Moderate earthquake hits Batanes


Agence France-Presse
Last updated 03:44pm (Mla time) 07/28/2006

A MODERATE earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 5.1 struck near the northern Philippine islands of Batanes on Friday, the US Geological Survey said. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

The USGS reported the quake struck at 2:12 a.m. (1812 GMT on Thursday) about 98 kilometers (61 miles) southwest of the Batanes capital of Basco. Its depth was 14 km beneath the surface.

The 5.1 reading was based on the open-ended Moment Magnitude scale, now used by US seismologists, which measures the area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.

This is nature, we cannot do anything about that except by prayers and precautionary measures. But the worst bad news that is always happening to our daily life is the immaturity of some Filipino people towards the true means of economic growth that derail it's motiff of moving up.

^^ Anyway, that article was just meant to start this sequel thread since I found no other article containing bad news. :D

That's fine......

Read in the paper that Arroyo admin in her sona is asking for 5b to clear southrail squatters, this is on top of the original 3b we heard of !
Grabe ang mahal naman sobra. Ang OA na ha...

What P8B to clear the railways? Naku eh ang mas mura pa pala to eradicate/kill the leftists kaysa to clear those squatting sa southrailway. I smell "Kurakot" in the air.

Missing OFW funds
07/29/2006

Something is definitely wrong somewhere in Gloria’s world.

In her State of the Nation Address (Sona), she stressed several times over, that she has the funds for the future massive infrastructure projects she laid out; funds for the war against terror; the war against corruption, and the war against the insurgents, among many other funds she claims to have.

Yet in the case of the overseas workers’ funds, where her government should have, at the very least, some P8 billion that should be flowing, given the war conditions in Lebanon, where some 34,000 Filipino workers are stationed, all Gloria has eked out for evacuation purposes is P150 million.

And Gloria’s people are stingy with that miniscule amount even at this time of evacuation.

Philippine Ambassador to Lebanon Al Bichara has been complaining publicly that the embassy’s funds are running out. He has asked for at least $1 million to keep things going.

For airing this complaint, Bichara has been berated heavily by Malacañang and the Department of Foreign Affairs with even a DFA undersecretary saying that if Bichara were a soldier during a time of war, he would shoot him dead. That’s the diplomacy they teach this undersecretary?

There was too that remark from the undersecretary that all Bichara spends on is food and bus transport from Lebanon to Damascus. Just how much does this undersecretary think feeding sardine-packed OFWs in that church costs, given the many days they have been staying there?

Rafael Seguis, a DFA official, was sent to Lebanon to check on the claim of Bichara, and said the ambassador had less than $100,000 total. So what’s that amount when one is dealing with the problem of some 34,000 Filipinos? But why are they so measly with the funds, since the OWWA funds, precisely meant for such contingencies, amount to some P8 billion minimum?

They all denied that there is a lack of funds, yet it was clear, from the flight arrivals of Filipino workers from the war-torn country, that there are less and less workers being brought home by the Philippine government, with the latest batch numbering some 50 workers and in a commercial flight, which means that chartered flights have been dumped by the Arroyo government as a means to get more Pinoy workers home and fast.

Even more ridiculous was the claim of Budget Secretary Andaya that he wouldn’t release any money to Bichara unless and until the ambassador liquidates that which he has been given. With the red tape in Gloria’s government and considering that the times are extraordinary in Lebanon and the Filipino situation, the Budget secretary wants to wait for a liquidation report? Has Gloria even liquidated the cash advances her office got for her many jaunts abroad? Past Commission on Audit reports showed a huge amount that has been left unliquidated for these trips.

Chances are, those billions in OWWA funds no longer exist, with the funds diverted elsewhere — again.

It will be recalled that in 2004, during election campaign time, OWWA funds diverted and used for those PhilHealth cards were questioned by a group of migrant workers. There was enough evidence of the diversion and obviously used for Gloria’s presidential election campaign.

Still, some of these funds must have had a replenishment if they had not been diverted again. And it certainly looks like the funds aren’t there, since Malacañang has been quite stingy with the money that should be poured in for the contract workers stranded in Lebanon. But why isn’t this being done? Aren’t these workers considered by this government as the modern economic heroes, since they have been helping greatly in propping the economy through their billions in remittances?

Even more ridiculous is the fact that the Arroyo government announced that those workers who had arrived from Lebanon can now apply for jobs in the Middle East, as they would have an edge over others, having worked there before.

None made mention of the fact that there were many Filipino workers who had come home from Lebanon saying they had been abused by their employers, or that they had not been paid for some six months.

Gloria and her officials really have no heart. All they see in the Filipino contract workers is money, money, money, and to hell with their situation — so much so that even the funds reserved for them for such emergencies are not even being provided.

It is timely for the Senate to conduct a probe on these missing OWWA funds. The nation may just discover another thing or two from this thieving government.

Politics and machismo frustrate Philippine efforts at birth control
Friday, July 28, 2006

Nick couldn't believe so many of his friends had become accidental fathers when he returned to the Philippines after five years overseas.
"There are still a lot of people who just don't buy condoms," said the 29-year-old business student.

"It's partly a religious thing - the act of buying them means that you intend to have sex which is a sin in itself. But there are a lot of guys who really don't care if they get you pregnant."

Whether it is inadequate sex education and or simply a macho culture, only an estimated 1.9 percent of married couples actually use condoms and vasectomies mean that contraception in the developing country is seen as the woman's problem.

And a problem it is.

Now home to around 85 million people, the Philippines has one of the fastest-growing populations in Asia with around two million babies born every year, many of them in overstretched public hospitals where new mothers have to share beds.

The number of Filipinos is expected to swell to 142 million by 2040, by Manila's own estimates, and the rapid arrival of new mouths to feed is straining the country's creaking infrastructure and choking efforts to cut poverty.

While family size has fallen to 3.5 children per woman from six in the 1970s, Filipino mothers, on average, still have one more child than they want to, according to research by the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

To deal with the financial and emotional strain, around half a million women are estimated to have abortions every year despite the procedure being illegal and strictly taboo in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country. Nearly 80,000 are hospitalized with complications.

The Catholic faith, which opposes artificial birth control, is often blamed for the population boom. But a government survey showed that among the 51 percent of married women who do not use family planning, only 2.4 percent said it was due to religion.

The main reason for women avoiding birth control, aside from wanting a child, was fear of side effects, sometimes reflecting the negative attitude of their husbands to condoms, intra-uterine devices and pills.

But a lack of education about contraceptives and poor access are also major issues and some experts say the government, under pressure from the dominant Catholic church, is to blame.

"I know so many Catholics practicing modern contraceptive methods and it doesn't bother their conscience," said Eden Divinagracia, executive director of the Philippine NGO council on population, health and wealth. "But the administration right now is not supportive of family planning. The president is playing safe."

Successive governments have shied away from widely supplying contraceptives or teaching birth control in schools for fear of triggering the wrath of the country's bishops, who can make or break an administration.

President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo, who survived an impeachment attempt last year, is particularly reliant on the support of the church and shows no sign of reversing her emphasis on natural family planning over artificial methods.

In the meantime, job creation cannot keep up with the growth in the labor force and education standards are dropping due to overcrowded schools.

Elizabeth Pangalanan, executive director of the Center for Integrative and Development Studies, said the state was conceding to the religion in matters of reproductive health.

"The state should enforce these rights," she said at a recent forum. "The Catholic church has often exaggerated certain issues and takes them out of context. What it needs is honesty and truth-telling, which they often preach, regarding sex education."

With the central administration turning the other cheek and only a handful of local governments devoting funding to condoms and pills, poor Filipinos - who make up the bulk of the population - must rely on foreign donors for contraceptives.

RP’s failure to honor treaty obligations hit
Mark Ivan Roblas

DESPITE getting a seat in the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Philippines has failed to comply in its obligations on treaties related to human rights.

Purificacion Quisumbing, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), said that of the seven treaties that it has signed, the Philippines has consistently failed to submit its reports on time.

The Philippines is signatory to the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights but since the date of the treaty’s signing in 1997, the Philippines has submitted its last report two years ago.

Quisumbing said reports on the treaty obligations need to be submitted every four years, but the government has not complied with this requirement.

She said that on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was signed in 1976, the Philippines is making its report only now.

Quisumbing said that the Philippines report on United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment signed in 1975 was submitted in 1990 and there has no follow up.

She said that on the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, the government has failed to submit any report.

Quisumbing said that despite being a sending country of migrant workers, the government has also failed to submit a report on the International Convention on the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families signed in 1990.

She said what the country was able to furnish regularly, but always late, are reports on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children and the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

Quisumbing said the UN has extended even its patience with the Philippine government allowing it to submit late reports but still failed to do so.

She did not say if the CHR, which she heads, or any other government agency is responsible for the preparation and submission of these reports.

Politics and machismo frustrate Philippine efforts at birth control
Now home to around 85 million people, the Philippines has one of the fastest-growing populations in Asia with around two million babies born every year, many of them in overstretched public hospitals where new mothers have to share beds.

The number of Filipinos is expected to swell to 142 million by 2040, by Manila's own estimates, and the rapid arrival of new mouths to feed is straining the country's creaking infrastructure and choking efforts to cut poverty.

this is serious. mahirap ang buhay ngaun. we should be responsible enough. ndi un anak na lan ng anak. :no:

my god 142 million that's scary. i wouldn't doubt it the way some pinoys have 10 to 18 babies and those are the ones who can't afford to even feed themselves.

Filipina slightly injured in southern Lebanon

A Filipino worker was slightly injured after a bomb blast hit a residential building in Tyre in southern Lebanon, DZMM reported.

Fr. Agustin Advincula of the Our Lady of Miraculous Medal Church in Beirut said he received a distress call from a Filipina Saturday morning. He said the domestic worker asked for help because she and her employer suffered minor injuries from the explosion.

Advincula said he has given the Filipina's contact information to the Philippine embassy and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration so she could be rescued.

He said the Filipina and her employer have fled to a mountain, which is a short distance from the explosion site.

Earlier three Filipino workers also trapped in the fighting in Tyre have been rescued.

The three workers were identified as Reny Carrantes, Adelina Asuncion and Teresita Impelido. Two of them are from Isabela.

Authorities said the evacuees were brought to the Philippine embassy in Beirut. They said the workers will be transported to the evacuation center where other Filipinos are awaiting repatriation.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said a batch of more than 200 Filipinos is scheduled to arrive Saturday starting at 2:15 pm. It added that other groups of evacuees are set to arrive in Manila over the weekend.

According to Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Estevan Conejos, a total of 926 overseas Filipino workers are already back in the country from Lebanon.

A report from The Manila Times, meanwhile, said that 95 percent of the 30,000 Filipino workers in Lebanon have been accounted for, their location already identified.

my god 142 million that's scary. i wouldn't doubt it the way some pinoys have 10 to 18 babies and those are the ones who can't afford to even feed themselves.
Naku sobrang grabe na talaga ang ating population explosion and something has to be done about it whether the Church approves of it or not. As Sandrin aptly put it, "Tigil na mga malilibog na unggoy!"
:nono: :nono: :nono:

3cr, ganun talaga dito, iniimbestigahan at minamanmanan ang mga pino-post mo, saan ka nagpopost, at kung ikaw ay one and the same as any other contributor that is critical of the government or see a lot of the corruption, parang police state baga at hindi nalalayo sa inaasal ng gobyerno ni Gloria,

batu-bato sa langit tamaan ay ....



Tootsjap, Naku tama ka diyan. Napansin ko nga rin bro. Hehehe...
Thanks for the warning!


Ay tinamaan ako dun! Ay nako bahala kayo! Napansin ko lang, natanong ko lang, sapakin ko kayo diyan mga paranoid! Magpapakamatay ako kapag napatunayan niyo sa akin na bawal magtanong sa isang FORUM!!! Nagtanong lang anu po kayang masama don no, kahit na sinagot mo para namang nilait-lait ko yung pagkatao mo. Pasensya na kung marahas, medyo hot lang talaga kayong mga oppositioners sa mga administrationers, just forget it.

Although I'm not for GMA to stay as President, I hope she get's well, delikado pag nawala siya at this time......


Kabayan will rule... :runaway:

Ay tinamaan ako dun! Ay nako bahala kayo! Napansin ko lang, natanong ko lang, sapakin ko kayo diyan mga paranoid! Magpapakamatay ako kapag napatunayan niyo sa akin na bawal magtanong sa isang FORUM!!! Nagtanong lang anu po kayang masama don no, kahit na sinagot mo para namang nilait-lait ko yung pagkatao mo. Pasensya na kung marahas, medyo hot lang talaga kayong mga oppositioners sa mga administrationers, just forget it.

Ikaw naman Otakaw, dinala mo pa yung gulo dito sa bagong thread... :nono: Let there be peace on Earth, please. :nocrook:

^^Ay syempre kailangan kong sumagot no. Natural human instinct. Pero kaya nga may "just forget it" dun sa bandang huli. Kung mas matanda silang dalawa saken, I hope pardonin nalang nila yung ginawa kong ayaw nila, sige na nga mag-aapologize nako for asking why he posted alot of bad news in many threads (Sorry po! hehehe). Bigla lang pumutok yung bulkan kanina, ayoko rin ng gulo eh. hehehe...

Expert ka yata sa bad news, pati sa ibang threads, dami mo ring bad news na napost. Ang title kasi ng thread na ito not so good news...eh di bad news yuon. Sa good news thread ko naman pino-post yung good news. Yung sa ibang thread naman good or bad news basta related sa thread duon ko pino-post yung mga news na iyon. I don't make/write the news bro, I just post them sa forum so please don't shoot the messsenger. Hayaan mo pagnatupad ang mga pangako ni GMA eh di siguradong maraming good news na maipopost sa mga threads! Peace! :)

PS: I came across this website na panay good news lang ang pinopost:
http://www.goodnewspilipinas.com/
I'll post the website sa Good news thread para hindi mo naman sabihin bias ako. Hehehe... :)

oo nga naman he he Thanks for understanding Tess. Just that kung mukhang mas maraming bad news kaysa good news akong napopost, it's not spamming but actually a reflection of the type/kind of news one gets to pick up while surfing the web/net. Sad to say those are actually the kinds of news and headlines posted there that one gets to read sa internet no wonder tuloy how easy for outsiders to have "a not so nice" impression of the Philippines' state of affairs after reading such news. Kasi naman ang ating mga pinoy newspapers panay bad news and sensationalism na lang ang laging naka headline (guess that's what sells). Sabi ko nga earlier I don't make/write the news, I just post them. :)

3cr, ganun talaga dito, iniimbestigahan at minamanmanan ang mga pino-post mo, saan ka nagpopost, at kung ikaw ay one and the same as any other contributor that is critical of the government or see a lot of the corruption, parang police state baga at hindi nalalayo sa inaasal ng gobyerno ni Gloria,

batu-bato sa langit tamaan ay .... Tootsjap, Naku tama ka diyan. Napansin ko nga rin bro. Hehehe... :laugh:
Thanks for the warning!

Ay tinamaan ako dun! Ay nako bahala kayo! Napansin ko lang, natanong ko lang, sapakin ko kayo diyan mga paranoid! Magpapakamatay ako kapag napatunayan niyo sa akin na bawal magtanong sa isang FORUM!!! Nagtanong lang anu po kayang masama don no, kahit na sinagot mo para namang nilait-lait ko yung pagkatao mo. Pasensya na kung marahas, medyo hot lang talaga kayong mga oppositioners sa mga administrationers, just forget it. Hehehe...Otakaw, Open Forum nga ito so wala naman sama magpost ng bad news. Wala rin sama magtanong ka kanya naman sinagot ko naman ng mahusay ang tanong mo ah. Ahhh ikaw ba yung pinapatamaan ni Toots? Ikaw naman o napipikon ka kaagad kanya ka tuloy ginogoyo. Relax ka lang. In the end of the day everyone wants a better Philippines. Peace! :)

Okay, grouphug :grouphug:

^^Ay syempre kailangan kong sumagot no. Natural human instinct. Pero kaya nga may "just forget it" dun sa bandang huli. Kung mas matanda silang dalawa saken, I hope pardonin nalang nila yung ginawa kong ayaw nila, sige na nga mag-aapologize nako for asking why he posted alot of bad news in many threads (Sorry po! hehehe). Bigla lang pumutok yung bulkan kanina, ayoko rin ng gulo eh. hehehe... No need to apologize sa akin Otakaw at wala naman masama sa tanong mo. Hope I was able to answer your question to your satisfaction. I know discussions can get heated so no harm no foul! Peace be with You bro! ... :)

Btw hindi ako oppositionist. Hindi lang ako bilib sa ibang mga pinaggagawang milagro ni GMA kasi nga daming bad news (baho) lumalabas tungkol dito at pati na iba pang mga problema ng bayan na ayaw naman niya at ng kanyang gobyerno harapin, sagutin at iresolba (at and ilan nyon ay aking ipinost sa threads). Tuloy mukha siyang may itinatagong kabahuang ayaw niya malaman ng sambayanang Pilipino pati na ng mga banyaga. Eh hindi naman lahat ng mamamayan ng Pilipinas mangmang at madaling paikutin. Sisingaw at sisingaw ang baho. And she can't just sweep everything under the rug so to speak at kunwari walang nangyayaring mga pangungurakot, pandurugas, pandarambong, at pati na pagpapatay sa kanyang pamumuno.

More than meets the eye...such a really sad state of affairs this is. Pinaglalaruan lang nila tayo.

US designs on the Philippines
By E San Juan

The Philippines has historically been pivotal to the US projection of its military power in Asia and the Middle East. Besides, Filipinos are famous worldwide for being 200% Americanized and martyrs for "Americanism" everywhere.

Washington is now plagued with the mounting disasters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Public resistance to the wars is increasing, especially among military families and business sectors. Meanwhile, the challenges of Iran, North Korea and of course China, not to mention Hugo Chavez's Venezuela and insurgents in Colombia, Nepal and elsewhere, are extremely worrisome to the corporate power elite.

The Philippines is not comparable to oil-rich Indonesia or even touristy Thailand. Nonetheless, the US hegemonic bloc is extremely fearful that a nationalist, nay a left-wing, alternative may take advantage of the chronic weakness of the Filipino oligarchy ridden with corruption, internal antagonisms and sycophancy to corporate US and foreign interests. Preparations to transfer the Okinawa military operations to the Philippines are being expedited, even as the militarization of Japan proceeds without let-up. The Philippines also provides about 10 million migrant contract workers to service corporate globalization around the planet (for example, building Guantanamo prison cells and cleaning the barracks of troops in Iraq).

After September 11, the New People's Army (NPA)and the Communist Party of the Philippines were promptly declared "terrorist organizations" by the US State Department. This was meant to paralyze any international support for the nationalist insurgency. The millions of Filipinos abroad might be a support base for the NPA and the National Democratic Front - just as Islamic nations supported the Moro National Liberation Front during the Marcos dictatorship.

The systematic media exploitation of the Abu Sayaff as somehow comparable in scale to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, together with its linking of the Abu Sayaff with left-wing and nationalist dissent, has conditioned the US public to recent military incursions ("exercises") in the Philippines. It has allowed Bush and his generals to refurbish the politically bankrupt Arroyo and the armed forces of the Philippines as part of their united front against opponents of US neo-colonial encroachment wherever profits can be made.

Ever since the local economic think-tank, Ibon Foundation, and pollsters began documenting the decline of public support for Arroyo amid scandals like illegal gambling (jueteng) involving her family, the US has begun to follow their tested modus operandi on "regime change". They have consulted with opposition politicians, the Catholic Church, the judiciary and of course their military operatives.

Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo solicited the backing of key US lawmakers for Arroyo, such as Republican Senator Thad Cochran, chair of the US Senate Appropriations Committee; Republican senators Robert Bennett of Utah and Jim Kolbe of Arizona, as well as Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein of California (where the majority of Filipino Americans reside). Romulo also got the support of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy defense secretary and adviser to Bush, and one of the shrewd authors of the project to resuscitate the obsolescent American empire in the post-Cold War epoch.

A revealing interview with US diplomat Karen Kelley, suggests the duplicitous mode of preparing for "regime change" as seen from the US Embassy in Manila. While former lackeys of Arroyo are abandoning ship and jumping into the opposition bandwagon, the US poses to defend orderly transition, which means appearing to endorse transparency and accountability while engaged in cloak-and-dagger shenanigans to preserve business and military interests in their former "showcase of democracy" in Asia. The cases of "Cold Warriors" Ramon Magsaysay, Benigno Aquino and Colonel Edward Lansdale of the notorious Phoenix program in Vietnam easily come to mind.

Given the pre-emptive and unconscionable means used by globalizing capital to prevent any real substantive change in the local power hierarchy, we shouldn't be deceived by all this legalese rhetoric about democracy and freedom. It is necessary for all progressive forces not to rely solely on bureaucratic or parliamentary means to get rid of Arroyo and her business network. The few wealthy families have never relied only on peaceful means to seize power and maintain supremacy. Nor have the bourgeoisie anywhere in the world. "Civil society" and state as presently constituted only serve to maintain the seemingly "normal" unequal division of power and wealth. We need to be critical of current institutions and practices, and also guard against sectarian dogmatism and opportunist vanguardism. Let the dead bury the dead.

As events in our history have proved, representatives of the ruling class can never represent the genuine long-term interests of the people. Neither ex-president Cory Aquino nor Arroyo (who represent sections of the privileged minority) can solve the systemic evils of rampant poverty and unnecessary deaths caused by the unequal division of wealth (in particular, land and other means of production) and the chronic backwardness of the economy due to subservience to US dictates (via World Bank - WB - and International Monetary Fund - IMF - conditionalities).

Nor can populist gimmicks tied to ousted president Joseph Estrada and assorted "social democrats" obsessed with capitalist globalization elsewhere except in the Philippines, mobilize informed grass-roots support for a thoroughgoing land-reform program, industrialization, a halt to the overseas workers warm-body export policy, and the genocidal war against Moro and indigenous communities.

How can the owners of Hacienda Luisita and the plantations in Negros, Davao, and elsewhere support the loss of their property and class privileges? How can the classes represented by Aquino, former president Fidel Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo really allow the break-up of feudal privileges and their monopoly of political power in their territories? Behind them stand the corrupt mendacious officers of the armed forces and the police (notwithstanding the presence of some nationalist middle-level personnel in the ranks), as well as warlords and gangster-vigilante formations sponsored by the CIA.

This is not to exclude individual members of these conservative and reactionary groups from joining the anti-imperialist united front. What we need is adherence to and step-by-step implementation of a tactical and strategic program of nationalist development that will mobilize the masses of workers, peasants, women, youth, professionals and indigenous communities. We do not need to repeat the mistakes of the past. What is needed? Not a mountain stronghold policy of imposing a party line in a sectarian manner, but a way of unleashing the energies, wit, cunning and intelligence of the masses to destroy the old structures of oppression and exploitation that have victimized us since the days of Spanish colonialism, and particularly since the missionary agents of the US. "Benevolent assimilation" landed on our shores and civilized 1.4 million dead Filipinos.

We need to initiate and explore new radical means of emancipatory transformation. A transitional nationalist and popular-democratic government is needed to prevent the usual trick of using so-called legal procedures that have always reproduced the status quo to restore peace and "business as usual". If we want to avoid repeating the mistakes of the "People Power I" revolution and the delusions of "People Power II" , we need to rely on a united alliance of armed workers' and peasants' councils, community organizations, existing guerilla forces, and other grass-roots agencies to destroy the mechanisms of imperial domination through the institutions used by the landlords, compradors, bureaucrats and traditional politicians. Otherwise, we will prolong the injustice of the present set-up and the suffering of millions of Filipinos now and in the future.

Only a massive mobilization of the majority of citizens, of all oppressed and exploited sectors, in particular the Moro people and the tribal communities, can rid us of the evils of the exploitation of labor, political tyranny of the US, the WB/IMF, and World Trade Organization, foreign control of the economy, and the racialized inferiorization of our cultural heritage. We need to arm the masses to defend themselves against the counter-revolutionary violence of the US and its local followers.

A thousand defeats and sacrifices litter the past; is history repeating itself? But our countrymen who gave their lives fighting against Spanish, US and Japanese colonialisms speak to us from the future, saying: "A new world is possible. It is there for us to win." Let us seize this crisis of the enemy - the oligarchic elite and US imperialism - as an opportunity to advance the national democratic revolution of the Filipino masses and liberate ourselves from the evils of neo-colonialism, racial and gender oppression, commercialization and globalized misery.


Dr E San Juan Jr was recently Fulbright professor of American Studies at Leuven University, Belgium, and fellow of the Center for the Humanities, Wesleyan University. He also works with Philippine Forum in New York City


http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=12618

THE LONG VIEW
Institutionalized people power

By Manuel L. Quezon III
Inquirer
Last updated 04:37am (Mla time) 07/31/2006

Published on page A15 of the July 31, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

OF COURSE IT WAS CONVENIENTLY IGNORED that while 48 percent of Filipinos (according to Pulse Asia) believe a people’s initiative is the best way to amend our Constitution, 61 percent of Filipinos are not in favor of the way it’s currently being attempted. The percentage is even higher, if you ask people aware of the ongoing efforts: 65 percent of them view the effort with disfavor. To my mind both results make perfect sense. They are complimentary, and they expose the basic issues surrounding the so-called “people’s initiative.”

The idea that ordinary people should have the means to directly propose changes not only to the Constitution but also to our other laws, and even suggest policies to be adopted at the local and national levels, is healthy and potentially revolutionary. The beauty of it is that it affords the electorate a chance to bypass the political parties and professional politicians. The Pulse Asia survey shows that the public recognizes the value of directly proposing changes in our basic law. But as Gilbert Remulla is fond of saying, “the devil is in the details.”

From around August to November last year, I devoted a great deal of time and study to the concept of a people’s initiative. The more I read up on it, the more I was convinced of how underutilized and yet profoundly democratic the idea is.

At the time, I was looking for a means to accomplish several things: First, a way to go beyond the surveys and really find out what the public believed, on a nationwide basis, with regard to the legitimacy of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Second, a constitutionally ironclad manner that might help resolve the crisis without violating the Constitution. Third, a way to fully engage every province in a new kind of people power. And fourth, a resolution that would finally put an end to accusations that everything is decided in Metro Manila; and one that, by its nature, would restore confidence in democracy, since the existing methods ordained by the Constitution, such as impeachment, had been bogged down by administration efforts to hijack them.

Ideally, the best way would have been to mobilize the public to push either for a direct referendum on Ms Arroyo, or for the electorate to propose a snap election to settle the questions as to whether she should stay, or who should replace her (though I felt, and continue to feel, the best solution would be for her to simply resign).

Lawyers solemnly assured me that in the case of a referendum, it couldn’t be binding, so Ms Arroyo could ignore it (even if held), just as she’d ignored calls for her to resign. As for a snap election, again it got bogged down in the constitutional issues: the people would have to propose first a change to the existing presidential and vice-presidential terms; it would have to be approved in a plebiscite; and only then could a snap election be held.

The brick wall was something that, to my chagrin, opposition lawyers seem devoted to, more than those who favor the administration: obedience to the rulings of the Supreme Court. During the failed attempt to extend Fidel Ramos’ term, the Court ruled that the people’s initiative law was flawed. So, said the lawyers, forget about it being useful as a means to amend the Constitution.

So then I looked at the Constitution and had long discussions about it and the implementing law, the rest of which remains valid, and was told something else could be done. Under that law, the public has a right to file resolutions at the provincial level. The provincial board has the option of accepting or rejecting such a resolution. If the board approves it, then it becomes the sense of the provincial board. If the board rejects it, then the members of the public who submitted the resolution can say they are invoking the law on initiative and referendum. They can then pursue the gathering of signatures with the objectives so familiar to us now: a small, but significant, percentage in every legislative district and a corresponding total for the province.

If the advocates of a resolution meet the targets set by law, they can then get the Commission on Elections to call a plebiscite in the province, so that the provincial electorate as a whole can accept or reject the resolution.

The resolution I had in mind was a simple one: expressing the sense of a province on Ms Arroyo obviously in the negative. What would such a resolution have achieved? It would have engaged the public in each province to settling the question, in their minds, of whether they wanted Ms Arroyo to stay in Malacañang, and their answer would have been impossible for both provincial and national officials to ignore. It would have been a democratically authentic answer to the parallel efforts to manufacture the impression that Ms Arroyo is adored not only by her political allies but also by their constituencies.

Again, the devil was in the details, and the details showed how beautiful but subject to abuse by the powers-that-be the people’s initiative is. For the idea to have worked, it was pointed out to me, several things were necessary. Those things turned out to be beyond the power of ordinary citizens to achieve, unless the process took years of toil; and then, only government, with its resources, could manage it. However, the whole idea of a people’s initiative and referendum was meant to serve as an antidote to the stranglehold the professional politicians have over our legal and constitutional system. (To be continued)

:) Let there be peace on Earth, at least sa SSC meron hehehe... Good day to all! :)

KILLINGS!

Student activist killed in Sorsogon
Another student activist from Bulan, Sorsogon was killed by two unidentified men during an early Monday morning ambush, GMA 7's DZBB reported.

Bayan Muna leader, wife ambushed in Kalinga
A leader of the party-list group Bayan Muna based in Kalinga province was ambushed Monday morning by unidentified armed men, seriously wounding the provincial chairman and killing his wife.

Tabloid photojournalist murdered in Malabon
Unidentified men killed Monday morning a photojournalist covering the Caloocan-Malabon-Navotas-Valenzuela (Camanava) beat for a Manila-based tabloid, GMA 7's DZBB reported.

nge? andaming bad news ni sinjin. totoo na we're living in critical times. kaya ang gulo-gulo talaga.

RP on alert for floods, landslides

Article posted July 31, 2006, 3:51 pm
A tropical depression dumped heavy rains in the northern Philippines on Monday, prompting authorities to warn of possible landslides and floods in a region still reeling from two back-to-back storms.

Tropical Depression Henry, packing winds of up to 55 kilometers per hour and gusts of 70 kph, was expected to make landfall later Monday in northeastern Aurora province before crossing northern Luzon and intensifying over the South China Sea, forecasters said.

About 17 provinces were placed under a storm alert and ships ordered to stay in ports. Authorities told residents living along river banks, steep mountain slopes and low-lying areas to watch out for flash floods and mudslides.

Landslides left about 1,400 people dead in the same region two years ago, and in February, more than 1,000 were killed when a single village was buried in mud in the central Philippines.

People living around the slopes of lava-spilling Mayon volcano in Albay province, about 340 kilometers southeast of Manila, were advised to the possibility of lahar flows - a mixture of volcanic mud and water.

Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Bilis left about two dozen people dead in landslides and floods, followed by Typhoon Kaemi, which killed up to 35 people in China after bringing heavy rains to the northern Philippines and Taiwan.

A tropical depression is the weakest type of a cyclone and becomes a storm when the maximum winds reach 63 kph. Henry is the fourth cyclone to affect the Philippines this month, known as the rainiest of the year.

nge? andaming bad news ni sinjin. totoo na we're living in critical times. kaya ang gulo-gulo talaga.

masama kay sinjin yan, dapat good news lang ang binabasa nya. :)

What happened to the OWWA funds? According to Tulfo eto raw ang nangyari...

OWWA money ended up in the 2004 polls; here’s how
By Ramon Tulfo
Inquirer
Last updated 06:21am (Mla time) 08/01/2006

Published on Page A18 of the August 1, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

HERE’S a tip for the Senate on where to find the missing funds of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa):

A total of P3.4 billion in Owwa Medicare funds was transferred to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) before the 2004 presidential election.

The money was supposedly to fund the health insurance coverage of all Filipino citizens by Philhealth. Republic Act 7875 supposedly mandates Philhealth to do that.

In a memorandum to President Macapagal-Arroyo on Nov. 20, 2002, Francisco T. Duque, then Philhealth president and chief executive officer, proposed the transfer of the Owwa Medicare fund to Philhealth.

“The proposed transfer will have a significant bearing on the 2004 elections. I will be available to explain in greater detail the far-reaching implications of the transfer. May I ask that we meet personally?” Duque told the President in that memo.

No wonder Duque is now the health secretary. The Cabinet post was his reward for that brilliant idea.

* * *

Executive Order No. 182 carrying out the transfer of the Owwa Medicare fund to Philhealth was signed for the President by then Executive Secretary Alberto G. Romulo

The EO was issued on Feb. 14, 2003, a year and three months before the 2004 election.

Section 2 of E0 182 stated: “Transfer of Medicare Funds of the Owwa—The Medicare Funds being administered by the Owwa shall be transferred to the PHIC (Philhealth) within sixty days from the effectivity of this Executive Order.”

* * *

The fund transfer was not done outright or in one sitting. It was in tranches. Each tranche was covered by a resolution.

One tranche was for P530,382,446. It was covered by Owwa Resolution No. 005 approved on Feb. 2, 2004.

The resolution was signed by, among other officials, then Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas as chair of the Owwa board of trustees; Owwa Administrator Virgilio R. Angelo, Owwa board vice chair; and Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.

That was for the Owwa Medicare fund amounting to, at that time, P3.4 billion, according to my inside source at the Owwa.

The rest of the Owwa fund was transferred to the National Treasury where the money was disposed of by the Department of the Budget and Management under then Secretary Emilia T. Boncodin.

On Feb. 18, 2004, or three months before the 2004 election, Boncodin wrote Labor Secretary Sto. Tomas reclassifying Owwa from a government-controlled corporation to a regular national government agency (NGA).

“As such, the Owwa shall be subject to existing organization/compensation/budgeting rules and regulations applicable to NGAs. In this regard, all proposals and transactions appurtenant thereto, shall be addressed and coordinated with our Budget and Management Bureau (BMB), the DBM office handling the DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment),” Boncodin said in her letter to Sto. Tomas.

Boncodin was one of several Cabinet members who comprised what is now known as the “Hyatt 10” that called for the President’s resignation in the wake of the “Hello Garci” Scandal.

Boncodin was probably guilt-stricken for taking part in the 2004 election charade.

* * *

Conclusion: The reason Owwa can’t finance the repatriation of 34,000 overseas Filipinos workers (OFWs) in war-torn Lebanon is obvious: It has no money.

“Walang pera ang Owwa, Mon, naubos noong eleksiyon (Owwa has no money, it was spent in the elections),” said my Owwa source who gave me the documents on the fund transfer.


______________________________________________



Fictional Funds
Daily Tribune
EDITORIAL
08/02/2006

By their continued stonewalling through their boycott of the Senate hearings despite a Supreme Court ruling upholding the power of Congress to summon any and all it wants to appear before its bodies for hearings in aid of legislation, Gloria Arroyo and her aides are merely cementing the widespread perception that they are still into covering up one crime after another.

But what they in Malacañang are doing, given the fact that the presidential gag order, known as Executive Order 464, has been junked with finality by the high court, is the clear and willful violation of the Constitution, for which of course, she can be impeached and convicted as positive proof exists.

That all they in the Palace wanted was to evade the Senate hearings was much too clear. Even as the Malacañang letter to the Senate panel stated that the officials summoned by the chamber were much too busy to attend these hearings, as their focus is on helping the overseas Filipino workers’ repatriation, these same officials were obviously not that busy to hold a press conference in Malacañang, claiming to have the funds; that they had remitted so many millions for the evacuation and that everything was being done for the OFWs in war-torn Lebanon.

So why couldn’t they face the Senate panel and tell the senators directly all that they claimed before the media and during the press conference they held in the Palace?

Simple. They wouldn’t be able to make the same claims under oath, and before the Senate panel.

Already, even without the Malacañang aides present, it was already found out that the funds that have been claimed by Malacañang, the Department of Foreign Affairs and OWWA to have been remitted were never remitted to the chief of mission in Lebanon, Philippine envoy Francis Al Bichara. The money was remitted via press release. But what can one expect from the Gloria government that governs through press releases?

Bichara was, so it appears from his testimony via phone patch, ordered to write a letter of apology by Malacañang, for making public the true state of financial affairs vis a vis the evacuation and repatriation work.

And it wasn’t only Bichara who has been ordered to shut up. Philippine envoy to Israel Antonio Modena who had also publicly asked for financial assistance from the Gloria government for the OFWs in Israel, who are also vulnerable to Hezbollah rocket attacks, was directed to shut up too so as “not to embarrass” Gloria further.

Why should she be embarrassed, if she and her aides are doing what they claim, in various interviews and press releases, they are doing?

Just what kind of government do we Filipinos have, for its leaders to keep on lying to the people and covering up crime after crime after crime?

Because it is criminal for an administration to claim that it has been assisting the OFWs in the war-torn countries and remitting millions in funds, when in truth, it has done little, if at all, for the poor OFWs.

The fact alone that these OFWs come in really small batches via commercial flights, already shows that the funds haven’t come, or that it is not the Philippine government that is spending for these repatriates, but an international migrant aid organization which is shouldering the repatriation expenses and the funds to ensure they make it back to their country.

Malacañang, OWWA, Labor and the DFA have all claimed to have sent the funds and that they are all ensuring that our countrymen are being protected, with their flights and their future even being attended to. Yet what has surfaced is that no funds have been remitted, with OWWA remitting less than $20,000 to a representative of OWWA who in turn deposits this in his personal account!

What is evident is that Malacañang dreads the thought of explaining where the P8 billion in OWWA funds went, and worse, it has no funds with which to assist the OFWs in Lebanon for repatriation, because it will be discovered that not only has the Arroyo government not bothered to financially assist these OFWs, but also that Gloria has dipped her hands into the OWWA funds, some half a billion of the money, and for her election campaign chest in 2004, with more transferred to the national treasury for her use.

^^ tsktsktsk ... :no: :no: :no: hindi lang magsasaka (fertilizer fund) ginamit ng mga hayup! pati mga OFW (OWWA funds) nag nagapakahirap sa ibang bansa dugo at pawis pinuhunan iniwan mga mahal sa buhay ...

... di nakapagtataka lakas ng palakpak ng mga demonyo sa congresso nun sona
... mga hayup talaga.... kukunin din ni lord yan mga yan... :no: :no: :no:

^^ Oo nga eh walang mga konsensiya. :nono: :nono: :nono:

What happened to the OWWA funds? According to Tulfo eto raw ang nangyari...


OWWA funds are also spent in helping OFWs in cases of maltreatment or abuse, and other forms of assistance. With thousands of OFWs abroad, and many such cases of abuses, it would be understandable if OWWA funds would be largely diminished.

Is this the best that the anti-Arroyo forces in the Senate can do, grandstand amidst the current crisis instead of helping ensure that these OFWs are safely brought home first? I kind of hoped that they would see this crisis as an opportunity to make up for their poor track record of legislation. I guess not.

Infrastructure plan to cost P372B, says budget chief
XFN-Asia
08/02/2006

THE bold infrastructure program that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced last week will cost 372.02 billion pesos over the next four years, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya said Tuesday.

Arroyo announced thee program in her annual State of the Nation Address, outlining plans for huge spending on roads, rail systems, airports, ports and other public works from this year to 2010.

Critics have questioned how the government will fund the ambitious program, with the country running a hefty budget deficit and spending about a third of its annual revenue on debt servicing.

Andaya said at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday that the 92 "big-ticket" items listed by Arroyo would cost 372.02 billion pesos and that the annual national budgets and concessional loans from foreign funding agencies would absorb about half of the cost, or 186.00 billion pesos.

Local government units will do projects costing a total of 1.33 billion pesos, government-owned or -controlled corporations will shoulder 116.00 billion pesos, and -- build-operate-transfer arrangements -- the private sector could fund 68.40 billion pesos, Andaya said.

"The cost per project can still go up or down, depending on the prices of construction materials," he said. "For example, if oil prices go up, then an escalation in the project cost is to be expected."

