings by bringing up the Hacienda Luisita issue.

“He should just answer the issues leveled against him. That is what experts call squid tactics,” Mr. Aquino said.

“What is the connection of Hacienda Luisita to his impeachment? He was being asked if he [had] filed his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth, and if had disclosed this publicly. He should have just said yes, it was filed on this date and it came out in this publication, meeting the public disclosure requirement of the Constitution.”

Corona had earlier bared a conspiracy against him by three powerful people whom he did not name, but he clearly referred to President Aquino as one of them, whom he said did not wish the land in his family-owned Hacienda Luisita distributed to farmers as ordered by the Supreme Court.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda claims that Corona’s conspiracy theory is “a desperate ploy” to deflect attention from himself.

Mr. Aquino on Friday expressed confidence that the House prosecution team would perform better after drawing criticism for their lackluster performance.

“I believe in the coming days our panel will show how good they really are,” he said.

The watchdogs in the impeachment trial are questioning the prosecution’s claim that proving the discrepancies between Corona’s actual assets and the assets he disclosed in his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth will be enough to convict him.

The Integrated Bar of the Philippines, which has put up an “impeachment watch,” said the burden of the prosecution was beyond proving that the chief justice’s salary was not commensurate to the property he owned.

“Under the law on ill-gotten or unexplained wealth, it is not only the salary but also ‘other lawful income’ that is considered in explaining whether the wealth acquired by an official is not commensurate or is unexplained,” said group spokesman and Northern Luzon Gov. Dennis Habawel.

The Prosecutors claimed in Thursday’s hearing that Corona did not declare some property and understated the value of the others.

They questioned why the 303-square-meter unit at the Bellagio Tower in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, that Corona and his wife Cristina acquired in 2009 for P14.5 million was not in the chief magistrate’s 2010 statement of assets and liabilities, which declared assets of P22.9 million and no liabilities.

Corona’s assets include a condominium unit in Taguig City that was acquired in 2004 on installment with an assessed value of P1.4 million and a “current fair market value” of P2.4 million.

He has a second Taguig condominium unit acquired in 2010 on installment with an assessed value of P3.5 million and a market value of P6.8 million, but it wasn’t clear if this was the Bellagio Tower unit. With Joyce Pangco Pañares

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=2012/january/21/news2.isx&d=2012/january/21

‘Corona’s P11M cash advance came from unlicensed firm’

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000+08:00

Source: abs-cbnNEWS.com

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/01/22/12/coronas-p11m-cash-advance-came-unlicensed-firm

MANILA, Philippines – Chief Justice Renato Corona’s P11-million cash advance in 2003, which he supposedly used to pay for some of his condominium acquisitions, came from his wife’s family corporation that had “ceased to operate legally by 2007,” according to journalist and blogger Raissa Robles.

In her new blog entry uploaded on Sunday, Robles discovered from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that Mrs. Cristina Corona’s family corporation, Basa-Guidote Corp., which supposedly turned over an P11-million cash advance to Corona, was no longer legally operating in 2007, even though Corona was still supposedly making payments to the company until 2009.

Corona’s Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth (SALN) were turned over to the impeachment court last Wednesday. Its contents have since been put under public scrutiny.

Robles said: “What he didn’t say in his SALN was that the lender company had its registration revoked by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2003, the same year he got his cash advance. What this means is that the company – Basa-Guidote Enterprises, Inc. – ceased to operate legally by 2007 or three years after revocation. The law gives a three-year grace period for revoked companies to wind up their affairs.”

Robles sought the opinion of legal experts about this and one lawyer, Prof. Rowena E.V. Daroy-Morales of the University of the Philippines College of Law, told her these facts raise the question of whether the parties involved in the P11-million cash advance were paying the corresponding taxes required under the law.

“It’s true there can be a corporation that exists unofficially. But that will also mean it’s not subject to the regulatory processes of government and it raises the question whether they’re paying taxes,” Morales said.

Morales also suggested that while many are focusing on Corona’s real estate acquisitions, no one appears to have looked into Corona’s supposed liabilities.

“Tingnan din natin ang validity ng declaration of liability. Look at the veracity of the entry of the liabilities. Whether there is indeed an obligation. Are they real liabilities? Was his cash advance really a loan from a corporation?” she said.

Prof. Victoria Avena, who teaches evidence at the UP College of Law, meanwhile, said a company whose registration has already been cancelled “may no longer continue the business for which it was created and registered.”

“After SEC revocation, its only power is to wind up its affairs (i.e., liquidate its assets for payment and distribution to its creditors and stockholders, including bringing to collect and defending suits). If this winding up will take more than 3 years, the corporation should appoint an assignee or receiver, who will be the one to continue (collection, distribution, etc.) in behalf of the stockholders, because at the end of 3 years, the corporation absolutely ceases to exist and therefore cannot do any act or enter into any transaction even for the purpose of winding up,” she said.

Avena added: “…after the 3-year period, it ceases to exist absolutely so the act of anyone supposedly receiving payment in its behalf is null and void. Payment after the 3-year period should be made to its assignee or receiver.”

When asked about the non-existent company, Corona’s defense lawyer, former Justice Undersecretary Ramon Esguerra, told Robles: “I really do not know. I’m not in a position to answer that. We are not in that particular point. I cannot answer anymore.”

However, Esguerra also added: “It does not mean the company (Basa-Guidote) can no longer operate even as an unregistered corporation. Puwede pang mag-business kahit walang corporation.”

He also pointed out that the defense had adopted the SALNs submitted to the impeachment court as its evidence.

“Simply analyze what is stated in the SALN. The SALNs should speak for themselves. To look beyond the SALNs is beyond me already. If you want me to interpret and speculate wala na ako doon. I’d be incompetent as a witness,” Esguerra said.

For more about what Robles’s own probe into this issue, click here to read her blog entry: ‘Corona’s P11M cash advance’

63-year-old pianist puts up impromptu ‘concert’ for train commuters

2012-01-22T07:00:00.000+08:00

Lifted from Vera Files

By AMER R. AMOR

WHEN world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell played at the Washington DC Metro Station in 2007 as part of The Washington Post’s social experiment on how people perceive and appreciate art and beauty, very few noticed and applauded. But when a 63-year-old man played the piano at the LRT 2 Cubao Station on Jan. 12, Filipino commuters stopped, paid attention, took videos, applauded, and at some point, swayed and sang along with his music.

Perhaps as a testament to British award-winning author Neil Gaiman’s tweet on Friday that it is indeed more fun in the Philippines since Filipinos applaud loudly, at least 300 commuters alternately took delight in the impromptu “concert” of pianist performer Vidalito Infante in a music retail stall at the Cubao Station from 4 to 6 p.m.

“I just can’t stop myself from playing good music, and besides, the crowd here wouldn’t let me stop as well,’ Infante said smilingly, waving to the people who were still gathered around him even after he had finished his show with his rendition of the Italian pop song Quando, Quando, Quando, bossa nova style.

On his way to take the LRT ride in Cubao, Infante said he could not resist the sight of the Wilhelm upright piano that was on display for sale, and started to play some of his favorite songs that included the classic hit Fly Me to the Moon and the popular OPM song Anak. Infante, or Mang Bong, as he prefers to be called, plays the piano at the Rockwell Mall in Makati every Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m.

What started out as a simple exercise for Infante that afternoon stretched into a two-hour performance as commuters and bystanders gathered around him and applauded to every song he played on the piano.

Infante indulged and gamely played, among others The Prayer, Looking through the Eyes of Love, and Dito sa Pitong Gatang. In fact, he had to play his “last song” for five times as the crowd wouldn’t just let him put an end to the unexpected aural treat.