In a "worst-case scenario" when the government is left alone to finance the projects, the Arroyo administration would allocate 527.2 billion pesos in the budget from 2007 to 2010 for "infrastructure and emerging projects/priorities" coming from tax and customs collections, he said.

Rail projects dominate the "mega infrastructure" plan, costing 180.15 billion pesos for four projects that will ring Metro Manila with an overhead light rail system and a ground-level track that will run from Malolos City in the north to Legaspi City in the southeast.

Road projects will eat up 101.8 billion pesos, or 27 percent of the program total, for 26 "road packages" consisting of several projects.

Twenty-three airport projects -- four of which are international airports -- will cost 43.10 billion pesos -- 11 percent of the total program cost.

Seaports will cost 15.85 billion pesos, irrigation 12.6 billion pesos, and bridges 5.0 billion pesos.

Copyright 2006 XFN-Asia. All rights reserved.


EIU: Infra spending impossible
By Maricel E. Burgonio, Reporter
Wednesday, August 02, 2006

HIGHER spending in Philippine infrastructure is impossible if the Arroyo administration’s fiscal deficit remains a concern, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The EIU report came just as the government filed a P46-billion supplemental budget in the House and announced a planned cut in borrowings in the fourth quarter.

In its latest risk assessment of the country, the London-based think tank rated the Philippines’ economic structure a “B,” citing the need for the government to spend more to improve the country’s infrastructure. Low spending in infrastructure is the main weakness of the country in attracting more investments, it said.

“So long as the fiscal deficit remains a concern, this will not [be] possible,” the EIU, however, said. Despite this sentiment, the EIU rated the Philippines’ sovereign risk a “B,” as payment difficulties are unlikely in the next 18 months, partly because of the recent progress in reducing the fiscal deficit.

Besides sovereign and economic structure risk, the think tank also assessed the Philippines according to three other categories—political, currency and banking sector risk.

Of these, political risk was the topmost concern with a rating of “CCC,” as the think tank noted that political tensions remain high after the government declared a state of emergency in February. Congress is also discussing options for constitutional reform and the opposition has launched an impeachment motion against President Arroyo.

The EIU also rated the Philippines a “BB” in terms of currency risk, as the peso is expected to stabilize in the remainder of the year.

The think tank gave a “B” rating for banking sector risk, citing the local commercial banking industry’s high bad-loan ratio due to the low quality of bank lending. This was despite the industry’s bad-loan ratio falling to 8.5 percent of total loans at end-2005, but was in line with independent estimates that put the level much higher given questions about the quality of bank lending.

Incompetence versus helplessness
DEMAND AND SUPPLY
By Boo Chanco
The Philippine Star 08/02/2006

During the 20th anniversary cocktails of The Philippine Star last Friday evening at the Makati Shangri-La, a lot of guests wanted to find out from me if I got any response from NAIA authorities about my Domestic Airport column. They all agreed that the Manila Domestic Airport is an embarrassment and a symbol of what is wrong with government bureaucrats today. So, they were curious how such incompetence was explained away.

I had to tell them that, unfortunately, I didn’t get any response, which was as I expected. How can anyone explain lack of action in that aging monstrosity anyway? It isn’t as if they didn’t have the money to have something better there. They do have the money from the terminal fee collections and it must be difficult to explain how they fritter all that money away on things other than providing for the comfort of passengers, something they have paid for.

Don’t worry, I told them. I will propose to United Lab to send their promo girls over to the Domestic Airport to distribute samples of Decolgen Forte and Neo Zep. Between the sauna-like environment in the crowded waiting room and the heavy rains with the flooded tarmac, most of the unfortunate passengers will surely catch if not a cold, the flu. Unilab can do a public service and at the same time promote their products. The DOH should condemn that facility as a health hazard.

On the other hand, we have the MRT-3, whose administrator, former PNP Chief Lastimoso, is crying out for help to prevent the system from self destructing. The system is carrying more passengers than it was designed for. Normally, that should mean more revenues. But the fares are heavily subsidized. That means there aren’t enough funds for expansion of the system to accommodate more passengers.

In the case of Mr. Lastimoso, he claims to be helpless because he has no access to funds to get his job done. In the case of the domestic airport, NAIA administration is just incompetent, because they have funds to get their work done.

In both cases, the President must intervene in the public interest. The unfortunate thing with government is that everything is highly centralized in Malacañang. That’s why the shortcomings of incompetent bureaucrats are justly laid at the Palace door.

There were those who told me at the party that probably the NAIA administration is just waiting for NAIA-3 to get going and the problems at the domestic terminal would be over. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the legal problems of NAIA-3 will be over soon. There are still two arbitration cases pending in Washington DC and Singapore. Now, the Emerging Dragons group is threatening legal action too if they are not allowed to take over the project.

Waiting for NAIA-3 to open is unfair and cruel punishment for the domestic passengers who have to use that decrepit domestic terminal. Actually, if they don’t want to use the money they extort from the passengers to build a decent terminal, they should ask the Gokongwei Group to just build their own terminal, specially because the most affected airline there is Cebu Pacific. With four more new Airbus planes scheduled for delivery this year, the situation there could only get from worse to horribly worst.

I haven’t checked the idea out with the Gokongweis, but they have a real estate group and they should jump at the opportunity to build a terminal that can also house a branch of their department store and grocery chain. Maybe, they can get the LRT to extend their line to the terminal (it ends just a few hundred meters away) that would solve the transport problems of the plane passengers too.

Isn’t anybody even thinking of the NAIA administration? And yes, I still want to know how they are using some P800 million of passenger terminal fees. I am sure they are not using the bulk of it to benefit the domestic passengers who pay all that money.

NAIA-3

Speaking of NAIA 3, Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz was telling me during The Star cocktails that probably the best strategy is to start accepting bids to fully expand the Clark Airport with the end in view of using it as the primary airport for Metro Manila. It would take three years to get that done and by that time, the North Railways should be in place. The North Luzon Expressway and the extension to C-5 via Mindanao Avenue should also be in place by that time too.

I told Secretary Cruz that was precisely what I proposed in this column some months ago. NAIA-3 seems hopeless, specially now that the Association of Structural Engineers of the Philippines has found out, among others, that "the quality of work was not at par and in accordance with minimum acceptable practice, thus diminishing the overall factor of safety of the total ceiling system." So, it isn’t as if NAIA-3 is the only game in town, or even safe to use.

Perhaps, if the NAIA-3 proponents see that government is seriously considering the Clark alternative, that action will drive some sense into their heads. The hard line position being taken by Piatco and Fraport, mostly Piatco, is based on the assumption that we have no alternative.

Well… let us show them.

OWWA funds are also spent in helping OFWs in cases of maltreatment or abuse, and other forms of assistance. With thousands of OFWs abroad, and many such cases of abuses, it would be understandable if OWWA funds would be largely diminished.

Is this the best that the anti-Arroyo forces in the Senate can do, grandstand amidst the current crisis instead of helping ensure that these OFWs are safely brought home first? I kind of hoped that they would see this crisis as an opportunity to make up for their poor track record of legislation. I guess not. It doesn't mean naman that when people dare question the actions of the current gov't that they are already pro-opposition. I think the gov't has a responsibility and accountability to get to the bottom of the issues and face/answer them instead of hiding from them. They owe that much to the people who voted/elected them.


asking for transparency is not pessimism... talking about corruption is not whinning...

I will rally behind your tita arroyo if she will just shed light to what really happen with fertilizer fund, and now the OWWA funds...

for almost 5 years she has been the president... what happen to the previous SANA? until now its a SANA ...

what really is the STATE OF THE NATION after 5 years in malacanang?

corruption and smuggling, kidnappings, petty crimes assinations killings foreign debts, infrastructures, education, living conditions... a country divided... was there really an improvement?

and also BTW jueteng is back ...

thanks to OFWs, BPO we still have a government... but if greed and corruption, unaudited government spending, EO464 will continue... even fairy tales would be impossible to imagine by ordinary filipinos...

... konting transparency lang...

... ipahiya nyo maiingay na opposition, isupalpal nyo sa pagmumukha nila ang auditing ng fertilizer funds at owwa funds... simple lang Doggmann, I agree. This is all they have to do to shut the opposition up for good so why are they hiding if they didn't do anything wrong? I don't get it talaga. Ang pangamba ko lang eh kung itong smaller amounts of money eh nawawala without any accountability, ano pa kaya ang pwedeng mangyari with that large P300+B budget for the SONA projects. I smell kurakot in the air!

It doesn't mean naman that when people dare question the actions of the current gov't that they are already pro-opposition. I think the gov't has a responsibility and accountability to get to the bottom of the issues and face/answer them instead of hiding from them. They owe that much to the people who voted/elected them.

Doggmann, I agree. This is all they have to do to shut the opposition up for good so why are they hiding if they didn't do anything wrong? I don't get it talaga. Ang pangamba ko lang eh kung itong smaller amounts of money eh nawawala without any accountability, ano pa kaya ang pwedeng mangyari with that large P300+B budget for the SONA projects. I smell kurakot in the air!

The media would be a more proper venue for exposing anomalies of the government. The Congress has the prerogative to conduct investigations solely in aid of legislation, and not as a virtual prosecution of a co-equal branch. The latter is the work of the courts.

This is exactly what I worry about especially when it's obvious by past track record there are no checks and balances in place nor accountability for that matter...

‘Super-regions could endup as big sources of graft’
Mark Ivan Roblas
Manila Times
Monday, August 07, 2006

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/aug/07/yehey/metro/20060807met2.html

THE so-called super-regions may just end up as sources of kickbacks for the administration to fund favored candidates in the coming local elections, according to the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC).

At a news conference on Sunday Elizabeth Lacson-Paguio, FDC debt and budget campaign coordinator, said the group would keep track of the implementation of the 92 projects enumerated by President Arroyo in her State of the Nation address.

The SONA was nothing but a campaign speech, she said. In that speech the President hinted there would be funds for those who support her and none for those who oppose her. It was, she added, a carrot-and-stick approach for allies and foes alike.

Mrs. Arroyo’s promise to devolve government powers to the provinces, Lacson-Paguio said, was a mere assurance that funds would be made available to loyal local officials in the elections. It was “patronage politics masquerading as empowerment and democratization initiatives,” she added.

“The super regions being dangled by the government only mean more kickbacks for local government officials,” she also said. “There is large profit that can be made from them, and local government officials may now be computing their cuts.”

Wilson Fortaleza, FDC vice-president, also questioned the ability of the government to finance the super regions projects from savings. He said the government remained in a fiscal bind with debt payments eating up much of its revenues.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20060805com1.html

http://www.tribune.net.ph/pics/edi.jpg

08/05/2006

She really is full of well, manure, Gloria Arroyo is.

Not too long ago, she spoke of an economy poised for take-off, conjuring up visions of the country soon joining the First World nations, followed up by her claim of a P1 trillion massive infrastructure project in super regions that would finally change the face of the country.

Yet in the same breath, she speaks of transforming Filipinos into “supermaids,” out to do a superjob of wiping First World citizens’ asses, a superjob of cleaning homes of Arabs and Israelis even as bombs and rockets explode, making supermeals, take on superblows on their bodies super stoically, get super slaps from their masters, kicked around and raped again and again by their employers, just for a hundred or so dollars that Gloria insists on getting her hands on. And she speaks of her government achieving for the country First World status?

But hey, if the Philippines, as Gloria claims, is on the verge of joining the First World countries, why does she speak of transforming Filipinos into a nation of super domestic workers as the prime export commodity? First World countries hire maids. They do not export them!

And to think she can’t even provide protection for these Filipino workers abroad, during wartime or peacetime. Even before she announced her “vision” of transforming Filipinos into “supermaids,” everytime she went abroad, she would seek from foreign government officials more job openings for Filipino workers. And in her latest trip to Libya, there she was again, working out an agreement with the strongman to get his country to hire more Filipino domestic workers — and not one word of concern for the Filipino workers in Lebanon.

There was too, no mention in her State of the Nation Address of the overseas Filipino workers even as the conflict erupted and deteriorated. Evidently, Gloria and her administrators were still hoping to keep the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in war-torn Lebanon. It is a fact that even as the battle raged between Israel and the Hezbollah, deployment to Israel was not banned.

It didn’t have to take a security analyst to predict a worsening war between the US-backed Israelis and the Hezbollah and what would likely happen when the conflict deteriorated. Yet Malacañang did not move to send money to transport these OFWs to safer grounds — and at a time when the roads leading to Syria and elsewhere were not yet destroyed by the Israeli bombings.

All other foreigners in Lebanon were being evacuated, yet the Philippines merely asked the OFWs to stay put and seek refuge in the Catholic church, as they would not be bombed there by the Israelis.

It now turns out that there are no funds for the repatriation of the OFWs, but trust the Arroyo government to claim that even as it calls for the evacuation of some 30,0000 OFWs in Lebanon, Gloria and her aides claim that the huge majority refuse to come home and prefer to stay in that war-torn country.

But none of these problems are deemed serious by Gloria, since she even speaks of ensuring that war-shocked Filipinos will be trained to become supermaids, and was Gloria proud of it too!

There is no sitting Philippine president — bogus or otherwise — who has brought the portrait of the Filipino before the world to its lowest depths.

What country, what people can be made to take pride in being seen as a nation of domestics who were once teachers and professionals in their homeground? We have doctors who chuck their degrees to become nurses abroad, and those who can’t make as nurses abroad, become caregivers instead. Teachers become maids abroad and those who have had sufficient educational training become drivers and street sweepers in foreign lands, not to mention water carriers and bodyguards of American troops in war torn areas, for Filipinos to take the bullets first. As for the others, they take to the sea, and never mind if they are taken as hostages by rebels. They insist on staying on.

Why would they stay on, knowing the pain and the danger involved in their jobs?

The same answer keeps repeating: They prefer to stay abroad and risk the dangers, rather than come home and have no job and no money for their families. But why is such their mind-set?

The answer of course is the fact that the country has Gloria Arroyo who, even when war breaks out where our OFWs are, continues to encourage Filipinos to seek work abroad and to stay there because her government needs their remittances to keep the economy afloat.

And to encourage them further, she pumps up their importance in foreign lands, saying they can speak the foreign language, are skilled domestics and are being trained to become supermaids.

Perhaps, having transformed this country into a nation of domestics, what the country needs in Malacañang is a domestic worker. After all, they too must be represented in the highest levels of government!

As for Gloria, she can be kicked out of Malacañang and become the symbol of a Filipino supermaid — but no drinking of cognac, night or day please and let her take all those superblows and superkicks from her foreign masters.

^^Hay naku naman susmaryosep, such a BIG waste of newspaper space! The Daily Tribune has somehow turned into a big confederation of bitches who talk dirty ala Oscar Clemente of Bituing Walang Ningning, all rumors, most probably lies and poisonous nonsense. That blabbing paper needs to get a life, seriously...

hey we have to be pragmatic kesa naman nakatunganga sila sa mga probinsya nila. But at the same time they have to continue improving the economy, education ,controlling the pop. and before you know it ,these people wont need to leave home.
as per the opportunity for graft i know Pinoy politicians are notorious for implementing halfbaked projects good only for short term vision while they pocket the rest of the funds. I don't blame this only to GMA because these are crocodiles that cannot be appeased ,they need to be beaten down by a brutal dictator but we cannot have that since we are so afraid of having "GMA president for life".
HOwever I will not preempt and yet be judgemental of the outcome as they are just in the planning stage. I know one thing that the GMA detractors will move heaven and earth to make sure it does not succeed. :bash:

^^ I agree with you that we have to be pragmatic. It just makes me sad that having a "supermaid" program seems to be the best solution our government can come up with. Can we not instead have a program whereby we can train these would-be supermaids, and give them skills other than housekeeping? Maybe invest in some form of cottage industry? :dunno: I'm not apportioning blame for the current situation... just expressing a sentiment.

^^Hay naku naman susmaryosep, such a BIG waste of newspaper space! The Daily Tribune has somehow turned into a big confederation of bitches who talk dirty ala Oscar Clemente of Bituing Walang Ningning, all rumors, most probably lies and poisonous nonsense. That blabbing paper needs to get a life, seriously...That may be the case for some issues, but apparently this "supermaid" business is not. Even CNN deigned to waste space on this issue.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/08/03/philippines.supermaids.ap/index.html

If that's not enough, then a simple search on google should reveal that other agencies have also picked up this bit of news.

^^ That is so pathetic. This is her program for the economy? What a joke. What about spending in education to give them skills so they become more productive in our society aside from household chores?

^^^ Did she say that was the only program for the economy? The maids jobs are even wanted by even lower paid workers from INdonesia, bangladesh , vietnam China. Did you read this
How Teves did it
By Tony Lopez
Monday, August 07, 2006

http://www.manilatimes.net/national...060807bus4.html

Not many people have realized it but Margarito “Gary” Teves has just engineered one of the most incredible turnarounds in government corporate finance history: Ending years of massive government budget deficits into a surplus as early as 2008.

Credit Gary’s education (Development Economics, in London), his long experience as a politician (three terms as congressman), as a bank president (Land Bank), and as an entrepreneur (he put up a think tank), and his enormous people relations skills for his success.

And he has political will. Last year, when President Arroyo was wavering on whether to implement or not the Expanded Value Added Tax, Gary plodded on.

Collecting higher taxes is no easy task. Not when oil prices are breaking thru the ceiling. Not when protesters are spilling into the streets. Not when President Arroyo is faced with attempted coups and impeachment raps. Tax during a turmoil? No way, Jose.

With VAT and additional taxes on liquor and tobacco, revenues climbed dramatically, from P706.7 billion in 2004 to P815.7 billion in 2005 and to an expected P968.6 billion this year.

Next year, revenues could hit the P1.1-trillion mark for the first time, and further to P1.3 trillion in 2008 by which time the budget deficit would have been eliminated.

As a result, the budget gap would decline from P187.1 billion in 2004 to P146.5 billion in 2005, to P124.9 billion this year. Teves hopes that by 2008, the gap would disappear.

A budget surplus is something that has never been achieved before, except for some devious window-dressing of government cash balances like asking government-owned or controlled corporations to advance cash dividends ahead of the year’s end or not paying more than P100 billion in arrears to contractors.

So big is the administration surplus that President Arroyo has just uncorked the most ambitious infrastructure program ever launched by any president, a whopping P100 billion a year over the next four years.

Spending P400 billion in four years, to be matched by the private sector’s own infrastructure spending, with another P400 billion, Arroyo hopes, will bring infra expenditures to 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, five times the current average and the highest in memory.

That should be enough to develop the north and south of the archipelago into two major agri-business centers and the central Philippines into a tourism hub.

At the same time, the price of electricity would be more reasonable, food would become plentiful, goods could be brought to markets, the Filipino worker could upgrade his skills to global standards, and red tape cut to the barest minimum.

Government’s stubbornness to impose the EVAT earned it the grudging admiration and respect of the normally cynical international creditor community. And investors like call center operators and firms engaged in business process outsourcing (BPO).

That in turn has resulted in improved credit ratings which, in turn, brought about lower interest rates for the country’s debts. Arroyo estimates the savings from lower interest payments at P30 billion, almost the size of the record P34 billion profits PLDT made last year, mostly from cellular phones.

Fiscal reform, along with growing OFW remittances and anti-corruption campaigns, resulted in:

• Credit rating upgrade from negative to stable of the Japan Credit Rating Agency (JCRA).

• Upgrade of the debt-rating outlook from negative to stable by Fitch Rating; and

• Revised outlook on sovereign credit rating from negative to stable by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Rating Services.

There is no letup in the revenue drive. Teves has vowed to sell more government corporations. The one overdue is the transmission assets of the National Transmission Corp. (Transco).


ANd this . there is urgency people but it cannot be accomplished in one night.




DepEd to get additional P22 B in 2007 budget — DBM
By Paolo Romero
The Philippine Star 08/08/2006

The Department of Education (DepEd) has been given an additional P22 billion in its allocation in the draft P1.137-trillion national budget for 2007, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said yesterday.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) is set to submit to Congress its proposed budget for next year amounting to P1.137 trillion, which Andaya said was an "education-biased budget," before the month ends.

He said that based on allocations per department, education tops the list with a proposed share of P134 billion, representing an increase of 20 percent compared to its level this year of P112 billion.

"This is the highest increment in the history for education," Andaya said. "It is (meant) to address the agency’s requirements as the student population grows every year."

The forecast enrollment in public elementary and high schools next schoolyear is 18.2 million.

This proposed budget level will allow DepEd to achieve a 1:1 pupil and textbook ratio. To realize this, Andaya said, over P2 billion must be earmarked for reading materials for schoolyear 2007-2008.

Also included in the 2007 budget is P2.4 billion for private high school vouchers, as the number of beneficiaries for this program will be increased by 60,000 students to 607,000.

Also lined up for funding, he said, is a "National English Proficiency program" meant to hone English teaching skills in public schools.

"We are looking at P1 billion for teachers’ training next year," he said.

This allocation will cover the "TeleSerye Para Kay Ma’am" television program that features "subject mastery classes."

Andaya also said there will be a "generous allocation" for classroom construction to accommodate the influx of enrollees increased by the natural growth rate, plus those migrating from private schools.

He said the education and manpower sector, to which DepEd belongs, will actually receive a total increase of P26.5 billion, bringing the allocation for the sector up to P162.6 billion this year.

He said the final figure for the DepEd 2007 budget can still change as it must still be approved by President Arroyo and the Cabinet, "but two things are sure: The 20 percent increase is the minimum and DepEd will retain its number one spot."

Andaya earlier said Malacañang already submitted to Congress a long list of teaching personnel and classroom requirements in its proposed P46.43-billion supplementary budget for this year.

He said the spending measure also gives priority to education, among other agencies, allocating to it the biggest slice of P8.6 billion.


DepEd to get additional P22 B in 2007 budget — DBM
By Paolo Romero
The Philippine Star 08/08/2006

The Department of Education (DepEd) has been given an additional P22 billion in its allocation in the draft P1.137-trillion national budget for 2007, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said yesterday.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) is set to submit to Congress its proposed budget for next year amounting to P1.137 trillion, which Andaya said was an "education-biased budget," before the month ends.

He said that based on allocations per department, education tops the list with a proposed share of P134 billion, representing an increase of 20 percent compared to its level this year of P112 billion.

"This is the highest increment in the history for education," Andaya said. "It is (meant) to address the agency’s requirements as the student population grows every year."

The forecast enrollment in public elementary and high schools next schoolyear is 18.2 million.

This proposed budget level will allow DepEd to achieve a 1:1 pupil and textbook ratio. To realize this, Andaya said, over P2 billion must be earmarked for reading materials for schoolyear 2007-2008.

Also included in the 2007 budget is P2.4 billion for private high school vouchers, as the number of beneficiaries for this program will be increased by 60,000 students to 607,000.

Also lined up for funding, he said, is a "National English Proficiency program" meant to hone English teaching skills in public schools.

"We are looking at P1 billion for teachers’ training next year," he said.

This allocation will cover the "TeleSerye Para Kay Ma’am" television program that features "subject mastery classes."

Andaya also said there will be a "generous allocation" for classroom construction to accommodate the influx of enrollees increased by the natural growth rate, plus those migrating from private schools.

He said the education and manpower sector, to which DepEd belongs, will actually receive a total increase of P26.5 billion, bringing the allocation for the sector up to P162.6 billion this year.

He said the final figure for the DepEd 2007 budget can still change as it must still be approved by President Arroyo and the Cabinet, "but two things are sure: The 20 percent increase is the minimum and DepEd will retain its number one spot."

Andaya earlier said Malacañang already submitted to Congress a long list of teaching personnel and classroom requirements in its proposed P46.43-billion supplementary budget for this year.

He said the spending measure also gives priority to education, among other agencies, allocating to it the biggest slice of P8.6 billion.


DepEd to get additional P22 B in 2007 budget — DBM
By Paolo Romero
The Philippine Star 08/08/2006

The Department of Education (DepEd) has been given an additional P22 billion in its allocation in the draft P1.137-trillion national budget for 2007, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said yesterday.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) is set to submit to Congress its proposed budget for next year amounting to P1.137 trillion, which Andaya said was an "education-biased budget," before the month ends.

He said that based on allocations per department, education tops the list with a proposed share of P134 billion, representing an increase of 20 percent compared to its level this year of P112 billion.

"This is the highest increment in the history for education," Andaya said. "It is (meant) to address the agency’s requirements as the student population grows every year."

The forecast enrollment in public elementary and high schools next schoolyear is 18.2 million.

This proposed budget level will allow DepEd to achieve a 1:1 pupil and textbook ratio. To realize this, Andaya said, over P2 billion must be earmarked for reading materials for schoolyear 2007-2008.

Also included in the 2007 budget is P2.4 billion for private high school vouchers, as the number of beneficiaries for this program will be increased by 60,000 students to 607,000.

Also lined up for funding, he said, is a "National English Proficiency program" meant to hone English teaching skills in public schools.

"We are looking at P1 billion for teachers’ training next year," he said.

This allocation will cover the "TeleSerye Para Kay Ma’am" television program that features "subject mastery classes."

Andaya also said there will be a "generous allocation" for classroom construction to accommodate the influx of enrollees increased by the natural growth rate, plus those migrating from private schools.

He said the education and manpower sector, to which DepEd belongs, will actually receive a total increase of P26.5 billion, bringing the allocation for the sector up to P162.6 billion this year.

He said the final figure for the DepEd 2007 budget can still change as it must still be approved by President Arroyo and the Cabinet, "but two things are sure: The 20 percent increase is the minimum and DepEd will retain its number one spot."

Andaya earlier said Malacañang already submitted to Congress a long list of teaching personnel and classroom requirements in its proposed P46.43-billion supplementary budget for this year.

He said the spending measure also gives priority to education, among other agencies, allocating to it the biggest slice of P8.6 billion.

^^ I agree with you that we have to be pragmatic. It just makes me sad that having a "supermaid" program seems to be the best solution our government can come up with. Can we not instead have a program whereby we can train these would-be supermaids, and give them skills other than housekeeping? Maybe invest in some form of cottage industry? :dunno: I'm not apportioning blame for the current situation... just expressing a sentiment.

That may be the case for some issues, but apparently this "supermaid" business is not. Even CNN deigned to waste space on this issue.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/08/03/philippines.supermaids.ap/index.html

If that's not enough, then a simple search on google should reveal that other agencies have also picked up this bit of news.

oh crap! its on CNN?? :ohno:
IMO the government should rather teach our OFWs on how to invest on financial markets, or create a cooperative that would cater for small deposits to invest on GICs (Guaranteed Investment Contract) or at least force saving/retirement plan... and for those who have young families to support provide some educational plan...

... huwag naman supermaid... prang nakakaawa naman tayo nyan ... :(

“The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest” ~ Albert Einstein

I didn't know where to post this... hehe... but i wouldn't say it qualified as good news, so I ended up posting it here... just to lighten things up... hehe lol :okay:
would you say it's true? :lol:

---

Published on Page A1 of the August 9, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

LONDON -- Filipinos said they engaged in acts of sexual self-stimulation almost six times a week, the most of any nationality.

South Korean men, meanwhile, are having sex more times a week than anyone else in the world, though Brazilian men are at it with a wider range of women, suggests an international survey published Monday.

The poll of 40,000 men for Men’s Health magazine found that Britons spent the most time on foreplay but flopped when it came to endurance.

Mexicans came in first in stamina in the bedroom.

On average, South Koreans said they were having sex at least four times a week.

Most faithful

Brazilians topped two categories, with 19 percent saying they had had a threesome, which might help account for them having clocked up the most lovers at 11, according to the internationally published fitness magazine.

Polish and German men were found to be the most faithful, with 62 percent having never cheated on their partner, followed by Australians (60 percent) and Dutchmen (59 percent).

Those Italian men

British men spend -- or claim to spend -- an average of 17.44 minutes on foreplay per sex session, longer than Australians (17.2 minutes), Germans (16.92 minutes) and Mexicans (16.91 minutes).

But British men last only 18.64 minutes from foreplay to climax, far behind the Mexicans (23.17 minutes) and the Dutch (22.42 minutes).

Sixty percent of Italian men said they made their partner climax every time. Agence France-Presse

Source (Published on Page A1 of the August 9, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer )

That may be the case for some issues, but apparently this "supermaid" business is not. Even CNN deigned to waste space on this issue.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/08/03/philippines.supermaids.ap/index.html

If that's not enough, then a simple search on google should reveal that other agencies have also picked up this bit of news.

CNN's edition is not poisonous I should tell you, I havent read anything from CNN telling its readers that the president of a certain nation is full of manure, my stance will be the same as it is albeit I believe sending "supermmaids" is a pathetic idea!!!! What a moronic way of trying to improve our economy, sending more Filipinos abroad away from their family!

Don't tell me after so many pathetic ideas of GMA you only noticed this one.

Don't tell me after so many pathetic ideas of GMA you only noticed this one.
:rofl: :rofl:
:runaway:

talo si Villoria :(

Nino dethrones Viloria to win WBC light flyweight crown
Agence France-Presse
Last updated 11:29am (Mla time) 08/11/2006


LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Mexico's Omar Nino, fighting past 10 rounds for the first time in his career, dethroned previously unbeaten Brian Viloria here Thursday to claim the World Boxing Council light flyweight title.

The challenger from Guadalajara, in his first fight outside Mexico, took a unanimous decision by judges' scores of 118-110, 117-111 and 117-112 and dedicated the triumph to his son Omar Jnr, born just 15 days earlier.

"I have been looking for this title for so long," Nino said. "I was so well prepared. I knew if I fought well I could do it. I was just determined to win. I knew I was going to do it."

Nino improved to 24-2 with one drawn while Viloria suffered his first loss after a 19-0 start to his pro career. It was the second defense of a title he took from Eric Ortiz last September.

"I was disappointed in my performance," Viloria said. "I just fought a really dumb fight and he fought my fight. I just had a bad night."

The result dims the chances for a showdown fight against undefeated World Boxing Association champion Koki Kameda of Japan. Viloria said talk about a fight with Kameda was not a distraction to him for facing Nino.

"I came prepared for this fight. I just had a bad night and Omar fought a smart fight," Viloria said. "He stayed on his toes. He didn't engage with me. I waited too late."

this news from Philstar seems both good and bad news...you be the judge.....



Armed men beat up four traffic enforcers

The Philippine Star 08/12/2006

Four traffic enforcers, accused of being mulcters, were beaten up by four armed men in Muntinlupa City last Thursday night.

SPO1 Ricardo Gomez said the incident happened at around 10:15 p.m. along the National Road in Barangay Tunasan while traffic enforcers Bayani Pagkalinawan, Raul Orallo, Noel Catabay and Lydia Voces were on duty.

He said the suspects, armed with handguns, accosted the four enforcers and ordered them to lie face down on the pavement. The gunmen divested the traffic enforcers of their cellular phones, handheld radios and wallets.

The suspects then proceeded to punch and kick the four enforcers.

They then dumped Orallo near a lamppost and placed on his neck a placard with the words "Huwag Pamarisan, Buwaya ng Lansangan." The note was signed "Juan dela Cruz."– Rhodina Villanueva

In the Know: Sierra Madre


Inquirer
Last updated 05:26am (Mla time) 08/13/2006

Published on page A14 of the August 13, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

SIERRA MADRE is the longest mountain range in the Philippines. It has a total area of about 1.8 million hectares straddling nine provinces from Quezon in southern Luzon to Cagayan in the north. It also holds 40 percent of the country’s old growth forest.

In March 1997, the 45-km radius from Palanan, Isabela was declared a protected area and has since been known as the Sierra Madre Natural Park. It covers 287,861 ha or nearly half of the 700,000-ha remaining old growth forest cover in the country, but not for long.

Harvesting of trees and other forest products is highly restricted in the area and requires special permits under the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park Act of 2001.

In 2001, a Conservation International report said that 46,622 cubic meters of timber from 857 hectares were taken yearly. Logging also destroys old-growth forests at an average rate of 21,536 ha a year. The same report says 100,000 ha are destroyed every year by timber poachers.

In 2004, timber volume brought down from the Sierra Madre was getting smaller and smaller. It meant only one thing, the DENR said: There are no more mature trees in the mountain.

The extent of the effects of logging in the so-called “backbone of Luzon” became evident by the end 2004, when floods and landslides killed nearly a thousand lives and destroyed billions worth of property in Quezon, Aurora and Nueva Ecija. The tragedy was considered a result of logging activities in Sierra Madre.

Illegal logging has also not stopped and continues to destroy the mountain range. Mel Lawrence de Guzman, Inquirer Research


Copyright 2006 Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://newsinfo.inq7.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view_article.php?article_id=14974

Palace restores permit to log in 36,000 ha in Sierra Madre


Inquirer
Last updated 05:26am (Mla time) 08/13/2006

Published on page A14 of the August 13, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

LUCENA CITY—A license to cut trees in more than 36,000 hectares of land in Sierra Madre was approved by unidentified Palace officials after it had been cancelled earlier by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, according to environment groups fighting logging in the logged over mountain.

The Quezon Provincial Multisectoral Forest Protection Council (QMSFPC) and two other environment NGOs said a forestry contract of the Timberland Forest Products Inc. (TFPI), owned by Bulacan logger Wilson Ng, was reinstated on orders of Palace officials.

Johnny Glorioso, QMSFPC committee on information chair, said he was stunned when he got the information from DENR regional executive director Antonio Principe during the launching of Green Philippine Highways in Lucban town Thursday.

“The reinstatement has been recently approved with finality by Malacañang though TFPI has yet to start its operation due to some (unsubmitted) requirements,” Glorioso quoted Principe.

He said the controversial Integrated Forest Management Agreement (Ifma), or license to cut trees, has long been opposed by residents and local officials of Real, Infanta and General Nakar towns. “And now here comes this final Malacañang decision allowing it to proceed operations.”

The 25-year Ifma, covering 36,660 hectares in the Quezon province part of Sierra Madre, was granted to Ng on Nov. 12, 2002, during the term of former Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez.

Alvarez’s successor, Elisea Gozun, revoked the Ifma on Jan. 13, 2004, saying “fraud, misrepresentation and omission of material facts” surrounded the process by which the DENR granted the Ifma contract.

In a past interview with Ng, he admitted that he appealed his case to Malacañang.

Based on DENR records, TFPI’s Ifma was reinstated by the Office of the President on March 4, 2005, four months after the tragic flash floods and landslides in the three Quezon towns.

The decision was immediately protested and contested by residents, local officials and environmentalist groups.

The Palace held back the implementation of the decision for further study.

Lawyer Asis Perez, executive director of Tanggol Kalikasan, a public interest legal defense center for the protection of the environment, and Catholic priest Pete Montallana, Task Force Sierra Madre chair, both confirmed Glorioso’s information.

Montallana described Malacañang’s approval as “nauseating.”

“It seems that Malacañang has not learned the lessons left by the 2004 calamitous flash floods and landslides,” Montallana said.

Perez said they were inclined to believe that President Macapagal-Arroyo had nothing to do with the reinstatement of Ng’s controversial Ifma.

“President Arroyo has cancelled all logging permits. But then suddenly here comes this Ifma approval. We will continue to vigorously oppose it,” Perez said.

The head of DENR-Quezon took a safe distance from the controversy.

“I know nothing about that. Ask the DENR central office,” he told the Inquirer.

The environmentalist groups vowed to continue to protest any form of logging in Sierra Madre.

“Any form of logging in Sierra Madre is abominable,” Montallana said.

The Social Action Center of the Prelature of Infanta has long been opposing not only TFPI’s Ifma but also the continuous logging operation of Green Circle Properties and Resources Inc., a real estate development company said to be owned by lawyer Romeo Roxas. Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon


Copyright 2006 Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://newsinfo.inq7.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view_article.php?article_id=14971

Don't tell me after so many pathetic ideas of GMA you only noticed this one.
Well, unlike a narrow-mided, one-sided person like you, I don't only recognize GMA's good deeds, of course she would have mistakes on her own, after all, she's HUMAN JUST LIKE YOU. Unlike you who clings only to the negative things our president has done in her term, I on the other hand not only support her good endeavors but also becomes concerned with the mistakes she may commit as president.

:rofl: :rofl:
:runaway:
There's nothing funny when someone is humiliating another person as if you were perfect.

Mga Bwisit ng Magnanakaw

Rob gang preys on passengers inside NAIA Terminal 1
By Rainier Allan Ronda
The Philippine Star 08/14/2006

A robbery gang with members masquerading as security personnel is operating right inside Terminal 1 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), where they prey on Japanese passengers of the different international flights.

Lawyer Angelito Magno, head of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) at the NAIA, said that they were now coordinating with the Manila International Airport Authority’s Airport Police Department (APD) to identify and collar the suspects.

NBI agents are investigating the robbery that victimized Kasai Takao, a Japanese passenger of Northwest Airlines last Aug. 9.

Job Gayas, NBI-NAIA special investigator tasked by Magno to pursue the investigation, said Takao had just disembarked from Northwest Airlines Flight NW 19 from Narita, Japan last Wednesday and was walking along the west concourse at Terminal 1 when three men wearing beige-colored "barong" or formal polos stopped him for a body and baggage inspection.

The "security check" included an examination of his bag, where he had an envelope containing cash worth P50,000.

Takao said that after the security check, he went through the immigration and Customs gate.

Outside the terminal, he checked on his envelope containing the money. To his surprise, the envelope was missing from the bag.

"We are now coordinating with the APD because we need their help in solving this case," Gayas said.

For his part, MIAA General Manager Alfonso Cusi said he had ordered the MIAA-APD to help the NBI in the investigation.

" I have also ordered the APD to undertake its own investigation," Cusi told The STAR.

The airport chief said he had ordered a review of the closed circuit TV camera recordings that monitored the west concourse area last Aug. 9 to check the alleged robbery incident right inside the said terminal.

"We will get to the bottom of this incident," Cusi said.

Airport sources said that after the robbery on Takao last Aug. 9, another robbery targeting a Japanese passenger was said to have been perpetrated using the same modus operandi last Saturday.

The MIAA had gone on a heightened security alert mode last Thursday night after the foiling of a terror plot to blow up US-bound flights from London using liquid-based explosives.

The heightened alert also included a prohibition on liquids and gels and such items initially only on US bound flights.

Last Saturday, the Department of Transportation and Communication’s Office of Transportation Security widened the scope of the liquid and gel prohibition to all international and domestic flights coming in and going out of all the airports in the Philippines.

CNN's edition is not poisonous I should tell you, I havent read anything from CNN telling its readers that the president of a certain nation is full of manure, my stance will be the same as it is albeit I believe sending "supermmaids" is a pathetic idea!!!! What a moronic way of trying to improve our economy, sending more Filipinos abroad away from their family!

It's not actually about "sending more Filipinos" but merely facilitating the migration of those who want to work as domestic helpers abroad. The government has different training programs in TESDA, it just so happens that there are more openings for helpers. It's not necessarily the only solution that the government takes in solving the unemployment problem.

^^Oh is that so, well I thought it was the way I thought it was because our friendly negative forces are kind enough to imply that this is another proof that GMA is manure. So much for being aligned with the opposition, sheeesh!

GMA’s OK for OWWA funds for poll campaign bared

By Angie M. Rosales
Tribune
08/15/2006

Truth will come out.

Senators yesterday learned that indeed President Arroyo knew beforehand that the distribution of Philippine Health Insurance Corp.’s (PhilHealth) cards, funded by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) funds in the tune of half a billion pesos would be used to boost her campaign for the May 2004 presidential elections and that she even agreed to such an arrangement.

But Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, at the time President and chief executive officer (CEO) of PhilHealth when it distributed millions of beneficiary cards in 2004, which showed a significant increase in the enrollees after the national polls, which was discovered by the senators last week, was quick to explain that the actual transfer of funds to finance this, amounting to half a billion, happened only seven months after the elections.