“I just got out of the station and I noticed there was a crowd and I can hear the music. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, so I stopped until I realized it was an old man who was playing the piano. He’s just amazing,” said 19-year-old Nikki Espino, a student from Centro Escolar University.

“His energy is incomparable. When you look at how his fingers touch the bars of the piano, you know it’s passion. He’s gifted. Ang galing!” said Julius Mohara, an import-export broker who stopped to enjoy Infante’s performance. He said he has witnessed how Infante wowed the crowd in Megamall when he also came up with an on-the-spot performance there two weeks ago.

Infante was clearly in his element. His showmanship, sense of humor and rapport with the audience were evident as he engaged them in his performance. At one point while playing The Blue Danube Waltz, he got up from his seat and egged the crowd to dance, even demonstrating a step or two on how to properly dance the waltz.

By the time he played his last song for the day, the mood around him was already celebratory that a young man couldn’t help but sing a line from the song Quando, Quando, Quando, while the stall attendant got one of her maracas and played along. The scene was reminiscent of old Filipino films where crowd breaks out into a song-and-dance number.

After the performance, the crowd applauded enthusiastically. Infante shook the hands of some of his audience and “shooed” them away.

Infante, who is turning 64 this August, thanks his mother for encouraging him to take piano lessons when he was six years old.

“My mom loved to dance, so there was always music inside the house. I was exposed to that. I would really dance with my mother. But before I learned how to play the piano, I studied how to read the notes first. That really helped me developed my talent,” he said.

Born to a dressmaker mother and a lawyer father in Sampaloc, Manila, Infante took piano lessons religiously as a child and also performed on the side, playing in school performances and church services. He did so even after graduating from high school in Arellano University. He started to perform professionally in 1970 and has not stopped since.

To this day, even when some people would tell him to retire already, he just could not. “Playing the piano has already become my life. It’s in my blood already and I am really passionate about it. I get to share my music with different people and I am happy that they appreciate me,” Infante said.

He sounded excited as he volunteered that at his age, his next gig is for Ambassador Manolo Lopez and his mostly diplomat guests, kidding that he gets to change his everyday uniform of black pants, polo shirt, beige cap, and sandals to that of a tuxedo and a black pointy shoe.

When his audience dispersed, a young lady, who has been listening to him perform from 4 p.m., told him she dreams of singing in a lounge and asked if he could accompany on a song. Infante gladly obliged and playedFly Me to the Moon once again and The Girl from Ipanema as the lady sang along.

Before the lady left, he offered a piece of advice he said he swears by to this day: “Do not be shy, especially when you have a gift worth sharing. I love music. I love playing the piano. This is what I am going to do until the day I die. So I try to share my passion whenever I can.”

Someone asked what he loves to play the most among the many songs he has performed. He went back to the piano and started to hit the notes of La Vie En Rose, and the crowd was smitten once again.

A bad teacher?

2012-01-21T07:00:00.000+08:00

DUCKY PAREDES

MALAYA

‘I will follow my father’s footsteps in doing what is right, and God will take care of the rest. My father is my role model. My living role model is Cory Aquino. I am prepared.’

THE bad teacher tells her student that he is not doing as well as he begins his work compared to how she was doing when she left it?

I remember that when Gloria took over from Erap that I had mixed emotions about it. Erap was a classmate and a friend. True, he liked my kuya better but then, didn’t everyone? Eventually, I figured then (in 2001) that it was possible that she might do better than Erap did. In that event, she might work out better for this country. Thus, despite my close ties to Erap, I was ambivalent about the change simply because there was a chance that she could turn out better for the country; after all, didn’t she tell Time Magazine: “I will follow my father’s footsteps in doing what is right, and God will take care of the rest. My father is my role model. My living role model is Cory Aquino. I am prepared.”

Of course, she was prepared — to become the worst president we have had so far. Now, Gloria is in jail, probably for a very long haul, considering that new charges against her continue to be discovered. We have not yet seen the end of this long train.

Last week, she wrote a “study” intended for her former economics student (and read out loud by a UP economics professor) to tell her former student how badly he is doing. Of course, Noynoy ignored his former teacher. After all, if one went back to 2001, the year the Arroyo presidency began, it is clear that the present as new President, Pnoy’s attention is more focused on his job, than Teacher Gloria’s was.

Just think that in her first week as president, she approved a deal that neither Presidents Ramos nor Estrada approved. There were many tings amiss in that. This was the deal to repair certain power generating units that an Argentinean company had been awarded. What was amiss was that there was a government guarantee on it and neither former president liked that added burden. Yet, the brand-new president approved it in her first week. Then, there was the PIATCO contract for the construction of a new airport terminal. She decided to rescind it. This resulted in delays in the work and in the country being sued by the Filipino and German investors in international courts.

In May, 2001, a few months into her presidency, Muslim bandits abducted 20 hostages at a resort in Palawan. Even as Gloria officially adopted a hardline “no ransom” response to these and other kidnap cases and launched military operations against them, it was later revealed that hostages’ families paid ransom to the kidnappers directly, with some claiming that Philippine military officers received a portion of the funds.

Then, wasn’t Mike Arroyo accused of receiving bribes from a telecommunications company seeking government-approved contracts. It even later turned out that both Mike and Gloria and a host of other of their people were also involved. This was just in the first 18 months of Gloria’s presidency.

Thus, it would seem to me that Gloria really had no business telling Pnoy how to run things. The country might have slowed a bit on the economic front but 2011 was that kind of a year for the rest of the world, too, judging by what we read about the economy in the rest of the world. Besides, the new President, coming as he does into a government known (for the last nine years) as being one better known for kleptocracy and corruption, how could he implement projects envisioned and developed by the previous administration, without first vetting how it was developed and who benefited by them. In fact, in that review, the government has, in fact, found many things not quite right with what would have been developed, if these plans had been implemented as planned.

***

The impeachment of Renato Corona as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court begins in earnest this afternoon.

Too bad that word that the World Bank had uncovered questionable procurements and disbursements in connection with the Judicial Reform Support Project (JRSP), which was partly funded by a World Bank loan of $21.9 million. The JRSP was started during Chief Justice Hilarion Davide’s watch and was designed to restore efficiency in the dispensation of justice in the country.

The World Bank now says officially (in an aide memoire) that since Corona assumed his post in mid-2010, progress in reforming the judiciary “has been rated unsatisfactory,” with “implementation delays and additional work required for smooth project closing.”

The WB document says: “The review discloses that the fiduciary environment pertaining to JRSP implementation has so deteriorated that the task team now rates the JRSP as a ‘high risk’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ on project management, project procurement and financial management dimensions, and observes that project financial statements can no longer be relied upon.”

The review uncovered “inaccurate/incomplete information” on the project’s financial management report, “diminished existing internal check-and-balance mechanism,” purchase of information technology equipment outside of the agreed procurement plan, and the practice of borrowing funds from the loan for the justices’ foreign travels, paid to a travel agency owned by lawyer Estelito Mendoza.

The World Bank now wants a refund of $199,900, covering 70 payments deemed “ineligible” or unauthorized under the terms of the JRSP. And the WB wants its money before Jan. 31, 2012!

***

On to the impeachment. What we should all pray for is that this may serve to begin a cleansing of our judiciary. If we cannot all become billionaires, let us pray that what a much-loved president hoped for – that “those who have less in life should have more in the law” – can come true in our lifetime!

***

Readers who missed a column can access www.duckyparedes.com/blogs. This is updated daily. Your reactions are welcome at duckyparedes@yahoo.com

It’s the Economist, Genius!

2012-01-20T07:00:00.000+08:00

Corporate Watch

By Amelia H.C. Ylagan
BusinessWorld

The Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989; Soviet Russia dissolved in 1991; and the ground invasion of Iraq triggered the US cleanup of world terrorism. The future looked good. With a performance approval rating of 90% in 1991, President George Herbert Walker (the Elder) Bush would have been confident of reelection, except that Americans turned sharply and disapproved of him 64% in August 1992. How come?

It’s the economy, stupid! The decline in Bush’s ratings was accurately identified by the oppositionist candidate William Clinton’s campaign machinery with the people’s growing anxiety for the impending recession. Ronald Reagan had left a $220-billion budget deficit, which tripled with Bush’s expensive involvement in the Middle East; the economy in Bush’s term was slipping, and the Democrats shrewdly hammered for approval of unpopular issues of raising taxes and cutting spending as the scheme to ease the deficit by $500 billion over five years. Bush lost face to the people for not keeping his election promise, “Read my lips, no new taxes.”

“It’s the economy, stupid” started out as a reminder on Clinton’s campaign headquarters bulletin board for his strategists and political leaders to harp on the economic downturn as George HW Bush’s mortal sin to the American people. The phrase has become a “snowclone” or a familiar verbal formula that catches and conveys a conclusive evaluation of a contentious situation. “Stupid” may not mean that the person in front of the speaker is stupid, but more that the speaker is speaking to himself and saying, “Stupid me, why did I not think about that truism in the beginning?”

But of course, the acidity of the phrase would depend on the speaker’s secret personal evaluation of whom this is directed to — for it may not be a simple personal reminder to oneself but a stern recrimination to another person who might have been influential to the situation that is the basis for the stupidity. But in America,it does not seem to be as grievously slanderous to be called “stupid” to your face, as it would be in Asia. And so these snow clones with anything “stupid” did not catch on even with the “wurz-wurz” (twangy American English-speaking), cliche-loving Filipinos.

“It’s the economy, student!” former President Gloria Arroyo screamed at incumbent President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, her former student at Ateneo de Manila University some decades ago. Avoiding the word “stupid,” she nevertheless called him so in the unsubtle paraphrase of the condescending “It’s the economy, stupid!” In a 19-page paper dated January 12, 2012, and read at a press conference cum “academic” colloquium at the Manila Hotel, Arroyo extolled her accomplishments in her nine-year term and derided the performance of Aquino. The unblinking claim to intellectual superiority has been the hard-sell pitch of Arroyo against the successor government of Aquino, which, she claims, frittered away her economic legacy to the country.

The paper was supposedly written “in her spare time,” during Arroyo’s recuperation, hospitalization and hospital detention for alleged corruption and abuse of power during her presidency. Maybe it was properly foot-noted in accordance with a respectable bibliography, but an academic treatise in macroeconomics, which might need extensive primary and secondary research to arrive at dramatic econometric evaluations and conclusions, might need full focus and an assisting research team for much more than a month or two. Otherwise, call it just an ordinary brickbat from a cornered antagonist.

Arroyo pointed out in her paper that she left Malacanang in 2010 when the country was experiencing a 7.9% economic growth, while the country’s growth in the third quarter of 2011 was only 3.2%. The stand-alone figures by themselves are inadequate to mean much, if not presented in comparison to the figures for the region, as any economics professor should know. Reviewing the International Monetary Fund analysis of the GDP growth for the region in 2010, we can see that the whole region enjoyed hefty gains in that decade of Asia’s advantage in the US-triggered recession and the European “PIGS” (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) country debt problems. Singapore grew 14.5%, India 11.1%, Taiwan 10.8%, China 10.3% and Sri Lanka 8%. All other countries in Asia below these enjoyed 7% or more GDP growth at that time, as did the Philippines. (Per the IMF data, growth in Philippine GDP was 7.6% in 2010 and Thailand was 7.8%.)

Then again, economics professors must not present percentage growths without citing the absolute GDP value-base for the delta increase. Jobs and other production factors must be analyzed with GDP, with poverty and equality, human rights and ecology ratios benchmarked on the regional efforts and the global situation. What had Arroyo done to alleviate the plight of the 30 million Filipinos (2006) who live below the international poverty line of $2/day?

Arroyo’s former professor at the University of the Philippines College of Economics, Gonzalo Jurado, said he gave Arroyo a “1” (top grade) when she was his student. Jurado, who presented the Arroyo economic paper to the press last week, said he would not even give Aquino a grade of “5” (lowest grade) but “10,” because Aquino’s government does not have a plan. Unfortunately, some of those intimidated by the title, “Economist” would tend to believe that the economy indeed went well during the last decade, thanks to Arroyo. Economic plans, to those not formally trained in economics, might come through as intricate blueprints for success that can only be produced, implemented and evaluated in a self-serving manner by the breed-apart nerds called economists.

Aquino does have medium and long-term plans for productivity and employment, poverty, human rights and the ecology. It’s just that maybe, these plans and projects are not presented adequately by proper PR machinery. There might need to be more drumbeating on projects and accomplishments, like Gloria Arroyo, The Economist of 2001-2010, did for herself, whether she merited the solicited accolades or not.

Anyway, as the ratings show, the majority of the Filipino people seem to agree with your plans, PNoy. You are right to focus first on the corruption drive and the culprits who have stolen from the country. “It’s the Economist, Genius!”

http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Opinion&title=It%E2%80%99s-the-Economist,-Genius!&id=45042

World Bank: Loan to Supreme Court high risk

2012-01-19T07:00:00.000+08:00

Final tranche canceled due to irregular expenses

By Michael Lim Ubac
Philippine Daily Inquirer

The Supreme Court under the watch of Chief Justice Renato Corona has been weighed and found wanting.

The World Bank has uncovered questionable procurements and disbursements in the high court in connection with the Judicial Reform Support Project (JRSP). The project, partly funded by a World Bank loan of $21.9 million (P930.75 million at an exchange rate of P42.50 to $1), was designed to restore efficiency in the dispensation of justice in the country.

In an aide memoire, the World Bank said that since Corona assumed his post in mid-2010, progress in reforming the judiciary “has been rated unsatisfactory,” with “implementation delays and additional work required for smooth project closing.”

The document detailed the results of a fiduciary review conducted by a World Bank task team on Oct. 24-Nov. 11, 2011, through discussions with justices of the high court and field visits to courts all over the country.

“The review discloses that the fiduciary environment pertaining to JRSP implementation has so deteriorated that the task team now rates the JRSP as a ‘high risk’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ on project management, project procurement and financial management dimensions, and observes that project financial statements can no longer be relied upon,” the World Bank said.

The review uncovered, among others, “inaccurate/incomplete information” on the project’s financial management report, “diminished existing internal check-and-balance mechanism,” purchase of information technology equipment outside of the agreed procurement plan, and the practice of borrowing funds from the loan for the justices’ foreign travels, paid to a travel agency owned by lawyer Estelito Mendoza.

The World Bank is now demanding a refund of $199,900, covering “70 payments” deemed “ineligible” or unauthorized under the terms of the JRSP, by Jan. 31.

Review trigger

The World Bank initiated the fiduciary review when Corona was already appointed Chief Justice by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo despite an election ban.

It said the review was “triggered by several withdrawal applications” presented to the World Bank by the tribunal’s Program Management Office (PMO), “which seemed to signal a sudden and significant increase in the disbursement in the latter half of 2011.”

“The project result indicators depict achievements in several areas, but significant missed opportunities due to capacity and coordination constraints and delays in decision-making, procurement and contracting,” it said.

Included in the “ineligible” purchases were the printing supply of the Court Reporter’s Case Index, purchase of laptop computers, speaker’s fee for seminars, registration fee of justices attending international conferences, and foreign travels of justices and their staff (including airfare, hotel accommodations and meal allowances).