Senators, in seeking clarification from the source of the estimated P500 million funds in the PhilHealth program undertaken in 2004 from OWWA funds through a public investigation by the upper chamber’s labor committee, were informed by its chief Marianito Roque that the decision for him and other concerned officials on whether to attend the proceeding was made by Malacañang on their behalf.

These developments took place during the continuation yesterday afternoon of the Cabinet officials’ briefing on the proposed twin supplemental budgets, the P46.4 billion for national appropriations and P500 million repatriation funds to members of the Senate finance committee.

Panel chairman Sen. Franklin Drilon and several other senators, particularly those coming from so-called administration bloc in the upper chamber, however, noted several new items under the called P46.4 billion supplemental budget in the tens of billions of pesos, which were not included in the unapproved 2006 proposed General Appropriation Act (GAA).

Sen. Joker Arroyo threatened to bring this issue personally before the Chief Executive should the Palace insist on having this implemented while refusing to provide justification.

Senator Arroyo, in expressing disgust over what he noted as an apparent attempt of the Palace to circumvent the laws in Congress’ role approving the budget by continuously enforcing a reenacted budget, pointed out that under such situation they are being rendered inutile as far as being an “independent” institution

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago joined Senator Arroyo in lambasting the Executive department in its attempt to be given budget that would effectively give the administration higher spending power than the figures presented in the unapproved 2006 appropriations, citing the lack of legal basis for most of the requests made by Mrs. Arroyo in the P46.4 billion supplemental budget.

Besides Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Rolando Andaya who underwent intense grilling from the administration lawmakers, Duque and Roque were treated similarly by the opposition members when the matter of alleged misuse of OWWA funds was taken up.

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, chair of the committee on labor, employment and human resource development that is currently investigating the OWWA fund mess, managed to squeeze information from the two officials when he questioned the P530 million workers’ trust fund transferred to Philhealth and another P500 million Mrs. Arroyo supposedly ordered released, charged to OWWA funds during the time of the late Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople.

He confronted Duque on some documents he got hold of containing information related to these matters.

“I am in possession of your letter to Mrs. Arroyo dated Nov. 20, 2002 when you were still president and CEO of Philhealth and in the last paragraph, you said, ‘PHIC will need a reasonable lead time to ensure a smooth turnover of OWWA Medicare to PHIC and manage some assistance from certain quarters which will be affected by the change. It is respectfully requested that the proposed EO be approved by Her Excellency before the year ends.’

“And this is the most controversial line here...’the proposed transfer will have significant bearing on the 2004 elections and on the President’s desire to provide health insurance to eight million indigents by the end of 2003.’ My question is, what do you mean by ‘the proposed transfer will have significant bearing on the 2004 elections?” Estrada asked.

Duque quick in assuming responsibility over the fuss created by the fund transfer said it was his fault that such a “sloppy-written” memo came out.

“The whole point of having that written note to the President was really to tell her that if the transfer of the OWWA Medicare to Philhealth was not going to be implemented or effected in an orderly way, it could mean for her to lose some political capital, especially with respect to the OFWs (overseas Filipino workers),” he explained.

“So you mean to say you distributed these Philhealth cards for election purposes… during elections?” asked Estrada.

“No your honor that was far from the intention”, was Duque’s immediate reply adding that they started the program as early as 2001.

But Estrada managed to have him confess that they did distribute during the polls but claimed these were given to the beneficiaries who are OFWs, emphasizing that these were bona fide members of OWWA.

“Eight million?” Estrada pointed out, recalling the testimony earlier last Thursday where the agency’s beneficiary cards jumped from a mere 9.9 million cardholders to 15.3 million after the polls.

Duque, in further explaining, unwittingly gave more questionable information saying that of the half a million OWWA medicare members were to be covered when the program was handed over to PhilHealth. It managed to spend P469 million in issuing cards to a total of 436,000 cardholders.

“How many PhilHealth cards were distributed during elections? The senator inquired.

“Under the regular program, I think we had a total membership of about two million,” Duque said.

“And all of these beneficiaries are all registered voters?” Estrada asked to which he was given a reply by Duque that the matter could be best explained by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

“What has Comelec got to do with this PhilHealth cards?...Is your position a reward for what happened?” Estrada asked then went on to say:“So you have admitted to the Senate committee on finance that you have distributed PhilHealth cards before and during the elections of 2004?” the senator asked.

“Before, during and after the elections,” the health secretary even clarified.

“To the advancement of Mrs. Arroyo,” Estrada emphasized.

Duque, disagreed saying that the distribution of cards were well-within the PhilHealth’s cause arguing in between with the lawmaker, saying the issue on the effect of a smooth transfer “will make her win some political points with the OFWs” was due to his being candid with the Chief Executive.

The intention to effect the transfer was done with legal basis, Duque added, in the law mandating the unification of all the medicare systems of SSS, GSIS as well as OWWA.

“It was our sad experience in the transfer of the SSS medicare in 1997, we had been confronted with a lot of opposition and a lot of resistance from the originating system. So that generated some controversies as well..we didn’t want to have the same experience to happen in the proposed transfer of the OWWA medicare to Philhealth,” he said.

He further claimed that while the President approved the transfer through the issuance of an executive order in Feb. 14, 2003, the amending EO to implement the program and actual turnover of the funds totaling P530 million only took effect in March 2005, in tranches with the initial release of P300 million and the second and remaining amount of P230 million in April 19, 2005,

Estrada said even assuming the transfer had been effected after the elections , it still holds that the distribution of the Philhealth cards was done during elections.

As to Roque, Estrada was able to have the OWWA chief admit that the Palace indeed intervened on the matter of their appearance before his committee during the two previous public hearings inquiring into the fund controversy, which proceedings are currently put on hold by the Senate leadership.

Estrada initially asked Drilon whether the committee chair provided advance questions to Malacanang to allow their presence in their briefing on the supplemental budget to which he was a negative reply.

“None for the record. For the record, there were no advance questions (sent to them),” said Drilon.

Estrada then turned to Roque whom he interrogated for the no-show in his called public hearings yet was reported present in the press conference held at the Palace simultaneous in the ongoing proceedings and later appeared as a guest in a television public affairs programs, an apparent contradiction that the senator noted to the claims made by Executive Sec. Edgardo Ermita that the OWWA chief and other labor officials were then engaged in the evacuation process of the government.

Roque claimed that his public appearance was made “so that the public may know the efforts” being made by the government.

As to his attendance to the said briefing, Roque said they are no longer as busy as before, having managed to repatriate a number of OFWs stranded in Lebanon the past few days, allowing them to respond to other engagements such as that called by the upper chamber yesterday.

On the issue of the memo signed by Ople, the matter, Roque said, remains subject for approval of the OWWA board of trustees, despite what the senator claimed as marginal note made by Mrs. Arroyo to effect the release of P500 million worth of workers’ funds.

Amnesty warns GMA gov’t to halt political killings
By Michaela P. del Callar
Tribune
08/16/2006

International pressure on President Arroyo has increased on the issue of the continued spate of political killings, along with unsolved cases, with Amnesty International (AI) bluntly stating that her government runs the risk of retaliatory assassinations for having failed to protect individuals and their human rights.
At the same time, pressure from the European Union (EU) is building up on a related issue, with the EU calling on Mrs. Arroyo to ratify the Rome Statute that has created the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is given jurisdiction over perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, among other crimes.
Earlier, the EU also scored the Philippine government for the spate of political killings of militants and journalists.
The Arroyo government has been resisting the country’s ratification and a Department of Foreign Affairs source told the Tribune that the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police leaderships have thumbed down the idea of ratifying the ICC, saying the “leftists groups” are likely to file “frivolous” and “politically motivated” cases against them. Witnesses have pointed to the AFP and the PNP as the perpetrators of human and civil rights abuses, including summary executions.
AI, in its report released yesterday, warned that the Arroyo government risks retaliatory assassinations unless it stops the spate of political killings.
Amnesty, an international human rights group, said Mrs. Arroyo and her government had “failed to protect individuals and their human rights.”
Since the President came to power in 2001, a disputed number of left-wing political and human rights activists, trade union leaders, lawyers, journalists, religious leaders and judges have been killed in the Philippines.
According to the local human rights group Karapatan, there have been over 700 politically-motivated murders in the Philippines in the last five years.
Amnesty, however, put the number at 114 which is the figure used by the official government task force set up to investigate the murders.
“Stemming this tide of killings requires genuine political will to ensure prosecutions in all cases, not only the 10 cases in 10 weeks recently called for by President Arroyo,” said Tim Parritt, Southeast Asia researcher at Amnesty International.
“Threats of retaliatory assassinations by insurgents raise the prospect of a spiral of violence and abuses,” the report said.
“Amnesty International is concerned that a long-existing failure to prosecute and convict those suspected of human rights violations is having a corrosive impact on public confidence in the rule of law.
“Of 114 killings recorded since 2001 the police have arrested suspects in just three cases and no convictions have been reported,” AI said in its 51-page report Philippines: Political Killings, Human Rights and the Peace Process.
“Solving these crimes does not mean simply the police filing a report with the prosecutor. It means an independent and effective investigation followed by a fair trial and punishment of those found responsible. Only then can justice be said to be done.”
Parritt said the failure to identify and investigate suspects is fueling a lack of trust in the police and aggravating the lack of convictions.
“Witnesses are afraid to come forward. Victims’ families are liable to refuse to involve themselves in police investigations or to withdraw from court proceedings,” he said, stressing that “those responsible, including any from the security forces, must be prosecuted and punished. It must be established whether there was an official chain of command underlying both the crime and its cover-up.”
Amnesty said it was concerned that the government’s declaration of “all-out war” on communist rebels paves the way for further increases in killings.
“Most of those killed are members of legal leftist political parties which despite their legal status have been accused by senior government officials of being front organizations for illegal communist armed groups,” Parritt said.
“No one deserves to die for their political affiliation. It should be a deep embarrassment to the government that people in the Philippines cannot freely exercise their rights of political expression and association.”
Amnesty said the killings have contributed to the breakdown of the peace process with the communists and said that only when the government takes decisive steps to prevent and prosecute political killings can any hope for peace be realized.
Also, the international media group Reporters Sans Frontieres or Reporters Without Borders yesterday condemned the continued violence against journalists in the Philippines following the ambush on a tabloid reporter and threats sent to a broadcaster.
“President Arroyo’s announcement of an offensive by police and judicial authorities raised hopes of a decline in attacks on journalists and human rights activists, but this has not happened,” it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the EU yesterday urged the Philippines and other Asian countries anew to ratify the Rome Statute that has created the ICC.
Ambassador Jan de Kok, Head of Delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines, has called on Asian Parliamentarians in a meeting in Manila to push the ratification of the statute to hasten the effective functioning of the ICC.
“The European Commission reaffirms its commitment to pursue European Union’s worldwide campaign toward the universal ratification of the Rome Statute,” De Kok said.
The Asian Parliamentarian Consultation Meeting at the Senate is attended by members of Parliament from Asia and other parts of the world, and is supported by the European Commission.
It aims to gather and foster support from countries in the region for the ratification and effective implementation of the Rome Statute, which entered into force on July 1, 2002.
The ICC will have jurisdiction over perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity – offenses that threaten the peace, security, and well being of humankind – including some acts which may be characterized s terrorism, as well as aggression.
However, the Philippine military and police have rejected this call, with the diplomatic source saying that “the military is concerned leftist groups may file frivolous and politically motivated cases against them.”
The United States also objected to the treaty because any American prosecuted by the international court will be denied procedural protection to which all Americans are entitled under the bill of rights of the US Constitution.
Washington threatened to cut military assistance to countries, which will ratify the statute.
In 2003, the Philippines and the US signed an executive agreement on the mutual non-surrender of each other’s nationals, which includes military personnel, government officials and civilians, to third parties and grant them immunity from prosecution under the ICC.
But until now, Malacanang refuses to transmit the instruments of ratification to the Senate, six years after Manila signed the statute in 2000.
“The European Commission’s Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights has provided over euros 20 million since 1995, mostly through civil society organizations for projects aimed at supporting the international criminal justice system,” De Kok said.
In February 2004, the EU developed an action plan on the International Criminal Court, detailing a wide range of the Union’s initiatives to support the Court.
The plan, the envoy said, envisages that the EU, among others, mainstreams the ICC in its political dialogs with third countries, and integrates an ICC clause into the negotiations of external agreements.
In addition, the EU is committed to support the strengthening of domestic judicial capacities, in countries where the ICC has commenced investigations, to ensure that local jurisdictions are able to deal with crimes covered by the ICC, De Kok said.

Definitely not good news...
Pls note that I am not an anti-GMA nor pro-GMA and I am sending the below article from a columnist NInez Cacho-Olivares, just to balance the forum in this thread which I think is heavily pro GMA. Let's give everyone a chance to read all the comments from all sides.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Super Monster
EDITORIAL by Ninez Cacho-Olivares of the Daily Tribune
08/12/2006

It is now Gloria Arroyo, not the Supreme Court (SC), who is the final interpreter of the law and the Constitution. More to the point, Gloria has vested unto herself, the power to amend the Constitution, as she pleases.

Thus, no matter the clear ruling of the high court on Executive Order (EO) 464, or the infamous presidential gag order, Gloria has issued guidelines — not to her officials in her executive department, but to a co-equal branch, the Legislature — for the Congress to follow.

Instead of the three-day period called for by the Constitution for Congress to submit its questions to the executive and only in matters pertaining to the Question Hour, where executive privilege can be invoked — her guideline calls for 15 days notice and a list of questions to be asked by Congress.

Moreover, even as congressional rules do not allow lawyers of persons summoned before Congress in hearings to speak or intervene and interfere, Gloria has ruled that government-assigned counsels must be allowed to consult the President before answering any questions that may concern executive privilege.

There are questions moreover, that Gloria, in her guidelines, directs Congress not to do, such as that which says executive officers will not be allowed to answer questions that “contain arguments; include offensive language; relate to matters pending in court; refer to internal affairs of a foreign country; seek an opinion or a question of law; refer to matters falling under the responsibility of another department head; repeat questions already answered; violate the rights of the official testifying and raise issues not pertinent to the subject of the inquiry.

These guidelines clearly amend the provisions in the Constitution, as well as the high court’s ruling on EO 464, which distinguished the powers between the executive and the legislature.

The SC ruling said that while there can be no blanket ban on government officials, including the military and the police from attending congressional inquiry without prior consent of the President, the executive may still invoke the privilege in certain cases. In its ruling last April 20, the SC declared invalid Sections 2(b) and 3 of EO 464 but declared valid Sections 1 and 2(a) of the executive order.

Section 2(a) of EO 4644 states executive privilege covers all confidential or classified information between the President and the public officers; military, diplomatic and other national security matters which in the interest of national security should not be divulged; Information between inter-government agencies prior to the conclusion of treaties and executive agreements; discussions in close-door Cabinet meetings and matters affecting national security and public order

Under Section 2 (b), officials within the coverage of EO 464 are senior officials of executive departments; generals, flag officers, and other officers of the Armed Forces; Philippine National Police (PNP) officials with the rank of chief superintendent or higher and other PNP offcials; senior national security officials who in the judgment of the department head are covered by executive privilege, as well as such other officers as may be determined by the President also to be covered.

Section 3, on the other hand, states all such officials should first secure the prior consent of the President before appearing in a congressional inquiry.
The SC, in its ruling, said executive officials are not mandated to appear during Question Hour but they are compelled to attend congressional inquiries in aid of legislation.

In making a distinction between congressional investigations in aid of legislation under Article VI, Section 21 and investigation during the Question Hour under Article VI, Section 22, the Court said that the former should be untrammeled because it is co-extensive with the power to legislate of Congress.

Investigations in relation to the Question Hour, however, do not relate to specific legislations but are directed merely to congressional oversight over the implementation of laws.

The only way department heads may be excused from inquiries in aid of legislation, according to the Court, is when the President invokes executive privilege, but this must be so stated in writing and in any case, this hearing must be done in an executive session.

The Senate is reportedly poised to again bring the matter to the high court, which will again have to rule on whether it wants to give its blessings to an emerging super monster in Malacañang or stand up for the rights of the people, through their representatives in the Senate.

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Tanong: Meron ba silang Pampakain at Pangpaaral sa mga bata. Wala na bang ibang libangan dyan kundi gumawa ng bata. Tao ba sila o unggoy o rabbit?


Three Filipino babies are born every minute
By Roderick T. dela Cruz

THREE babies are born in the Philippines every minute, but there are indications population growth is slowing because one in every four births is a first-born, a government agency says.

The National Statistics Office says it arrived at the figure based on the 1.669 million live births it recorded in 2003 from the birth certificates at the Local Civil Registry Office.

It says the live births in 2003 compares with the 1.667 million recorded in 2002 — or a very slight increase of 0.2 percent.

“In 2003 the daily occurrence of births was 4,574 or 190 babies born every hour or three babies per minute,” the agency says.

But there are indications population growth is slowing because one in every four births in 2003 was a first-born.

“As the birth order increases, the number of babies decreases,” the agency says.

Its data show that 19 percent of all newly born babies were the second child in each family, 13 percent represented the third, and about 1.3 percent represented the 10th child or over.

The crude birth rate—the number of live births for every 1,000 population—dropped to 20.6 in 2003 or 1.9 percent less than in 2002.

The total fertility rate—the average number of children a woman would have when she reached the age of 50—came in at 2.6, down from about three or four children decades ago.

The survey also shows that more male than female babies were born in 2003—or 868,749 males and 800,693 females. This means there were 108.5 male babies for every 100 babies born in 2003.

Most of the babies born that year were born in Luzon including 281,063, or 16.8 percent, in Metro Manila.

The babies born in Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon represented 14.2 percent of the total, and those born in Central Luzon accounted for 11.7 percent.

Despite the slowing fertility rate, the survey indicates that some of the mothers who gave birth in 2003 got sexually active early. Mothers aged 15 to 24 delivered a third, or 595,427, of the total births that year.

Teenage mothers contributed 123,865 births or 7.4 percent of the total, while about 756 mothers delivered their first-born at an age below 15.

The median age of the female and male parents of children born in 2003 was consistent with the previous year’s 27.6 and 31.4, respectively.

Of the total live births, 1.123 million babies or two-thirds were delivered with help from medical staff including physicians, nurses, and midwives.

The rest or 544,244 were delivered by unlicensed midwives or attendants.

nako maghinay hinay ng baby making. one child lang per couple. If our pop doubles in twenty years , the PHils will suck to live in.

^naku po huwag naman sana ano. Ang alam ko ang doubling rate ng pop natin ngayon is 30 years pa. Kung 20 yun, ewan ko na lang.

^that's only in figures but reality maybe 10 years dumodoble.
this is an urgent issue but as usual nonchalant attitudes prevail.

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=business01_aug28_2006

Malampaya EO sparks row

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s decision to revoke a contract awarded to a foreign company for oil production in the Philippines has sent a shudder through the heart of the foreign investment community.

The President’ Executive Order 556 effectively terminated Malaysian-based Mitra Energy Ltd.’s rights to take part in the development of oil deposits in the Camago-Malampaya field off western Palawan Island.

“Mitra won the tender fair and square and at the stroke of a pen it was taken away. There was no warning and no explanation,” one industry source who declined to be named told AFP.

Oil exploration publication Upstream said the move was “understood to be due to pressure from influential Filipino business interests, which do not want the potentially lucrative projects to be awarded to a foreign company.”

Mitra secured a preliminary agreement with a unit of Philippine National Oil Co., PNOC Exploration Corp., which owns the Malampaya oil rights, on June 1 this year and the order was released on Aug. 11 but backdated to June 17.

“It sounds like the abrogation of an agreement,” said Peter Wallace, a consultant for foreign multinational corporations with over 30 years of experience in the Philippines.

He said investors were increasingly concerned about the “sanctity of contracts in this country”, and there were unsubstantiated claims of one major foreign producer pulling out of a government deal since the Mitra order.

The order included a directive that bars PNOC and other government agencies from sub-contracting out work covering exploration, known as farm-in, or development, known as farm-out, in the Camago-Malampaya reservoir.

It said all arrangements entered into by the PNOC “which violate this Executive Order shall be immediately discontinued or cancelled.”

The executive order also caught PNOC and the Department of Energy by surprise as neither knew anything about it, analysts told AFP. Both declined to comment on the issue.

And the unease was reflected by the French Chamber of Commerce, which wrote to Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila, saying it would question the exclusion of PNOC and the energy department from such a decision.

“We, the French Chamber of Commerce, are of the opinion that if indeed that was so, this occurrence would not help the establishment of confidence in the Philippine market which we have been trying to fight for.”

Mitra spokesman Chris Whitmee told AFP: “We spent a great deal of time and upward of a million dollars preparing for this bid. Having it taken away from us without any explanation has taken us completely by surprise.” AFP

http://business.inq7.net/money/topstories/view_article.php?article_id=17513

Gov't urged to address worsening red tape

By Ronnel Domingo
Inquirer
Last updated 09:54pm (Mla time) 08/27/2006

Published on page B1 of the August 28, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE GOVERNMENT should focus on cutting red tape if it wanted to boost the country's global competitiveness as an investment location as it takes an average of 48 days to register a business and 197 days to secure all the needed government permits, a meeting of business leaders and economic managers last Friday found out.

According to the Philippine Exporters Confederation, where the government and the private sector are represented, the team of leaders agreed that streamlining, decentralization and automation of government frontline services were key in addressing the matter.

Philexport said hapless businessmen face costs that were "unreceipted," lack of transparency in the process of securing the necessary papers for their enterprises, circuitous procedures and bribery.

"In getting through those labyrinthine processes, an investor has to unravel where to start and often shell out more cash on (unofficial) fees that do not go to the coffers of government," the group said.

Philexport added that excessive red tape was identified as one of the root causes behind the continued slide of the Philippines in its global competitiveness ranking.

In the latest World Bank ranking, the country placed 133th among 155 countries in terms of ease in doing business.

"Red tape, which often results in astronomical costs and the waste of valuable time in doing business here, will be one of the key problems which the National Competitiveness Summit on Sept. 29 is set to tackle, with specific actions already identified," the exporters said.

The group also identified the needed concrete actions and plans to curb red tape: identification of which agencies cause the most bottlenecks; streamlining and decentralization of business processes and putting them under one umbrella; dissemination of policies and procedures; review and immediate implementation of the e-Commerce Act as it applies to government;

Automation of business processes and link up agencies involved in business processes leading to paperless transactions; build an information technology-based Philippine Business Registry that integrates the databases of both the DTI and the SEC and harmonizes business registration, data requirements and payment systems, and overhaul Bureau of Customs processes and procedures and make them more transparent to plug revenue leakages.

"The list of things that can be done to reduce red tape in government soonest has been getting longer as more cases on the ground reached the working team," Philexport said.

Relate Site:
Philippine Exporters Confederation

VAT leaks cost up to P75B — BIR
Daily Tribune
09/01/2006
http://www.tribune.net.ph/business/20060901bus1.html

Leakages in the collection of the expanded value-added tax (e-Vat) cost the government from P60 billion to P75 billion in missed revenues a year, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said yesterday.

Internal Revenue Commissioner Jose Mario Buñag said the BIR is implementing measures to plug the leakages in VAT collections by improving data gathering of business operations of big taxpayers.

Last year the e-VAT law raised the VAT rate to 12 percent from 10 percent and included products formerly exempt from the VAT such as oil products and electricity consumption.

BIR Deputy Commissioner Lilia Guillermo said the leakages stem mainly from the use by some enterprises of fake receipts.

Guillermo said the BIR has intensified its efforts to detect fake or undervalued receipts. Fake receipts are mainly the basis for the filing tax evasion cases against businesses, that if caught, would have to pay tax deficiencies with penalties.

Bunag said the BIR’s program for the profiling of businesses and industries would result in the exposure of business firms and industries that do not report the true value of their sales or fail to issue sales receipts on which the VAT is based.

“We will not hesitate to file tax evasion cases against the president and officers of corporations that evade the payment of VAT,” Buñag said.

“We expect to reduce this leakage to P11 billion or P7 billion this year,” Bunag said.

Guillermo said the BIR is now registering more taxpayers. At the beginning of this year, the BIR had enrolled six million taxpayers in its data base. “Right now this has grown to eight million,” Guillermo said.

The BIR surpassed its collection goal for the six-month period from January to June this year by P1.15 billion.

The BIR said it collected P302.028 billion during the first semester, surpassing its goal of P302.028 billion for the period by P1.15 billion or 0.38 percent. Based on total collections of P243.8 billion for the same period, in 2005, the BIR increased its tax take by P58 billion this year.

With the BIR cutting down the leak in VAT collections, Bunag said the BIR is expected to further improve its collections by the end of the year.

http://www.abante.com.ph/issue/aug3106/main.htm

VAT HINDI NIRE-REMIT
(Boyet Jadulco/Rose Miranda/Juliet de Loza/Noel Abuel/Armida Rico)
Abante

Bugbog-sarado sa pagbabayad ng value added tax (VAT) ang electric consumers sa bansa subalit ang buwis na ibinabayad ay hindi umano nare-remit o hindi pumapasok sa kaban ng bayan.

Ito ang natuklasan ni Sen. Ralph Recto matapos makita ang discrepancy sa presentasyon ng nalikom na kita ng Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) para sa unang anim na buwan.

Sa pagdinig ng congressional oversight committee on comprehensive tax reform program sa pinamumunuan ni Recto, inusisa ng senador si BIR Commissioner Jose Mario Bunag kung bakit malaki ang diperensiya ng buwis na ipinapataw ng mga distribution utilities sa bansa kumpara sa buwis na nakokolekta ng gobyerno.

"Where is the balance? Where does it go?, " pagtatanong ng senador ay Bunag.

Anang senador, 1.6 percent lamang ang nakokolektang VAT ng pamahalaan sa power sector gayung ang VAT na ipinapataw sa consumers ay 12 percent.

"Bakit ganun, mataas ang VAT na ipinapataw natin sa electric consumers pero maliit lamang ang nakokolekta ng gobyerno?," anang senador.

Dahil dito, nangangamba si Recto na baka may mga kumpanya o opisyales ng BIR na nakikinabang sa nawawalang VAT collections na sa tantiya ng senador ay aabot ng ilang bilyong piso.

Hindi naman maipaliwanag ni Bunag ang discrepancy sa kanilang presentasyon subalit nangako itong ipasisilip niya ang bagay na ito.

Samantala, nagturuan kahapon ang economic team ni Pangulong Gloria Arroyo sa inilutang na anomalya sa VAT collection mula sa electric consumers.

Sa panayam ng Abante, sinabi ni National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary General Romulo L. Neri na wala silang nalalaman sa nasabing discrepancy sa VAT collection.

"I don't know anything about this, this is the first time I've heard of it," wika ni Nero sabay turo kay Finance Sec. Margarito `Gary' Teves na aniya'y makakasagot sa isyu. Tinangka ng Abante na kunin ang panig ni Teves ngunit hindi nito sinasagot ang kanyang cellphone.

Maging ang kampo ni Budget Sec. Rolando Andaya ay walang maibigay na komento pero nangakong aalamin ito sa lalong madaling panahon.

Samantala, naniniwala si Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) spokesman Gerry Corpuz na iniipon ng pamahalaang Arroyo ang nakokolektang VAT sa electric consumers para gamiting pondo sa 2007 elections.

Inihayag pa ni Corpuz na maaaring ang nakokolektang bilyong VAT sa kuryente na hindi napupunta sa national treasury ang siya umanong ginagamit na panggastos ng administrasyon sa mga maluluhong lakad sa abroad.

Kasabay nito, sinabi ni Corpuz na dapat I-audit ng Commission on Audit ang VAT collection at buksan ang book of accounts ng kaban ng bayan para malaman kung magkano ang hindi nare-remit na buwis.

Samantala, nanggalaiti naman ang mga ordinaryong mamamayan sa hindi pagkaka-remit ng ibinayad nilang buwis.

"Dapat lang na busisiin pa ng Senado, dahil tiyak na hindi naman kikilos ang Malacañang kasi sariling tao nila sa BIR ang posibleng kasabwat sa pagbubulsa ng bilyun-bilyong salaping kinukurakot sa electric consumers. Wala ring tiyak na pakialam diyan ang Kamara dahil karamihan sa mga kongresista at tuta ni PGMA," ani Gil Tria, 45, electrician.

"Mabuhay ka Recto...sana katulad ka ng ibang senador na may balls na suriin at hanapin ang nawawalang perang ibinayad ng electric consumers bilang buwis," wika naman ni Jerry Ocampo, 37, vendor.

HELP SAVE the Philippine-Made Quality SHOES

Trade Liberalization and the Demise of the Local Shoe Industry .

Manilans, the next time you buy shoes. Go directly to MARIKINA to despise these cheapies-monger mall. huwag kayong magpapauto sa mga tsekwa!

The demise of Philippine-made shoes is a result of decades of government neglect and intensified by just a few years of aggressive liberalization under the World Trade Organization.


By JP Andaquig

IBON Features

Posted by Bulatlat



Shoemaking has always been the bread and butter of 40-year-old Johnny Gaudia. Like nearly everyone else in Marikina City, shoemaking for Gaudia is a family business. He became interested in shoe production when his in-laws encouraged him to take up the craft, being shoemakers themselves.

While his in-laws produced mostly baby shoes, Gaudia and his wife decided to specialize in men's leather shoes and put up Gaudia Shoes Manufacturing in 1986. Eventually, his company diversified into the production of casual shoes, school shoes, sandals and slippers, using both leather and synthetic materials.


WORKING HARD FOR THE MONEY.
Filipino shoemakers are among those affected by trade liberalization.



But the Philippine shoe industry has fallen on hard times. Gaudia Shoes belongs to the more than 80% of registered shoe manufacturers in the country that fall under small-scale and cottage industries, which are usually family-owned and produce hand-crafted shoes using only sewing and trimming machines.



Gaudia told IBON Features his company used to employ some 100 workers and received an average of 10,000 orders every month, usually from large-scale retailers and malls such as Shoemart, Plaza Fair and Gaisano Mall. Now, however, he would be lucky to accept about 100 orders in a week. More often than not, his company has no orders for weeks. He had to lay off most of his workforce and now employs only a few "on-call" workers as his production dramatically dwindled.

Gaudia, a member of the Samahan ng mga Magsasapatos ng Pilipinas (SMP), currently spends most of his time as part of the technical team formed by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) that regularly inspects incoming volumes of shoe imports and monitors their valuation. His efforts are an attempt to save the industry that has enabled him to send his four children to school, and to fight what he perceives as the main reason behind the industry's demise: the onslaught of cheap imports as a result of trade liberalization.

Disastrous for local shoemakers

Gaudia's experience is neither new nor unique. Since the 1990s, footwear groups in Marikina and other areas have been warning against the influx of cheap goods from China, Korea, Taiwan and other countries due to liberalization, which intensified when the country became a member in 1995 of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

True enough, shoe imports have been arriving in increasing volumes year after year. From 1997 to 1999, the country imported an average of 38.5 million pairs of shoes. By 2001-2003, the volume zoomed 56 percent to 60.2 million pairs.

And this only covers legally imported shoes. Smuggling has also reportedly become rampant although government has yet to release actual figures of the extent of the problem.



Nevertheless, the impact has been disastrous for local shoemakers, particularly in Marikina and Laguna. Almost a century of rich shoemaking tradition in Marikina was lost when many small manufacturing firms closed down, retrenched workers, sold Chinese imports themselves or entered into exploitative subcontracting arrangements with foreign corporations.



From 513 registered manufacturers in 1994, there are only 145 remaining in the country's shoe capital. More than 600,000 shoe workers lose their jobs every year and average production has dwindled from 105,000 pairs of shoes a year in 1994 to 42,000 pairs in 2003.



The downswing in demand for locally-made shoes is apparent as Filipinos continue to flock to flea markets and tiangges in Greenhills and other commercial centers, where an ordinary pair of counterfeit Nike shoes can go for as low as P300.



Due to the cheap price, only a few would purchase more expensive locally-made leather shoes even if they are marketed as made in Marikina. Add to this Filipinos' continuing preference for foreign shoe brands such as Skechers, Nike, Adidas, and Converse, most of which are subcontracted by their mother companies to factories in China and other countries with low labor costs.



Dominated by imported shoes



Gaudia, like other shoemakers, laments the fate that has befallen the local shoe industry. He said that in the past, one can go down Shoe Avenue in Marikina and hear the sounds of workers drafting and assembling soles and shoe lasts. At present, the sounds have diminished and one can only see a few shops with stocks of finished shoes wrapped in plastic and ready to be delivered.



In the past, the local shoe industry even supported the growth of other small establishments such as panciterias and other eateries where workers would get their evening snacks. Downstream industries also benefit from the industry, such as local tanneries which produce the processed leather or animal hide needed in the manufacture of shoes.



From the 1950s to the 1980s, the SMP said that the Philippine shoe industry experienced a boom owing from strong local and international demand. During these years, many Filipinos wore locally-made shoes such as the Ang Tibay and Mabuhay brands, and carried locally-made leather handbags and purses. These products were also exported to foreign markets or ordered by local Chinese distributors for marketing in the provinces, the SMP added.



At present, 80 percent of the Philippine market is dominated by imported shoes and leather products from China. Filipino shoemakers have to compete for the remaining 20 percent of the market with imports from other countries.



Aggressive liberalization



The demise of Philippine-made shoes can be attributed to decades of government neglect and just a few years of aggressive liberalization. Imports have literally killed the local shoe industry. Even government has admitted this, but is evasive on calls to protect the sector by halting importation.



Compared to foreign shoe companies that have access to government subsidies with which to invest in improving their technologies, the local industry continues to use traditional low-tech methods, relying on the skills and ingenuity of Filipino shoemakers.

The SMP says that local shoemakers cannot compete on price alone as they are plagued with high production costs. About 75 percent of their manufacturing costs come from the sourcing and processing of raw materials such as leather hides, which they have to import since local tanneries were not developed enough to meet large-scale demand. It is estimated that around 80% of the components of finished local leather footwear for export are imported.



Worse, shoe imports are grossly undervalued. Liberalized customs rules have enabled technical smugglers to flourish, says Gaudia. An average pair of imported shoes in 1997 was valued at $12 but by 2002, the same pair had a valuation of $0.76.



Gaudia points out that the use of transaction value as the means of customs valuation have hurt local producers. Transaction value refers to the value agreed upon by the seller and the importer, and is not based on the actual cost of materials or the market price of the produce when sold in the local market. This has enabled unscrupulous importers to have their stocks undervalued by Customs inspectors. Given the seething corruption in the agency, importers are finding it easier to pay less in duties for their imports which they would sell either at knock-off prices in flea markets and discount stalls, or at its original market price in malls and high-end shops.



Crushing local industries



Liberalization in essence has allowed the greater entry of imports into the country, destroying local industries and making local production more import-dependent. And with institutions such as the WTO enforcing rules on further tariff reduction, the worst may still befall our local producers, including our shoemakers.



Gaudia pointed out that footwear is not covered by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), but it was still liberalized by the government under the Tariff Reform Program.



Despite the government's thrust to liberalize and enforce an export-oriented policy, the local shoe industry never became competitive in terms of state subsidies. Unfair trade arrangements have also made it impossible for local shoe exporters to gain a greater share of the international market. With local shoe technology still way behind that of China, the US and the EU, as well as stringent safety and quality standards enforced by rich countries, exporters face an uphill battle.



Worse, footwear products are targeted for further liberalization under the WTO's upcoming Sixth Ministerial in Hong Kong this December. The reduction of industrial tariffs, or non-agricultural market access (NAMA), is one of the major issues set to be negotiated at the ministerial. People's groups and non-government organizations have warned that once this new agreement is implemented, local manufacturing industries face extinction. "Parang nakabaon ka sa lupa, huhukayin ka pa nang mas matulin (We already feel we're below the ground, and now says Gaudia.



Saving the industry



Gaudia says that the only chance for Filipino shoemakers to survive is for local consumers to return to the appreciation and patronage of local products. He calls this the economics of nationalism: ensuring Filipinos buy Filipino-made products. But this cannot be realized without full government support.



The SMP has also been making some inroads in monitoring reports of undervaluation. Though Gaudia admits that he has had many frustrations on the job, their team has been able to prevent the entry of undervalued shoes, or increased their valuation. For example, a pair of Diadora brand shoes declared as $2 per pair was revalued to $13.75 upon intervention by Gaudia's team. Unfortunately, many members of the monitoring team have received death threats allegedly from importers and customs insiders affected by their monitoring.

Nevertheless, Gaudia feels this is the best way he can contribute in saving the industry his livelihood has depended upon.

In particular, the SMP has called on the government to undertake the following measures:

Creation of a National Footwear Authority that would safeguard and protect the interests of the local footwear industry;

Strict implementation of Republic Act 8800 which requires the imposition of safeguards whenever a deluge of imports have affected local production, and the Consumer Act which requires the labeling of products sold locally.

Formulation of a standard for quality and safety

In the long-term, however, local shoemakers, as well as other manufacturers, would benefit from the reversal of liberalization and the reorientation of government policies towards those that favor domestic producers over foreign corporations. (With reports from Joseph S. Yu) Ibon Features/Posted byBulatlat

I can relate. :( My late father used to have a bag and suitcase factory. At its peak in the 1970s they were working double shift to cope with demand. By the 1990s the business was reduced to him, a brother of mine and a labor subcontractor from Bulacan. And despite all the cost cutting puhunan pa lang mas mataas pa sa retail price ng imported from China! :gaah: How can we compete?! Sure we could have jumped on the bandwagon and become a distributor too but his health was failing by then and we children all had our own careers. He retired in disgust instead.

The local manufacturers are hurting due to dumping and smuggling while the nation loses income from custom's tax collection.
We should revive our local industries.

Easy Money! Easy Money!
The entire nation must unite to destroy the plaque that corrupts the youth!
We should investigate the entire police force and purge the ones who are dealing with the drug lords. This is serius!

RP drug trade now P700 B a year’
By Delon Porcalla
The Philippine Star 09/06/2006

Peddling illegal drugs has become a lucrative trade in the country with its dealers earning a staggering P700 billion every year, tax-free.

Undersecretary Romeo Vera Cruz of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) made the disclosure at the House of Representatives during the hearing into the so-called shabu tiangge (flea market) raided by the police in Pasig City last Feb. 10.

In a Powerpoint presentation, Cruz said the drug trade can be considered a multimillion-peso business in the Philippines, judging from the current street price of shabu at P5,000 a gram from just below P2,000 in 2000.

"That’s (more than) half of our national budget," Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez said.

Cebu City Rep. Antonio Cuenco, vice chairman of the committee on public order and security committee, said the estimates make the illegal drug trade the biggest industry, dislodging even the most profitable companies involved in the manufacture of alcohol and tobacco.

"If this illegal drug trade will further flourish, this will represent what we have seen in the movies as ‘Clear and Present Danger’," Suarez said, referring to the political drama starring Harrison Ford.

Cruz disclosed that around 9.3 million Filipinos — more than 10 percent of the country’s 84-million population — are drug users at 29 years old, are mostly male and are earning an average of P30,000 monthly.

Shabu remains the "most frequently abused drug," followed by marijuana, industrial glue commonly known as rugby, cough syrup and the designer drug Ecstasy, according to DDB.

Suarez, a member of the two House committees, noted the financial advantage of drug lords as against the limited resources of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

Suarez said PDEA has been allocated P140 million in funds under the proposed P1.136 trillion national budget for 2007.