‘Black prop’

Asked to comment, Ramon Esguerra, a spokesperson of Corona’s legal team, on Saturday said the accusation was “not in any way connected to any of the articles of impeachment” against the Chief Justice.

He said it was the high court as a whole, and not Corona alone, that should respond to the accusation.

“Two days before the opening of the trial and there’s this story?” Esguerra told the Inquirer by phone. “The barrage of black propaganda has not ceased. In fact, it’s now coming out with greater intensity.”

Esguerra said media reports on Corona’s alleged ill-gotten wealth, as well as the latest on the supposed fund mismanagement at the high court, were all part of “a pattern of harassment intended to demonize the Chief Justice in the eyes of the public.”

“It’s very unfair,” he protested.

Corona himself said “it’s hard to answer that [accusation]” because he had yet to read the World Bank aide memoire.

The Inquirer sought his comment after a Tridentine Mass held late Saturday afternoon at the Supreme Court grounds, the last of novena Masses for the embattled Chief Justice.

Corona attended the Mass with his wife and more than 100 sympathizers, including former Philippine Commission on Good Government Chair Camilo Sabio.

The Chief Justice also said he had yet to decide whether he would attend the opening of his impeachment trial on Monday, contradicting Esguerra’s statement that he would show up.

One-man show

According to the World Bank, the diminished internal auditing mechanism in the high court was exemplified by Corona’s appointment of one man as court administrator, head of the Public Information Office, and chair of the Bids and Awards Committee.

The court administrator was authorized to approve, on Corona’s behalf, payments of up to P200,000 which was later increased to P500,000, the World Bank said.

“Lack of appropriate segregation of duties of key officials involved in the JRSP has created a breakdown of the control environment, increased fiduciary and reputation risks, and led to irregular/inappropriate procurement and expenditure decisions,” it said.

Without naming Jose Midas Marquez, the World Bank said “this senior official, due to the combination of his appointments and functions, was the requestor of the services, the approver of the terms of reference, the end-user of the services provided by the firm, the authorizer of contract extensions, and the authorizer of payments to the firm.”

It said this arrangement, among others, “present[ed] a conflict of interest and eliminate[d] internal checks and balances applicable to the procurement and disbursement functions.”

4 project components

The World Bank approved the loan in 2003 (Loan No. 7191-PH) “to assist the borrower in developing a more effective and accessible judiciary that would foster public trust and confidence through the implementation of the Supreme Court’s Action Program for Judicial Reform (APJR).”

The JRSP is the World Bank’s term for its financial support for the APJR, the brainchild of then Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., who envisioned the much-needed judicial reforms to be bankrolled by combined resources from the national budget, the judiciary’s own funds and financing from development partners.

The four project components involved improving case adjudication and access to justice (i.e., mobile courts); enhancing institutional integrity (i.e., Code of Ethics and related training of judges and judicial personnel); strengthening the institutional capacity of the judiciary (i.e., e-Library); and support for the reform of the judicial system and for the high court’s PMO.

The judicial reform covered six key areas: judicial system procedures, institutional development, human resources development, integrity infrastructure development, access to justice by the poor, and reform support systems.

The World Bank has participated in all six areas; six other development partners have varying degrees of exposure to the APJR.

The loan was to expire on Dec. 31, 2009, during the incumbency of Chief Justice Reynato Puno. But the World Bank extended the closing date twice—first by 18 months (until June 30, 2011), and then by 12 months (until June 30, 2012).

But due to questions over the fiscal discipline of the tribunal in adhering to loan stipulations, the World Bank canceled the final tranche of the loan amounting to $0.5 million.

Thus far, the tribunal has spent $16.3 million (76 percent of the revised loan amount of $21.4 million, after deducting the $0.5 million). With reports from Christian V. Esguerra and Philip C. Tubeza

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/128095/world-bank-loan-to-supreme-court-high-risk

Impeachment trivia

2012-01-18T07:00:00.000+08:00

By Dahli Aspillera

Malaya

‘No telenovelas this afternoon. For one’s lack of prudence, so much Juan Pasan Cruz’ taxes wasted on trial expenses.’

“IF you can find those [45 real estate properties you claim I own] you can have them.”–Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“If Gloria Arroyo does not return [after her medicals abroad] I will have my balls cut off.”–Atty. Topacio of the Arroyo Camp.

People who spew these preposterous statements are just making noise without meaning in them. The Chief Justice and Topacio know that when push comes to shove, no one can compel the former to sign his P45 million condo over to Rep. Tupas. Neither can anyone compel Topacio to castrate himself when Gloria Arroyo ends up living in Portugal.

This issue of Gloria Arroyo being the economics teacher and President Aquino being her economics student has brought academics back in discussion this week. Last week’s hot topic was the UST academic doctoral degree of Chief Justice Corona requiring the eminent and distinctive U. Santo Tomas to come out with a lot of words on how great and honorable is this oldest institution. UST may be older than Harvard but America’s College of William and Mary is older than UST.

Which economist for the Philippines? I had previously published (and got no rectification from PGMA’ palace) that her Ph.D. is not in economics. It is in foreign service, earned at Georgetown University in Washington DC. GMA does not have a Ph.D. in Economics from U. as was reported in the Inquirer yesterday. (Please inform me if you know better.) It was in UP where GMA did her college, graduating with a B.S. in Economics. Whether GMA read economics or foreign service for her Master’s at Georgetown, I hadn’t checked.

If in fact GMA’s economics is baccalaureate level (please notify me if I am wrong) and President Aquino’s economics is baccalaureate level as well, then, their abilities on the subject of economic is at par. They know as much as each other. The deciding issue is, which school has a better college economics program: UP or Ateneo?

Ateneo has teachers with only a college level knowledge of the field to teach university students? In America, a teacher must have at least a Master’s degree in the discipline to teach university students. I already had my Master of Science degree, but I was allowed to teach college freshmen. I needed a doctoral degree to teach tertiary juniors and seniors.

***

I do not believe that the now famous Avignon penthouse is owned by Antonio Carpio. Accused of accumulating numerous real estate, Corona turned around and accused one proposed CJ successor, Antonio Carpio, of owning that extravagant penthouse in one of the most expensive enclaves in Makati.

My conclusion is that the penthouse of Avignon Tower along H.V. De la Costa Street in Salcedo Village belongs to Atty. Ted Laguatan, a political colleague whom I first met as an officer of the Democratic Club in San Francisco.

I base my conclusion on a missing umbrella.

I have received invitations from Ted Laguatan to parties at this penthouse. I didn’t make it to a recent invitation, but attended a gathering there sometime back. At the end of the party, my umbrella which I leaned against a dark corner, was no longer there. I needed it as a third leg, so I sought the help of the caterer staff and the household help if any of them had spotted or relocated my umbrella.

Some of the domestics in the kitchen had suggested to tell their ma’am, Ms Laguatan, on the chance that the family might locate my umbrella the next day. Sasabihin po namin kay Sir na nawala ang payong nyo. And the Sir they pointed to was Ted Laguatan, not Antonio Carpio. That incident tells me that the home and its staff were Ted Laguatan’s. Otherwise, my loss would have been referred not to Ms. Laguatan, but to Ms. Carpio, the penthouse mistress.

***

Dahli_a@yahoo.com

http://www.malaya.com.ph/01162012/eddahli.html

The Assassination of Journalists and Priests

2012-01-17T07:00:00.000+08:00

By Fr. Shay Cullen

(His columns are published in The Manila Times,
in publications in Ireland, the UK, Hong Kong, and on-line)

The power of the truth to set free the public from ignorance, indifference and apathy is what arouses public outcry and brings about civil and political action for human rights. Journalists, priests and pastors are frequently giving voice to the long oppressed aspirations of the indigenous people and it provokes violent retaliation. Another outspoken journalist, Christopher Guarin, 41, publisher and editor-in-chief of the daily tabloid “Tatak” was killed in General Santos city in the Southern Philippines last week. He had foretold his own assassination on the radio the morning he was set upon by gunmen and shot dead as he fled wounded from his car saving his wife and child.

The Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists and broadcasters. As many as 150 have been killed since the fall of Marcos and the restoration of democracy in 1986. Chris Guarin is the 10th media person murdered since president Aquino won the election in May 2010. It’s dangerous, deadly, and difficult to expose the injustice and exploitation of the poor and denounce the environmental destruction that causes much death and destruction as seen in the smashing of villages by floods and rampaging logs.

The recent slogan of the Department of Tourism – “It’s more fun in the Philippines” has got it wrong. Everyone is asking and guessing what is more fun, life or death? Sex tourism is no fun at all for the hundreds of thousands of hapless trafficked and exploited women and children and it’s no fun to be receiving death threats for speaking and writing the truth. As a writer and journalist myself, I have received a few death threats in my time and it’s no fun what-so-ever. Nor is the culture of impunity that allows the killers to go free since local and corrupt politicians and big corporate interests are suspected to be the masterminds behind the killings.

Pastors and priests, the prophets and practitioners of justice and the social teachings of the Church are not spared. Father Fausto “Pops” Tentorio was brutally murdered last 17 October 2011 in his Church compound. With his brave and courageous fellow missionaries of the PIME Italian missionary society, he defended human rights and stood with the indigenous people of North Cotabato in Mindanao against giant international and local mining companies. The indigenous people see the corporations ready to rip and tear the forests and river valleys apart to get at the mineral deposits on their ancestral lands. Most of these mineral riches, which belong to the people, will go to the corporations, a tiny 5% portion to the national government but a big share to the wealthy families and business people. The local government officials who sign the permits will get their payoff too.

There are few, if any benefits, for the people who have true ancestral claims to the mineral rich lands that are loaded with gold, silver, nickel, copper and many more worth an estimated US$840 billion. Former President Gloria Arroyo’s government gave generous incentives and tax holidays to foreign mining corporations and their local mining partners, an open invitation to gouge and exploit.

She gave mining corporations an income tax holiday for 4 to 8 years and a special low 5% tax rate when the 8 years are up. They also get tax-free importation of equipments and exemption from paying the 12% value-added taxes. There are exemptions from wharfage dues, and lots more privileges that Filipinos cannot enjoy. The minerals can be exported even without refinement and processing. It’s a virtual give away of the national wealth. In stark contrast, the Australian government has just passed a law that imposes a whopping 30% mining tax on all corporations extracting minerals in Australia.

Great are the riches at the end of the mining rainbow for the international corporations in the Philippines with their local cronies if they can defeat the fierce opposition of the indigenous people supported by the church and the non-government people’s rights organizations.

Last week the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) identified a big businessman and a senior police inspector as the masterminds in the killing of Father Tentorio, according to an arrested hit-man. The slain priest and many others have given their lives in the struggle for the rights of the people and the environment. END

http://www.preda.org/en/news/fr-shays-articles/the-assassination-of-journalists-and-priests/

Citizens Outrage VS “Massacre” Of Trees In Baguio Begin

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000+08:00

By Artemio A. Dumlao

BAGUIO CITY (January 12, 2012) – Outrage of citizens and environmentalists start Friday next week with a huge demonstration against “killing” of at least 43 Alnus trees and earthballing of 97 growing Benguet Pine trees and 42 more pine saplings to go with the expansion of SM Baguio along Governor Pack road here.

Even copying US-styled “Occupy” messages to the proponent like “Cut your Corporate Greed not the trees” and hoisting “Occupy SM” mood, street protest organizers vow to swamp the area below SM Baguio and Session Road, Baguio’s main business throughfare, in what could be the biggest environmental rally the city could see of late.

This as DENR-Cordillera executive director Clarence Baguilat confirmed he gave a permit to cut and earthball the said trees on October 27, last year, ten days after Sec. Ramon Paje cleared the tree cutting application.

Such however, Baguilat said, ‘came with conditions that SM should first conduct meetings with the Baguio local government, non-government organizations and other stakeholders.’

This Monday, Mayor Mauricio Domogan who earlier brushed aside blame and instead pointed at DENR said the permit was already granted and seemingly had less effort to do with the permission.

Baguilat of the DENR added that the expansion project still needs to acquire an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) while also mandating SM to replace 30 saplings for each tree cut and damaged trees.

If such, SM would be ordered to plant some 5460 saplings, said Abner Villanueva, DENR-Cordillera spokesperson.

Accordingly, SM is still in the process of complying with the conditions set by the DENR, amidst snowballing criticisms against the “tree massacre”, yet the biggest tree cutting en masse here of late.

Karen Nobres-Padilla, SM spokesperson has said that the expansion project is not only about a parking lot. The expansion will entail a “green project” of SM in the area like building a sky garden on top.

Records show that the site for development is part of the property acquired by Shoemart through an auction sale conducted on April 22, 1992 for a bid price of P69,999,995.52 in six separate amortizations which ended in 1997 located in Residential Section “A” particularly described as Lot Nos. 3-B, 114-A, 128, 115-B, 125-A, 126-B-2, 126-A, X-1 and Y-2.

“Earlier Tree Massacres”

In April 2000, development at the former American rest and recreation facility Camp John Hay by the private firm Camp John Hay Development Corporation felled 77 pine trees in the Voice of America compound where supposed log cabins of controversial personalities including former Pres. Joseph Estrada and some of his supposed “cronies” were built.

Earning a pile of criticisms, the local DENR then also blamed the main office of the Environmental Management Bureau in Quezon City then granting such permits.

Again on May 2008, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) went defensive when a plan to clear a large part of a forested land in Camp John Hay to host the expansion of Moog Controls Philippines, an American aircrafts parts manufacturer.

Although denied by PEZA while admitting only 262 trees were cut, around 800 to 13,000 trees were feared ‘massacred’ for the expansion, prompting a Senate probe on the issue.

An on-line petition drum beaten by environmentalist Dr. Michael Bengwayan, a professor and multi-awarded environmental fellow abroad, has started to drum up support and citizen awareness on the “massacre”. “This is totally unacceptable, and callously insensitive to the importance of trees to the environment and ecology. We protest vehemently this intended act,” the petition noted.

“This only shows that DENR does not appreciate and is insensitive at all of the contributions of these trees which have already grown up in view of the global warming and environmental threats,” the petition added.

More than 2 thousand has so far included their names in the petition that started on January 8 primarily blaming the DENR.

“Saving Selves, Not The Trees”

Complaints against the “tree massacre” have reportedly reached the Office of the President specifically blaming Mayor Domogan for allegedly using his powers despite Executive Order 23 or Indefinite Log Ban issued by President Benigno Aquino III.

Though Domogan is submitting a report to Department of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo explaining his side on the alleged violation of the log ban.

The SM expansion plan reached Mayor Domogan last year and asked the company to include the development of a Centralized Parking Terminal for buses along Gov. Pack Road to enable the city to realize its long-time plan.

The area measures 1,500 square meters and a multi-level parking is hoped by the city government to help ease the city’s Central Business District (CBD) of parked vehicles.

Amidst the snowballing criticism on the “tree massacre”, a lawyer in the city who begged off to be named yet said, Baguio might be courting a second “Writ of Kalikasan” suit.