"Imagine, you are fighting with at least a P350-billion industry (going by the P2,000 per gram benchmark). We have to have a bigger budget for PDEA. I will move the budget of PDEA not to be approved. It doesn’t even have enough personnel," Suarez said.

He said the drug trade has reached a "very alarming and frightening level" that undercover police agents no longer coordinate with local authorities during raids for fear that the drug-bust may be jeopardized.

"Imagine, the local police and local government have not been informed? That’s very alarming and frightening. Probably that’s why these drug lords can buy everybody, from the police up to the judiciary," Suarez added.

Cuenco agreed with the observations of Suarez.

"That’s why these drug lords can always buy their way out," he said, adding, "Maybe 90 percent of heinous crimes are even drug-related."

"And this (drug industry) is not even taxable. This is not VAT-able. This is the biggest industry so far, bigger than the alcohol and tobacco industries," Cuenco said.

Dangerous drugs committee chairman Ilocos Norte Rep. Roque Ablan said the drug problem has become a "global epidemic" that needs to be addressed at the soonest time possible.

Yung mga horny dyan, mabuti nya sa inyo, parusa yan sa mag imoral!

One-third of Pinoy HIV carriers working abroad

ONE-THIRD of all Filipinos who are positive for HIV or AIDS are people working abroad or have worked abroad, a United Nations report says.

That makes the Philippines the country with the highest number of migrant workers who are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, says the 2006 State of the World Population Report published by the United Nations Population Fund.

“Although there is little data on HIV and migration in poorer parts of the world, migration has been associated with an increased vulnerability to communicable diseases,” says a copy of the report e-mailed to Standard Today.

The report cites a Department of Health study saying that of the 1,385 Filipinos reported as HIV-positive in 2005, 33 percent or about 457 were migrant workers—and 74 percent of them were male.

“The link between population mobility and HIV constitutes one of the most poorly understood and overlooked factors behind the rapid spread of the disease,” the report says.

Early this year, the health department recommended the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases.

“There is a need to urgently address limited access to essential public health services including but not limited to family planning, tetanus toxoid immunization, and condom use for the prevention of HIV/AIDS,” the department says in a report to a government group working on Millennium Development Goals.

“Right now we are not allowed to procure contraceptives because it is against our policy on family planning,” says Yolanda Oliveros, director of the health department’s National Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

“But we recommend [that people buy] condoms to curb the incidence of HIV/AIDS in the country.”

The health department gets condoms from donor countries. But the United States and other donors have withdrawn P840 million in annual donations for birth-control devices to the Philippines following the government’s stated policy against their use.

The phaseout started in 2004, and it’s expected to be completed next year unless the government decides to come up with a definitive family-planning program to curb its high population growth rate, which results in two million Filipinos being born every year. Joyce Pangco Pañares

Business urges focus on English, Science, Math

BIG BUSINESSMEN are grumbling: Not enough Filipino college graduates are meeting their job requirements.

Fears also abound in the business community that if Filipino students do not shape up, particularly in English, Science and Math, they will consign their country to be an also-ran economy in Asia.

“There was a time in the mid-50s when the Philippines was in the same league as Japan economically and academics-wise,” says Lucio Tan, one of the country’s wealthiest industrialists.

“Fifty years down the road, we are not only lagging behind, we are almost dead last in the ASEAN region,” he says, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

“Our leaders and educators know what went wrong; they just don’t have the political will to correct the mistakes of the past,” he adds.

Alfred Ty, vice president of the Metrobank Foundation, has a similar plaint.

“Most graduates are not well-prepared for the realities of the job market,” Ty says. “Thus, a lot end up jobless. The needs of industries and college preparation do not match and continue to drift apart.”

Lance Gokongwei, president of JG Summit Holdings Inc., says industries need more blue-collar workers, not white-collar skills. Even if the skills are there, he says, they still have to be honed in company-designed training programs.

Gokongwei says his senior staff insists there was a bigger pool of skilled workers to choose from before the education system fell apart during Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law regime when security became the top priority in budgetary allocations.

“It’s sad that there are many college graduates now who can’t even speak a straight sentence in English, much less write one. If we do nothing, our neighbors will surpass us in English -- a language we have been speaking since the Americans colonized the Philippines more than a century ago,” Tan says.

“We need to focus on English because we have to preserve whatever competitive edge we still have over our neighbors.”


...continue reading............. English/nation/view_article.php?article_id=19002 (http://newsinfo.inq7.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=19002)

Learning in English, Math and Science could also benefit from the ladderization program of the government, which could help resolve the job-skills mismatch of our graduates.

Article posted September 6, 2006, 1:44 pm
The Philippines ranks as one of the most difficult countries to start a business given a myriad of complex business procedures, according to a report released by World Bank on Tuesday.

The International Finance Corp. -- the private investment arm of World Bank -- had ranked the Philippines 126 out of 175 countries in terms of ease of doing business, based on a survey of Philippine-based accountants, lawyers, consultants, and government officials.

Its current ranking was five notches below last year's level, when the Philippines placed 121st.

"Complex business regulations are like cholesterol that clogs up the artery of the economy. If there is a high-level of cholesterol, that is a health warning," said Caralee McLeish, who authored "Doing Business 2007: How to Reform", that was launched Tuesday.

"It is really hard to justify if it takes, like in the case of the Philippines, 193 days, to start a business."

Singapore topped the survey, followed by New Zealand, United States, Canada, and Hong Kong.

The country at the bottom of the ranking was Democratic Republic of Congo at 175.

McLeish said complex business procedures also create more opportunities for bribes to change hands.

"Whereas in Singapore and Australia, one can start a business online," she said.

The survey was conducted for 12 months from April 2005. The rankings tracked indicators of the time and cost to meet government requirements in business start-up, operation, trade, taxation, and closure.

They did not track market size, macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, or crime rates.

IFC has been investing in the Philippines for 40 years. It has a total exposure of about $500 million in 35 projects in the country as of May.

Reforms

Joachim von Amsberg, World Bank country director in the Philippines, said there were no reforms implemented in the previous year to make it easier for local residents to put up a business.

He said the Philippines must simplify dealing with licenses and must make it easier to get land title and registration.

There are many laws to protect businessmen, but there is a problem in implementing those laws, he said.

While the Philippines has reduced the cost involved to start a business, it can make progress by cutting the number of days and procedures to set up a new company.

In the Philippines, it takes 23 procedures, 193 days, and costs 113 percent of income per capita to meet the regulatory requirements to build a warehouse.

In Cambodia, it only takes 10 procedures and 86 days to start a business.

Fortunately, the country's fiscal condition is now improving and this gives the government the flexibility to pursue its micro-economic agenda.

"Economic performance has been relatively strong, which has increased investor confidence. This situation has created the breathing space to now focus on the micro-economic contraints to investment," Von Amsberg said.

"If the Philippines can effectively address the myriad of microeconomic constraints faced by investors -- large and small -- it can reach its potential for rapid development.

Regional top reformer: China

China emerged as the top reformer in the region and ranked fifth globally.

It reduced the time to register a business from 48 to 35 days and cut the minimum capital required from 947 percent to 213 percent of income per capita, making it easier for entrepreneurs to start new businesses.

China also established a credit information registry for consumer loans. Now, 340 million Chinese have credit histories, improving their access to credit.

New online customs in China also reduced the time to import and export by two days, improving international competitiveness.

McLeish noted that not only rich countries have good business environment as Thailand (18th) and Malaysia (25th) were in the top 30.

Vietnam fell to 104 from last year's 98, but it cut the documents and time required to obtain building permits. It also allowed employers to use fixed-term contracts for any type of task, making hiring easier. - GMANews.TV

Article posted September 6, 2006, 1:44 pm
The Philippines ranks as one of the most difficult countries to start a business given a myriad of complex business procedures, according to a report released by World Bank on Tuesday.
All you need is to know someone that knows someone that knows someone up there in the GOVT. :D


"Complex business regulations are like cholesterol that clogs up the artery of the economy.


:lol: They designed it that way so that you have to put up some grease money to almost all level of employees in the City Hall.



"It is really hard to justify if it takes, like in the case of the Philippines, 193 days, to start a business."


I've seen a next day business deal and and a no question asked business deals.


In the Philippines, it takes 23 procedures, 193 days, and costs 113 percent of income per capita to meet the regulatory requirements to build a warehouse.


That's not enough :D


"Economic performance has been relatively strong, which has increased investor confidence. This situation has created the breathing space to now focus on the micro-economic contraints to investment," Von Amsberg said


Hah? no comprende señor Von Amsberg


"If the Philippines can effectively address the myriad of microeconomic constraints faced by investors -- large and small -- it can reach its potential for rapid development.


Another "IF"



New online customs in China also reduced the time to import and export by two days, improving international competitiveness.



We are lagging behind in technology, that's all.
Some countries would accept business applications and some contract deals ONLINE.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't usually reply to an article posted on the media but this article is just.............. I don't know... maybe it is fun to reply to. :)

Vietnam overtakes RP in rating, growth
09/11/2006
Tribune

What was once a joke to dramatize the lethargic economy under President Gloria Arroyo may have turned into reality as Vietnam, a war-ravaged country in 1970’s, overtook the country in credit rating and projected economic growth.
Standard and Poor’s (S&P) upgraded Vietnam’s credit rating to BB, reflecting positive changes arising out of the nation’s economic reforms, to make it one grade higher than that of the Philippines.
The World Bank has praised Vietnam for reducing poverty through rapid economic growth but also called on the communist-ruled country to speed up market reforms and vigorously fight corruption.
“Vietnam has been remarkably successful in generating growth and reducing poverty,” said World Bank managing director Juan Jose Daboub, with 30 million people lifted from poverty since the launch of reforms 20 years ago.
Asian Development Bank (ADB) country director Ayumi Konishi called Vietnam “the star of Southeast Asia” and projected a 7.8 percent economic growth this year, Asia’s fastest rate after booming China, compared with a projected 5.4 percent growth for the Philippines.
Standard & Poor’s said Vietnam had “strong economic growth potential” with good labor productivity and a high savings rate, but also warned it still faced “structural weaknesses” including an undercapitalized banking system.
The World Bank, with projects worth nearly $4 billion in Vietnam, would commit another $800 million per year over the next five years to support a reform agenda that “could be a model for other countries,” he said.
But Daboub also said there was now “a sense of urgency in Vietnam. We believe that we have to move faster. The country has to accelerate the process of reforms so that the people can reap the benefits faster.”
Calling for further liberalization, Daboub warned that “neighboring countries are not going to stand still and wait for Vietnam to move. They’re moving forward and Vietnam has a choice — which is to lead or to follow.”
The praise tempered with caution echoed comments made by the ADB, ratings service S&P and the US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson over the past week.
Paulson said while Vietnam’s expected accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this year would “accelerate growth and increase living standards,” it “needs to be followed by further reforms.”
Some key shortcomings were highlighted in a report last week by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, which ranked Vietnam 104th out of 175 countries in terms of the ease of doing business.
Red tape, especially in tax and bankruptcy procedures, and a lack of minority shareholder protection were among the hurdles that meant Vietnam “remains a challenging place to do businesses,” said the report.
The World Bank’s Daboub said “there are still many tasks pending,” speaking just after a meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation finance ministers in Hanoi.
He said Vietnam needs “institutions that work,” including a stronger legal system, vigilant oversight of the financial sector, and a strong media that can hold state institutions accountable.
“We believe that it is important to maintain commitment for a governance agenda that is the strengthening of institutions that work, as well as the fight against corruption,” Daboub told a media briefing Saturday.
He highlighted a corruption case that rocked the regime this year, the loss of millions of dollars in the transport ministry’s infrastructure unit PMU 18, which saw a minister sacked and several officials jailed.
The PMU 18 portfolio included $130 million from the World Bank, which is due this month to release the results of a probe on whether corrupt cadres squandered and gambled away some of its money.
Daboub said the case showed that there were “some cracks in the system” and urged Vietnam to enforce new laws to prevent similar abuses.
“We need to make sure,” he said, “that those cracks are closed with cement.”
Finance Minister Vu Van Ninh said a higher S&P credit rating would help Vietnam affirm its developing financial capacity. Ninh cited this as an opportunity for Vietnam to attract domestic and foreign resources, particularly from the international capital market, in order to develop its economy.
Vietnam should take advantage of this chance to continue issuing government bonds on the international market, he said, adding, however, that the country should carefully prepare projects before issuing bonds.
“What’s most important is how to use capital, not to draw capital,” he said.

masyado kaseng sakim mga mayayaman sa Pilipinas. tignan mo na lang si Mr Sy lahat ng mall me bayad ang parking 45 pesos kahit 5 mins. ka lang me bayad . Namimile ka na nga sa store nila me bayad pa parking. thousands of cars parked in the parking area pero yung mga employees they're paid so little min. wage. and then everything in his store is made in China. Kaya yaman na lang ng yaman si MR SY at si Mr robinsons. can you imagine the prices of goods are almost at par with the US and yet the salaries are like 1/10th as much. The ofw phenomenum is not helping because it is artificially supporting a false sense of supply and demand. If people only relied on locals wages there is no way these big businesses would thrive . INflation is being pushed by the dollar earners since as long as there are willing customers would pay for the overinflated service and goods the businesses would keep pushing the limits of inflation.

Technology is not the only thing we're lagging behind. Standard & Poor has observed that our ratings upgrade is threatened by politics, citing the opposition's obstructionism, a divisive environment that invites recurring coup attempts and resurgence of insurgency. Clearly politics is one major impediment to our progress despite the soundness of our economic fundamentals.

S&P: Politics threatening RP rating upgrade
Country risks being left behind by Indonesia
By Doris Dumlao
Inquirer
Last updated 10:28pm (Mla time) 09/10/2006

Published on page B1 of the September 11, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

STANDARD & POOR'S warned that "volatile" politics could sour prospects for a credit-rating upgrade for the Philippines and risk being left behind even by Indonesia, a neighboring country far worse devastated by the 1997 Asian currency turmoil.

In a report comparing the Philippines and Indonesia dated Sept. 4, S&P associate director for sovereign ratings Agost Benard noted that for the first time since the 1997 currency turmoil, the two countries were on equal footing as far as credit risk category and outlook were concerned.

"With a comparatively less favorable political setting, the Philippines' task to entrench and build on its gains may be more difficult and subject to greater setbacks than in Indonesia," Benard said.

"A weakening resolve in implementation and dilution of reforms could occur if a weakened President needs to shore up political and popular support. In addition, privatization of the electricity sector remains stalled, and notwithstanding the considerable improvement in (National Power Corp.'s) financial performance, an adverse change in the electricity market could again result in the need for public support," he said.

Although the Yudhoyono administration in Indonesia was seen treading cautiously, Benard said the overall political backdrop--including stability, support of the legislature, and in particular the President's personal political capital--offered a "more conducive environment for reform, with a lower risk of reversal or dilution" than in the Philippines.

On the other hand, he cited opposition obstructionism, the "divisive persona" of President Macapagal-Arroyo resulting in recurring coup attempts as well as a number of active insurgencies as threats to the sovereign's credit fundamentals.

During the past decade, Benard noted that the Philippines' sovereign rating was relatively stable in the "BB" range, but deteriorated slowly due a weakening fiscal position and policy environment.

"Over the past year this downward trend appears to have been arrested, and the key question is whether the reforms that yielded this improvement will be sufficiently entrenched to create upward momentum for the ratings," he said.

Benard said the turnaround in the Philippines' fortunes had been more recent and swifter than the very gradual process seen in Indonesia.

"Based on current trends, the two countries' sovereign ratings trajectories should both be positive, although the chance of divergence is present, should the Philippines fail to make recent fiscal improvements permanent and seize on the opportunity for further reforms, and if, as expected, Indonesia continues on its gradually improving path," he said.


Copyright 2006 Inquirer

I just saw in a morning TV show about the death of a teenager in an amusement ride in Star City. Apparently, the ride requires no seatbelt which makes the ride more dangerous especially to children.

Local authorities should investigate on this matter as they are the ones giving permits for these carnivals to operate. Since the holiday season is coming in, the local authorities must address this issue since what is at stake is public safety. In as much as children and the youth are the main customers of these kinds of leisure, they should as well be prepared for it.

By Nikko Dizon
Inquirer
Last updated 06:50pm (Mla time) 09/13/2006


TWO PILOTS of an Australian passenger airline bound for Sydney refused to take off their shoes at the final security check at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 late Tuesday night.

Their reason: Dirty floor. :lol:

http://globalnation.inq7.net/news/news/view_article.php?article_id=20798

It makes me wonder ano ba talaga ang mas accurate na economic outlook for the Philippines since local and Int'l forecast figures don't seem to be in agreement.

IMF’s 2007 GDP forecast for RP reduced further
By Likha C. Cuevas, Reporter
Manila Times
Friday, September 15, 2006
Full Article: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/sept/15/yehey/business/20060915bus1.html

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has further lowered its Philippine economic growth forecast for 2007. Last April the IMF predicted that the country’s gross domestic product would grow by 5.6 percent, which it reduced to 5.5 percent last month during its postprogram monitoring visit in the Philippines. In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF further reduced its forecast to 5.4 percent.

The IMF also put on notice the countries with high public debt and/or budget deficits such as the Philippines, India and Pakistan, saying that their fiscal positions should be put on a “medium-term footing.” This meant that “further consolidation and improvements in the composition” of the Philippines’ debt—which is associated with foreign currency risks—would reduce the vulnerability to changes in global investor sentiment and enhance monetary policy credibility, the agency said.

Last week the Asian Development Bank maintained its 2007 GDP outlook for the Philippines at 5.3 percent, lower than the government’s 5.7-percent assumption. Reasons for the relatively lower forecast include slow investments and low capital outlay.

Medyo bad news as to how the recent Thai coup has affected foreign perception of the Philippines' economic and political outlook which in turn can affect foreign direct investment into the country. Hopefully we can learn from this Thai fiasco at huwag naman sanang mangyari itong doom and gloom scenario sa ating bansa... :runaway:


RISKY BUSINESS: Crisis brewing in the Philippines
By Jephraim P Gundzik
Asia Times

Are foreign investors greatly underestimating the risks associated with the Philippines? The probability of terrorist strikes is growing, while the country's volatile political and social environments appear set to destabilize significantly. Terrorism and destabilization could further undermine the country's already weakening economy, leading to much slower-than-expected economic growth in 2006 and possibly even a recession in 2007.

Foreign and domestic investors alike have built significant positions in equities, domestic fixed-income securities and international bonds based on overly optimistic economic assumptions. These positions may be dumped in dramatic fashion as perceptions of investment risk become more realistic in the months ahead, leading to substantial and destabilizing capital outflows.

Philippine security and government officials regularly play down the threat of future terrorist strikes, but the picture could be far less rosy than these officials are willing to admit publicly. In mid-2006, the US State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism, Henry Crumpton, noted this about the terrorism potential in the Philippines: "The threat is very serious if you look at recent events, the intention of enemy forces, their collaborating with affiliates all around the region, and their technical skills, especially in bomb-making, their tradecraft skills."

Crumpton was referring to the well-established nexus between international and domestic terrorist organizations in the Philippines. The home-grown Abu Sayyaf and the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM) are believed to be combining resources and expertise with the Indonesia-based terror group Jemaah Islamiya (JI), which is believed to have ties with al-Qaeda. The Abu Sayyaf and RSM probably have more 2,000 hardcore members combined. Meanwhile, security experts believe that at least 40 JI operatives are currently in the Philippines training jihadis in the finer points of bomb-making.

The presence of JI operatives in the Philippines was made apparent last month when the military launched a joint offensive with the US aimed at a terrorist training camp on Jolo Island. In addition to targeting the Abu Sayyaf's leadership, the joint Philippine-US military action was meant to capture two leading JI members, Dulmatin and Umar Patek. These JI leaders, who are believed to have played key roles in the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia, were apparently encamped with the Abu Sayyaf. No high-ranking Abu Sayyaf or JI leaders were captured or killed, however.

In late July, Philippine defense officials announced that US commando teams would be deployed during the second half of 2006 and the first half of 2007 to hold "anti-terror" drills with Philippine troops. These drills are to take place in the western and central parts of Mindanao, where Abu Sayyaf and JI militants are based, and are likely to mark the beginning of a broad and potentially violent US-backed offensive. It can be assumed that the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would not be expanding the military offensives against the Abu Sayyaf and JI if these organizations were in decline.

The budding Abu Sayyaf-JI relationship also appears to have embraced the RSM. The RSM, which was established in 2002, originated among a small group of Balik Islam members in the Philippines. Balik Islam is a legal organization composed of Christian converts to Islam and has more than 200,000 members, many of whom are concentrated in the traditionally Catholic regions of Luzon and Manila. Balik Islam is said to have gained strength in recent years with the return of Filipino workers from the Middle East.

For instance, the RSM is believed to have participated in the bombing of SuperFerry 14 in February 2004 and in the February 2005 multiple bombings in Manila, General Santos City and Davao. Being composed of non-ethnic converts to Islam and located in predominantly Catholic regions of the Philippines, the RSM's members can more easily blend in with the country's urban population than their ethnically different counterparts. For this reason, the RSM could pose a significant and increasing security threat to large metropolitan areas, including Manila.

High political risk
On the surface, the Arroyo government appears strong and capable and has used its legislative majority to implement highly unpopular economic reforms. Arroyo has demonstrated a unique ability to deepen her support within the power structures of the Philippines despite allegations of vote-rigging and corruption.

The Arroyo government's inroads with the power elite, however, belie very weak popular support. Widespread anti-government protests, repeated efforts to impeach the president and numerous attempted coups indicate that anti-Arroyo sentiment runs very high among a large and diverse proportion of the electorate. Opinion polls conducted over the past 18 months have shown popular support for the president ranging between 25% and 35%.

Making the disparity between her legislative and popular support sharper have been other opinion polls that consistently show that since 2005, more than half of the electorate believes the president should be impeached. Arroyo's legislative alliances have been built by patronage, and with mid-term elections scheduled for next May, these alliances could become increasingly shaky as self-interested legislators weigh whether abandoning Arroyo would improve their own re-election prospects.

Faced with potential defeat in May, Arroyo is seeking to postpone or cancel the mid-term elections through an amendment to the 1987 constitution. The proposed charter changes were initially broached late last year by a 55-member Consultative Commission appointed by Arroyo. Among other suggestions, the commission controversially recommended that the 2007 mid-term elections for the House of Representatives and Senate be canceled and that current elected legislators combine to form an interim parliament charged with overseeing reforms.

Protests against that plan staged early this year played a role in triggering the state of emergency Arroyo controversially declared in February. That opposition forced the government at least temporarily to backtrack on the charter-change initiative and recommend that the 2007 mid-term elections go ahead as constitutionally mandated. The government is now exploring other legal avenues to change the constitution.

Even if next year's elections go ahead, growing political and social polarization could spur more violence and instability - a situation that could be exploited either by terrorist organizations or by the country's leftist insurgents. After the February coup plot, the Arroyo government undertook a crackdown on her leftist opponents in Congress.

In mid-June, the government launched a military offensive against the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People's Army, marking a significant escalation in a decades-old conflict. The NPA is active in 69 of the Philippines' 79 provinces, suggesting that the government's military offensive could spark a sharp escalation in violence throughout the country.

Economic soft spots
If so, political and social instability could negatively impact economic growth throughout 2007. Strong growth in personal consumption expenditure, sustained almost exclusively by rising foreign worker remittances, is the country's main economic engine. Though expanding exports have supported economic growth in the first half of this year, exports are likely to weaken as US and global economic growth slows in the second half of 2006 and into 2007.

Remittance dependency has also increased the Philippines' vulnerability to external economic shocks. Economic weakness in countries hosting Filipino workers reduces external employment and remittances. In 2006, the growth of remittances from overseas Filipino workers is expected to weaken in accordance with slowing economic growth in the US, where most remittances originate. Already in the first half of 2006, the growth of foreign worker remittances slowed to 15% from 24% from the same period in 2005.

Meanwhile, domestic investment in the Philippines is chronically weak, having contracted in real terms by a cumulative 4% between 1999 and 2005. Contracting investment has contained employment growth and pushed real wages lower. Fiscal austerity undertaken by the Arroyo government, under the guidance of the International Monetary Fund, has reduced and will continue to reduce public-sector consumption and investment expenditure.

Despite overwhelming evidence of economic weakness, government officials, multilateral lenders and economic analysts still believe real growth will remain above 5% in 2006 and even accelerate in 2007. But if the US economy continues to slow in 2007, a notion supported by America's weakening housing market and spiking international oil prices, the Philippine economy could easily fall into recession.

Extremely optimistic economic-growth forecasts for the Philippines and distorted risk perceptions have encouraged substantial inflows of foreign portfolio investment to the country over the past 18 months. In 2005, net foreign portfolio investment jumped by US$2.8 billion. In the first quarter of 2006, net foreign portfolio investment increased by a further $2.2 billion. Of this $5 billion of inflows, only about one-half originated from real foreign investors. The other half, it appears, originated from exchange-rate arbitrage in international currency markets conducted by Philippines-based banks.

Banks have been borrowing abroad, mainly in Japanese yen but also in US dollars, and investing the proceeds in short-term domestic fixed-income securities. The surge of external borrowing by banks can be clearly discerned in the external-debt statistics of the Philippines. In 2005, for instance, the external debt of private banks increased to $6.4 billion from $3.7 billion in 2004. Foreign banks in the Philippines accounted for about $2 billion of the $2.7 billion increase in the banking sector's external debt over that period. With real domestic credit and investment contracting sharply in 2005, it is highly unlikely that any of the external funds borrowed by banks were used for anything other than arbitrage bets.

This arbitrage was a significant factor behind the sharp appreciation of the peso, especially against the yen, in 2005. In addition to banks, foreign investors also targeted short-term domestic fixed-income securities in 2005. In the first quarter of 2006, heavy foreign portfolio and domestic bank arbitrage inflows continued. These inflows probably reversed somewhat in May and June, when the peso weakened sharply. However, the renewed strength of the peso in July suggests some of these positions have been rebuilt.

In addition to producing peso appreciation and sharply negative real domestic interest rates, foreign portfolio investment inflows and domestic bank arbitrage plays have also propelled the equity market higher and tightened spreads on the Philippines' international bonds. When foreign and domestic investors meet economic - and potentially a jarring political - reality, a large-scale correction in asset values and the exchange rate will follow.

Jephraim P Gundzik is president of Condor Advisers, which provides investment risk analysis to individuals and institutions worldwide.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)

It's official, PHILIPPINES IS ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS COUNTRIES TO LIVE IN, No wonder even tourists are shying away.... just check aneki.com and it's there...

^^ Okay... It's quite interesting that even U.S. is included in the list. http://www.aneki.com/dangerous.html

Indonesia is included and yet they get 3 times the number of tourist arrivals than Philippines even after the Bali incident.

Here's that list...

Note: The following list is arranged in alphabetical order and does not rank the level of danger of any particular country. Neither does it indicate the level of danger in one country with respect to another.
Angola
Balkans
Colombia
Cote D'Ivoire
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Israel
Nigeria
Pakistan
Philippines
South Africa
United States
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Zimbabwe

I wonder how current this list is and what criteria they used to determine the level of danger in a given country. Surprising that the US made it while countries like Iran, Libya, North Korea, Albania, etc. among others did not make the most dangerous list. I would think mas dangerous naman duon kaysa sa US. :runaway:

and than Philippines..

Yup you're right and the Philippines as well.

I wonder how current this list is and what criteria they used to determine the level of danger in a given country. Surprising that the US made it while countries like Iran, Libya, North Korea, Albania, etc. among others did not make the most dangerous list. I would think mas dangerous naman duon kaysa sa US. :runaway: interesting point. ano naman kaya basis nila jan sa "dangerous" countries na yan.... parang hindi consistent kasi eh.

is that even a credible website?

HIGH GROUND
Warning: This murder will infuriate you

By William Esposo
INQ7.net
Last updated 00:00am (Mla time) 09/25/2006

WHAT I am about to narrate to you will infuriate you just as it infuriated me when I saw the story unfold over the 10:00 pm Saturday, September 23, 2006 newscast of ANC’s The World Tonight.

I have been in media for close to 40 years now, having started in radio in 1967 at age 17 when I was just entering college. I thought that I have just about seen or heard everything that could be considered shocking on the broadcast news—including having watched the live coverage on CNN of the second aircraft that crashed into the World Trade Center during the historic 9/11 attack.

The shooting incident and murder I saw that Saturday made my blood pressure rise for the utter senselessness of the foul deed and the feeling that the incident is not an isolated case of madness and the arrogance of power but is an act that reflects the sick society we live in. I was so disgusted and incensed after I saw the shooting incident that I lost no time communicating with Zyan Ambrosio, the ABS-CBN reporter who covered the story earlier that day.

For the rest of the commentary/story please click the link:

http://opinion.inq7.net/inq7viewpoints/columns/view_article.php?article_id=22827

Disasters of our own making
By Dan Mariano
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/oct/09/yehey/opinion/20061009opi2.html

MORE disasters hit the Philippines than any other country in the world—save for China, India and Iran. Our country also ranks fourth in the number of people killed and injured by disasters whether man-made, like the Guimaras oil spill, or natural, such as Typhoon Milenyo (Xangsane).

Through the decades the country has had its share of tsunamis (southern Mindanao in August 1976), flash floods (Ormoc in November 1991 and Quezon in 2004), island-wide earthquakes (Luzon in July 1990) and volcanic eruptions (Pinatubo in June 1991).

Is the Philippines a hard-luck country fated to endure calamities of such ferocity that they regularly take thousands of lives and destroy billions of pesos in private property, civil works and natural resources?

In an article titled “Disasters and Faulty Governance” published last week, the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) noted that the impact of disasters has worsened in recent years.

CenPEG cited a report by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which found that some 5.9 million Filipinos—or about a fifth of the present Philippine population—were killed or injured as a result of natural or man-made calamities from 1992 to 2001.

The mounting death toll was also attributed to the rising number of disasters—199 in 2001, 313 in 2002 and 384 in 2005.

CenPEG quoted the nongo*vernmental Citizens Disaster Response Center (CDRC), which reported that the number of persons “affected” by disasters or calamities in 2005 was 528,151 families, or 2.6 million individuals. From January to September this year alone the total has already reached 584,607 households or three million people.

The CDRC report does not include the recent damage caused by Typhoon Milenyo, which as of October 3 has been blamed for causing 200 deaths, displacing 1.3 million people including 171,000 evacuees and keeping about 43 million Luzon residents in the dark due to an island-wide blackout.

Flash floods account for the biggest displacement of people. In 2005 the total reached 344,378 families, or 1.8 million individuals, or half the total number directly displaced by all disasters that year, based on CDRC monitoring.

Government agencies normally measure the impact of disasters on the basis of economic losses, the number of persons killed or displaced and damage to infrastructure, among others.

“Overattention to quantifiable effects, however, tends to gloss over other indicators of impact that are often far-reaching and which are lost in the bureaucratic maze of government intervention—or lack of it,” CenPEG said. “These include long-term effects on livelihood and employment, health, nutrition, education and other social and psychological impact that only the keen and compassionate policy maker is able to detect.”

Central Luzon, for example, still experiences the after-effects of the Pinatubo eruption 15 years ago in the form of mudflows that inundate farms, fish farms and villages. Among other reasons, income losses and destruction to farms have made the region a top source of overseas Filipino workers.

“This only shows that the more disasters strike every year the bigger the army of OFWs will leave the country that, in turn, will result in a bigger number of families torn apart or suffering long separation [from] breadwinners aside from other unimaginable social costs,” CenPEG said. “And yet all these and other problems can be stopped or at least prevented or mitigated,” CenPEG added.

Vulnerability to disasters

The number of families, communities, lands and other productive resources affected by natural and man-made calamities has lately increased at alarming rates. The reason, CenPEG said, is their increased level of vulnerability.

Contributing to Filipinos’ increasing vulnerability to disasters are poverty and unemployment, lack of land and shelter, lack of food security, poor access to health and other social services and so on.

“Big populations [that] face higher risks during disasters owing to their dire social and economic conditions are in the rural provinces especially those living near or on uplands, near logging and mining areas, coastal areas and other farm communities,” CenPEG said. Remember Guinsaugon, Southern Leyte?

“In the cities, they are the urban poor who are forced to live by the riverbanks and coasts, under the bridges or beside [garbage] dumps. And all these are high-risk disaster zones,” CenPEG said. Remember Payatas?

CenPEG characterizes the entire archipelago, including its waters, as a potential disaster zone. This is why whenever something like the Guimaras oil spill occurs, the authorities place entire regions under a state of calamity.

“Natural disasters such as typhoons are obviously unavoidable but the hazards they as well as man-made calamities pose to populations and communities have been aggravated by flawed ‘economic development’ policies and laws that have also become, coincidentally speaking, the culprit behind man-made disasters,” CenPEG said.

Virtually the whole country has been stripped of its forests due to unmitigated logging and mining operations, which for decades have only benefited a few families and transnational corporations. Foreign-funded dams that were built purportedly to provide power to industries and irrigation to vast farm estates are now seen as the cause of flash floods, which inundate provinces and ruin their economies.

CenPEG cited the Mining Act of 1995, which the government began to implement last year. It estimated that the highly controversial law will subject 13 million hectares, or 45 percent, of the country’s land area to mining exploration and extraction.

The government has pinned its hopes on revenue from mining to resolve its perennial fiscal crisis. However, CenPEG warned that the Mining Act “will result in the large-scale displacement of communities and in the destruction of lands, deforestation and the flattening of mountains, erosions, siltations, desertifi*cation, pollution of rivers and marine life, and other ecological damages.”

Added CenPEG: “Definitely, something is wrong when government economic programs are crafted principally to address the fiscal crisis and debt servicing regardless of their grim effects on people and their livelihood.”

Nature makes the Philippines prone to disasters, but shortsighted state policies, corporate greed and plain human folly make sure that calamities cause maximum impact on people’s lives.

Power sector: a new ballgame
Manila Standard Editorial
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=editorial_oct9_2006

Government warnings of possible rotating brownouts in November and real outages in 2010 and 2011 if no new power plants are put in place by that time should be taken seriously.

The Malampaya production platform off Palawan island, which supplies natural gas to the 1,200-megawat Ilijan plant and the 1,500-mw Sta. Rita/San Lorenzo power stations, both in Batangas province, are to be shut down for 25 days for maintenance work. The supply cutoff from Malampaya could deprive the Luzon grid of some 2,700 megawatts of natural gas electricity and result in intermittent power outages next month.

Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla has assured that contingency measures will be put in place to remedy the situation, including the reactivation of idle power plants and the use of alternative fuel sources, other than natural gas. The power disruption, however, illustrates the thin reserves available in the system, making Luzon and Metro Manila very vulnerable to sudden supply disruptions. The temporary shutdown of Malampaya’s natural gas field, according to authorities, will leave Luzon with an available power capacity of only 6,744.4 mw, or a reserve margin of 16 percent over the maximum projected consumer demand of 5,810 mw. Ideal reserve requirement for the Luzon grid is about 30 percent. Meanwhile, a thin power reserve margin, like the crude oil situation in the world market, will also drive up electricity rates.

The power outlook can get dimmer for four or five years from now. The government’s Power Development Plan assures enough supply up to 2010 to 2011 only. “Hence, contingency plans must be set in place immediately, considering that it takes at least four years to construct major power plants,” Lotilla said.

The energy chief also conceded that the Philippines could only enjoy lower electricity rates if additional power plants are constructed. The government could no longer count on state-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor) to subsidize power rates. In the past, this move only led to huge fiscal deficits.

The power industry has drastically changed since the government made it a policy to privatize Napocor’s power plants. The basic economic principle of supply and demand and its influence on power rates, however, remains.

The government and the private sector, thus, must act fast to prevent a repeat of the debilitating outages in the ’90s that forced former President Fidel Ramos to tap expensive power plants offered by independent producers.

No money, no honey
Daily Tribune Editorial
http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20061009com1.html
10/09/2006

Perish the thought that political killings will ever be stopped, Melo Commission or no.

To the Senate’s unpleasant surprise, the Philippine National Police (PNP) is practically not getting any increase in its budget for next year. And yet, senators earlier discovered that Malacañang has not only spent P10 million in taxpayers’ money to bankroll the supposedly privately-initiated Charter change (Cha-cha) racket but is also providing additional resources for the campaign to revise (not amend) the 1987 Constitution under the proposed 2007 general appropriations.

Sen. Franklin Drilon, chairman of the Senate finance committee, has found out that the almost 12-percent increase in the P39.36-billion budget for next year of the PNP, as proposed by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), to which the top police organization is attached, “will only be enough to cover inflation,” which is less than six percent a year.

Drilon said the so-called proposed PNP budget for 2007 actually matches that of 2004.

And yet, the PNP plans to recruit 3,000 policemen next year, on top of the 3,000 it recruited this year.

At least, with their men in the field ill-equipped to chase down criminals, the police brass can easily give the excuse that they are short of personnel and resources to run after hitmen behind the rash of extra-judicial killings.

Also, the PNP officials can claim that there, indeed, are witnesses to the summary executions of activists and journalists, only that they refuse to cooperate with police investigators or, for that matter, the already spineless Melo Commission.

Fact is, these witnesses cannot be given adequate protection by the cops, which anyway is the secenario Malacañang has in mind, as these same witnesses will not risk their lives unnecessarily without the protection of the government.

No witness, no crime, and the Gloria-created commission can call it a day as it pleases as a result of the lack of cooperation from witnesses.

No problem with Gloria if the Melo panel “finishes” its job in a jiffy, good riddance, and local and inernational human rights watchdog can go on denouncing violations of persons and property for all she cares.

Gloria, after all, has deferred to their appeal for justice for the victims of the political murders, so they cannot possibly ask for more, case closed.

The victims and their families have to be brushed aside because they only add to the threat of stopping Gloria from ruling forever via Cha-cha, that is, if she and her cohorts in Sigaw ng Bayan and Ulap succeed in getting away with the people’s initiative mode of revising the Constitution and, if they do not, with the Constituent Assembly that she is saving for last.

Expect the “increase” in the PNP budget to embolden the political assassins.

With no money to throw around, these killers can take a stroll after a kill on board their motorcycles as policemen give chase on foot for lack of police cars, gas rations, etc.

Meanwhile, the killers of what is still left of the democracy raped twice over by Gloria and her gang are having all the money they will ever need to enthrone Gloria as President/Prime Minister.

Their view to a kill is considerably brightened by the lack of money that is being blamed for the sloth that the PNP will fail to live down.

Gloria likes it that way — cops looking the other way as her critics are shot dead, abducted or forced to disappear.

HIGH GROUND
Warning: This murder will infuriate you
By William Esposo
INQ7.net
Last updated 00:00am (Mla time) 09/25/2006]

late na un comment ko. pero infuriating talaga yan. epileptic un bata. wala sa normal na pag-iisip ng mga oras na un. tapos parang ibon lang na puede mong barilin kahit anong oras? at kahit ibon nga di mo rin dapat barilin sa paglilibang. tsk, tsk...

RP world’s fourth most disaster-prone country

The devastation wrought by the two recent major disasters should no longer be seen as a problem best left to government’s disaster coordinating officials alone. Serious flaws in government’s economic development priorities and faulty public governance have led to the increase in the vulnerability of people and communities to calamities and, worse, in bigger number of lives lost and hopes for a better life shattered.

Has the government been jolted out of complacency or gone beyond merely declaring affected provinces as “calamity areas” by undertaking bold policy reform? Is there really nothing that can be done to protect people’s lives and their livelihood from future disasters?