Mid December last year, Baguio officials were sued by Benguet officials and residents joined in by La Union local officials over the August 27 trashslide at the Irisan dumpsite that brought down hundred of tons of garbage killing at least 6, burying houses and contaminating water systems in Tuba town, Benguet.***Artemio A. Dumlao***

‘My Thoughts on the Impeachment Process’

2012-01-15T07:00:00.000+08:00

By Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV

(A speech delivered by Senator Antonio F. Trillanes IV at a forum held at the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance, Diliman, Quezon City on 04 January 2012)

For the past several weeks, numerous distinguished lawyers, political analysts and opinion columnists have given their take on the upcoming impeachment trial. Most have stressed that it is a judicial trial whose verdict shall be determined solely by evidence. However, during the impeachment trial of US Pres. Bill Clinton, all the evidence pointed to the fact that he committed perjury and obstruction of justice and yet he was acquitted by the US Senate in a vote where all Democrats sided with Pres. Clinton. Now, following the line of our local experts, was it merely coincidence that all the Democrats appreciated the evidence exactly the same way, or it was never treated as a judicial trial by the US Senators to begin with? Moreover, if an impeachment trial were meant to be solely evidence-based, then why didn’t our Constitutional framers just give that power to the Supreme Court whose members are supposed to be experienced judges? And whenever a SC justice committed an offense, the SC could just expel him through an ethics case similar to our current procedure in the Senate.

I researched on the true nature of impeachments to guide me on how I should eventually make a decision. To this, I focused on the US version of impeachment since it is a virtual copy of our own. True enough, what I found out was, there is not a single book or reference I encountered that says that impeachment is a judicial trial solely based on evidence. To the contrary, all of these references defined or referred to impeachment as a political process. Matthew J. Franck, in his 1996 essay, The Supreme Court and the Politics of Impeachment, stated clearly and I quote, “And although the Senate sits as a court during impeachment trials, it is not a court, but a political body deliberating on what are properly considered political offenses.” The closest reference was when Alexander Hamilton described in the Federalist No. 65, the judicial character of the Senate in relation to its function of judging in impeachment trials. But the political nature of impeachment was immediately made clear by Hamilton when he stated that the Supreme Court could not be relied upon with this task because “it is still more to be doubted, whether they would possess the degree of credit and authority, which might, on certain occasions, be indispensable towards reconciling the people to a decision that may happen to clash with an accusation brought by their immediate representatives” which may be “dangerous to the public tranquility.”

In a 2010 paper written by Susan Navarro Smelcer commissioned by the Congressional Research Service of the US Congress to define the role of the Senate in impeachments, she states that, ”While the Judicial branch was designed by the Framers to be independent of political influence, the methods of appointment and removal were designed to be political.” Charles Gardner Geyh, the author of the 2006 book, When Courts and Congress Collide:The Struggle for Control of America’s justice System stresses further that, ”The removal process is political in at least three respects: (1) it is political in its originalist sense of the term, in so far as it is a remedy for political crimes against a body politic; (2) it is political in the sense of being a process that is subject to resolution by popular or political majorities, through their representatives in one of the political branches; and (3) it can be political in the sense that it can be openly partisan.”

Having established that impeachment is a political process, therefore, my verdict should not be based solely on evidence as it now becomes a matter of public policy. And the over-arching policy issue in this whole impeachment episode is, whether the conviction or acquittal of Chief Justice Renato Corona would be good for our country? To resolve this, I intend to use political acceptability as the sole criterion to evaluate the projected outcomes of either policy alternative of conviction or acquittal. To determine political acceptability, I intend to use policy research tools such as quantitative and qualitative researches and stakeholder analysis. These, along with extensive consultations, could very well filter the noise of the mob and undue media influence from the true will of the people.

One might ask, if we were representatives of the people and, therefore, entrusted with the authority to decide on our own what is in the best interest of the public, then why wouldn’t we just decide, based on our own personal and ideological values? If the decision was merely for ordinary pieces of legislation, then I would not hesitate to use that prerogative. But an impeachment of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is not a daily occurrence and it has very serious short-term and long-term implications to our fragile Democracy. So, I believe, getting as many people involved in the decision-making process is very much warranted.

Again, one might ask, as one of my colleagues did, why can’t we just conduct a referendum to resolve this dilemma? Well, the answer is quite simple – our country is not a direct democracy. We are, in fact, a representative democracy wherein the people indirectly govern their country through elected representatives. It is the representatives’ discretion whether to consult his constituents or assume that he is omniscient. More importantly, referendum is not the procedure stated in our Constitution.

This does not mean, however, that the evidence should be completely disregarded. Definitely not! Because the strength or weakness of the evidence, and how they are presented could very well affect the political acceptability of either policy alternative. Having said this, it would help if the prosecutors and defense counsels would not to be too technical in their presentations. Ultimately, they would have to win the hearts and minds of the people.

As regards the appreciation of evidence, we have to bear in mind that the Constitution and the Senate Rules of Procedure on Impeachment Trials did not specify the quantum of evidence required to convict. Is it beyond reasonable doubt as what is used in criminal proceedings? Is it preponderance of evidence as what is used in civil cases? Or is it substantial evidence as what is used in administrative proceedings? Since it is not specified, therefore, a senator can just raise or lower the quantum of evidence required to suit his or her inclination.

In the end, regardless how the impeachment trial ends, it will be one of the defining moments in our nation’s history as we would have shown the whole world that our Democracy works.

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Rene Saguisag comments on Trillanes’s speech

Posted in Interaksyon.com

Dear Senator Sonny:

I agree with your position, if I understood it correctly, on how the people and their elected Representatives may not be excluded in the national inquest now going in the trial of unelected Chief Justice (CJ) Rene Corona on issues involving the heart of government functions (not that cockamamie plagiarism charge).

You in the legislature are elected and can be rewarded or punished by the electorate in periodic elections. Your loyalty is to the people. Justices are unelected and amor-con-amor with the appointing power and there must a check to their abuse by the people, directly, or through their elected representatives. They hold office until 70.

The upcoming trial will enable our people to see how the system works, in terms of check and balance.

One issue has to do with Rene’s acquisitions.

We now know that we had a Student Chief Justice pala who could do tough time-consuming doctoral work while helping decide litigated and administrative cases in the thousands and heading a bureaucracy of thousands. 24/7yata. (The SC and UST have to review the relevant policy in the public interest. No more Justice in doctoral studies. Can one imagine U.S. CJ Roberts going back to Harvard for his doctorate?)

Hundreds of my students over the last few semesters I have sent out, in vain, for info on assets and the handling of the billions of the Judiciary Development Fund, which under Sec. 3 of P.D. No. 1949 of 1984, is the sole responsibility of the Chief Justice. On the other hand, under Sec. 8 of RA. No. 6713, we clearly stated that public servants “have an obligation to accomplish and submit declarations under oath of, and the public has the right to know [their] assets, liabilities, net worth and financial and business interests including those of their spouses. . . .” Uncle Jovy Salonga, Tito Guingona and Orly Mercado and I had co-authored the law which I sponsored on the floor and shepherded all the way to conference and approval of the bicameral report. ]

Since impeachment is a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men involving offenses that strike at the very life or the orderly workings of government, more speech, not less – J. Douglas – should be the norm. It is too important to leave only to Senators-Judges, who should hold their peace and not stop the sovereign people and their Representatives from talking. Once we smoke out the Coronas’ asset statements, which they are holding very close to their vests, then people can talk freely and comment, why is X item not included? Why is Y understated/valued. Why is Z, etc. etc.

R.A. No. 6713 is a sunshine law. Rene [Corona] cannot hide behind an illegal self-serving interpretation exempting the SC from a requirement the executive and legislative branches comply every year, following April 30 of each year. The SC complied only in 1989. Then the troglodytes came.

Best, and have a good weekend.

Rene

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/21368/saguisag-trillanes-on-impeachment-and-evidence

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

Press Release
January 8, 2012

SENATE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Trillanes: All references point to impeachment as political process

In order to guide him on how he should eventually make a decision, Senator Antonio “Sonny” F. Trillanes IV said he researched on the true nature of impeachments, focusing on the US version of the impeachment that is a virtual copy of our own.

“True enough, what I found out was, there is not a single book or reference I encountered that says that impeachment is a judicial trial solely based on evidence. To the contrary, all of these references defined or referred to impeachment as a political process,” Trillanes said.

Trillanes cited numerous books and references to justify the point that the impeachment process is a political process, such as Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist No. 65, Matthew J. Franck’s The Supreme Court and the Politics of Impeachment and Charles Gardner Geyh’s When Courts and Congress Collide:The Struggle for Control of America’s justice System.

Offering a hint as to how he will vote, Trillanes said the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona should be treated as a political process where the parties are expected to battle for public opinion and political acceptability.

Trillanes, one of the senator-judges in Corona’s trial, said he won’t decide based purely on the evidence that the prosecution and defense panels will present but on the basis of what would be best for the country.

“Having established that impeachment is a political process, therefore, my verdict should not be based solely on evidence as it now becomes a matter of public policy,” Trillanes said in a speech delivered at a forum hosted by the University of the Philippine National College of Public Administration and Governance.

He added: “And the over-arching policy issue in this whole impeachment episode is whether the conviction or acquittal of Chief Justice Renato Corona would be good for our country. To resolve this, I intend to use political acceptability as the sole criterion to evaluate the projected outcomes of either policy alternative of conviction or acquittal.”

Trillanes, however, said this did not mean the evidence should be completely disregarded, noting that the “strength or weakness of the evidence, and how they are presented could very well affect the political acceptability of either policy alternative.”

“Having said this, it would help if the prosecutors and defense counsels would not to be too technical in their presentations. Ultimately, they would have to win the hearts and minds of the people,” he pointed out.

In determining political acceptability, Trillanes said he intended to use policy research tools – as such as quantitative and qualitative researches and stakeholder analysis – and extensive consultations. He said both methods “could very well filter the noise of the mob and undue media influence from the true will of the people.”

His position runs counter to that of most distinguished lawyers, political analysts and opinion columnists who said that just like in any other “judicial trial” the judgment on Corona’s impeachment case must be determined solely by evidence.

The young lawmaker cited the impeachment trial of former United States President Bill Clinton, who was acquitted by the Senate dominated by his Democratic allies despite overwhelming evidence that he committed perjury and obstruction of justice.

In the Philippines, Trillanes said the fact the power to impeach was given to Congress, and not to the Supreme Court, made the entire process political.

“Moreover, if an impeachment trial were meant to be solely evidence-based, then why didn’t our constitutional framers just give that power to the Supreme Court whose members are supposed to be experienced judges?” Trillanes asked.

The senator also struck down the proposal to conduct a referendum to find out the pulse of the people on the impeachment case against the country’s chief magistrate.

He said the senators, as representatives of the people, were “entrusted with the authority to decide on our own what is in the best interest of the public.”

“Our country is not a direct democracy. We are, in fact, a representative democracy wherein the people indirectly govern their country through elected representatives. It is the representative’s discretion whether to consult his constituents or assume that he is omniscient. More importantly, referendum is not the procedure stated in our Constitution,” he explained.

'Chief Justice can’t afford condos’ Palace steps up pressure on Corona to disclose SALN

2012-01-14T16:00:00.000+08:00

By Norman Bordadora

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Malacañang on Saturday stepped up the pressure on Chief Justice Renato Corona to disclose his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN), claiming that Corona’s salary as a government official would not have been enough for him to pay for the purchase of a luxury condominium unit worth more than P14 million.

By Budget Secretary Florencio Abad’s reckoning, if an official does not earn enough to buy a multimillion-peso property—plus a few others, as alleged by the House prosecution panel in Corona’s impeachment trial—then the properties may have been acquired through other means.

“If it’s true that he owns not just the Bellagio penthouse but possibly other real properties in pricy locations and knowing that the income alone from government service will not afford the Chief Justice the ability to acquire those assets, a reasonable mind can only conclude that the Chief Justice may have other sources of income outside of government or that those properties may have been acquired some other way,” Abad said in a text message.

“That is why it becomes even more compelling for the Chief Justice to publicly disclose his SALN. Otherwise, inquiring minds will begin to speculate,” he said.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said a government official’s salary would really not be enough to buy a premium piece of property unless he has received a sizeable inheritance or has returns on investments made before entering government.

The Palace officials made the remarks after the publication of Corona’s SALNs from the years that he served in Malacañang, which placed his net worth at almost P15 million in 1992 and at P14 million in 2002. The Inquirer obtained the data from a source privy to the House prosecution panel’s evidence in Corona’s impeachment trial.

Abad said he has yet to see Corona SALNs for 1992 and 2002 while Valte said the declarations should be in the records of the Office of the President. She said she would look into the records to see if the Palace had the same figures.

Aquino administration officials and anti-Corona partisans have been harping on Corona’s failure to make public his SALN since joining the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court spokesperson Midas Marquez has explained that high court justices have not published their SALNs since a 1992 resolution of the Narvasa court restricting the release of the SALNs of justices and judges to shield them from acts which may “endanger, diminish or destroy their independence and objectivity in the performance of their judicial functions.”

Court order needed

Justices of the Supreme Court are obliged to submit documents concerning their assets and liabilities to the clerk of court every year. Since the 1992 resolution, parties requesting a copy of a judge’s or a justice’s SALN have to secure a court order.

Since the outcry for Corona to disclose his SALN, two Supreme Court justices have released details of their SALNs. Associate Justices Antonio Carpio and Maria Lourdes Sereno furnished the Kaya Natin, one of the groups demanding that Corona produce his SALNs to show proof that he can afford to buy a pricy condominium, summaries of their SALNs.

House prosecutors are aiming to present Corona’s alleged ownership of expensive real estate as evidence of corruption in his impeachment trial to start a week from now in the Senate.

According to Valte, it would not be possible to afford a P14-million luxury condominum unit—let alone a few other pieces of premium property—while living on a government salary for roughly 20 years.

“Not unless it could be shown there was an inheritance while in service,” Valte told state-run radio dzRB.

Valte also said having the means to buy a property like Corona’s alleged 300-square meter unit at the Bellagio development in Bonifacio Global City would depend on the pieces of property that he already owned upon entering government service.

“If only on a government salary, it really wouldn’t be enough,” she said.

Marquez did not answer calls and text messages to his phone, asking for comment on the latest sally from Malacañang.

Ernesto Francisco Jr., one of Corona’s lawyers, also declined to comment as he was withdrawing from the Chief Justice’s legal team.

He declined to reveal the reasons for his departure, saying only that he would formalize it on Tuesday.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/124165/%E2%80%98chief-justice-can%E2%80%99t-afford-condos%E2%80%99

Tawa muna tayo, hehehe!!!

2012-01-14T07:00:00.000+08:00

Tayo ng tumawa at magsayaw.... .......

Prospective Employer to A! pplicant: " So why did you leave your previous job?"
Applicant: " The company relocated and they did not tell me where!"
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________
Bisaya 1: " Gara ng kutsi, siguro kay Miyur iyan.."!
Bisaya 2: " Dili bay!"
Bisaya 1: " Kay Hipi?"
Bisaya 2: " Tuntu ka man. Kay FATHER iyan. Gisulat niya sa likud o, "'SAFARI'."
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________

Misis: " Sir, mananawagan po sana ako sa mister ko kasi dinala niya ang limang anak namin."
Radio Host: " Ok, go ahead!"
Misis: " Honey, ibalik mo na ang mga bata, isa lang naman ang sa iyo diyan!"