In just a month, the Philippines was struck by two major calamities: The Guimaras oil slick, which hit several western Visayas coastal provinces in August, and Typhoon “Milenyo,” which devastated Luzon provinces including Metro Manila on Sept. 28. Being the world’s fourth most disaster-prone country (after China, India and Iran), such disasters whether natural as in the case of Typhoon Milenyo, or man-made as in the Guimaras tragedy, are often taken as nothing new.

Some alarming trends cry for attention, however. The impact of disasters such as typhoons, floods, monsoon rains, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides has worsened in recent years. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies report that some 5.9 million Filipinos were killed or injured as a result of natural or man-made calamities in 1992-2001. That’s already about 5 percent of the country’s current population.

The rising toll can also be attributed to the increase in the reported number of disaster incidents in the country: From 199 in 2001, it leaped to 313 in 2002 and 384 in 2005. The nongovernment Citizens’ Disaster Response Center (CDRC) reports that the number of people affected by disasters in 2005 was 528,151 families or 2.6 million people. In January to September this year alone, the total had reached 584,607 families or 3 million people.

Typhoon Milenyo

The CDRC report does not include the recent damage caused by Typhoon Milenyo: 200 deaths as of Oct. 3, 1.3 million people displaced, including 171,000 evacuees and about 43 million affected by blackouts.

Flash floods account for the biggest number of people uprooted: In 2005, the total reached 344,378 families or 1.8 million people or half the total number directly displaced by all disasters that year, based on CDRC monitoring.

The CDRC adds drought, fire, red tide, fish kill, epidemic outbreak, infestation, tornado and armed conflict in its disaster monitoring. Not included are other man-made disasters such as sea, air and road mishaps as well as oil spills.

Normally, government reports measure the impact of disasters based on economic losses, the number of people killed or uprooted, and damage to infrastructure, among others. Over-attention to quantifiable effects, however, tends to gloss over other indicators that are often far-reaching and which are lost in the bureaucratic maze. These include long-term effects on livelihood and employment, health, nutrition, education and other social and psychological impact that only the keen and compassionate policy-maker is able to detect.

For instance, Central Luzon still reels from the impact of the Mt. Pinatubo volcanic eruption 15 years ago notably due to mud flows that inundate farms, fishponds and whole villages. Among other reasons, loss of income and destruction of farms have made the region one of the leading generators of overseas Filipino workers.

And yet, all these and other problems can be stopped or at least prevented or mitigated.

The number of families, communities, lands and other productive resources affected by calamities has increased at alarming rates because of the rise in their level of vulnerability. Contributing to the increase of vulnerability to disasters are poverty and unemployment, lack of land, shelter and food security, and poor access to health and other social services.

Logging

Big populations which face higher risks during disasters owing to their dire social and economic conditions are in the provinces especially those living near or on uplands, near logging and mining areas, coastal areas and other farm communities. In the cities, they are the urban poor who are forced to live by the riverbanks and coasts, under the bridges or beside dumps. All these are high-risk disaster zones.

In fact, the whole Philippine archipelago, including its seas and marine grounds, is a potential disaster area. This explains why, of late, whenever a major disaster happens—like the Guimaras oil spill—whole regions or one of the country’s three major islands are declared “calamity areas.”

Except for a few small zones, the whole country has been stripped of its forests due to unmitigated logging and mining operations that, for several decades, have only benefited a few families and transnational corporations. Foreign-funded dams that were built purportedly to provide power for industries and irrigation for large farm estates now disgorge flash floods that submerge whole provinces and ruin their economies.

The Mining Act of 1995, which the Arroyo administration implemented last year, will subject 13 million hectares or 45 percent of the country’s land area to mining exploration and extraction. Justified by President Macapagal-Arroyo as urgent in order to address the government’s fiscal crisis, the Act will result in the large-scale displacement of communities and in the destruction of lands, deforestation and the flattening of mountains, erosion, siltation, desertification, and pollution of rivers and marine life. In areas where new mining operations have started, disaster incidents have taken place, including the spread of toxic pollutants and flash floods.

Definitely, something is wrong when government economic programs are crafted principally to address the fiscal crisis and debt servicing regardless of their grim effects on people and their livelihood. State policies are aligned to international credit institutions’ impositions and preferences for extractive production and commercial exportation, while opening the domestic market wider for imports at the expense of the country’s farmers and other small producers. All these contribute to the further marginalization of the people and, consequently, to their risk of exposure to disasters.

CA stops Binay’s suspension
By Jose Rodel Clapano
The Philippine Star 10/20/2006

The Court of Appeals (CA) stopped Malacañang and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) yesterday from enforcing the 60-day preventive suspension of Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay and 17 other city officials.

The appellate court granted Binay’s petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) for 60 days over the suspension order, citing the "extreme urgency of the situation and... possible injury" if the suspension would not be restrained.

A jubilant but visibly exhausted Binay emerged yesterday from the Makati City Hall, where he had been holed up for two days, to meet his supporters. He vowed the "fight will continue" in order to clear his name.

In an eight-page ruling penned by Associate Justice Enrico Lanzanas, the CA ordered Binay to post a P200,000 bond to answer for the damages that may be sustained by the respondents during the period of the TRO.

The CA also ordered Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and the DILG to file their respective comments within 10 days on Binay’s petition questioning the preventive suspension imposed on him and the 17 other city officials.

Malacañang said it would respect the TRO over the suspension order.

"We will respect the decision of the CA. After all, everything is being done in accordance with the law," Ermita said.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said efforts to communicate with Binay through "common friends" are underway to ease the tension stemming from the suspension order.

Bunye said the administration does not want any violence erupting from the suspension order so they decided to try backroom negotiations with Binay.

"At this point we can only appeal for sobriety and statesmanship but am almost sure that efforts are being exerted through the backdoor to come out with a win-win situation," he said.

Presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor, for his part, clarified the negotiations with Binay should be interpreted to ensure that the situation would not go out of control.

He said the CA made a "welcome development" in easing tensions in Makati City caused by the suspension order. Ordeal

^^hehe, bad news? :)

Bumaba na si KingKong from Makati City Hall Tower.

Dang ninakawan nanaman ang mga taong bayan. So this is what happened to the so-called Marcos ill gotten wealth. Ano ba naman yan GMA where's the checks and balances? Aba abuso na yan at hindi naman dapat gamitin yang perang iyan for these purposes. How many times do you have to F***K us people over with your gov't corruption! Maawa naman kayo sa mga taong bayan.


FM wealth ends up as milking cow
Projects unrelated to CARP charged to recovered P35B
By PETER J.G. TABINGO
Malaya
http://www.malaya.com.ph/oct23/news1.htm

FOR 23 months between February 2004 and December 2005, the P35 billion recovered Marcos Swiss deposits was everyone’s milking cow.

Politicians, media outfits, non-government organizations, officials of national agencies, executives of government-owned and controlled corporations, and private individuals all siphoned off millions that should otherwise have gone exclusively to implementation the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

Where some took efforts to conceal the looting, others simply did their embezzlement with the ease and familiarity of withdrawing cash from an ATM.

Preliminary findings from a special audit of disbursements made by CARP-implementing agencies (CIAs) for 2004 and 2005 revealed questionable fund releases amounting to P419.56 million.

The team of government auditors clarified that the sum was based only on their "review of selected accounts."

In some cases, funds released were only compared to reported accomplishments. Verification of claimed accomplishments has yet to be completed.

In a 233-page report, the COA said the total amount squandered stands at least P3 billion. The actual amount involved in hundreds of irregularities so far documented could be much larger as the investigation conducted was hampered by time constraints and the refusal of several agencies to cooperate.

Among the irregular charges were payment of salaries, bonuses and benefits and operating expenses of personnel of CIAs; purchases of drugs and other medical supplies delivered to congressmen and provincial governors instead of agrarian reform communities; insurance coverage for DAR college scholars; and hiring of "additional janitors" who ended up doing clerical work and contractual workers whose functions had no relation whatsoever to CARP.

Also held invalid were cellular phone subsidies for government officials and employees; reimbursement of travel expenses of personnel not related to CARP; funds skimmed off as "overhead" from CARP appropriations to the Department of Public Works and Highways and the National Irrigation Administration, and hiring of consultants who did not render work for CARP.

Auditors said the Department of Agrarian Reform usurped the functions of the Department of Health and local government units when it entered into drug/medicine procurement contracts for P27.96 million in 2004 and 2005.

Of this amount, P4,006,623.60 worth of medical supplies was delivered to nine congressmen and three provincial governors.

The COA noted that there was no evidence provided by the DAR or the recipient lawmakers and LGU executives to prove that the medicines were intended for agrarian reform beneficiaries or if they actually went to these beneficiaries.

"Medical missions are (the) responsibility of the LGU and the Department of Health. There were even no documents to show that these medicines were indeed distributed to ARBs," the audit report pointed out.

The recipient lawmakers from biggest downwards were: Rep. Luis Villafuerte (Kampi, Camarines Sur), P599,676.80; Rep. Rafael Nantes (LP, Quezon), P459,526.80; Rep. Aurelio Umali (LP, Or. Mindoro), P450,075.60; Rep. Eileen Ermita-Buhain (Lakas-CMD, Batangas), P299,968.00; Rep. Lorenzo Tañada (LP, Quezon), P263,523.20; Rep. Eduardo Fermalo (sic) (Kampi, Romblon), P250,079.60; Rep. Eduardo (sic) Suarez, P214,882; Rep. Manuel Ortega (NPC, La Union ), P199,996.00, Rep. Ding (sic) Roman, P119,144.80.

(Editor’s note: The only member of the House of Representative surnamed Suarez is Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez (LP). (Rep. Antonino Roman (LP, Bataan ) is the only Roman in the House. His father is former Bataan Gov. Leonardo "Ding" Roman.)

Likewise named in the COA report were: Gov. Josephine Sato (Occ. Mindoro), P449,994; Gov. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo ( Aurora ), P449,677.20; Gov. Barceles (sic) P81, 153.20.

(Editor’s note: There is no "Gov. Barceles" sitting as governor of any province. The closest name in spelling is Gov. Leandro Verceles whose province, Catanduanes, also received a separate delivery of P168,926.40 worth of medical supplies.)

DAR explained the medical disbursements were made at the request of LGUs concerned "in support of their health/medical services program involving farmer beneficiaries in their localities" but auditors insisted funds for such programs should come either from the LGUs or the DoH.


CALL AND TEXT TO THE MAX

CARP is all about the soil – and electronic gadgets galore.

Officials and personnel of DAR and the Land Registration Authority went shopping for the some of most expensive mobile phones in the market and incurred runaway bills.

DAR bought 58 mobile phone units in 2004 with prices ranging from P16,227 to P32,500.

The following year it acquired 52 more to the tune of P1.42 million with tag prices of P10,120 to P48,000.

The agency paid a whopping P4.53 million in cellular line and prepaid accounts in 2004 which further ballooned to P5.34 million in 2005.

Not satisfied, a number of them even reimbursed prepaid card expenses, even if their cellular phones were enrolled in post-paid plans.

"The line subscribed by DAR with Smart and Globe already covered free units. The procurement of 110 cell phone units is already questionable unless it could be demonstrated that the same were given to other authorized cell phone users not enjoying line services. The cost per unit of as much as P48,000 could also not be considered reasonable," the report said.

Who ended up using the 110 phones cannot be traced however as there were no names written on the acknowledgment receipts. DAR failed to submit the list of en-users despite repeated requests.

Not to be outdone, LRA officials also charged P552,243 cellular phone bills to the Agrarian Reform Fund although their work were not related to CARP. The huge bills were incurred because many were allowed to secure post-paid lines with both Smart and Globe while others reimbursed prepaid card expenses.

LRA administrator Benedicto Ulep led the list with P166,418.40 followed by Makati Registry of Deeds Ronaldo Ortile with P59,431.65 and Records Officer III Matilde Silang with P45,554.18.

On the other hand, CARP personnel assigned at the LRA exceeded their mobile account limits by P245,949.57.


MEDIA GOODWILL AT A PRICE

DAR shelled out P127.24 million for its media blitz in 2004 and 2005.

Audit records showed print and broadcast advertising got P45.6 million while media "consultancy" bled the ARF for P34.08 million in addition to "printing and binding" amounting to P33.04 million and subscriptions worth P14.51 million.

Of these four expenditures, only advertising underwent audit evaluation.

Under the law, regulations need to be published in at least two newspapers of general circulation before they can take effect.

DAR published its advertisements for CARP anniversaries and accomplishments/activities in as many as eight different print media outlets.

The agency said its extravagant media campaign was crucial in "maintaining peace and order in the rural areas" because it shed light on what the government is doing to address unequal distribution of land.

The Free Press Magazine was the runaway choice of DAR for its print advertising cornering P1.59 million followed by:

Philippine Daily Inquirer, P832,678; Philippine Star, P639,679; Manila Bulletin, P630,525; Manila Standard Today, P444,852; Graphic Magazine, P295,000; Manila Times, P291,051; The Daily Tribune, P204,484; Malaya, P174,011, and Businessworld, P160,380.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19382

Asia trails behind

Seven Asian countries are in the bottom 20 in the Index and none in the top 20.

The continent’s dictatorships stepped up their repression over the past year. Burma (164th) slipped anopther place, with seven journalists imprisoned, 11 arrested and prior censorship maintained. Pakistan (157th), despite fairly outspoken media outlets, saw kidnappings of journalists and physical attacks by police or intelligence agents. Vietnam (155th) moved up three places, though it continued to stifle freedom of expression online. Laos (156th) remained in the same position, with its media obeying the information ministry’s orders.

Some of the worst-ranked countries fell even lower. Singapore (146th) slipped six places because of new legal action by the government against foreign media. The Philippines (142nd) was three places down with continuing murders of journalists and increased legal harassment, including by President Gloria Arroyo’s husband. Bangladesh (137th) moved up slightly, with fewer journalists killed, though more than 80 cases of censorship were recorded.

The young democracies of East Timor (83rd) and Mongolia (86th) tumbled some way down the Index due to physical attacks and threats against journalists.

***************************************************

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/topofthehour.aspx?StoryId=54119

RP still ranked second worst place for media

The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) said the Philippines again ranked second to Iraq on the list of world’s most dangerous countries for the press for the third year in a row.

RSF said press freedom in the Philippines worsened from last year amid the unabated murder of journalists and multiple libel cases filed against them.

In its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index for the year, the international media watchdog said the Philippines slipped to 142nd from 139th in 2005. The study is composed of 168 nations.

It cited the spate of killings and legal harassments, particularly the multiple libel cases filed by first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, as the threats to press freedom in the country.

"Journalists in the Philippines pay a high price for their outspokenness, with the year marked by seven murders and as many murder attempts," the RSF report said.

It cited the murder of radio journalist George Benaojan in Cebu three days after the conviction of police officer Guillermo Wapile for the 2002 murder of journalist Edgar Damalerio.

It noted that despite the arrest and conviction of some killers, journalists remain at risk especially those who expose corruption or trafficking of local authorities.

The report said the murders are often preceded by text message threats or the sending of macabre packages such as a funeral wreath delivered to the home of Glenda Gloria, managing editor of Newsbreak, in August with the message, "From your faithful friends."

It scored President Arroyo for trying "to stop the press from doing its job of safe-guarding democracy."

"Grappling with communist and Islamist guerrillas, the government, under pressure from the army, included a ban on press interviews with 'terrorist groups' in its controversial anti-terror legislation," it added.

The National Union of Journalists said it is not surprised with the RSF report.

"Well, it is not really a surprise because in the past three years the Philippines has been getting a very low grade from international media watchdogs," NUJP secretary general Weng Carranza said.

Carranza said the government also issues policies that put restrictions on press freedom such as the anti-terrorism bill.

She added that the administration still lacked political will to convict the killers despite forming two investigative bodies to probe the murders.

"There has to be an education campaign for the public to realize that the issue of [media] killings is not just an issue for media practitioners…once a journalist is killed, the people’s right to know is also affected…the public should also be aware of how much it affects their right to information and press freedom in general," she said.

The RSF report tagged North Korea, Turkmenistan and Eritrea as the world’s most ardent enemies of press freedom. It said these countries, along with Cuba, Burma and China, should stop routine crackdowns on the media.

The United States, meantime, fell from 17th place in 2002 to 53rd this year due to what reporters said are deteriorating relations among US President Bush’s administration, federal courts and media.

Northern European countries like Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands still top the list as the most free. With a report from ANC

PLANS of extracting oil from the Camago-Malampaya oil rim off the western island of Palawan is still on hold, but the precious resource appears to be dissipating fast, an industry official said.

By not extracting the oil from the Malampaya field, the country is losing about P33 million in revenue each day, said Eduardo Mañalac, president of state-owned Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC).

The longer the extraction of Malampaya oil is put off, the less oil can be taken out of the reserves and the more difficult it will be to take out whatever oil will be left, Mañalac aid.

"The oil that sits under the Malampaya gas field will not be there forever," he said. "Even as we speak, the pressure that is stored in the oil field decreases, as the gas is harvested."

He stressed that "a choice must be made soon" to extract and develop the Malampaya oil, to ease reliance on foreign fuel.

The Department of Energy will soon form a task force to formulate bidding rules and procedures for the Camago-Malampaya oil rim development contract, in the hope that the contract can be awarded before yearend.

Mañalac earlier said that after the bidding rules and procedures were finalized, a transparent bidding process would be held to select the project partner for PNOC.

With the selection process still at square one, he said, the target for drawing first oil from the Malampaya reserves would be pushed back from the original target of end-2007 to the first half of 2008.

"Extracting the oil is getting more and more difficult," Mañalac said. "The reserves will drop and, when that happens, we have to look at lowering the cost of development to still make the project economically viable."

http://business.inq7.net/money/topstories/view_article.php?article_id=28550

tsk, tsk... kilos na agad!

PNP announces entire metropolis remains under heightened alert
Daily Tribune
http://www.tribune.net.ph/metro/20061026met4.html
10/26/2006

Philippine National Police (PNP) yesterday said Metro Manila will remain under a heightened alert following reports that “outside forces” are gearing to conduct violent activities, including terrorism, as the nation prepares for the observance of “All Saints’ Day” and All Souls’ Day.”

Sr. Supt. Samuel Pagdilao, PNP spokesman, told reporters at the weekly Fernandina Forum they were able to confirm such reports after a series of bombings that rocked Mindanao, prompting the PNP to place the entire metropolis under heightened alert since Oct. 9.

Pagdilao said the PNP anticipated that violence and terrorism activities taking place in the countryside will spill over in Metro Manila, prompting PNP to take the necessary measure and precaution.

“We have received these reports on Oct. 9 that there are activities (violence and terrorism) that will spill over in Metro Manila from Mindanao, we have not pinpointed the specific targets but these are all factored in preparation for All Saints’ Day,” Pagdilao said.

Aside from the heightened alert, which may remain even after the holidays, Pagdilao said checkpoints and chokepoints were also set up in strategic areas to prevent commission of crimes or related activities.

Dismissing public apprehension that checkpoints are used to harass the public, particularly motorists, Pagdilao said checkpoints must be well lighted, manned by uniformed policemen with their name tags properly displayed and the “plainview doctrine” as rules of standard for search as upheld by the Supreme Court must be observed.

He, however, asked the public to report abuses of policemen manning the checkpoints and assured them the PNP Internal Affairs Services is ready to address the problem.

A report states that a majority of the Filipino youth are misinformed about AIDS. Well, this seems to be true considering how the youth are accepting all kinds of information with regard to AIDS, or should I say, hearsays about AIDS. And we should be wary about this. Otherwise we might be another Africa in the making.

Maybe the concerned government agencies such as DOH and DepEd should closely coordinate to integrate awareness and education campaigns so that the youth can be properly informed of the danger of this illness.

Hunger hits record high: 2.9M families have nothing to eat

While many Filipinos are growing obese, the incidence of hunger in the country is back to a record high, with 2.9 million families finding themselves with nothing to eat at one time or another in the third quarter of 2006, according to a survey by a non-government polling group.

Results of a survey conducted by Social Weather Stations showed that 16.9 percent of some 17.4 million households were hungry at least once over the past three months. A household has about five members.

The record was first reached in March, but the figure dropped to 13.9 percent in June.

Hunger was highest in Mindanao at 21.3 percent in September, SWS said.

The incidence of hunger declined in Metro Manila (from 15 percent in June to 12.8 percent in September) but rose in the rest of the country: The rest of Luzon (from 10 percent to 14.7 percent), the Visayas (from 17.7 percent to 19.7 percent) and Mindanao (from 17.3 percent to 21.3 percent).

The SWS survey, conducted from Sept. 24 to Oct. 2, covered 1,200 households (300 each from Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao). It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for national data and plus or minus 6 percentage points for regional data.

While the incidence of hunger rose, the number of families considering themselves poor declined. Fifty-one percent described themselves to be living in poverty, an improvement from the 59 percent the previous quarter.

“These results indicate that while some families managed to cross the borderline of poverty, other families began to suffer the deep deprivation of hunger,” SWS said in a statement.

Severe hunger

The number of families who said they were experiencing severe hunger (going hungry often or always) rose to 4.6 percent (about 800,000 households) in September from 3.4 percent in June.

Households experiencing moderate hunger (those who had empty stomachs once or a few times) rose to 12.3 percent, about 2.1 million households, from 10.1 percent.

Those who rated themselves poor rose in the Visayas, but declined in other areas, according to SWS.

Self-rated poverty went down in all areas except in the Visayas. Sixty-six percent of households in the Visayas said they were poor, up from 59 percent. Those who rated themselves poor declined in Metro Manila (from 54 percent to 46 percent), the rest of Luzon (59 percent to 45 percent) and Mindanao (from 61 percent to 53 percent).

Monthly budget

Despite the rising cost of living, the median self-rated poverty threshold, or the median monthly budget set by self-rated poor households “to escape poverty,” declined in Metro Manila (from P15,000 to P10,000) and in Mindanao (from P6,000 to P5,000).

It remained at P6,000 in the Visayas and rose in the rest of Luzon from P5,000 to P6,000.

“Such money-value thresholds were already attained some years ago, even though the cost of living increased greatly every year. Since the money-cost of living is actually rising, a declining or unchanging poverty threshold means that households are lowering their living standards or belt-tightening,” SWS said.

The percentage of Filipinos growing obese is growing.

The Food and Nutrition Research Institute said that the prevalence of overweight children, aged 6 to 10 years, rose to 1.3 percent in 2003 from nearly zero in 1998.

In 2005, the National Nutrition and Health Survey found that 54 percent of women in the country were obese compared with 12.1 percent for men.

Secretary of Defense Cruz resigns
A victim in Palace’s search for scapegoat on people’s initiative junking
BY VICTOR REYES
Malaya
http://www.malaya.com.ph/nov06/news1.htm


DEFENSE Secretary Avelino Cruz resigned yesterday, making him the first victim in what sources said was the Palace’s search for a scapegoat in the Supreme Court ruling junking the people’s initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution.

President Arroyo will temporarily handle the defense portfolio when Cruz’ resignation takes effect on Nov. 30, the sources said.

Rodel Cruz, defense undersec-retary for legal and priority concerns, said Cruz submitted his irrevocable resignation letter to Arroyo in a meeting in Malacanang also yesterday.

Undersecretary Cruz, who is described as the closest to the defense chief among the six defense undersecretaries, would not elaborate on what prompted Cruz to quit after occupying the defense portfolio for more than two years.

"I do not know. It’s hard to speculate. What I only know is that his resignation is irrevocable,’ Undersecretary Cruz said.

Last week, the defense chief said at least three Cabinet members, whom he did not identify, wanted him out of the Cabinet because of his opposition to amend the 1987 Constitution through people’s initiative.

Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Cruz’ fellow founding partner in the Villaraza Angangco law office, known as the The Firm for being the long-time counsel of Arroyo and her family, was the ponente in the 8-7 ruling of Oct. 25 which junked the joint petitions of Sigaw ng Bayan and Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines.

F. Arthur Villaraza, the third founding member of The Firm, has been accused by some close advisers of Arroyo of being a "traitor" for allegedly lobbying with members of the High Court to junk the Sigaw and ULAP petitions.

"The secretary wishes his successor to continue the comprehensive reform agenda under the Philippine Defense Reform (PDR) program that he initiated to professionalize and upgrade the capability of the defense and military establishment," said Undersecretary Cruz.

The PDR program, which Cruz crafted shortly after he assumed the DND post in August 2004, is a multi-billion project that calls for the acquisition of new military equipment for the AFP to better fight threat groups.

"Despite leaving government service, he commits to maintain an abiding interest in ensuring good governance, upholding the rule of law and the pursuit of genuine reforms in our society," Undersec-retary Cruz said.

Undersecretary Cruz furnished media the one-page letter handed by Cruz to the President.

The letter reads: "I hereby tender my irrevocable resignation effective 30 November 2006. Thank you for the opportunity to be of service to our nation."

When asked what was the reaction of the President or if the President asked Cruz to reconsider his resignation, Undersecretary Cruz said: "I don’t know. I wasn’t in the meeting. What I know is that his resignation is irrevocable…He just quit. No one asked him to quit."

Undersecretary Cruz was also a member of Villaraza Angangco before joining government.

Before his appointment as defense secretary, the 53-year-old Cruz was chief presidential legal counsel since 2000. On numerous occasions, Cruz had been designated by Malacañang as acting executive secretary.

Cruz was the third civilian to become defense secretary during the post-Marcos era. The two others were Juan Ponce Enrile (during the Aquino government) and Orlando Mercado (during the Estrada administration).

When Gen. (ret.) Angelo Reyes resigned as defense chief in 2003, President Arroyo took over as acting defense secretary for several months before appointing now Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to the post. Ermita, a retired lieutenant general, was Cruz’ predecessor.

Cruz was appointed to the defense portfolio shortly after the Feliciano commission that investigated the Oakwood mutiny of 2003 recommended that a civilian be named to head the defense department.

Cruz had been constantly reminding the 120,000-strong military to remain insulated from politics.

Last month, he signed a memorandum of agreement with the Commission on Elections limiting the involvement of the military in the conduct of elections. The agreement provides, among other conditions, that canvassing should not be held in military camps.

The May 2004 presidential elections were marred by allegations that some generals, including current AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, took part in rigging the elections in favor of the President.

Last week, Esperon distanced himself and the military from the people’s initiative controversy involving Cruz.

In principle, Esperon said, the military should not be involved in the charter change issue.

"But let me just say that whoever is our secretary of national defense, then the AFP would simply have to follow him as our civilian head of the department that is appointed by the President," Esperon said.

Exporters want peso's champions to shut up already
By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.
Inquirer
http://business.inq7.net/money/breakingnews/view_article.php?article_id=30562

HURTING from the strengthening of the peso, exporters want government officials and financial experts not to further exacerbate their woes by toning down their exuberance over the growing strength of the local currency.

Since the government and banks cannot do anything to rein in the peso's rise, Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) president Sergio Ortiz-Luis said they should at least "keep their mouths shut” and avoid putting more fuel into the peso's climb that has been a bane to exporters.

"We're not asking the government to step in and order the BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) to intervene. We just want them to stop adding to the hype, and that includes the foreign bankers too,'' he said.

Ortiz-Luis explained that too much positive talk on the peso's rally, specifically predictions that it would strengthen further below the P49-to-$1 mark, has only increased speculation in “this direction.”

"It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Although some of the peso's strength has been market-driven, we can't help but wonder how much of this rally has been hyped by the players?'' asked Ortiz-Luis.

He said a strong peso is not conducive to exports because it makes local products more expensive to foreign buyers.

"What is most disheartening is that our indigenous exports like furniture, handicrafts, and processed foods are the ones getting hit by a strong peso. At below 50, some exporters have to cancel their orders because they would be shipping their products at a loss,'' he said.

Ortiz-Luis said that 30 percent of the country's export earnings were generated by indigenous products which account for 80 percent of all labor in all export industries.

While the government has promised to provide support to exporters through tax exemptions, Ortiz-Luis said these measures were too minimal to offset the impact of a strong peso.

1.4 M youths not eager to find jobs

Some 1.4 million young Filipinos have not bothered to look for work amid widespread belief that there’s no job available for them anyway, based on a recent survey.

This figure comprises nearly half of the 2.9 million unemployed Filipinos, the National Statistics Office (NSO) survey conducted last June showed.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) calls the unemployed youth "discouraged workers" in a study, which also revealed that after completing their college courses, most of the Filipino youth would rather proceed to take up graduate courses than scour for an opening in the job market.

"There’s a growing perception among the young graduates that there is no work available for them in the labor market so most of them would take up graduate courses," the ILO said.

Such perception is now one of the major reasons behind the increasing number of unemployed youth in the Philippines, according to the ILO.

"Since they would rather proceed to graduate (studies) they become easy candidates for inclusion to the pool of educated unemployed, or the so-called ‘discouraged workers,’" the ILO said.

In the NSO survey, a majority of the total unemployed youth, or 17.4 percent, said they think no job is available so they opted not to look for work.

Out of the 1.4 million workless youth, 11.7 percent said they were awaiting the possibility of being re-hired, while 12.2 percent were expecting the results of previous job applications.

The ILO report noted that many Filipino graduates are not properly equipped to deal with the skills requirement of the labor industry.

Swelling ranks of OFWs draining local talent pool
By Daxim Lucas 11/06/2006

An influential multilateral funding agency has urged both the public and private sectors to implement more initiatives to reverse the effects of a "brain drain" caused by the swelling ranks of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

The Manila-based Asian Development Bank has warned that the sustained export of skilled Filipino labor could eventually end up discouraging foreign investments if the local talent pool continued to decline.

"Brain drain has an impact on foreign direct investment as capital will flow only into economies with perceived adequate supplies of skilled labor in key sectors," the bank said in a book released last week titled "Converting Migration Drains into Gains."

"One of the greatest concerns about brain drain is that the continued migration of skilled workers reduces overall productivity," it added.

The 66-nation member organization defines brain drain as a situation when a country's diaspora is disproportionately made up of skilled workers, causing the source country to experience a decline in average-per-worker income. Eventually, educational investments in the source country--such as tuition paid for nursing or computer skills courses in the Philippines--become subsidies for the destination country.

The ADB pointed out that the country's migrant labor force "encompasses a disproportionate share of the most productive age group (those between 25 to 44 years old)," which suggests a loss, even for temporary and limited periods, of "those with the most experience, on-the-job training, and likely supervisory skills."

The group also represents "a disproportionate share of individuals with greater number of years of education, especially those who have completed bachelor's or higher degrees."

To protect the local economy from the ill effects of a "brain drain," the ADB urged the various stakeholders in the local community to focus on programs that would encourage Filipinos working overseas to share talents and skills gained abroad with their locally based counterparts, or a so-called "brain gain."

"A migrant-sending country such as the Philippines should see more brain gain programs and knowledge transfer initiatives, not just by overseas-based migrant networks or individuals, but also by groups of returned OFWs nationwide, by civil society groups and academic research institutions, by the business and government sectors, and by international organizations," the bank said.

It added that brain gain activities should deserve more attention from multilateral organizations, donor agencies and host countries of skilled Filipino migrants. This can be done through avenues such as official development assistance windows.

The ADB pointed out, however, that the onus for converting the brain drain into brain gain lies most heavily with the government.

"Some think that the government is unable to integrate the vital role of international migration into national development policy," the ABD book said.

"While the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan has portions that discuss how overseas Filipinos can contribute to development, they do not provide a clear and broad policy perspective for the country," it added. "Public policy can make or break any knowledge transfer program."

Government statistics showed that there were 7.9 million Filipinos overseas as of end-2005, either as contract workers, permanent residents or undocumented migrants.

"Distributed across 193 countries, overseas Filipinos have come to be regarded as very significant contributors to the country's economic development," ADB said.

Last year, they sent home $10.6 billion, which was roughly equivalent to a tenth of the country's total economic output for a year or about half of the government's foreign currency reserves.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas expects OFW remittances to top $11.8 billion by year's end.

How much abject poverty can a nation take?
By Randy David 13 November 2006

How much poverty can a nation take before it starts to disintegrate?

The latest Social Weather Stations survey reports that 51 per cent of the people it asked rated themselves poor, and that almost three million Filipino households experienced hunger in the last three months.

In themselves, surveys about poverty have no intrinsic meaning.

Individuals have different thresholds of pain. And responses to hunger can vary from pious acceptance to revolutionary resistance.

Every society has its own safety-valve mechanisms.

But hunger is first of all a problem for the modern nation-state.

If the state cannot guarantee its citizens the minimum conditions for a decent life, it will soon lose its reason for being.

All around us are telltale signs that the nations disintegration may have actually begun.

More than 8 million adult Filipinos now live and work abroad, many of them preferring to stay permanently where they are.

They faithfully send money to the loved ones they have left behind.

But how many of them are happy about paying taxes to the Philippine government?

To almost every human need we can think of today, the state response has been to privatise fulfillment i.e., to make need satisfaction entirely dependent on the individuals capacity to pay.

Schooling, health care, housing, water, mass transportation, electricity, leisure, communication and even personal security, name it, it is private enterprise that is there to answer the need.

If this is what the future is like, then it is not farfetched to imagine the eventual withering of the state paving the way for the privatisation of law-making and the outsourcing of governance itself.

A state cannot leave its citizens to fend for themselves without facing the long-term consequences of its own neglect.

Without a future to look forward to at home, the citizens will, at the first opportunity, pack up and leave as millions of Filipinos have done in the last three decades, and still do, by the thousands every day.

Those who are too poor to pay their passage out of the country will pitch their tattered tents on pavements or build their hovels on public and private land. They will illicitly tap into any water or electricity source, snatch cell phones and steal from their equally impoverished neighbours.

They will work as runners for drug and criminal syndicates.

They will send their children out into the busy streets of the metropolis to beg.

They will peer into trash cans in search of left-over food, or recyclables.

They will cut existing power lines for the aluminum wire, steal the copper casing of water meters and fire hydrants, and remove the metal covers of manholes.

And when they have run out of things to sell to the junk shop, they will retail their blood and their kidneys, or rent out their whole bodies.

They will even sell their young offspring. All these are already happening today.

The ideal of a modern republican state, in which citizens stand equally before the law, has long been exposed to be a gigantic lie. The deep inequalities created by a vicious property system cancel all the romantic visions of a nation of equal citizens enjoying a just social order. It is no wonder that people are turning to the tightly knit communities of faith for the support they cannot find in the nation-state. Not many churches or mosques, however, have this kind of capacity. In many societies, it is the warlords who step up to fill the space vacated by the failed state.

The symptoms of a failing state are so commonplace that we seldom see their significance. Our first instinct is to react to the threat they pose by resorting to private solutions costly adaptations with limited social value. That is how, over the years, this society has quietly assembled possibly the worlds largest army of private security guards. For we've long stopped turning to the police for protection. Residential subdivisions and condos, private schools, universities, office buildings, banks, shopping malls, and restaurants, big and small, now retain their own platoon of security personnel. The number of private security guards in the country today easily dwarfs the combined personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police.

The problem of poverty and the coping mechanisms it generates are systemic in nature. We will not overcome them by fencing off our neighbours, or hiring bodyguards to secure our children and our homes.

Even acts of charity provide only short-term relief. What people need are regular jobs and steady livelihood that will enable them to provide for their families. They need land on which they can build their homes and where they won't be constantly under threat of eviction. They need good schools for their children. They need to be able to look to a future that is kinder.

Each day, we respond to the problems spawned by poverty as if they were merely private troubles; we forego the chance to question the rules on which our dysfunctional way of life has been built. Instead of nurturing a stable nation, we breed a resentful people fragmented by the conventions of social exclusion.

Our political leaders continue to sleepwalk through this troubled landscape, lost in their fantasies about the wondrous effects of Charter change.

They are programmed not to think beyond elections, and so they will never see the storm before them.

Why doesn't he shut up and stop analyzing the given and do something about it. Doing something about it is not trying to bring the present administration down. As a private citizen he can start a charity,volunteer or advocacy program.

Naku ngayon naman sa mga Vietnamese kinukumpera ang pagka walang disciplina ng mga pinoy. Date sa Japanase tapos sa mgaSingaporean tapos sa mga instik ngayon sa mga Vietnamese wala na talagang pagasa pag sumunod pa sa mga bombay.


GMA: Pinoys must emulate Vietnamese on discipline

The Philippine Star 11/19/2006

HANOI — If only Filipinos were as disciplined as the Vietnamese, the Philippines would have grown by leaps and bounds, President Arroyo said here yesterday.

In her speech before members of the Filipino community at the Hotel Nikko, the President said it’s only been three decades since the Vietnam War had ended "but in such a short time, the Vietnamese managed to rebuild their country."

"This is proof of the discipline of the Vietnamese, like the Chinese," Mrs. Arroyo said. "I hope this time, maybe us Filipinos should learn from the example shown by the Vietnamese, particularly their discipline to achieve progress for their country."

"We can learn plenty from the fast growth of Vietnam so we can also hasten the progress in the Philippines toward our aspirations of a strong Republic," she said.

Vietnam’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) averaged 6.8 percent annually from 1997 to 2004; its growth hit eight percent in 2005.

Mrs. Arroyo arrived here Friday night accompanied by a few Cabinet officials and lawmakers. She proceeded straight to the venue where she is also billeted.

During the event, she received a donation of $5,500 from two Filipino organizations — Pinoy sa Hanoi and Samahang Pinoy sa Vietnam — for the construction of classrooms in the country.

She thanked them for their contributions for the victims of the tragic landslide in Southern Leyte in March this year.

Mrs. Arroyo noted that while the Filipino population in Vietnam is small, which is approximately only over a thousand, their "influence and impact on your host country far outweighs your number."

The President recalled that Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo was here a year ago to forge agreements, one of which was an effort to double the trade between the two countries from $1 billion in 2005 to $2 billion by 2007.

She noted that the Philippines imports a substantial amount of rice from Vietnam. "I hope our overseas Filipinos could help in selling our products here."

Many Filipinos working here are mostly businessmen, managers, accountants, or hold other white collar jobs, explaining the Vietnamese’ high regard for them, the President said.

She also said Filipino business leaders have helped create opportunities for Vietnam’s economy like investments from Jollibee, San Miguel Corp., Universal Robina and other companies.

Remittances from them have also helped in strengthening the economy, Mrs. Arroyo said. "In other words, your (Filipino community) contribution is not only national but also regional or even global."

She pointed out that the Philippines’ economic fundamentals would be stronger if all Filipinos cooperate and support their country. — Paolo Romero

Why doesn't he shut up and stop analyzing the given and do something about it. Doing something about it is not trying to bring the present administration down. As a private citizen he can start a charity,volunteer or advocacy program.

true

In the news today is a revelation of one of our lawmakers with regard to anomalous transactions that immigration agents are engaged into. Apparently, these agents extort money from illegal aliens and facilitate fake visas for a fee.

This must be investigated immediately. In as much as they are setting free those people who have committed crimes, they are not in any way serving the public through these anomalous transactions.

By extorting money, they are just involving themselves to graft and corrupt practices instead of doing invaluable service to the public. This must be put to an end.

Foreign terror leaders in and out of RP, admits NSA chief
By Sherwin C. Olaes
Daily Tribune
11/24/2006

Despite deployment of thousands of troops and increased intelligence gathering to track down suspected foreign and local terrorists, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales yesterday admitted there are international groups freely roaming in Mindanao and strengthening their forces.

The NSA chief, during a forum on internal security operations and counter-terrorism in Clark Field, Pampanga, revealed that aside from the two Indonesian bombers who have links with al-Qaeda terror network – Umar Patek and Dulmatin, whom he said were hiding in Mindanao, there are other foreign terrorists who are freely entering and leaving Mindanao for the past months now.

“There are others, not only them,” Gonzales stressed, adding the two Indonesians are the “principals.”

Dulmatin and Patek were tagged as the ones who masterminded the 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, that left at least 200 persons dead.

He said authorities only got such intelligence report now but assured the government would do its best to protect the public and run after the unidentified foreign terrorists.

Gonzales refused to give other details for security and operational reasons but stressed any terror activities will not be tolerated by the national government.

He urged the public to be calm as “these foreign terrorists were at a manageable level.”

President Arroyo, for her part, said she already got a positive answer in her request from US President George W. Bush to help in the fight against terrorism in the country.

She added she had asked Bush “to have a deeper and broader involvement in the peace process in Mindanao.”

“And they have identified eight senior persons from the US Embassy in Manila to be able to work with our peace process panel,” Mrs. Arroyo stressed.

She said the war on terrorism should be fought with concerted efforts among the national and local governments, the police and the military, adding the Mindanao peace process “must be factored heavily in our blue print for internal security.”

A total of 7,500 Marine and Army soldiers are currently pursuing the group of Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani, Dulmatin and Patek.

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, for his part, also yesterday said the military has a credible information indicating that Janjalani, Dulmatin and Patek, who are among the terrorist leaders wanted by the United States, are still in Jolo, Sulu, province amid recurring reports that they have already fled to either Basilan or Lanao del Norte.

“They are still there…we have good reports that would attest to that,” the military chief told reporters during a separate press briefing at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.

He added the military leadership is reorganizing the deployment of thousands of government forces currently deployed in the jungles of Sulu.

Esperon said Operation Plan Ultimatum had undergone an earlier revision after its execution last Aug. 1.

“This is phase three of that fragmentary order,” the AFP chief stressed, referring to the fresh revision.

Esperon initially refused to answer questions about the new strategies they are adopting under the new phase of operation, saying “That’s too tactical, very operational,” but assured that the new plan does not call for the deployment of additional troops.

Asked on the difference between phase three of the operation from the first two phases, the military chief said: “It’s rearranging troops on the group, that’s all to it. There will be no additional (troops that would be deployed).”

Meanwhile, driven by common fear of terrorism, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are set to raise the ramparts against security threats when they hold the 12th Asean Summit in Cebu City on Dec. 11-13.

Like some of its Asean partners, particularly Indonesia, the Philippines has had its share of terrorist attacks from the al-Qaeda linked Muslim terrorist cell Abu Sayyaf.

In 2002, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines forged an agreement in Kuala Lumpur calling for cross border sharing of information on terrorism and other security concerns, but it contained no specific measures to implement the accord.


_________________________________________



‘Osama henchmen in RP’
BY JOSE RODEL CLAPANO
The Philippine Star

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez bared Friday that some emissaries of international terrorist leader Osama bin Laden have entered the country using forged Indian passports with fake Philippine visas and other bogus travel documents.

Gonzalez said that confidential reports showed that the Ninoy Aquino International Airport is being used as an entry point for the smuggling of Indians to Manila.

"These Indians arrived with fake Philippine visas and re-entry permits/special return certificates. Some Pakistanis and Afghans who are suspected emissaries of Osama bin Laden also make use of this modus operandi by using fake Indian passports in entering the country," Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said that last Aug. 9, a group of ten Indians using fake Philippine visas arrived at the NAIA Terminal I on board a foreign airliner.

He said that in many cases, the arrival of Indians with fake Philippine visas and re-entry permits or Special Return Certificates are not officially registered by corrupt immigration officers and the aliens are not recorded in the Bureau of Immigration’s travel information database.

Gonzalez said he also received reports that Jemaah Islamiyah spiritual leader Abubakar Bashir (Bashir) has called on Indonesian Muslims to wage jihad or holy war against infidels overseas and in Southern Philippines.

"Speaking to his supporters in the town of Kediri, East Java, on November 5, 2006, he (Bashir) stressed the need for his followers to travel to foreign lands where Muslims continue to be subjected to injustices, singling out the Southern Philippines as a prime destination for Muslims to wage Jihad," Gonzalez said.

In a two-page order, Gonzalez directed the head supervisors of NAIA Terminals I and II, the chief of the immigration regulation division and the supervisors of all ports and sub-ports in the country to strictly monitor all Pakistanis, Afghans, Indonesian nationals and other foreign visitors carrying Indian passports who have entered the Philippines.

"For these reasons, you are hereby directed to strictly monitor and conduct surveillance and profiling of all Pakistanis and Afghans, as well as Indians and other foreign visitors carrying Indian passports who have entered the Philippines, and submit a weekly report thereon," Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez also ordered the airport officials to "secure all airline passengers’ manifests which must be confirmed and cross-checked by the official of the Bureau of Immigration encoded arrival list."

Max Soliven Dead!

PHILIPPINE Star Publisher Max Soliven died Friday at a hospital in Tokyo, Japan, according to reports culled by INQ7.net.

Soliven was officially pronounced dead at 11:26 a.m. (Tokyo time) of cardiac arrest at the Narita Red Cross Hospital, consul Gina Jamoralin of the Philippine embassy in Tokyo told INQ7.net in a phone interview.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo paid tribute to Soliven, saying: “The nation is deeply saddened by the passage of an icon of freedom.”

"The post-war march of Philippine democracy under a free press could not have been as vibrant without Max Soliven, who fought beside the forces of enlightenment in the struggle against despotism and wrong," she said.

Soliven “was at the Narita airport when it [cardiac arrest] happened that's why he was rushed there,” Jamoralin said.

She said a Philippine embassy consul was at the hospital helping in the arrangements for the repatriation of his remains, which will be shipped back to the Philippines Friday where arrangements are being made for his funeral.

"He rang the paper last night to check on how we were [d]oing," Philippine Star executive editor Ana Marie Pamintuan told Agence France-Presse said.

Soliven, a communications major at Fordham in the United States, worked in various local newspapers and hosted several TV talk shows during his distinguished career. He also worked as a correspondent of foreign wires covering wars in Southeast Asia during the 1960s.

One of the last of his generation of Philippine journalists, Soliven interviewed many of the world's major political figures over the last 50 years.

He won numerous awards, both local and international, and in October was made an officer of the Legion d'Honneur by the French government and remained publisher of the Star until his death.

One of his proudest moments was being jailed with opposition leader Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. when then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972.

Aquino was later assassinated by Marcos troops upon returning from the United States in 1983.

He became the publisher of the Philippine Star after the 1986 Edsa Revolution.

The Philippine Star, together with the Philippine Daily Inquirer (a parent company of INQ7.net) and the Manila Bulletin form the triumvirate of Philippine national newspapers that dominate the print media in the country.

Soliven's last column, datelined Tokyo, appeared in Friday's issue of the paper where he pondered the possible rise of a more-assertive Japan under its new prime minister, Shinzo Abe.

Soliven's colleague and fellow columnist Babes Romualdez described him as "a journalist to the end."

oh my god that's so sad. He was a good Filipino.

NBI says 45 tons of coins brought to China this year
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/nov/27/yehey/metro/20061127met1.html
By Katrice R. Jalbuena, Reporter

ASYNDICATE may have already smuggled 45 tons of Philippine P1 coins into the People’s Republic of China this year alone, said the National Bureau of Investigation.

A few days ago the NBI arrested two Taiwanese for the crime—Lin Ming Chin, alias Kevin Lin, and Hsin Lee. They were suspected of being part of the syndicate that purchases the coins from a Chinese-Filipino group.

The NBI also identified the group, which supplied the flattened P1 coins recently confiscated in Taguig. Ruel Lasala, chief of the National Capital Region Office, said the agency is hot on the trail of the suspects.

According to the NBI, the suspects made the round of the banks to change bills into P1 coins. They flatten the coins using a special machine press before selling it to the syndicate for P300 a kilo, which then smuggle them out of the country.

It was learned that in China, the coins are melted to extract their nickel component. The metal, sold for the equivalent of P1,000 a kilo, is used in the manufacture of computer parts and mobile phones.

Lasala said the agency is recommending that Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) make the coin’s face value equal to its intrinsic value. Grace Malig, BSP currency analyst, said smugglers are interested in the 1995 to 2003 series, which have a higher metal content. She said the government will decrease the nickel in newly minted P1 coins to make them less attractive to smugglers.

**************************************************

DA looking at measures to stop smuggling of farm products
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=57407
By JENNIFER NG, Business Mirror reporter

The Department of Agriculture is now looking at several measures that will reduce the smuggling of farm products, including meat products believed to be contaminated with the foot-and-mouth disease, following the threat made by hog raisers that they will stage "a pig holiday" if the government would continue to sit on their proposals to combat smuggling.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said in a text message that he is now looking at several measures, including initiatives that will simplify the issuance of import permits and its monitor.

"I have ordered that all documentation [for] importation be simplified, and I have asked for new policies [for permit issuance] to be drawn up," said Yap.

While not giving more details, Yap said one of the measures he is looking at is issuing only a "provisional" import permit to reduce the probability that some unscrupulous traders could bring in farm products that were not approved for importation.

The private sector, including farmers, has long been complaining over the current system of issuing import permits and their use by some unscrupulous traders who falsify original permits and insert certain items that have not been approved for importation.

Earlier, the Bureau of Plant and Industry has pointed to this as one of the possible reasons for the deluge of onions in the local market, given the disparity in the agency’s figures and those chalked up by local ports.

Yap disclosed that both the Bureau of Customs and the DA are now conducting "100-percent inspection" of all refrigerated vans.

"As of today, we’re already doing 100-percent inspection, but we’re not yet doing ‘strip search,’" he said. Strip search, the DA chief said, involves opening up the refrigerated van and examining all the contents in it.

Yap noted, however, that the private sector wanted to do strip search of refrigerated vans.

"It’s all nights for the private sector to join the inspections but it’s still up to the BOC whether they will allow [them] inside their territory. [But] BOC should allow them, since this has already been done before," said Yap.

Hog raisers, who were the first to sound the alarm over the increasing incidence of smuggling, said they have already put on hold plans to stage a "pig holiday" pending a dialogue with the DA and Customs official.

But Nicanor Briones, chairman of the Agricultural Sector Alliance of the Philippines, said in an interview over a local radio station that plans for a pig holiday will only be completely shelved if they feel that the government is really serious about combating smuggling.

Staging a pig holiday would mean that hog raisers will not sell live hogs for a period of time.

This will cause the price of pork and pork products to shoot up due to the tightness in supply.

Aside from reconstituting the National Antismuggling Task Force under the Office of the President, hog raisers belonging to the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc. have called on the government to allow them 100-percent inspection of all refrigerated vans, as well as the list of farm imports that enter the country from the BOC.

NFHFI president Albert Lim also called on the government to look into the possibility of allowing the DA to link up automated custom operating system network of the BOC so that the two agencies could better monitor the arrival of imports.

^ The government agencies concerned should look into these reports in order to take appropriate actions regarding the matter. These kind of illegal transactions should be prevented.

The sinking of MV Leonida is still in the news as of today. Search and rescue operation is still ongoing to some 20 people missing.

^^Nagmamayabang silang mayaman na daw ang bansa nila eh barya lang ninanakaw pa satin, how insolent.

im quite saddened about mr. soliven's death. May he rest in peace. He was and until now the only columnist that i read on a regular basis. His opinions i read as frequently as i read maureen dowd or bob herbert of the new york times. sigh.

^^ He is one of the most revered journalists that I have known. I practically grow up with what he stands for in the Philippine journalism standards.
His contribution to the Filipinos will never be forgotten.

May he rest in Peace and I hope others would continue on his footsteps.

^^Sabi nga nila, unahan lang yan. Unfortunately pag-minsan nauuna ang mga mabubuting tao. Condolences to the family of Mr. Soliven, I'm sure he would be granted a Special Award in Heaven for uplifting free will and responsibility while he was still here on Earth.

It is so sad that so many good filipinos have come and gone with their only mission in life is to see a liberated Philippines free from poverty. And they die not realizing this dream. It's up to the remaining filipinos to see that their dream was not in vain and contribute to making a better Philippines .

Saturday December 16, 2006





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Where are the Filipino architects?
CITY SENSE By Paulo Alcazaren
The Philippine STAR 12/16/2006

Last week was Philippine Architecture Week. The craziness that accompanies our Christmas season has, however, obscured the celebration of one of the most misunderstood and unappreciated fields of artistic and utilitarian endeavors. Obscured, too, are the products of the practice of architecture and its allied professions – planning, landscape architecture and interior design. How can one even see them, buried as they are beneath massive killer billboards and the urban mess we let accumulate in all our cities?

The week was not without celebrations. The two Philippine organizations of architects – the United Architects of the Philippines (UAP) and the Philippine Institute of Architects (PIA) – had full schedules. The highlight was the launching of a collective undertaking by the two. In partnership with the CCP and the Philippine Association of Landscape Architects, these organizations are setting out to landmark structures and sites of the four National Artists for Architecture and its Allied Arts.

The first work to be landmarked was the Cultural Center of the Philippines by Leandro V. Locsin. The works of the three others – architects Pablo Antonio Sr., Juan Nakpil and landscape architect Ildefonso P. Santos – will follow in series. It is hoped that this exercise will help conserve our legacy of modern architecture in parallel with ongoing efforts to keep older buildings from the American and Spanish colonial periods from demolition. If these are not saved, the whole heritage of Philippine architecture, historical and modern, will disappear. Have You Seen Philippine Architecture?
The problem with Philippine architecture is, in fact, its very invisibility. Nobody can substantially define it, the public does not know it exists beyond the nipa hut and if it does exist, it is otherwise rendered unrecognizable because it hides behind (and I really must reiterate) monstrous billboards, or underneath a foreign façade – in many instances actually designed by a foreigner.

It is Philippine art’s invisibility that was tackled in a talk delivered by culture maven Dr. Nina Baker at the Ayala Museum recently. The title of the talk was "Breaking into the Global Arena: What does it take?"

Dr. Baker put Philippine art in focus, looking at issues of national identity, the hegemonic burden of colonialism and today’s globalization of art and culture mainly through new art and multi-media forms (and by inference, architecture).

Her conclusion: we Filipinos (and our art) have been invisible to the world probably because of our culture’s innate plasticity – our ability to quickly assimilate, absorb, adapt to and adopt foreign forms (fashion, speech, art, architecture, etc). So are we cultural chameleons rendering ourselves mestizo clones from those we chose to valorize? Is our hybrid culture a culture of continuous hybridism with no end in sight except centuries more of copycatting?

Problematizing Philippine art begs a deeper look than I am capable of at the moment, or that this space can accommodate (besides, it requires a different language spoken by academics and scholars, which is foreign to most Filipinos whose concept of art is that of artistic daily survival amid the creative ineptitude of government.)

I can only tackle Philippine architecture, which is the main subject of this week’s piece. Have You Seen A Filipino Architect?
Philippine architecture in 2006 finds itself at the edge of another construction boom. The problem today is not so much how to project Philippine architecture abroad as it is to project itself into the consciousness of contemporary Filipinos.

Filipino architects are generally invisible. Almost no Philippine designer is a household name. This is because of the commodification of the whole process of making houses. These are known as "housing products" (the term used by developers), designed anonymously and built by model number or mass produced like burgers and fries.

Up-sizing these "products" for the upscale market entails the slapping on of a brand. Usually the name of some foreign architect, planner, landscape architect or interior designer is plastered all over media to make the development more sellable. Blame this on real estate executives, marketing heads or advertising creatives without cultural souls or social consciousness – slaves to a colonial mentality that forever relegates anything or anyone Filipino as inferior.

Where are the 30,000 or so Filipino architects and affiliated design professionals? They are invisible, save to their immediate relatives or project managers of real estate development firms who are tasked to produce the best product with the least budget (cheap but good) and if there was a budget, to pay a foreign consultant premium fees, which more often that not cut into the local consultants’ fees.

The only thing that was visible during Architecture Week last week was a rather plain whole page ad paid by the architects’ organizations informing the public about the dangers of hiring unlicensed architects and the existence of RA 9266, the Architecture Act of 2004, which controls the practice of the profession (similar laws cover the allied arts of environmental planning, landscape architecture and interior design). Architects As Idols?
Of course, there have been little public glimpses into the creative genius of the Filipino designer. Winners in architecture and interior design for national events like Metrobank’s MADE annual design competition and the CCP design competition have helped shine some needed light. So have the international competition triumphs this year of furniture designer Kenneth Cobonpue (in Hong Kong) and industrial/furniture designer/artist J. Palencia (at the Roscoe Awards in New York).

The achievements of these designers, however, pale in comparison to the accolades showered on boxing champions or Philippine Idols. Yes, we can sing like divas and gangsta rappers but we do it in our leaking shanties or waterless showers. We can jab our way out of any tough spot, too, but we have to anyway in our everyday negotiation of our merciless city streets.

Compassionate architecture by Filipino architects is what is best for the Philippine setting. The problem is that the physical, social and economic settings for Pinoy designers are so disheartening that many are continually lured to other lands to create modern built environments for Middle Easterners, Chinese, Malaysians, Singaporeans and yes even Americans. In those lands too they are invisible – relegated to back room production for the most part, swallowing professional pride and true artistic expression for the luxury of eating four square meals and sending home the dollars that are propping up the Philippine’s perennially-hobbled local economy. Getting Architecture In Shape
Filipino architects have to step up. They have to make themselves visible to a public that has very little idea of the creative potential of architecture and design. Good Filipino architecture and its related disciplines can create the physical settings for social and economic change. Singapore and Kuala Lumpur were dank backwaters but cleaned up and are wealthy cities because investors like order and cleanliness. Locally, note how unruly crowds become more disciplined in the ordered spaces of shopping malls or inside the "masterplanned" enclaves of the rich and corrupt.

Churchill said, "We shape our architecture and our architecture shapes us." Our national identity is shaped not only by the abstract constructs of constitutions and laws, but also by the way we design and build our surroundings. Our constitution is based on a western model, is flawed, and should be changed, so too with our architecture. We would balk at the idea of hiring foreign lawmakers to come and change the constitution for us (so we messily and bloodily try to do it ourselves) but foreign intervention is actively sought out for our future buildings, complexes, landscapes and districts. So what gives?

The Filipino public should give Philippine architecture a long hard look. Filipino clients have to give Filipino architects and related professionals the chance to do what they do best – design wonderful buildings, malls, resorts and housing to world-class standards. But to do this, world-class fees must also be part of the deal. If you pay peanuts, you get houses for monkeys. Are We Monkeys Or Architects?
It’s amazing how the Filipino architect is treated worse than a monkey. The pay is small and yet he or she is asked to throw in freebies for this or that additional scope of work. It is not enough that they are asked for tawad, Divisoria style on their fees; they are expected to also be at the beck and call of clients.

Worse still, in some situations, they are expected to kowtow to foreign architects who charge 10 times the locals fees for half the work. Finally, the saddest thing of all is the fact that many Filipino architectural firms are actually losing their people to the very same foreigners who lord it over the locals. Is there no end to this tragedy?

It is then probably good to have Architecture Week in December. Such a tragic profession needs the cheer of the holiday season to brighten its prospects yearly. So all Filipino architects need really is a simple gift from the public. They just want to be given a chance.

And oh yes, for any chance to really be able to appreciate Filipino architecture, those #*!!* billboards should be taken down. Who put them up again anyway? * * *
Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.

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Filipinos among world’s pessimists
By Darwin G. Amojelar, Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Filipinos are among the world’s most pessimistic people as the year draws to a close, according to results of a Gallup International Voice of the People survey released Monday.

Three of 10 Filipinos think next year will not be as good as 2006, results of the 53-country survey by the Switzerland-based nonprofit research firm showed.

Gallup said 34 percent of Filipinos interviewed think 2007 would be worse than year 2006.

Pessimism is greater in the Philippines than in Indonesia, 33 percent; India, 32 percent; and Germany, 31 percent.

But it is less than the 44 percent level in Greece, 43 percent in Portugal and Iraq, 39 percent in Italy and Croatia, 36 percent in Turkey and Bulgaria and 35 percent in Egypt.

The survey was conducted in November and December and asked, “So far as you are concerned, do you think that 2007 will be better or worse than 2006?”

The survey showed neighboring Vietnam is the most optimistic place in the world, with more than nine out of every ten citizens interviewed in the four main cities, or 94 percent, saying 2007 will be better than 2006.

Hong Kong is also optimistic with 74 percent; as is China, 73 percent; Ghana, 68 percent; Nigeria, 66 percent; UN Kosovo, 65 percent; Canada, 60 percent; Venezuela, 57 percent; Argentina/Georgia, 56 percent; Sweden, 55 percent; Thailand, 53 percent and

Singapore/Norway with 52 percent.

“Optimism is particularly high in countries which are upbeat about economic prospects and do not have major concerns about unemployment or industrial disputes increasing in 2007,” the survey said.

In terms of economic prospects, a third of those questioned globally think 2007 will be a year of economic prosperity, while 23 percent feel it will be a year of economic difficulty.

“Fears that unemployment will increase in 2007 have a major effect on whether people feel optimistic about economic prospects or not,” the Gallup survey said.

Globally, 42 percent expect the number of unemployed in their country to increase either a lot or a little, while only 25 percent feel unemployment will decrease.

These fears are at their highest in the economies of the Pacific including the Philippines, although within the region, the pattern is not consistent, with some countries seeing unemployment decreasing in 2007—Hong Kong 59 percent; Vietnam, 49 percent; and Singapore, 35 percent.

SWS: Hunger at new record high
By Helen Flores
The Philippine Star 12/20/2006
http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200612200416.htm

A record high of 3.3 million Filipino families — 19 percent of the population — claimed they have experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months, according to the latest survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

The SWS’ fourth quarter survey, conducted from Nov. 24 to 29, also showed that 52 percent of families reported themselves as "poor" in general, while 40 percent said they are poor in terms of food.

The SWS said survey questions about household poverty and hunger are directed to the household head. The survey used face-to-face interviews of a national sample of 1,200 statistically representative household heads, with error margins of three percent for national percentages and six percent for regional percentages.

"The previous record-high incidence of household hunger was 16.9 percent, reached in both March 2006 and September 2006. Hunger has now been at double-digits for the past eleven consecutive quarters, since June 2004," the SWS said.

The SWS said the percentage of families who said they experienced hunger increased, especially in Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon.

"Hunger rose by almost five points in Metro Manila, from 12.8 percent in September to 17.7 percent in November. It rose by three points in the rest of Luzon, from 14.7 percent in September 2006 to 17.7 percent in November," the survey firm said.

The SWS said hunger rose by only one point in Mindanao, from 21.3 percent to 22.3 percent. It declined slightly in the Visayas, from 19.7 percent to 19 percent.

The SWS also said that moderate hunger reached a record high of 15.1 percent.

"Moderate hunger, defined as households experiencing it involuntarily ‘only once’ or ‘a few times’ in the last three months, rose from 12.3 percent in the previous quarter to a new record-high 15.1 percent, surpassing the previous record of 12.9 percent in August 2005," the SWS said.

The poll firm added that "severe hunger, defined as households involuntarily hungry ‘often’ or ‘always’ in the last three months, declined somewhat, from 4.6 percent in September to 3.9 percent in November," it said.

The SWS said moderate hunger rose by over four points in Metro Manila (from 8.2 percent to 12.7 percent) and in the rest of Luzon (from 10.3 percent to 14.7 percent).

It rose by less than two points in the Visayas (from 13.7 percent to 15.3 percent), and remained steady at 17.3 percent in Mindanao.

Severe hunger went up in Metro Manila (from 4.6 percent to five percent), and in Mindanao (from four percent to five percent), the SWS said.

However, it declined in the rest of Luzon (from 4.3 percent to three percent), and in the Visayas (from six percent to 3.7 percent).

The SWS said overall self-rated poverty hardly changed at the national level, from 51 percent in September to 52 percent in November.

"It hardly changed in Mindanao (from 53 percent to 54 percent), and in Luzon outside Metro Manila (from 45 percent to 48 percent)," the SWS said.

Self-rated poverty declined by 11 points in the Visayas, from 66 percent to 55 percent. On the other hand, it rose by eight points in Metro Manila, from 46 percent to 54 percent.

"The median self-rated poverty threshold, or the median monthly budget in peso-terms that poor households say they need to escape poverty, rose in Metro Manila, from P10,000 in September to P12,000 in November," the SWS said.

It remained steady in Visayas, at P6,000, and in Mindanao, at P5,000, it added.

The median self-rated poverty threshold went down in the balance of Luzon, from P6,000 to P5,000.

Forty percent of Filipino households consider themselves "poor" based on the type of food their family eats, the SWS said.

Twenty-seven percent put themselves on the borderline, and 32 percent consider themselves as "not food-poor."

"Self-rated food poverty went down in the Visayas, from 55 percent in September to 42 percent in November, and in Luzon outside Metro Manila, from 40 percent to 37 percent. It barely changed in Mindanao (from 40 percent to 41 percent)," according to the SWS.



_____________________________________



1 of 5 families goes hungry, a new record
BY REGINA BENGCO
Malaya
http://www.malaya.com.ph/dec20/news5.htm

THE number of Filipino families which experienced hunger and had nothing to eat at least once in the past three months reached a new record of 19 percent or an estimated 3.3 million, the fourth quarter survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.

The survey, which had 1,200 respondents, was conducted Nov. 24-29.

The previous high hunger was 16.9 percent, reached in March and September 2006. Hunger has been at double-digit since June 2004.

The new survey also showed that 52 percent of families reported themselves as "poor in general," and 40 percent said they were "poor in terms of food."

Hunger rose by almost five points in Metro Manila, from 12.8 percent in September to 17.7 percent in November. It rose by three points in the rest of Luzon, from 14.7 percent to 17.7 percent in September 2006 to 17.7 percent in November.

Hunger rose by one point in Mindanao, from 21.3 percent to 22.3 percent. It declined slightly in the Visayas, from 19.7 percent to 19 percent.

Moderate hunger, defined as households experiencing it involuntarily "only once" or "a few times" in the last three months, rose from 12.3 percent in September to a new record of 15.1 percent, surpassing the previous record of 12.9 percent in August 2005.

It rose by over 4 points in Metro Manila (from 8.2 percent to 12.7 percent) and by 4.4 points in Luzon (from 10.3 percent to 14.7 percent). It rose by less than 2 points in the Visayas (from 13.7 percent to 15.3 percent), and remained steady at 17.3 percent in Mindanao.

Severe hunger, defined as households involuntarily hungry "often" or "always" in the last three months, declined from 4.6 percent in September to 3.9 percent in November.

Severe hunger went up in Metro Manila (from 4.6 percent to 5 percent), and in Mindanao (from 4 percent to 5 percent). However, it declined in Luzon (from 4.3 percent to 3 percent), and in the Visayas (from 6 percent to 3.7 percent).

Overall self-rated poverty hardly changed, from 51 percent in September and 52 percent in November. It rose only by a point in Mindanao (from 53 percent to 54 percent), and by three points in Luzon (from 45 percent to 48 percent).

Self-rated poverty declined by 11 points in the Visayas (from 66 to 55 percent). It rose by 8 points in Metro Manila, from 46 percent to 54 percent.

The average monthly budget that poor households said they need to escape poverty rose in Metro Manila from P10,000 in September to P12,000 in November. It remained steady in the Visayas at P6,000, and in Mindanao at P5,000. It went down in Luzon from P6,000 to P5,000.

In terms of food, 40 percent of Filipino households considered themselves as poor, 27 percent said they were in the borderline, and 32 percent considered themselves as not poor.

Self-rated food poverty declined in the Visayas (from 55 to 42 percent) and in Luzon (from 40 to 37 percent). It barely changed in Mindanao (from 40 to 41 percent). But it rose by 7 points in Metro Manila (from 38 to 45 percent).

The survey also showed that the proportion of households experiencing hunger in the past three months was 30 percent among the self-rated food-poor, compared to only 13 percent among the not food-poor, and 10 percent among those on the food-borderline.

The survey has hunger at 25 percent among the self-rated poor, compared to only 13 percent among the not poor, and 12 percent among those on the borderline.

Hype and false hopes
Jesse E.L. Bacon II
Daily Tribune Editorial
http://www.tribune.net.ph/business/20061220bus7.html

Unless the country’s annual growth rate doubles from the projected 5.7 percent, there is nothing about it that this administration can crow about because a growth rate less than 11.4 percent will just be wiped out by the burgeoning population and other factors such as the sky-high inflation rate thus meaningless to the poor.

The Arroyo administration should be careful in creating false hopes on the part of those who comprise 80 percent of the total population who earn less than what they actually need to support a family of six by going agog with its economic projections because this will just add to the simmering of the poor’s emotions.

False hopes as a result of government hypes such as this one will just bring to fore the social inequity the poor are in because any economic growth whose benefits do not trickle in to the mass of our countrymen but savored only by the privileged few will just fan the fire of social unrest. This is in reality a very dangerous game.

Any economist worth his or her salt knows that a 5.7 percent growth rate in the gross domestic product will not mean anything because the population is growing faster than what is desirable. If there are more warm bodies added to the population, more pressure is exerted on the economy to bear the burdens of such growth.

The economy under this circumstance will in reality just plateau. And if nothing is done to ease the pressure exerted on the economy by factors such as the un-checked population growth and the runaway inflation rate, there is a great possibility that even if growth is actually registered, the economy in absolute figures will even shrink. In fact, we are experiencing this situation a bit now.

This is one of the reasons why we can’t soar economically no matter how we try. Shifting the form of government from the present presidential to the parliamentary form will, however, not change the situation, much more improve it. Population growth and inflation rate are never influenced by the country’s form of government.

Lifting the elective official’s term limits or increasing the number of years per term from the present three to five years are not the solutions either. The term limit and the number of years per term of our elective officials will never result in the decline in the growth of our population nor will it ever put in check the disturbing inflation rate of the country.

For once it is hoped every policy maker in and out of the government will be real in addressing the real problems of the country so we can truly achieve real growth in the economy.

We can easily draw lessons from the experience of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) when we talk of pushing to the limit our capacity to improve the country’s economy.

It is a fact that for quite a time the GSIS did not fare well no matter how much its previous leadership tried. But when incumbent President and General Manager Winston Garcia took over the helm and immediately started to get real by addressing the real problems of the state-owned pension fund, the agency started to turn around in more areas than one.

Achieving what the GSIS had so far achieved was certainly not a walk in the park on the part of Garcia but this did not dampen his resolve to make a difference. He knew bad habits are not easy to lick especially to those who were used to being mediocre. They were the ones who reacted strongly to the measures undertaken by Garcia to make the GSIS what it is today — government’s most profitable government-owned and controlled corporation — but this did not stop him to be real.

For several years, GSIS members could not fully put their trust in their pension fund’s ability to meet its obligations to them because it was dismally performing even in ensuring that its actuarial life. It was not earning the income it was supposed to earn to be viable. The fund was literally abused. Ghost members taking out all forms of loans from the GSIS abound. But when Garcia undertook the computerization program of the fund, the fund’s membership list became real or factual.

This is just one of the many measures Garcia undertook and implemented to make the GSIS financially viable. And this is what we mean by being real so real problems get to be addressed.

P20 bills para pangregalo sa Pasko, nauubos na!

the thing is filipinos also let this pessimism affect their ways and what they say about their country. that's not good. that is defeat. and filipinos are so critical like when there are big improvements or developments they continue pointing out the ones in need to be fixed or are not good. they think the country should be first world by now like its easy, but remember this country's roots are so island like and undeveloped. we are really starting later than say, japan.

also, the whole world is struggling so they're not the only ones.

I think the pessimism of some Filipinos can be attributable to their feeling dejected and demotivated. Their expectations on what their standard of living should be are not being met and there is so much instability and insecurity.

What the government should do is to really bring up the esprit de corps of the people. Yes, feed the hype. So what if it's hype? When you bring up the esprit de corps of the people, they become more upbeat, productive and optimistic. This is what the Ramos administration did when it came up with that "Tiger Economy" notion. People were somehow more optimistic then. This optimisim will generate more output, increase in productivity, increase in GDP and GNP, and later on translate into more economic progress and political stability. The government should not contribute to instability by vacillating and being duplicitious. It should be gungho on its economic recovery programs. At the same time, the dissenters should just pipe down. The government should not give cause to these dissenters so that they will find it hard to find fault with how the government is being run. It takes positivism from all of these sectors in order to develop optimism among the Filipinos.

Now that there seem to be a break-up in the GMA and Church relationship, it may be an opportune time for GMA and her government to start instituting population control and family planning programs such as the use of condoms and contraceptives or even limiting the number of children allowed in a family to curb the ever increasing population explosion. After all she doesn't have to kiss the Church's ass anymore at this juncture.

SWS: Hunger at new record high
By Helen Flores
The Philippine Star 12/20/2006
http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200612200416.htm


1 of 5 families goes hungry, a new record
BY REGINA BENGCO
Malaya
http://www.malaya.com.ph/dec20/news5.htm


Hype and false hopes
Jesse E.L. Bacon II
Daily Tribune Editorial
http://www.tribune.net.ph/business/20061220bus7.html
Here's my take on the matter:

It is only natural for people to engage in sexual activities because first of all sex was designed primarily to create people - for our species to survive. The world population continues to grow as time passes by - which is an expected natural phenomenon. It is inevitable that we multiply because we were made to be that way. To go against the natural course of things means to stop being human. However, "abusing" such inherent acts of nature is an entirely different matter. Irresponsible "baby-making" will only bring about more problems so there are efforts to try to and regulate this.

But what defines "abuse"? Abuse in terms of how many children you make? Not necessarily. I think it becomes abusive when you are producing children beyond your capacity to sustain them, but regardless of how many they are. And in a macro scale, abuse in terms of a country not being able to sustain a growing population generally comprised of "impaired" and rather "dysfunctional" people. So I think the issue here shouldn;t merely be focused on just the various preventive measures on population growth. In the end it doesn't matter whether or not we have a huge or diminished population. What matters is our capacity to sustain it.

Even if we had let's say a current population of only ten million overall, but if that ten million were to be comprised mostly of "impaired", "dysfunctional" masa citizens.... and if that ten million fails to efficiently handle its current resources and were to abuse and misuse them, then we'd all still be facing the same dilemmas we have today.

I think there's nothing wrong complying with the moral responsibilities being endorsed by the church. They actually do make sense. We are aware that there are also serious issues of rampant moral degradation in our country. We cannot deny and ignore that. There is what we call the HUMAN aspect of life after all. So why blame them? It is their job to and it is the responsibility of their people to listen. I think condoms and contraceptives are but an easy way out of things - a temporary short-term solution to a long-term problem.

I believe one key solution here is SUSTAINABILITY. We must become a sustainable country comprised of sustainable people. Population growth becomes a problem only because of our governemnt;s incapacity and inefficiency. Kung maganda ang takbo ng gobyerno natin (and if our population were to be comprised mostly of responsible, "quality" people) sa tingin ko ay hindi magiging ganyan kalaking problema ang dami ng tao. I think condoms won;t solve such complex problems. Come on :)


Here's an interesting read associated with birth and population control: http://www.toolan.com/hitler/index.html (http://www.toolan.com/hitler/index.html)

It's entitled "The Men Behind Hitler" by Bernhard Schreiber. If you liked the Da Vinci Code then you;ll probably find this one entertaining as well. I'm not sure, but I think this one's based on real facts and research.


Merry Christmas to all! :)


Mig, I agree with your assessment above regarding our population woes. Condoms and contraceptives are by no means the long term solution to our population explosion but it's a start afterall we have to start somewhere especially since education takes time to affect and change people's attitudes, beliefs, and points of view. Baka lang kasi hindi na matuluyan makahabol and ating economiya niyan kapag maging mala-China/Indonesia na ang ating population. We need to curb the population growth as early as possible so that our economic progress can somehow catch up and positively affect people's expectations and attitudes on their quality of life. Sometimes there are instances where in the "Hard Line/Stance" must be taken (popular or not) like in this case since madaming mga Pinoy na ignorante, iresponsable at pasaway and only respond to an iron fist.


Merry Christmas din! :) :) :)

Monday, December 25, 2006


Tubbataha at center of poaching scandal:bash:

By Yvette Lee and Inday Espina-Varona

They got caught red-handed with 800 live fish, including 300 of the endangered Mameng (Napoleon Wrasse), but 30 Chinese poachers apprehended on December 21 by rangers at the Tubbataha protected marine park may yet get to walk if the Chinese government has its way.

Chinese diplomats have reportedly demanded the release of the crew, according to sources at the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Chinese, the sources said, even want the Navy to escort the 300-gross ton Ho Wan out of the area.

Yet the case is fast shaping up as more than just a simple poaching incident.

For one, rangers are irked by the slow response of the Philippine Navy to their request for an escort. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has also apparently shown partiality for the poachers.

The crew, apprehended barely 1.5-kilometer away from the ranger station, also claimed to have permits from the Maritime Authority and the Bureau of Customs, although the Ho Wan carries a Chinese flag and an all-Chinese crew.

A man by the name of Nixon Edora, operations manager of South Pacific Inter-marketing Corp., has contacted the Tubbataha Management Office, claiming his company alleges the vessel and has the required Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) permits.

Suspicious papers

Angelique Songco, Tubbataha Management Office head, said a review of documents showed the crew did not have any permit.

She said rangers spotted the Ho Wan entering the protected Tubbataha zone about 2:30 on December 21. They approached the vessel to warn that it had encroached on a protected area and became suspicious when it sped off. After a chase of 20 to 30 minutes and the firing of warning shots, they cornered the vessel and escorted it to the ranger station’s mooring bureau.

Rangers found 11 sampans, built in tanks with fishes and many compressor equipment.

The fish workers claimed the caught the fish in Tawi-Tawi, where they got the BFAR permit.

BFAR director Malcolm Sarmento said this was not possible, as the agency has no person in the Tawi-Tawi area to authorize fishing.

Sarmento also stressed that no government agency could issue a permit to fish the Mameng as this was on the list of protected species.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, whose department is in charge of BFAR, told The Manila Times his office is coordinating with park management and World Wildlife Fund-Philippines chief executive officer, Lory Tan.

Tan and Songco said the Tubbataha Park office immediately sought the assistance of the Philippine Navy and Wescom (Western Command) to tow the vessel to Puerto Princesa for confiscation of the illegal cargo, and processing for arraignment of the crew.

The Wescom, headed by Vice Admiral Danga, ignored the request, saying none of several Navy vessels in Palawan were available.

“For three days now, the Western Command and the Philippine Navy have taken no positive action,” Songco said in a report faxed to Ezzedin Tago, DFA special assistant, and furnished The Times.

Commander Jody Bacardo, information chief of the Philippine Navy, told The Times in a telephone interview that Navy personnel form part of the Tubbataha ranger station.

He confirmed a request for a Navy ship to tow the Ho Wan to Puerto Princesa but said their lone vessel in the area was on a security mission in Western Palawan.

Bacardo said he expects the Navy vessel to arrive in Tubbataha on the 26th or 27th of the month.

Ties that bind

The Chinese government apparently had better resources because a consul had reportedly seen. An officer from the Chinese Embassy suddenly arrived in Puerto Princesa within 24 hours of the report.

An official of the DFA also reportedly called Puerto Princesa to defend the Chinese, calling the arrest irregular as the vessel was merely passing through Philippine waters.

Songco said if the Navy still fails to send an escort, they are considering having some of the rangers themselves board the vessel and instruct the Chinese captain to sail for Puerto Princesa.

Rep. Tony Alvarez, under whose district covers the Tubbataha marine park, has been trying to facilitate the delivery of fuel for one of the Navy boats presently in Puerto Princesa.

When asked if it was true that the DFA was in favor of releasing the boat due to diplomatic ties, he replied “the DFA should use precisely those ‘ties’ to impress on these foreign nationals that we take the protection of our environment seriously here in Palawan, and that we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those who violate them.”

Tan said that did not lessen the gravity of the crime. The Mameng is listed under Appendix 2 of the Convention for the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), Tan noted in an e-mail message.