____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________

Hello! Heto na naman ako. Gulu ng-gulo ulit ang isip ko. May nais lang sana akong itanong sa inyo. Alam ko matutulungan niyo ako Ang BIRDS FLU ba ay past tense ng BIRDS FLY?

____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________
Nakasakay ka sa FX, ng ikaw ay mautot. Buti na lang malakas ang tugtog. Bawat pag-utot, sabay sa tugtog. Nang ikaw ay bumaba, ang sasama ng tingin nila sa iyo, bigla mong naalala...naka Walkman ka pala!
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________

WIFE: Himala! aga mong umuwi ngayon.
HUSBAND: Sunod ko lang utos ng boss ko. Sabi nya "GO TO HELL", kaya ito uwi agad ako.
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________
Lasing (takot): may multo sa banyo natin!
Wife: ha? Bakit?
Lasing: kasi bumubukas yung ilaw pag papasok ako ng ! banyo eh.
Wife: punyeta ka! ikaw pala umiihi sa ref!
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________

1st night lola wore see thru dress, lolo didn't react...
2nd night lola wore t-back, lolo still deadma...
3rd night lola all naked, lolo said "anu yan suot mo, gusot-gusot! !"
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ ______

AMO: sagutin mo ang telepon inday!
INDAY: (baligtad ang hawak) hilo ? hilo ?
AMO: baligtarin mo!
INDAY: lohi? lohi?
AMO: telepon ang baligtarin mo!
INDAY: Puntili, puntili
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________
Juan: bday ng asawa ko
Pedro: ano regalo mo?
Juan: tinanong ko kung ano gusto niya.
Pedro: ano naman sinabi?
Juan: Kahit ano basta may DIAMOND.
Pedro: ano binigay mo?
Juan: Baraha.
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________
Pedro: Galing ako sa doktor, nakabili na ko ng hearing aid. Grabe! ang linaw na ng pandinig ko!
Juan: Talaga?! Magkano bili mo?
Pedro: Kahapon lang
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________
Teacher: We are descendants of Adam and Eve!
Student: That's not true!My dad sez we are descendants of an Ape!
Teacher: We are not talking about your FAMILY!
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________
Wife: Lab, may taning na! ang buhay ko. Huling gabi ko na to, let's make love.
Husband: Heh! tumigil ka nga. maaga pa akong gigising bukas, buti ikaw hindi na.
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________

KRIMINAL1: "Pare, sigurado ka bang dito dadaan yung papatayin natin?"
KRIMINAL2: "Oo, nagtataka nga ako, 1 oras na tayo dito wala pa rin siya!
Sana naman walang nangyaring masama sa kanya."

keep smiling!!!

Is the UN sneaking an RH program in Mindanao?

2012-01-13T07:00:00.000+08:00

SHOOTING STRAIGHT By Bobit S. Avila (The Philippine Star)

Year in and year out, the first news reports of the New Year that we get are about the hundreds of victims that got hurt during the New Year’s Eve revelry. This year more than 700 were hurt and one died due to pyrotechnics. But then as we said... this happens every New Year’s Day celebration. When we were kids, our father would drive the family in our black Dodge car along Magallanes street where the Chinese merchants who lived above their stores would throw firecrackers to the street below and hit the car. It was fun because in those days, cars used very thick steel.

As expected, Health Secretary Enrique Ona wanted a total ban on firecrackers in order to curb the number of casualties. He is joined by fellow Cabinet (DENR) Secretary Ramon Paje who complained that pyrotechnics caused the smog over Metro Manila... which he said is an environmental hazard. Come now, do you think that a total ban on firecrackers could be enforced? P-Noy signed an Executive Order for a total log ban, and if that was enforced to the hilt, storm Sendong could not have caused so much devastation in Northern Mindanao.

Whether we like it or not, exploding firecrackers has become a Filipino tradition. It is a matter of personal responsibility to stop using them. I stopped buying pyrotechnics more than 20 years ago because I realized that we should not be exploding “money” to start the New Year. If you ask me, the DOH and the LGUs have already issued more than enough warnings against the use firecrackers... but people just don’t listen. Government should never come up with laws that they cannot enforce anyway. All I can say to those people who got hurt last New Year’s Eve is a Cebuano word, “Mayra!”

* * *

If you lost family or children due to the flash floods that devastated Cagayan de Oro City, Iligan City and Dumaguete City and are still able to have children, chances are, you will have more children to replace the ones who perished in that flood. I’m writing this because of the thousands that perished in that flood, many of them small children. Of course, we know well enough that making babies is not a priority for the victims as of now.

This is why I was appalled by a report that came from another paper last Monday that the Manila office of the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) proposed an allocation of $1.76 million (P77 million) to address the “Reproductive health needs of displaced populations, as well as the monitoring, prevention and containment of possible outbreak of disease.” Say what?

This only proves to you that the UN attached agencies just want to pursue their own abortion agenda even if the Philippines has not yet approved the RH bill. This should trigger the question: can this UN agency pursue its own RH agenda whether the host country allows it or not? Perhaps a bigger question we ought to ask is, “whether or not this program has the blessings of the Aquino regime.” Knowing how badly P-Noy wants to pass the RH bill, I wouldn’t be surprised if what Ocha is doing in Mindanao has the President’s imprimatur. Could this be the President’s way of shortcutting the Legislative process?

Perhaps the UN Ocha does not realize (but I think they know this too well) that the priority of the displaced people now living in evacuation centers is not to have sex with their partners and make babies... rather their priority is to put a roof on their heads. We already heard on TV many victims being interviewed that most of their basic needs have already been addressed by the tons of donations given by the Filipino people. Most complain about not having a house to return to. Many are asking if they can find work. The priorities of the calamity victims are very clear to us and we should help them get back on their feet as soon as possible.

But obviously the Manila office of Ocha has a hidden agenda when it launched the “Philippines (Mindanao) Humanitarian Action Plan 2012” purportedly to raise $28 million (P1.26 billion) to help the hundreds of thousands of victims of Sendong... supposedly to give them drinking water, food and an emergency shelter. But in truth, they are mere smokescreen for their real objective, and that is to distribute reproductive health kits and cull the population in Northern Mindanao.

I dare say that the UN Ocha office should back down with their sinister plans. They should use that money to help the victims get back on their feet. At this point, we ought to ask Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (JPE) to conduct a Senate investigation as to whether or not this UN agency is implementing an RH program even if the Philippines has not yet approved the law on RH. What does the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) say about sneaking this RH program into the country?

* * *

For e-mail responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com orvsbobita@gmail.com. His columns can be accessed throughhttp://www.philstar.com.

Jokes, News & Stories for Filipinos everywhere

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‘I have never amassed ill-gotten wealth’

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Source: abs-cbnNEWS.com

63-year-old pianist puts up impromptu ‘concert’ for train commuters

A bad teacher?

DUCKY PAREDES

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Corporate Watch

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Final tranche canceled due to irregular expenses

Impeachment trivia

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The Assassination of Journalists and Priests

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Citizens Outrage VS “Massacre” Of Trees In Baguio Begin

By Artemio A. Dumlao

‘My Thoughts on the Impeachment Process’

By Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV

Rene Saguisag comments on Trillanes’s speech

Press ReleaseJanuary 8, 2012

Trillanes: All references point to impeachment as political process

'Chief Justice can’t afford condos’ Palace steps up pressure on Corona to disclose SALN

By Norman Bordadora

Tawa muna tayo, hehehe!!!

Is the UN sneaking an RH program in Mindanao?

Press Release
January 8, 2012