“The Philippines has made international commitments to abide by CITES rules. In other words, mere possession of this type of fish, without proper official permits from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, is a crime,” he said.

Customs officials also told The Times that mere possession of the Mameng carries a fine of P120,000 and a prison term between 12 and 20 years.

The Chinese vessel reportedly carried only Marina papers, showing that it entered Philippine waters via Bonggao, in Tawi Tawi. There is no BFAR officer in Bonggao that is authorized to give permission for harvesting live Napoleon wrasse, said Malcolm Sarmento, BFAR director. It is not cultivated for legal live sale anywhere in the country, he stressed.

Sarmento on Sunday told The Times he had ordered a BFAR boat to get the seized fish but ran into fuel problems.

He told The Times in a text message the Mameng had been ordered freed back into the sea after photographic evidence have been taken by the rangers.

In Hong Kong, a kilo of Mameng can sell for as much as $200 a kilo.

The Tubbataha Reefs is the only Unesco World Heritage Site in Asia that is marine in nature. It is known as the top dive destination in the Philippines and hundreds of divers visit the park every year, paying heavy access fees that are used to patrol the park boundaries.

President Arroyo, a certified diver who has visited the park, through an Executive Order just signed a few months ago, extended the parks boundaries, originally at 33,2000 hectares to over 99,000 hectares.

The area is described by marine scientists as a spawning and grow-out sanctuary for corals and fishes whose eggs are carried by oceanic currents to replenish over fished coastal reefs, not only in Palawan and the Visayan islands, but as far south as Malaysia and Indonesia.



Navy set to tow Chinese poachers’ vessel
By James Mananghaya
The Philippine Star 12/26/2006

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/News200612260404.htm

The Navy gave assurance yesterday that a Chinese fishing vessel seized by security forces near Tubbataha Reef would be towed to Puerto Princesa City in Palawan this week.

Security forces found aboard the ship 300 Napoleon wrasses or mameng, a protected species of fish.

Commander Giovanni Carlo Bacordo, Navy spokesman, said as soon as the BRP Quezon finishes its mission on Pamalican Island in northern Palawan, it would be able to tow the Hoi Wan, which is still within the Tubbataha Reef marine reserve.

Bacordo said the Navy ship earlier tasked to tow the foreign fishing vessel was diverted because it was near Amanpulo Resort, where there were reports of armed incidents involving a still unidentified group.

"We do not want a repeat of what happened in Dos Palmas so we would like to ensure that we respond accordingly," he said.

Bacordo said although the Armed Forces Western Command still has patrol gunboats in the area, these vessels are not being used to tow other ships due to their high speed.

"Mabilis masyado ang mga patrol gunboats kaya hindi sila pwedeng gamitin sa paghila ng barko," he said. "But as soon as BRP Quezon’s mission is finished, it would immediately proceed there to escort the Hoi Wan in going to Puerto Princesa, where appropriate charges would be filed by the Tubbataha Management Office before the local courts."

Thirty Chinese nationals from Hong Kong who were on board the vessel were arrested by the Navy, Coast Guard and civilian security personnel after they were caught poaching within the Tubbataha marine reserve.

The fishing vessel carries an estimated 300 Napoleon Wrasses (locally called Mameng) and hundreds of other live fish.

Although the men on board claimed they did not catch the Napoleon Wrasses within the park, the species is listed under Appendix 2 of the Convention for the International Trade of Endangered Species. The Philippines has committed to abide by CITES rules.

Mere possession of the fish, without proper official permits from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, is a crime.

The Chinese vessel reportedly carried only MARINA papers, showing that it entered Philippine waters via Bongao, in Tawi-Tawi.

There is no BFAR officer in Bongao that is authorized to give permission for harvesting live Napoleon wrasse. Furthermore, no hatchery for this fish species exists, and it is not cultivated for legal live sale anywhere in the country.

The Chinese crewmen also claim that they were just innocently passing through the Philippines.

But Lory Tan, president of the local World Wildlife Fund is wondering why did foreign fishermen enter Park boundaries in the very center of the Sulu Sea, and stop at Tubbataha Reef, instead of proceeding along known international shipping lanes.

Tan said in a phone interview that their group is worrying that the Chinese nationals would go scot-free after the DFA reportedly issued an order for their release.

"We are afraid that the fishermen would be released because the DFA gave an order because Chinese embassy officials immediately went to Puerto Princesa," he told The STAR. –James Mananghaya

the thing is filipinos also let this pessimism affect their ways and what they say about their country. that's not good. that is defeat. and filipinos are so critical like when there are big improvements or developments they continue pointing out the ones in need to be fixed or are not good. they think the country should be first world by now like its easy, but remember this country's roots are so island like and undeveloped. we are really starting later than say, japan.

also, the whole world is struggling so they're not the only ones.

I agree, many of us only see the flaws but not the good developments.

The media could greatly help in promoting optimism by reporting more of the good news rather than constantly sensationalizing the scandals, etc. We also as individuals can contribute in our own way. We consumers are the ones who dictate the kind and quality of news that are being peddled by the media. If we continue buying newspapers that only dwell on scandal and intrigue and in the process feed the pessimism of the public, then the media will keep churning this kind of garbage.

I agree, many of us only see the flaws but not the good developments.

The media could greatly help in promoting optimism by reporting more of the good news rather than constantly sensationalizing the scandals, etc. We also as individuals can contribute in our own way. We consumers are the ones who dictate the kind and quality of news that are being peddled by the media. If we continue buying newspapers that only dwell on scandal and intrigue and in the process feed the pessimism of the public, then the media will keep churning this kind of garbage.
^^ Naku kung tutuusin Marcos, Aquino, Ramos, (maybe not Erap) and GMA all have come up with good developments under their respective rule but it still does not discount the fact that their respective gov't were also corrupt and oppressive. Because of their good contributions, should we just turn the other cheek then and pretend such corruption and atrocities never happened? Of course not Mali naman yata yun. Besides why should we settle for anything less than optimum output/performance from our gov't and leaders? Should we not expect more from our elected public officials, scrutinize them when needed and hold them accountable for wrong-doings so that the country will not be forever mediocre and under-performing? Let's aim higher for a better Philippines. In the end of the day that's what we all want di ba. Just my humble opinion...

I agree, many of us only see the flaws but not the good developments.

The media could greatly help in promoting optimism by reporting more of the good news rather than constantly sensationalizing the scandals, etc. We also as individuals can contribute in our own way. We consumers are the ones who dictate the kind and quality of news that are being peddled by the media. If we continue buying newspapers that only dwell on scandal and intrigue and in the process feed the pessimism of the public, then the media will keep churning this kind of garbage.

The media has gone too far as fair and balanced reporting is concerned. The justice system no longer rests in our corrupt institution as the the corrupt media is taking over to cover issues of the soceity's problems overblown to astonomical proportions. What's worse is that the key personalities in the government are manipulating the public opinion in their favor by gaining media mileage to propel their political career to new heights whose ulterior motives are in question. The line between media and propaganda is blurring once more.

^^ Naku kung tutuusin Marcos, Aquino, Ramos, (maybe not Erap) and GMA all have come up with good developments under their respective rule but it still does not discount the fact that their respective gov't were also corrupt and oppressive. Because of their good contributions, should we just turn the other cheek then and pretend such corruption and atrocities never happened? Of course not Mali naman yata yun. Besides why should we settle for anything less than optimum output/performance from our gov't and leaders? Should we not expect more from our elected public officials, scrutinize them when needed and hold them accountable for wrong-doings so that the country will not be forever mediocre and under-performing? Let's aim higher for a better Philippines. In the end of the day that's what we all want di ba. Just my humble opinion...

It's not about turning the other cheek but about priorities. The government is already saddled by red tape as it is, and to keep entertaining each unproven allegation that comes along will not help the efficiency of the government in delivering to the public. To keep entertaining (and to keep hurling) overblown yet unproven allegations is not aiming higher in my opinion.

^^ True True some of the news and allegations being made and hurled around by our politicians are quite petty, distracting and done with malicious intent. Hindi nga lahat warrants acknowledgement, level of coverage nor even time and money na inuukol dito. The news media also needs to take more responsibility for their news reporting to prevent mere smear campaigns and disinformation from actually spreading. Hindi nga yun nakakatulong sa pag-unlad ng ating bansa. Point well made Heathcliff.

2006 seen as worst year for human rights in RP since Marcos
By Augusto Bundang
Philippine Inquirer
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view_article.php?article_id=40705

POLITICAL murders in the Philippines reached their highest level in 2006 since the toppling of dictator Ferdinand Marcos more than 20 years ago.

More than 180 activists -- including journalists, human rights workers, left-wing politicians, trade unionists and lawyers -- were assassinated this year for their criticism of those in power.

"An average of three extra-judicial killings is occurring every week in the country," a Canadian human rights team concluded recently after a fact-finding mission to the Southeast Asian nation.

"A clear pattern of state-perpetrated politically motivated extrajudicial killings" was occurring in the country, the team said.

Their report has been dismissed by the government of President Gloria Arroyo as propaganda to serve the country's communist insurgents who have been fighting a Maoist war for four decades to seize power.

But local human rights group Karapatan says it has recorded 185 such killings in 2006, the highest number since the regime of Marcos, renowned for his brutal suppression of critics and ousted in 1986.

The sheer number has alarmed the European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Roman Catholic Church, all of which have called on Arroyo to take action to stop the bloodshed.

Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, vice-president of the influential Catholic Bishops Conference in this largely Roman Catholic country, said action must be taken irrespective of who was behind them.

"In the past, there were allegations of killings from the left and the right but regardless of which end of the political spectrum is responsible, public authorities should be even-handed in trying to resolve them," he told Agence France-Presse.

Opposition congressman Roilo Golez warned the "murderous year" was undermining democracy, in a nation with a history of coups and dictatorships.

The most high-profile murder came December 16 when Congressman Luis Bersamin, an ally of Arroyo representing the northern province of Abra, was shot dead along with his security aide outside a church in a Manila suburb.

Police say they have a witness who has linked Abra Governor Vicente Valera to the killing. Valera has denied responsibility, saying he and Bersamin were longtime allies.

Earlier senior government lawyer Nestor Ballacillo was shot dead along with his son also in a Manila suburb. Police said they had arrested a suspect.

In response to the bloodshed, Arroyo has ordered an increase in the visibility of police and for officers to work closer with communities.

She has also set up a special commission to determine who are behind the slayings which has yet to report its findings.

Military and police officials have blamed at least some of the deaths on an internal purge or factional fighting within the 7,100-strong Communist Party's New People's Army.

The military, whose officers have also been accused of some of the killings, claim the overall numbers are bloated.

For its part, the New People's Army has admitted carrying out purges in the past but has largely denied they are behind the latest spate.

Blaming the communists and establishing a commission have failed to ease fears among many Filipinos about their own safety.

"If there is one thing that makes many Filipinos think of packing up for abroad and leaving behind everything for a new life away from home, it is the fear that they are not secure in their own beloved country."

Telecom service cut 40% by Taiwan quake
By Jojo Arazas
Daily Tribune
http://www.tribune.net.ph/business/20061229bus2.html

The local telecommunications grid was down by as much as 40 percent yesterday after a powerful earthquake hit Taiwan Tuesday, a senior official said.

National Telecommunications Commission Deputy Commissioner Jorge Sarmiento said some 60 percent of phone and Internet capacity were operational as carriers rerouted through other links to North America, the Middle East, Hawaii, Malaysia and Singapore.

A spokesman for local telecom giant, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) confirmed that connectivity was down by about 40 percent.

PLDT unit Smart Communications Inc. said its broadband Internet service had normalized and that “technical personnel are continously monitoring the system to ensure Internet connectivity.”

Smart international roaming services for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Yemen had also been restored, the company said.

Globe Telecom said its services to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the United States had been “partially affected” but did not elaborate.

The 7.1 magnitude earthquake that rocked Taiwan on Tuesday damaged several undersea cables in the region, jamming up the Internet and telecoms systems across much of East Asia.

Alberto Locsin, executive director of the Business Process Association of the Philippines, the local association of call centers, said that he knew of only two centers were totally shut down due to the problems.

Call centers and other outsourced business processes have become a major industry in the Philippines and it had been feared that the cable damage might hamper their operations dramatically.

Asia’s telecommunications services were partly restored yesterday but access was slow and patchy.

Telephone traffic was back to normal in some parts of Asia but many operators in North Asia struggled to get up to full speed a day after business and home users from Seoul to Sydney were hit by one of the worst tech disruptions in Asia.

Internet access in many countries had also improved by Thursday although many customers complained of slow connections.

Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s top phone company, said it could take up to three weeks to repair six submarine cables owned by a consortium of telecoms firms.

Two powerful quakes off Taiwan on Tuesday, one of magnitude 7.1 according to the US Geological Survey, severed the cables.

At least five maintenance ships based in the region are heading for the waters near southern Taiwan to repair the undersea cables, Hong Kong’s telecoms regulator said.

Very bad news - at about 2330 hrs 29 Dec. Manila Time

Daniel Smith the convicted rapist of the Subic Rape case was transferred to US Embassy without any Court Order.

thats your opinion
i dont find that bad at all; insted, we should rejoice because hes getting a black guy ramming his rear (jk)

^^ :lol: That's one way to think about it! :colgate:

Angels invade the City in the Sky
By Deni Rose M. Afinidad

"We Filipinos sing very foreign songs. We sing songs by pop stars. We’re very good at imitating others. Sometimes, we’re even better than the original. But will foreigners respect us for doing these?"

This was the question that Department of Tourism Undersecretary Oscar Palabyab raised during the opening of the 2nd Wow Philippines—Cordillera Indigenous Choral Competition held recently at St. Louis University in Baguio City.

To protect, maintain, and respect the Cordillera’s culture and arts, the Indigenous Choral Competition was staged at the Cordillera Autonomous Region, said Palabyab.

According to Reinaldo Bautista, Baguio’s acting mayor, this is also to honor the Ifugaos’ tradition of singing and playing gongs to ask rain from the gods.

While in Manila, the fuss was on who would be the first Philippine Idol or the foremost grand winner of Pinoy Dream Academy, in Baguio City, the sensation was on which choral group would prevail in interpreting native Cordillera songs and chants.

Baguio City, dubbed the “City in the Sky” for being elevated 5,000 ft above sea level, became even chillier as this year’s student contenders from six schools enveloped St. Louis University’s Center for Culture and Arts with their nippy, angelic voices.

Unlike other contests, Cordillera’s local choral challenge was peculiar as competitors tediously memorized and sang the ritualistic rhythms and difficult lyrics of the Ifugao hymns.

Opened to all Cordillerans, the showdown required that the choirs should be mixed, all-male or all-female; school, church or community choirs, with an age range of 15 to 21.

Clad in their skimpy native costumes while enduring the natural holiday coldness of Baguio, the challengers also incorporated choreography and theatrics in their numbers, but were limited to the use of only Cordillera ethnic musical instruments.

To make it fair and square, the contest rules further stated that none of the recitalists must be a professional singer or an artist; winners of international and national contests were automatically disqualified; participating choirs must be in existence for at least one year; and each team must have had a maximum of 30 singers, including one accompanist and one conductor.

For a maximum of 10 minutes, each ensemble belted out two songs—the contest piece and a choice piece, which was also a Cordillera ethnic song.

Kicking off with Pines City National High School, the mandatory contest piece, “Bagbagtu,” a Cordillera lullaby, was introduced to hundreds of spectators from Baguio City, Manila, and neighboring provinces.

As observed, “Bagbagtu” is repetitive yet celebrative. It includes the alterations of male and female voices, with more emphasis on the women’s part. Listening to it felt like riding a rollercoaster—the music plunges to soberness then surges back to buoyancy before finally, a striking shout marks its end.

For its choice piece, Pines City National High School performed a seemingly worship song for the Supreme Being of the Cordilleras.

Second to perform was Benguet State University Glee Club, which balanced its minimal choreography and tranquil serenade with elaborate ornamentation and tattoos. The group changed its blockings while playing their drums and bamboo flutes.

The Young Minstrels of Baguio City National High School came in next, making the crowd utter an “ahhh” with its romantic rendition of an Ifugao courtship trance. The men wore feather headdresses, while the women wore pearl ones. From their step design which somehow dramatized the Cordillerans’ way of life, the audience had a sneak on the day-to-day happenings of Cordillera culture.

With a mix of a little indigenous dancing, some shoulder shaking, and bits of teeny-bopper puppy love, the Young Minstrels married relaxed a capella to song parts that were accompanied by gongs, rainmakers, and piano.

Another unforgettable act was that of University of Baguio Voices Chorale, which gave a playful, operatic twist to Bagbagtu and their choice of indigenous song.

Armed with powerful voices and only spears as musical instruments, University of Baguio Voices Chorale members offered a foot-thumping experience to their audience. Of all contestants, the company was also the only ones to modernize and personalize the Cordillera outfit by paring jazzy, black over-alls with a touch of indigenous accessories.

While some groups were successful in entertaining and thrilling their watchers, some troupes, like Mountain Province’s Lubon Performing Arts Group and the Kalinga Apayao State College, lulled their audience to sleep with their sullen versions of the Cordillera chants.

But of course, the host school, St. Louis University, did not let the other schools out-sing its very own choral assembly. As intermission number, the St. Louis University Glee Club bolted the contest with a chain of gripping Cordillera Christmas songs.

Based on tone quality, rhythm, harmony, interpretation and dynamics, and choreography and stage deportment, University of Baguio Voices Chorale emerged as the cream of the crop, taking with them a cash prize of P15,000, a trophy, and the upper hand in using the stage for picture-taking.

The Young Minstrels jumped into the second post, only P5,000 less rich than the first placer. Benguet State University Glee Club then completed the roster of victors that afternoon, with P5,000 in their pockets. All the others raked P3,000 each as consolation prize.

Despite having to grapple for subtitles to better understand what the contestants sang, the spectators went home almost memorizing the Bagbatu, fulfilled to discern that they have known a little bit more about the Cordilleras other than the coolness, strawberry jam, choco flakes, fresh veggies, wild flowers, and Igorot beggars of Baguio.

Just outside the auditorium where the competition took place, Jim Bahag, the Dutchman who embraced Ifugao culture and who has been living in the Mountain Province for 28 years now, was spotted chatting with true-blue Igorots, using Tagalog and Cordillera words more fluently than any other Filipino who could have spoken the native Filipino tongue.

Jim Bahag is perhaps the paradox of what Palabyab said that “Our own indigenous songs are more foreign to us than the songs of foreigners.”

Sadly, more Filipinos feast on the hits of Caucasian and Negroid angels, while the tunes of the Filipinos’ very own seraphs in Cordillera remain hidden in the thickness of the Baguio fog.

.... America? .... no thank you :runaway:

Embassy turns down visa application of CA justice

By Rey E. Requejo

THE United States embassy has denied a visa application by a Court of Appeals judge to attend his niece’s wedding in Las Vegas, Nevada, but it was not clear why.

The office of Associate Justice Jose Mendoza yesterday confirmed the denial but refused to speculate on the reason behind it.

“It’s true that his visa application was denied, but we do not know why,” Mendoza’s wife Libia said in a telephone interview.

“There must be a reason, but it’s hard to speculate,” she said.

She declined to link the rejection to the case of a convicted rapist, marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, who was transferred to US custody from a Makati City jail on Dec. 29 following a flurry of diplomatic negotiations.

Smith, 21, was sentenced to 40 years in jail on Dec. 4 for raping a Filipina in Subic on Nov. 1, 2005, and then ordered to serve his sentence in a local jail.

But the United States succeeded in gaining custody of the marine after citing a provision of the Visiting Forces Agreement, a deal on military exercises involving Filipino and American troops here.

Libia said she didn’t think her husband would again apply for a US visa after the incident.

“It was me who was actually nagging him [to apply for the US visa],” she said.

A source close to the justice said Mendoza felt humiliated when an embassy consul asked him to be fingerprinted first before deciding whether or not she would grant him a visa. Before that, Mendoza had to wait three hours before someone attended to him.

The source said Mendoza’s application was endorsed by appeals court Presiding Justice Ruben Reyes and then Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, but the consul denied him just the same.

“The magistrate could not think of any acceptable justification for the denial of his visa application,” he said.

^^ it is sad he could not get entry into estados unidos just to attend a wedding, but what is denying him entry going to do? at least he went through proper process and legal process. oh well, they have a serious problem over there with lots of illegals, that is worse.

^ Baka naman sinusubukan lang ni Mendoza. Trip lang kung papatol ang US Embassy.

this ain't news but.. I don't know where to post this... just taken this morning... look at the dark smog line in our skyline... QC or northern NCR looks darker than the southern part...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v162/pau_p1/DSC01509.jpg

^^ Oh my, the smog.

^^ tsk, tsk. :no:

^ That just shows how polluted Metro Manila is. Hmm, upon my first time to go to Metro Manila, I was immediately shocked and I even asked my parents why the sky wasn't blue there, lol.

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p273/emmanuelkristofer/usembassy170107.jpg


http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view_article.php?article_id=43874

People’s groups hit soldiers’ presence in Metro barangays
By DJ Yap
Inquirer
Last updated 04:09am (Mla time) 01/17/2007


SOLDIERS HAVE BEEN SIGHTED in a number of barangays in Quezon City and parts of Metro Manila, and the deployment is a purported attempt to flush out activist leaders, an urban poor group said.

For the past two months, Army troops have camped out at the halls of densely populated barangays in the Metro to “harass” militant leaders there, said Ed Legson of the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay). “They’ve been knocking on the doors of residents to ask questions about the activities of organizers in the area. They keep asking about members of Anakpawis, Gabriela, and other groups,” he added. Legson said the military detachments were posted at Barangays Holy Spirit, Payatas, Batasan Hills, Commonwealth, and Bagong Silangan in Quezon City, as well as Pandacan, Sta. Mesa, and Tondo districts in Manila.

Kadamay and Anakpawis leaders who held a dialogue with the military detachment in Barangay Commonwealth yesterday said they were told that they were in the area to provide basic services. But Legson said they had yet to see evidence of the “services

nkakahiya ... nasa news ng toronto star ... :bash: :bash: :bash:

http://www.thestar.com/article/170972

http://www.thestar.com/images/assets/176989_3.JPG
Before and after: Janice Del Rosario as she appeared to her new friends, left, and as she appeared before going into hiding.

Refugee claimant allegedly bilks friends for millions

Refugee claimant Janice Del Rosario gained friends with her kindness – and enemies who allege they were scammed out of millions
January 14, 2007
Dale Brazao
staff reporter

She came into their lives out of nowhere – a beautiful, God-fearing woman preaching love, bearing presents, and offering everyone an opportunity to share in her good fortune.

Janice Del Rosario dressed in Gucci and drove a BMW. And she dispensed kindness, compassion and good deeds "like a Mother Teresa."

But when she disappeared suddenly last November, the velvet-tongued Del Rosario left behind a dozen victims clutching an armful of bounced cheques, useless promissory notes and slim chances of recovering any of the estimated $1.5 million they claim she took from them. Victims who spoke to the Star said the amount taken may be much higher, but those victims have not come forward.

"I never in my life thought she was capable of something like this," says 75-year-old Luigi Chiarotto who says he is owed about $1.2 million. "She seemed honest, very honest, like my daughter."

Del Rosario feted the retired construction worker with a lavish surprise party on his 73rd birthday. A cancer victim was given a prepaid cemetery plot. Some got Danier leather jackets, others Swarovski crystal.

Even as the 44-year-old Filipino refugee claimant garnered sympathy among newfound friends with horrific stories of her family being extortion victims back home, they say she was setting them up to be exploited.

When she began offering 10-per-cent return on personal loans for just 10 days they were ready with their chequebooks, and paid the price for that all too human weakness – greed.

Some lost their life savings, others were hit up for luxury cars and credit cards. And a lot of people who should've known better are left wondering just who on earth is Janice Florence Vasquez Del Rosario?

And more important, where is she now?

Del Rosario, her husband, Kaye, 34, and their two boys, aged 8 and 13 went into hiding on Nov. 15, the day before they were to surrender to immigration authorities for deportation to their native Philippines. Her eldest son, Jose Vicente Tayzon, 25, who is here on a student visa, says he does not know where his mother is.

"She's not here, she left months ago," Tayzon says, adding he is aware of the warrant for her arrest. "Whatever the allegations are, I am removed from that. I am not in communication with them."

The family, who came to Canada in March 2003 as visitors, then applied for refugee status claiming they were victims of extortion by corrupt Filipino police officials, had exhausted all legal means of overturning their removal order.

A Canada-wide warrant was issued for their arrest after they failed to make a flight to Manila on Nov. 16.

The last place Janice and Kaye Del Rosario want to return to is to their own country, where both are wanted for fraud in connection with a large-scale pyramid-type scam. None of their alleged victims in Canada were aware there were warrants for their arrest in the Philippines when she started tapping them for loans.

By the time Del Rosario had finished with Chiarotto, the hard-working Italian immigrant was out $1.2 million in cash, and had co-signed leases for two luxury cars, a BMW X-5 for Janice, and a Mercedes-Benz for her husband.

"I said, why not a Dodge Caravan?" Chiarotto says. "But she said she had to have expensive cars so she could look good in her business."

After loaning Del Rosario, a woman he hardly knew, $800,000 without collateral, Chiarotto needed her to succeed in business, which she claimed was buying and selling high-end jewellery.

Chiarotto's wife, Lydia Pagulayan, a fellow Filipina immigrant, also signed documents to provide two credit cards for Del Rosario, who said she didn't qualify for credit in this country.

Over the next six months Del Rosario charged $33,000 on them, everything from pizzas and parking fees to payments for personal trainers, lunches at Sassafraz in Yorkville, and $11,000 shopping sprees at Gucci stores.

As apparently was her pattern, Del Rosario paid regular interest payments on the loans, giving Chiarotto post-dated cheques as collateral.

To prove her wealth and allay their fears, Del Rosario showed statements from TD and HSBC banks in Toronto and Equitable PCI bank in the Philippines attesting to more than $2 million on deposit with these institutions.

When Del Rosario called Chiarotto in a panic last summer, saying she was about to be deported unless he came up with another $200,000, Chiarotto mortgaged his house and gave her the money.

"She said her lawyer had an agreement with a judge that will allow her to be landed, but it must be $200,000 in cash," he says. "She started crying, crying. So I believe her.

"What could I do? It was either that or lose everything."

In exchange he got a promissory note dated Oct. 4, 2006, consolidating all the previous loans totalling $1,163,500. The note called for Del Rosario to start paying Chiarotto $20,000 a month, plus interest, conditional on her obtaining landed status. She also gave him a copy of her will, showing him to be a benefactor of her estate should she die before repaying the loans.

A month later, Del Rosario, who also goes by several aliases, disappeared. "She has no heart. She has no humanity," says Chiarotto.

The last time Chiarotto saw Del Rosario was Nov. 15, the day before she was to be deported when she drove to his modest Scarborough bungalow and phoned him from her BMW. When he came to the door, however, she had already driven off. (On Friday evening she phoned again, to say she'd start repaying him next month, and to ask if he'd been talking to a reporter.)

Before those final fleeting contacts, Chiarotto had last heard from her before Christmas, when Del Rosario phoned from an unknown location wishing him a Merry Christmas, saying she would send her brother or her son, Tayzon, to deliver the money she owes him.

Nobody showed up.

**************************************************

Michael Labrecque, a Toronto real estate agent and a counsellor who works with the homeless and kids at risk, still can't quite believe he too fell for Del Rosario's charm and business proposals.



"We should've know better," says Labrecque, 29, who along with his wife, Cecilia Ramos, 28, a mortgage broker, is out more than $120,000. "I don't even know how we got in this deep. She portrayed herself as a religious, trustworthy person and we all fell for it."

Del Rosario claimed she was a wealthy businesswoman in the Philippines, where she operated several businesses including a finance company. She showed Ramos her bank account statement showing a balance of 44,196,000 pesos, more than $1 million Canadian.

As she had done with the others, Del Rosario gave Ramos and Labrecque cheques written on her business account, Gloval Venture Trading and Investment Placement, at a TD-Canada Trust branch in Thornhill. Most of those cheques have bounced.

A spokesperson for the TD bank told the Star that the alleged victims should take their case to police and that the bank would co-operate fully in any police investigation.

"She was really good," Ramos says, explaining how Del Rosario took her for $90,000. "Michael is probably the cheapest person in the world and he gave her $30,000."

"We know of at least another five people who are owed about $300,000," says Labrecque.

Ramos claims that the previously pleasant Del Rosario left a chilling message on her answering machine after learning she and other investors had gone to the police.

"Tears of blood will flow from your eyes if you come after me," was the message Del Rosario left in Tagalog, the Filipino language.

**************************************************

Catalina "Nini" Coran fell hook, line and sinker for Del Rosario's stories of hardship in the Philippines, her warmth, and generosity and, finally, her hard pitches for money.



"She had some magical power," says Coran, an insurance broker who is out $70,000.

Del Rosario held weekly prayer meetings at her North York condo and regularly text-messaged her friends with inspirational quotations from the Bible.

"She was like Mother Teresa helping everybody, and sharing her wealth," says Coran.

"She told us all those horrible stories about her son's kidnapping. That she had paid a ransom of 40 million pesos. We all felt sorry for her and we all wanted to help," she said.

In documents filed with the Federal Court of Canada, Del Rosario claims only that an "attempt" had been made to kidnap her son from his private school in Manila on March 7, 2003, but no ransom was paid.

She also claims she and her husband, a police captain in Quezon City, had to pay off corrupt police officers who were constantly shaking them down. They fled because they feared more kidnap attempts and demands for payoffs.

In denying their claim as refugees in January 2004, adjudicator Paul Ariemma found Del Rosario and her husband had "embellished fragments of reality to create a basis for their claims."

Two Federal court judges have refused to stay their deportation order in the past year, setting the stage for the family's removal from Canada last Nov. 16.

The fact that Del Rosario was able to stave off deportation for more than three years has angered her victims.

"If she had been deported when she was supposed to be, we wouldn't be out all this money," says Coran. "She went into full-blast mode when she knew she was on her way out."

Requests for loans would be preceded with meals at fancy restaurants, gifts of jewellery and offers of incredible interest amounting to more than 3,000 per cent a year.

"The interest was illusory. It was the worm on the end of a hook," says lawyer Ed Tonello, who is representing six of the victims in an attempt to recoup their losses.

"She said she was making so much money with her jewellery business that she wanted us all to share in it, too," Coran says, recalling the pitch that ensnared her. "She showered us with gifts, but she was buying us with our own money."

Coran's sister-in-law, Maria, 46, an educational assistant with the Toronto Board of Education, was lured in for $35,000 after meeting Del Rosario.

"I can't even show you paper, because I invested through a friend at work and I don't have anything on paper to prove it," says an accountant with a drug store chain who is owed $70,000, but does not want to be identified out of embarrassment.

"No receipt, no promissory note, nothing. I was just plain stupid."

She said she knows there are others in her company who also loaned Del Rosario money.

Del Rosario was so good, Coran says, that when someone demanded repayment of their principal, she would chide them for doubting her ability to pay up, then persuade the lender to roll over their principal into another loan at even higher interest.

"She was that good," Coran says. "A Mother Teresa without a conscience."

**************************************************

The first hint of trouble came late last summer, when word got around that the leasing company had repossessed Kaye Del Rosario's 2006 Mercedes-Benz after he defaulted on the lease.



The dealership later sold the automobile but has notified Chiarotto that, as co-signer, he must pay $22,000, the difference between the buyout price of the lease and what they got for it. The Parkview BMW dealership also recently notified Chiarotto he is on the hook for the entire value of the 2006 BMW X5 unless he agrees to the lease payments of more than $1,000 a month.

Recently, the Star found the dark green BMW X-5 stashed in the underground parking at 23 Lorraine Ave., a condo complex at Yonge St. and Finch Ave. where Del Rosario's son, Tayzon, lives. His own silver BMW 325i is parked near his mother's.

After learning of Chiarotto's predicament the victims split into two groups. Several victims complained to 43 Division fraud squad detective Daniel Johnson, but they say he told them it was a civil case. Johnson did not return several calls from the Star.

The other group is keeping silent, Coran says. "They're her loyalists. They're afraid if they turn on her, they'll lose everything."

Labrecque and Ramos last saw Del Rosario on Nov. 15, the eve of her scheduled deportation, in the office of a lawyer who was handling the financial claims against her. Del Rosario, Ramos says, had agreed to a repayment schedule on their loans, but the lawyer quashed the deal.

"Her lawyer wouldn't let her sign anything, saying it didn't make any sense for her to pay us back if she was being kicked out of the country the next day."

The lawyer refused to discuss the incident, but said the version of events as related by Ramos and Labrecque is "incorrect."

The couple first turned to a "financial bounty hunter," but he was unable to find either the fugitive or any of her assets.

"If I find them they are toast," says the immigration enforcement officer who has been scouring the GTA for the family for the past two months. "They've had due process. They'll be detained until they get on a plane.

"Their claim has been discounted. They've been found not to be at risk if they are returned to the Philippines."

The couple had been the subject of a previous Canada-wide arrest warrant for failing to appear for a pre-deportation meeting.

Immigration lawyer Mendel Green got them to surrender, then brokered a deal whereby Del Rosario and her husband were released on their own recognizance and were to leave Canada voluntarily.

"Instead they used the time to go into hiding," says an immigration source, adding the family purchased airline tickets, but did not make their flight. "They cleaned up their business, hid all their stuff and covered their tracks pretty well."

Green says he has no idea where his former clients are now. "All I can say is that for a short period of time I was her lawyer," Green says. "I haven't seen or heard from them. I don't know where she is."

What is the update of Tony Leviste's case?

^ That just shows how polluted Metro Manila is. Hmm, upon my first time to go to Metro Manila, I was immediately shocked and I even asked my parents why the sky wasn't blue there, lol.

It's not like that all the time. There are many blue sky moments and days. Especially now more than years ago.

RP’s rising dependence on OFW remittances alarming


Cebu Daily News
Last updated 02:32pm (Mla time) 01/19/2007

THE head researcher of Ibon Foundation Inc., a national research group, has expressed alarm over the growing dependence of the country's economy on the dollar remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Sonny Africa said the OFWs had become the government's biggest source of precious dollars, remitting $11.4 billion from January to November last year.

He, however, was alarmed by the fact that it was equivalent to 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

"The double digit mark makes the Philippines the most overseas remittance-dependent economy of any significant size in the world. This means that the economy continues to be kept afloat by the external and volatile OFW remittances, and not by a strong local economic capacity," he said in a statement furnished to the Inquirer.

He added that the declines in domestic investment implied a diminishing capacity to expand production and warn of a slowdown in the future.

Africa pointed to the glaring lack of decent jobs in the country as the main factor on the influx of Filipinos seeking employment overseas.

According to an Ibon research, an estimated 3,000 Filipinos left the country everyday to find jobs abroad.

“The sheer scarcity of jobs is already a sign that all is not well and that the economy lacks an internal dynamism that is able to productively harness and employ the Filipino workforce,” Africa said.

Ibon is an independent development institution established in 1978 and provides research, education, publications, information work and advocacy support on socio-economic issues.

Inquirer

source: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/enterprise/view_article.php?article_id=44405

Filipino seamen kidnapped in Nigeria -sources
Sat 20 Jan 2007 4:16 PM ET
(Updates with more details)

LAGOS, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Seven seamen, including six Filipinos, were kidnapped from a cargo ship on a river in Nigeria's southern oil producing delta on Saturday, military and oil industry sources said.
The incident brings to nine the number of foreign workers being held hostage in the world's eighth largest oil exporter, where militant attacks have reduced oil output by a fifth.
"Six expatriates and one Nigerian were kidnapped off a vessel on Chanomi Creek in Delta State," said an oil industry source, who asked not to be named.
Other sources said the foreign hostages were Filipino, taken from a cargo ship operated by Germany's Baco-Liner, based in Duisburg, which runs between Europe and several ports across West Africa.
Initially, the sources had said all seven were foreigners working in the oil industry.
Police were not immediately available for comment.
Militants and criminals seeking ransoms have kept up a series of attacks and kidnappings against foreign workers in the Niger Delta, a vast wetlands region which is home to all of Nigeria's oil resources.
Militants want to drive out foreigners and secure more regional control over the delta's oil wealth. The region is also blighted by violent crime, communal conflicts and corruption.
Ships entering Delta State are often harassed by pirates from local communities who demand protection money.
Militants on Thursday released a sick Italian oil worker who had been in captivity in the remote creeks in another part of the delta since Dec. 7 but said they would keep three other foreigners. All four worked for Agip, a unit of Italian energy firm Eni.
Also on Thursday, another armed group released five Chinese telecom workers, who had been held since their abduction from their apartment on Jan. 5.



Nigeria in talks to free Filipino hostages
Sun 21 Jan 2007 9:03 AM ET
(Adds possible release of militia leader)
By Tom Ashby

LAGOS, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Nigerian officials have begun talks to secure the release of six Filipino seamen snatched from a cargo ship in the southern oil producing delta, authorities said on Sunday.
The talks started as Nigerian warships mobilized for a four-day exercise around the Niger Delta oilfields where militant attacks and kidnappings have hit production from the world's eighth largest oil exporter and forced thousands of foreign workers to leave.
"The six Filipinos are in good health and the government has made contact with their captors to ensure they are safe and to secure their early release," said Sheddy Ozoene, a spokesman for Delta State where the abduction took place.
Military and oil industry sources said on Saturday that a Nigerian seaman was also among the hostages taken from a cargo ship operated by Germany's Baco-Liner.
The kidnappers have demanded the release of two jailed leaders from the delta -- Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor impeached for corruption, and Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a former militia leader facing treason charges, Ozoene said.
The demands are the same as those made by another militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which is holding three foreign oil workers hostage since Dec. 7 and whose attacks last February hit oil production.
MEND said it is already in talks with the government about releasing the two prisoners in return for freeing their hostages and halting further kidnappings.
But MEND has vowed to extend its attacks on oil facilities until the region gains full control over its oil wealth.
The latest incident brings to nine the number of foreign workers being held hostage in the Niger Delta.
NAVAL EXERCISE
In response to rising violence, the Nigerian navy on Sunday mobilized warships for a four-day exercise off Bonny Island oil and gas export complex starting on Tuesday.
Military sources say 13 warships, four smaller boats and three helicopter gunships will take part in the exercise.
Dozens of foreign oil workers were kidnapped last year, militant attacks on oil facilities intensified and the region saw a surge in violent crime.
Ships entering delta ports are often harassed by pirates from local communities who demand protection money.
Three oil workers including a Dutch national were killed by armed robbers on their way in a boat to Bonny Island last Tuesday.
Militants want to drive out foreigners from the delta and gain regional control over its oil wealth. The situation is complicated by state and local government corruption which means much of the money meant for services and development is looted.
MEND on Thursday released a sick Italian oil worker who had been in captivity in the remote creeks in another part of the delta since Dec. 7 but said it would keep three other foreigners. All four work for Agip, a unit of Italian energy firm Eni <ENI.MI>.



Manila's Arroyo stops workers traveling to Nigeria
Mon 22 Jan 2007 12:19 AM ET

MANILA, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Monday ordered the labor department to block workers from traveling to Nigeria after the kidnapping of six Filipino sailors from a cargo ship in the West African country.
The Nigerian government has begun talks to secure the early release of the six Filipino seamen, taken from a German-operated ship last week in a southern oil producing delta.
"The president has ordered a temporary halt to deployments to Nigeria until the security of our nationals is guaranteed," said Arroyo's spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, adding she was monitoring the situation and coordinating with the Nigerian government.
Quoting a report from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Bunye said the six Filipino sailors were part of the 14-member crew of the vessel operated by Germany's Baco-Liner, based in Duisburg, which runs between Europe and West African ports.
More than 8 million Filipinos work overseas, many on board ships.

$1M Embezzled by Filipino Priest in Virginia
By Amee Enriquez Asianjournal.com January 22nd, 2007

Shocking, is how one can describe the current predicament that 50-year-old Filipino Catholic priest Rodney Rodis is in, here in the United States. His story of alleged embezzlement, of living a double life as a priest and as a married man with three daughters (the eldest of whom is 20 years old and the youngest five) that recently broke in the news is stuff that investigative reports are made of.

There’s sex, there’s deception, there’s lies, there’s religion and there’s a question that involves an unaccounted for $1 million dollars in donations from two parishes that he is accused of siphoning. Local authorities in Virginia are just beginning to unearth the tip of the iceberg.

On top of the story is the Richmond Times Dispatch newspaper in Virginia. According to the Richmond Times, the story of Rodis’s life started in March 1986, ironically a month after the EDSA Revolution, the people power movement that toppled a dictator. Rodis was ordained as a priest in the Order of St. Camillus in the Philippines, which traces its roots in Italy in 1582.

In 1991, Fr. Rodis arrived in the U.S. and became parochial vicar at St. Mark Parish in Virginia Beach in the Diocese of Richmond. In 1994, he became pastor of two parishes: Immaculate Conception and St. Jude in Louisa County. In May 2006, he retired as pastor, citing health reasons. In December 2006, investigations by local authorities on his alleged embezzlement began.

The authorities are now working on the paper trail trying to establish just how much was allegedly embezzled. Initial estimates put the dollar amount at $600,000 but as of press time, the amount has increased to $1,000,000, money that most people won’t even get to see in their lifetimes. Some of the money, authorities said, was sent to the Philippines. The authorities are now trying to reconstruct the exact amount by going through the checks donated by the parishioners.

Despite Fr. Rodis’ denial that he and the woman named Joyce Sillador, who lives in the same address as he does in his seeming double life as a married man are husband and wife, legal documents and the neighbors say otherwise. Both he and Joyce Sillador-Rodis are listed as husband and wife on a deed of trust that repeatedly refinanced a house in Spotsylvania, according to the Richmond Times report. Neighbors who were interviewed by the newspaper and Associated Press confirmed that Rodis and his wife and the three children represented themselves as a family for at least the past 8 years in their community. He was just evasive about what he did and the neighbors thought that he was either in the import-export business or possibly in the witness protection program.

The news reports also state that Fr. Rodis was said to have plans of running for public office in the Philipines someday.

This situation is obviously wrong on so many levels. Filipinos in the Philippines and in the world over are known for their Catholicism (an estimated 80% of Filipinos are Catholic) and what this priest did made a mockery of the institution that he sought to serve. What he did, if proven true, violated his priestly vows of poverty, celibacy and service to his congregation.

Notwithstanding his vocation as a priest, what he allegedly did escapes the notion of decency. Stealing from other people who are contributing to charity thinking that their money is going to be used for good work is one of the lowest blows that can be dealt. It shakes one’s faith to the core, in a world where having faith in something, anything, is a challenge.

The whole situation brings to mind Philippine national hero Jose Rizal’s social commentary novel, “Noli me Tangere” (from Latin, “Touch Me Not”), which tackles the corruption of the Catholic clergy as one of its themes. In the novel, the Spanish friars enriched themselves and also had children from their relationships with women, whether or not these relationships were voluntary or coerced. In this day and age, this novel, written more than a hundred years ago, still very much mirrors the current times.

The whole situation is a big, embarrassing mess. Embarrassing for Fr. Rodis, his “wife” and family; embarrassing for the Catholic Church; and embarrassing not only for the Filipino American community but for the global Filipino community.

The investigation and court proceedings are currently ongoing. As of January 18, Fr. Rodis appeared in Louisa Circuit Court to discuss hiring a lawyer. Everyone naturally wants to know why he did, what motivated him to do so. There is no quick and fast resolution unless Fr. Rodis confesses everything. But one thing is for sure. For a scandal on this scale, there will be no happy ending.

Internet connections intermittent until Feb - telcos

Internet connections will remain intermittent until February as Philippine telecoms firms continue to repair underwater optic cables damaged by a strong earthquake near Taiwan in December.

In a letter sent to Commissioner Abraham Abesamis of the National Telecommunications Commission, PLDT said the repair of the submarine cable used by telecommunication companies in East Asian countries, including the Philippines, is expected to be completed on February 21.

As of January 20, three segment faults at the cable systems of SMW3 and China-US have already been repaired, while the restoration of 12 other segment faults were still ongoing, according to data provided by PLDT.

A 7.1-magnitude undersea earthquake off Taiwan caused multiple cable breaks, affecting telecom and Internet connections around Asia, including those of PLDT, Smart Communications, Globe Telecom and BayanTel. There were more than a dozen cable systems passing the earthquake site.

Such damages reduced by 40 percent the bandwith, or the speed of connections, used by telcos, call centers and business process outsourcing companies.

"The repair of other segment faults of the affected cable systems will continue and is expected to be completed on a staggered basis up to February 21," Alfredo Carrera, PLDT first vice president for regulatory and telecom industry relations, said in his letter to NTC dated January 22.

PLDT said the repair crews were sent to the area to restore the connections of cable systems including SMW3, APCN, APCN2, China-US, C2C, and EAC. These cable systems connect countries such as the Philippines, Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan and relay communication to North America.

Smart, the sister firm of PLDT, also said it is continuously working to normalize both voice and data services to other countries affected by the December 26 earthquake. For its part, Globe Telecom also pointed to the middle of February as the likely period when full restoration of connections will be established.

The NTC encouraged Internet users affected by the reduced bandwidth to file their complaints with the agency, so the regulator can act in terms of what charges the telcos and Internet service providers should collect from them during the affected period.

Call centers, BPO firms, and other heavy users of Internet complained of reduced business activities resulting from the slow connection.

So much poverty
Vol XXIX NO. 309 Tuesday 23rd January 2007
http://photo.worldnews.com/PhotoArchive//2007/01/23/de17b6ac9f8f6bf8d5b07553bdef7571-medium.jpg

THE new rules set by the Philippines Embassy are of no help.
There is so much poverty in the Philippines that the salary we pay the maids is of great help to their families back home let alone the peace of mind we create for them in our homes.
Ever since the embassy has become involved and opened its door to all of them, running away has become so easy.
Now the shelter is overcrowded.
With these new rules all those who wanted to come to the Middle East will have no chance because of the embassy's interference.
Fine! We will turn to other countries and we will sit and watch you find jobs for them in other parts of the world.
Don't think we can't get domestic help from other countries.
This is the price we pay for helping them.
So much for new rules! Oh, and give them back their passports. They can go straight to the airport! Less hassle for the embassy.

DFA ups to 24 the number
of Filipinos held in Nigeria
BY Francis Earl A. Cueto, Reporter
http://photo.worldnews.com/PhotoArchive//2007/01/24/4324f84d9caec2d8b9bc0eedfb3e9f08-medium.jpg

Nigerian militants have 24, not six Filipino hostages, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday.
Foreign Affairs undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Esteban Conejos said the Philippine government was able to obtain a “clearer picture of what happened” after coordinating with the seamen’s local manning agency and contacts in the African country.
“The ship has a 24-man all-Filipino crew. They were moving to the Atlantic Ocean to the Niger Delta when armed men boarded the ship and took 17 Filipinos and brought them to a village in Warri,” Conejos said.
“There is reasonable belief that the entire crew of 24 has been held hostage,” the official acknowledged at a briefing.
“As of today, all Filipinos are safe and sound. There is food on the ship and they are being provided food from the village. Food and water is adequate and the seamen are treated well,” Conejos said.
Another official said the food and water supplies are expected to last a month.
The ship is now anchored off the coast of Warri, Conejos said, adding that its owner still does not have any type of contact with the vessel crew.
Conejos said local Nigerian officials have already identified the kidnappers’ negotiator though the DFA has yet to receive word of any ransom demand.
The Philippines will not take part in the negotiations, he said.
“Basically we will use the same strategy to free the Filipino hostages. The negotiator then was not us. The Nigerian government took care of that, as well as the ship owners,” Conejos said.
The DFA official said the seamen had come from Europe to deliver cargo to Warri.
Vice-Consul Randy Arquiza and Assistance to Nationals officer Camalodin Manggis are in Warri at the Delta State to assist in ongoing efforts to secure their release.
This is the fourth kidnapping of Filipinos in Nigeria since last year. A Filipino oil worker was held captive along with several foreign co-workers in February 2006; two others were abducted in June and three in August.
Malacañang has ordered a ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to Nigeria.

^^ The President of Nigeria assured the Philippine government that he will work for the release of the 24 Filipino seamen which is a big relief for us.

Nonetheless, the Department of Foreign Affairs should see to it that they are doing their part. I've seen the spokesperson giving statements to suspend issuing permits to people going to Nigeria because of this issue.

http://business.inquirer.net/money/breakingnews/view_article.php?article_id=45966

Lack of transparency jacks up infra costs, says study

Inquirer
Last updated 07:00am (Mla time) 01/27/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Lack of transparency and insufficient disclosure in infrastructure projects with private sector participation engender graft and corruption that work against the interests of the taxpaying public, said a study paper prepared by the Economic Policy Research and Advocacy, a group headed by former economic planning secretary Cielito Habito.

“It is clear that adequate transparency and disclosure brings down fiscal and transaction costs for PSP [private sector participation] in general, thereby facilitating infrastructure development in the country,” the report said.

“Lack of transparency and disclosure tends to throw sand in the cogs of infrastructure development and undermines the Philippines’ national competitiveness,” it added.

Professor Renato Recide of the University of the Philippines School of Economics said the problem was especially urgent in big-ticket infrastructure contracts.

“Part of the problem is the lack of transparency in the deals,” he said in an interview. “This lack of transparency causes distortions in how the resources are allocated.”

He added that the secrecy that surrounds many of these infrastructure deals “engenders graft” and “promotes corruption” because they are protected from traditional checks and balances.

The result, he said, is not just overpriced infrastructure projects but failure to protect the interests of the people over the long term. Daxim L. Lucas, with INQUIRER.net

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=46176

Pasig shabu busters assail memo of Gonzalez

By Arlyn dela Cruz
Inquirer
Last updated 05:12am (Mla time) 01/29/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- No less than Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez thinks the evidence against Amin Imam Boratong, the alleged operator of the shabu flea market busted in Pasig City, does not stand a chance in court.

This was reflected in three separate memoranda that Gonzalez issued on Nov. 30, 2006; Dec. 27, 2006, and, most recently, on Jan. 23, 2007.

“If we look at this case dispassionately, Boratong was not caught in the shabu tiangge and the only evidence against him was the PhilHealth card found in the compound that bore his name,” he told this reporter.

Gonzalez’s actions on the case had raised protests among some of those involved in the investigation, who claimed they had a case against Boratong.

What did the Nov. 30 memo say?

Addressed to Senior State Prosecutor Archimedes Manapat, Gonzalez said: “Considering that there is a petition for review filed by the accused in the above-captioned case (People v Amin Boratong) before this department and in order not to render moot and academic whatever action this department may take, you are directed to move for the suspension of the proceedings before the said court (Pasig Regional Trial Court Branch 54) pending the evaluation of the said petition, in the interest of justice.”

Signed by Gonzalez himself, the memo stated: “For immediate compliance and approval.”

The petition for review cited by Gonzalez was filed by Memei S. Boratong on behalf of her husband Amin. In a separate letter, Memei asked the justice secretary to “allow her husband, Amin, to prove his innocence before he be exposed to the rigors of a full-blown trial.”

“The Office of the Secretary is the last option by which we felt justice can be obtained,” she said.

The date of Memei’s letter -- Nov. 30 -- was the same as that of Gonzalez’s memo ordering prosecutors to seek the suspension of the court proceedings.

No compliance with the memo took place.

What occurred, outside the knowledge of media at the time, was an “internal, silent but very strong act or resistance” to the memo, according to a police investigator involved in the case.

Members of the Philippine National Police Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Team (PNP-AIDSOT) and the group of state prosecutors assigned to the case, mostly women, rejected the Nov. 30 memo and directly complained to Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño, according to a source present in the meeting with Zuño held at the DoJ building.

Zuño told the group he had no idea about Gonzalez’s memo, said the source, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of his position.

An officer of PNP-AIDSOT, with the rank of chief inspector, said, “Kung ililigtas at pakakawalan lang nila si Boratong, pakawalan na rin natin ang 300 na hinuli natin doon dahil kung tutuusin, sila ang biktima, sila ang pinagkakakitaan ni Boratong, lokohan na ito, matanggal na ako kung matatanggal pero kapag itinuloy nila iyan, lalapit ako sa media, magsusumbong ako (If they are going to save and release Boratong, we might as well also release the 300 people we arrested during the raid. When you come down to it, they are the victims. Boratong was making money out of them. Even if I lose my job, if they go through with this, I’ll go to the media and tell all about it).”

Everybody’s fight

That officer didn’t go to the media, but somebody else from the PNP did reach this reporter and handed over photocopies of the series of memos from Gonzalez’s office, specifically on the Boratong case.

“We cannot allow the secretary to lawyer for the biggest local drug lord busted in history and let him get away just like that,” said the officer, a senior superintendent.

The officer said the women prosecutors pursuing the case told PNP-AIDSOT members that this was no longer AIDSOT’s fight alone but “everybody’s fight because we are fighting a syndicate and we know what the syndicate can do to save their heads.”

The Nov. 30 memo was followed by another memo from the office of the justice secretary. This time, it was addressed to the main witness in the cases filed against Boratong.

Witness protection program

The Dec. 27 memo told witness Samer Palao: “This is to inform you that after reevaluation of your coverage under the witness protection security and benefit program (WPSBP), we are revoking your admission effective November 24, 2006.”

The brief was signed by Gonzalez.

Interviewed in his office, Gonzalez told this reporter: “The problem here is the witness against Boratong is his half-brother, who is more guilty than him and he, is in fact, the real one and he is being coddled by the police.”

Palao is being held at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame because of “possible threats against his life,” according to the police officer directly responsible for his security.

“We cannot afford to compromise the security of Palao,” the officer said. “He is very vital in this case; he is the key witness in all the cases against Boratong. That’s why he needs all the protection from government whom he helped voluntarily without any monetary consideration, except a guarantee that he and his family is secured.”

Appeal to Gonzalez

In volunteering to become a government witness, Palao claimed that he was a trusted ally of Boratong, an insider who supposedly knew the extent of Boratong’s alleged operation of the shabu tiangge in Pasig raided by the police in February last year.

The tiangge was a cluster of drug dens inside a shanty neighborhood located near City Hall. Its discovery led to the arrest of more than 300 suspects and the sacking of the entire police precinct in the area.

On learning about his being dropped from the witness protection program, Palao wrote Gonzalez a letter on Jan. 15 expressing surprise at the government action despite what he said was his cooperation in the campaign against drugs and his decision to testify against Boratong.

Palao is also a witness against Boratong in a murder case, a civil forfeiture case involving more than P900 million in bank deposits filed by the Anti-Money Laundering Council before a Manila court, and criminal and administrative cases against the alleged police protectors of the shabu tiangge.

Fear for his life

Palao told Gonzalez in his letter that he feared for his life and that of his family.

In Filipino, he said: “My days are numbered … My disappearance will mean his (Boratong’s) being cleared in the cases where I am the witness.”

This reporter sought an interview with Boratong, who is being held at the National Bureau of Investigation compound. But Boratong declined to be interviewed.

With the noncompliance by prosecutors to his Nov. 30 memo, Gonzalez denied the petition filed by Boratong’s wife for an early resolution of the case.

But in the Jan. 23 memo, Gonzalez directed the prosecutors handling the Boratong case to “move for the resetting of the scheduled hearing therein on February 1, 2007 to any date in March 2007.”

He stated in his latest memo that the justice department needed more time to evaluate Palao’s involvement either as an accused or as a witness in the Boratong case.

The memo enumerated the criminal cases against Palao. It referred to him as a “convicted criminal” who does frequent “appearances in the media, claiming to be a star witness against respondent Boratong.”

Not a credible witness

“If he is not a credible witness, we can disregard him as a witness,” Gonzalez told this reporter.

As of this writing, sources from the PNP-AIDSOT said they had not heard of any move by the prosecutors to comply with Gonzalez’s directive to seek a postponement of the Feb. 1 hearing.

“Maybe Secretary Gonzalez has forgotten that there are lawyers in the government who have principles and convictions. That’s our good luck, and that’s the bad luck of Boratong,” said a senior police officer involved in the case, requesting anonymity.

Repairs to quake-hit Asia Internet cables delayed again

HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong's telecom regulator said Monday bad weather had again delayed full repairs to undersea cables damaged last year by an earthquake, which badly disrupted Internet access in parts of Asia.

The Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) said most of the seven submarine cables, damaged by a powerful 7.1-magnitude temblor off Taiwan on December 26, have now been fixed but that one will take longer than estimated.

Repair work will be completed at the end of February, instead of mid-February as had been anticipated earlier.

"The repair work of one section of a cable will now complete by the end of next month," said OFTA Director General Au Man-ho. "Bad weather, technical problems and other reasons are causing the delay."

However, he said Internet providers had diverted Web traffic and that the delay was not having a significant impact on Internet services in Hong Kong.

"According to our reports from the providers, all services have largely been resumed back to normal -- it's approaching 100 percent," he said.

Au said a new warning system will be set up next month to alert the public if a similar Internet breakdown occurs again.

The Boxing Day earthquake snapped several international telecom cables, sparking widespread communication disruption in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and elsewhere.

Problems also occurred as far away as Australia.

The earthquake left two people dead and at least 42 injured in Taiwan.

As per the news, there is a dengue outbreak in Laguna as well as other health crises such as diarrhea in some other provinces. This should be dealt by the DOH with utmost concern. The people should be informed on how they could prevent this to happen.

As summer is just months away, maybe the government could start water conservation program as well.

Country shrinks as sea level rises
By Francis Earl A. Cueto Thursday, February, 8 2007

In the Philippines, land area is slowly shrinking as the sea level continues to rise, an official from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said Wednesday.

Edna Juanillo, Pagasa’s weather specialist, told the weekly Fernandina Forum at the Club Filipino in San Juan that from 1961 to 2003, the waters around the archipelago rose by 1.8 millimeter every year.

Juanillo attributed the rising sea level to the melting of the polar icecaps caused by global warming.

She said a Pagasa study also showed that coastal areas in Navotas, Malabon, Cavite, Davao City and Legazpi City sank by 15 centimeters from 1970 to 1999.

Global warming could still be stopped if greenhouse gases or industrial emissions that produce carbon dioxide could be limited. Reforestation of denuded forest and mountains could also help absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Juanillo urged the strict compliance with the Kyoto Protocol that limits the use of fossil fuels, and called for the use of renewable energy.

At a recent forum in Manila, former US vice-president Al Gore warned that up to two million Metro Manila residents may have to be evacuated from flooded communities as melting glaciers and the polar icecaps raise sea levels worldwide.

Warning that the world would reach the “tipping point” toward an ecological catastrophe within the next 10 years, Gore urged international and local leaders to focus their efforts toward halting the phenomenon of global warming.

Oppressed by poverty, Filipinos sell their organs
By Santosh Digal Friday, February 09, 2007

More and more Filipinos are selling their kidneys and other organs to rich Westerners seeking transplants. An order has been issued from the Malacañang Presidential Palace that the Department of Health to take every measure necessary to stop this practice.

According to government’s own figures, at least 3,000 Filipinos have been involved in illegal transplants.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said a meeting is scheduled on Saturday among officials of the Department of Health, the National Kidney Foundation, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, the Philippine Medical Association, the Philippine Hospital Association and prominent doctors to see how to control the problem of organ “brokers” operating in the country. Ermita said guidelines are being prepared "so that where there are criminal liabilities involved, then they have to be proceeded against."

Senator Luisa "Loi" Ejercito Estrada assailed another reported plan of the Department of Health to double the number of foreigners being given kidney transplant in the Philippines as part of the administration's medical tourism programme.

“If allowed, this would be one of the most hideous tourism programme ever designed by any government—make its own citizens as the source of human organ parts needed by rich but dying foreigners," Estrada said.

Making matters worse, the plan would reserve a proportion of organs to foreigners. The new policy on kidney transplant would mean that for every 100 kidney transplant patients, 20 slots would be immediately reserved for foreigners. This would mean continued discrimination of the poor and push them to sell the few things they have like their organs.

Country shrinks as sea level rises
By Francis Earl A. Cueto Thursday, February, 8 2007

In the Philippines, land area is slowly shrinking as the sea level continues to rise, an official from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said Wednesday.

Edna Juanillo, Pagasa’s weather specialist, told the weekly Fernandina Forum at the Club Filipino in San Juan that from 1961 to 2003, the waters around the archipelago rose by 1.8 millimeter every year.

Juanillo attributed the rising sea level to the melting of the polar icecaps caused by global warming.

She said a Pagasa study also showed that coastal areas in Navotas, Malabon, Cavite, Davao City and Legazpi City sank by 15 centimeters from 1970 to 1999.

Global warming could still be stopped if greenhouse gases or industrial emissions that produce carbon dioxide could be limited. Reforestation of denuded forest and mountains could also help absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Juanillo urged the strict compliance with the Kyoto Protocol that limits the use of fossil fuels, and called for the use of renewable energy.

At a recent forum in Manila, former US vice-president Al Gore warned that up to two million Metro Manila residents may have to be evacuated from flooded communities as melting glaciers and the polar icecaps raise sea levels worldwide.

Warning that the world would reach the “tipping point” toward an ecological catastrophe within the next 10 years, Gore urged international and local leaders to focus their efforts toward halting the phenomenon of global warming.

Global warming? What accounts for extreme frigid temperatures everywhere then this winter season? Tipping point? Flooding? Maybe. In my opinion, these are direct results of underwater nuclear testing (illegal logging). Earth replaces displaced earth. And yes, we are (people and ill-minded leaders) responsible for these unfavorable events. It's sort of...garbage in, garbage out. We sure need to stop mistreating our universe. If, and when, it goes down we all go down! God bless!

Uh, oh: cable TV watching soon costlier

By Lenie Lectura
Reporter

CENTRAL CATV Inc. (SkyCable) is implementing a rate hike in subscription fees starting next month.

Cable TV subscription fee of SkyCableGold service shall go up by 6.87 percent to P870 from P814 a month while SkyCable Silver rates will increase by 6.91 percent to P636 from P680.

No new channels will be added. The rate adjustment, according to SkyCable marketing head for postpaid business Malou Esparrago, ensures subscribers of continued quality service from the cable TV firm of the Lopez group.

“This also helps us keep our promise of providing you with the best lineup of cable channels available in the market today,” Esparrago said in a letter sent to SkyCable postpaid subscribers.

A customer service staff of SkyCable explained that the P56 rate adjustment in SkyCable Gold and P44 in SkyCable Silver subscriptions are necessary to recoup from the adjustment on foreign program fees imposed upon by the content providers.

“There will be an increase so that we can renew the contracts with the content program providers, thereby retaining the existing channels we offer now,” said the staff.

This was confirmed by SkyCable vice president for programming and merchandising Juno Chuidian, who said that programming cost has gone up.

“We want to keep the level of customer service. Aside from that, operational expenses continued going up. Depending on the contractual agreements we have with each of the foreign programmers, the cost of the content has also gone up,” Chuidian said in a phone interview.

Chuidian said the last time SkyCable jacked up the monthly fees was two years ago.

SkyCable Gold has 60 channels and SkyCable Silver, formerly known as Home Cable, offers 55 channels.

Subscribers who opt to pay in advance will be spared from the price adjustment.

SkyCable Gold and Silver subscription fees to be paid every three months will cost P2,238 and P1,749, respectively.

Semiannual fees will amount to P4,477 for SkyCable Gold and P3,498 for SkyCable Silver. For annual payments, the fee for SkyCable Gold will only be P8,954 and P6,996 for SkyCable Silver.

“The good news is that you can protect yourself from this price adjustment and enjoy cash discounts at the same time by paying in advance,” added Esparrago.

The country has 13 million potential cable TV subscribers but the industry has recorded so far only one million legitimate subscribers and another million nonpaying subscribers.

The current cable TV penetration rate in the country stands at 15 percent, far below compared to neighboring countries Taiwan and Korea with a penetration rate of 80 percent to 90 percent and 60 percent in the US.

SkyCable has started deploying addressable or digital boxes, which eliminate signal piracy and prevent illegal cable TV connection.

Subscribers availing themselves of the digital boxes automatically subscribe to SkyCable’s Platinum service, which offers the most number of channels. Subscribers enjoy special sets of cable channels that are already digitally encrypted for an additional monthly service fee of P300 per package plus P2,000 refundable addressable box deposit.

Lifestyle package, for instance, carries two music channels, three news channels, five educational channels, two kids channels, two movie channels, four international channels, two religious channels and three fashion channels.

An HBO package meanwhile includes HBO hits, HBO signature, HBO family and HBO movie.

SkyCable president Carlo Katigbak said in August last year that the firm registered 2,000 Platinum subscribers since the service was launched in March last year. At present, Chuidian said, SkyCable has deployed around 6,000 digital boxes.

“We will be offering more bundled cable TV service under our Platinum offering within this year. We now have three offerings under Platinum service. We intend to redo the entire package and come up with more packages or unbundle them,” said Chuidian.

SkyCable also plans to offer ‘sachet-type’ prepaid cable TV programming to cater to the various needs of existing and new subscribers.

Prepaid service includes 13 free-to-air channels and eight cable channels-Cinema One, ANC, Solar Sports and Karera channel; Knowledge Channel, Hero, MYX, EWTN and INC, Link TV and Pinoycentral TV, MYSky.

Prepaid cards are available in three denominations: P40 for three days, P150 for 15 days and P290 for 30 days.

A starter kit for new prepaid subscription can be bought for P2,000 which already includes free cable TV load for 45 days, free installation and refundable addressable box deposit.

^^ lumipat na ako sa destiny cable :lol:

450 per month

kala ko lahat ng sa pilipinas e nakaw ang cable
mapa-manila, cebu at bacolod :lol:

WWF: Rare Palawan dolphins now down to 47
March 8th, 2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Bound by land on two sides and protected by Mt. Capaoas, Malampaya Sound in northern Palawan is the last haven of the rare Irrawaddy Dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) in the Philippines.
As another dawn breaks, a few of the dolphins can be seen cavorting among themselves.

The Irrawaddy is a light-gray to white marine mammal with a small, triangular dorsal fin.

While Bottlenose Dolphins rule over the outer Sound, the smaller and more delicate Irrawaddies inhabit its inner portions.

Named after Burma’s Irrawaddy River, the dolphins inhabit coastal, brackish and fresh waters of tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific. Their territory stretches from Australia and New Guinea to the Bay of Bengal, including the Irrawaddy, Mahaka, Mekong, Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers.

Although their range seems vast, actual distribution is relatively fragmented -- with some populations only dozens strong.

This has prompted the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources to classify them globally as endangered.

Critically endangered

The Philippine population, being isolated and extremely vulnerable, is classified as critically endangered -- the highest risk category for any animal species.

In 1986, a thriving colony was discovered in the inner portion of Malampaya Sound, south of El Nido and west of Taytay. After a thorough assessment, the population was pegged at 77 individuals.

Unfortunately, the age-old tendency to inhabit shallow coastal areas has made the Irrawaddy especially vulnerable to human activities.

Twenty-five years after their discovery, the future of the Irrawaddy is still far from assured.

Despite tireless efforts at conservation by organizations like the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Philippines), a number of dolphins continue to die every year.

Two have already succumbed this year. Last year, from May to August alone, five dolphins drowned as by-catch. All were entangled in a wide range of fishing gear -- from purse seine nets to crab pots.

Dolphins belong to the mammalian order Cetacea, which means that every so often, they need to resurface for air.

Each month more people come to Malampaya, lured by the bounty of its rich waters. Many use traps that are left untended across great swathes of the Sound.

Ever curious, the Irrawaddies play amid the traps. Inevitably, some become entangled in nets.

“The sheer saturation of these traps is the greatest threat to the Irrawaddy’s survival,” says WWF-Philippines project manager Mavic Matillano.

Other sites where the Irrawaddy can be found, such as the Mekong Delta in Indochina and in the Mahakam River in India, are experiencing similar by-catch problems.

Four dead each year

From the initial population of 77, the current number of dolphins is estimated to have gone down to 47. A loss of so great a number -- 30 confirmed individuals -- in just two decades is a cause for alarm.

To stop the trend, the Irrawaddy Dolphin Recovery Plan was crafted in 2003. The plan included the development and implementation of policies regulating the use of fishing gear with high incidence of by-catch.

WWF documentation of dolphin mortality yielded an average of four Irrawaddy deaths per year. The number of deaths has been steadily increasing.

Although catching crabs and other sustenance fishing methods have been identified as the main culprits for dolphin deaths, they are among the fishery activities that are legally allowed in the Sound.

Malampaya’s fisherfolk, completely reliant on the sea for sustenance, have yet to shift to alternative methods of catching fish.

Multi-sectoral approach

Fortunately, more steps are being taken to minimize dolphin deaths.

Using a multi-sectoral approach, WWF and other groups such as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the municipality of Taytay are developing fishery policies to enhance livelihood opportunities, law enforcement and environmental awareness.

These policies have been designed to alleviate the intensive and unsustainable fishing methods.

Ecotourism is also being considered as a primary source of livelihood.

Trekking, mangrove tours

“Malampaya has good potential. It offers trekking, mangrove tours and, of course, dolphin watching. The revenues from these activities will be able to partially fund enforcement teams for the area,” Matillano said.

He said families might rely less on fishing if they found new sources of income.

“This should help reduce the number of traps in the Sound,” the WWF-Philippines project manager said.

Ultimately, the fate of Malampaya Sound’s Irrawaddy Dolphins depends on the people themselves.

Without their willingness to accommodate this species, a new dawn cannot break for the beleaguered Irrawaddy.

Boracay resorts lack environment documents
By Roderick T. dela Cruz
(First of two parts)
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=business3_mar12_2007

BORACAY Island—The municipal council of Malay, Aklan is in talks with Palafox Associates, the firm established by architect and urban planner Felino Palafox Jr., to draft a master plan for the fast-developing 10-square kilometer island.

Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano, whose office donated more than P4.8 million to help manage the critical garbage problem on the island, said the master plan would address problems related to over-development and environment.

Durano said the town of Malay had allowed the construction of new resorts on the island even in the absence of required environmental compliance certificate.

“For local government units, issuance of business permits is a revenue function for them, not regulation,” he said. “With a master plan, we can tell the LGU to rationalize the issuance of business permit,” he said.

Private investors in Boracay complained that the lack of master plan had contributed to the problems of traffic, squatting and pollution on the island.

“These are gargantuan problems Boracay is facing. We are now sowing the seeds of our own destruction and if we do not work together, the entire island would be gone, lost in the squalor and decay of garbage and human misery,” the Boracay Chamber of Commerce and Industry said in its March newsletter.

Former environment secretary Elisea Gozon, now a consultant for the World Bank, cited the need to put in the necessary systems to manage the over-development of Boracay.

“The island can only carry so much,” she said, referring to the large structures that have been recently built on the island.

Gozon said the ground water quality of Boracay had exceeded its threshold capacity as early as 1990 and the saltwater intrusion in the aquifers, as a result of continuous extraction of freshwater, threatens the sustainability of the island.

She said the coliform problem in 1997, which severely affected tourism and livelihood in the island, should serve as a warning for residents, tourists and establishments alike.

Assistant Secretary Consuelo Padilla, the presidential assistant for Boracay, said pollution threatened the island’s sustainability.

“Tourism will die if people will come to a trash island,” she said, while quickly adding that over the past 14 months, residents in the island had learned to segregate their trash.

She said waste segregation was being enforced in the island, with violators made to pay hefty fines, in compliance with Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.

Identify theft: A big deal soon in RP says Oracle
By Melvin G. Calimag

Just like in the US where it has spread like a dreaded disease, it’s inevitable that identity theft will soon make its presence felt in the Philippines.

Oracle sounded this alarm button in a recent press briefing as the California-based database vendor tried to pitch its latest offerings involving security and identity management solutions to local customers.

"Identity theft is human nature. In the past, it was physical in character. But now it has been transported in the digital world," said Francis Ong, managing director of Oracle Philippines.

Ong, along with Oracle ASEAN sales director Roman Tuma, said today’s businesses have entered "a new age of digital identities" that has brought forth new challenges such as identity theft.

The executives said that in response to this threat, Oracle has decided to integrate security and identity management capabilities in its database "from the ground up" so customers won’t have to worry about getting caught in identity theft-related problems.

Ong said this approach offers the "best of both worlds to customers." "They will have easy access to their database while at the same time have a secure environment."

Being a relatively new "digital phenomenon," Oracle’s Tuma said the market for security and identity management is huge. "Worldwide its $ 2 billion, with Asia’s share at $ 200 million."

In the Philippines, the need to protect data privacy in the booming business process outsourcing business, as well as banking sector, will drive the need for identity management solutions, Ong said.

"The Philippines should not wait for this problem to explode like what has happened in other countries. Businesses has to take a pro-active approach."

Oracle’s identity management’s solutions, the officials said, allow enterprises to manage the end-to-end life-cycle of user identities across all enterprise resources both within and beyond the firewall.

The emergence of identity management solutions has also led Oracle to submit the Identity Governance Framework (IGF) to Liberty Alliance, a global identity consortium working to build a more trusted Internet for consumers, governments and businesses worldwide.

The IGF is an open standards-based initiative developed by Oracle to help organizations better govern and protect sensitive identity-related employee, customer, and partner information as it flows across heterogeneous applications.

https://www.us.army.mil/suite/photo/size1-army.mil-2007-03-09-094622.jpg

i saw this in an army page

Capt. Lane Hansen, a veterinary officer from the 1st Special Forces Group, and a Filipino Soldier inject vitamin B into a child's pet during a medical civic action program at Lambayong village Feb. 25. (Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Johansen Laurel)

and in the news today i heard also about the law mandating that all askal have to get a shot

RP most corrupt economy in Asia

(http://www.philstar.com/philstar/News200703140404.htm)

RP most corrupt economy in Asia

The Philippine Star 03/14/2007

The Philippines is perceived by foreign businessmen as Asia’s most corrupt economy, according to a survey that polled 1,476 expatriate business executives in 13 countries and territories across the region.

Singapore and Hong Kong were seen as the cleanest economies, while China, Indonesia and Vietnam posted improvements, the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) said in a summary made available to Agence France Presse.

"The Philippines has the distinction of being perceived in the worst light this year," PERC said after polling expatriate business executives in January and February.

President Arroyo dismissed the survey, saying the perceptions and data were outdated.

Perception of corruption in Thailand worsened, with the military junta now in power after last September’s coup seen as little better than the government it ousted.

In a grading system with zero as the best possible score and 10 the worst, the Philippines got 9.40, worsening sharply from its grade of 7.80 last year. Indonesia had been deemed Asia’s most corrupt country in 2006.

PERC, which provides advice to private firms and governments, said it had not noted a worsening in the actual situation in the Philippines despite its deteriorating score."It is bad and has been bad all along. People are just growing tired of the inaction and insincerity of leading officials when they promise to fight corruption," it said.

The protracted corruption trial of deposed President Joseph Estrada "is an example of the problem and probably explains why respondents to our survey were so negative in their assessment" of the country.

Thailand and Indonesia, both on a grade of 8.03, shared the spot as Asia’s second most corrupt nations.Thailand’s image worsened slightly on last year while Indonesia’s score was better.The junta that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra as Thailand’s prime minister last September promised to fight corruption "but there is no reason to be confident that its behavior will be any cleaner," PERC said.

(Then, humirit ang Arroyo administration ...):)

Old data
The index, based on the views of nearly 1,500 expatriate businessmen, was based on "old data" that was no longer accurate, President Arroyo said.

"Our credit ratings are fine," she told Business News Asia magazine. "The political analysis, they work on old data.

"They don’t work on up-to-date data."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sikat na may black-eye

Excuse me Tsinoy, the headline is TOTALLY WRONG.
It should have the word "PERCEIVED" to be. It is only a perception and NOT the truth. The PERC's utmost intention is to OVERHYPE the countries they rated high to protect their investments there. Of course they will do anything to tidy-up the image of their business sites (as good investment sites) when actually there is nothing left for growth there anymore, passe' economy.

In fact the Philippine Tax Collection and Customs Collection have been growing for the past three eyars which means that corruption is being addressed. The number one corrupt people in Asia are the Chinese who often offer bribes to people in position by showering them with gifts to get a favor. I know because I have personally observed this. It is their way of life.

This issue has been addressed by the most credible people that see the real thing.

http://www.bworldonline.com/BW031407/content.php?id=001
Corruption seen highest in RP
Malacañang dismisses survey, says perception not the reality
http://www.bworldonline.com/BW031407/content.php?id=001
Perceptions of worsening public sector corruption continue to upset the overall Philippine business environment, with the country now rated the worst in a survey covering 13 Asian economies.

On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the lowest grade, 100 foreign executives surveyed by Hong Kong-based consultancy firm Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) rated the Philippines a 9.4.

This score was a sharp drop from last year’s 7.80 and 2005’s 8.1, which in both years made the Philippines only third worst in terms of corruption, ahead of Vietnam and Indonesia.

PERC founder and managing director Robert Broadfoot told BusinessWorld "I can’t point to one incident [that may have caused] such a dramatic fall."

But he said the upcoming midterm elections may have made "people ... more conscious of the [corruption] problem this year." Mr. Broadfoot added that perhaps "fatigue" could also be a factor because "things have not changed".

"People are aware that there is going to be a lot of talk about corruption. People will say ’I’ve heard that before’," he said.

Public sector most corrupt

He noted that businessmen seem to have a more negative view of public sector corruption. To the question of "How serious is the problem of corruption in the public sector," a grade of 9 was given. Framed for the private sector, the response was a much better 4.15.

Mr. Broadfoot said foreign businessmen feel the government is not doing well enough in tax collection, hence its recourse to imposing new taxes or running after multinational companies, not necessarily domestic firms.

But President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s chief of staff disputed the findings as "relatively unfair" because "it doesn’t take into account the new evolving conditions in the country."

Former Albay congressman Joey S. Salceda, now the president’s chief of staff, said "With rising tax effort how can you justify that corruption is going up?"

He pointed out that 80% of the corruption in this country is committed on the revenue side. However, the tax effort rose to 14.3% in 2006 from 13% in 2005, while revenues increased by 23%.

"If you have tax revenues going up by 23%, how can corruption be deteriorating?," he asked.

Reactions mixed

Businessmen and experts did not unilaterally agree with the PERC report, saying that while corruption exists, it is not necessarily worse than before.

"No one disputes that corruption is serious and needs greater control. However, corruption does not usually keep out foreign investors in sectors like call centers or electronics," American Chamber of Commerce legislative director and Joint Foreign Chambers spokesperson John Forbes said in a text message from Singapore.

Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Donald G. Dee said government-private sector partnerships are gaining headway.

"Yes there is corruption [but] we are doing our part. I think little by little we are moving in the right direction," he said.

Mr. Dee cited private-public cooperation versus smuggling which resulted in increased collections by the Bureau of Customs, traditionally known as one of the most corrupt agencies.

Makati Business Club (MBC) executive director Alberto Lim agreed that the anti-corruption drive has intensified because of increasing private sector participation. He added that corruption is "nothing new" to Filipinos and it will not necessarily affect business confidence.

"Corruption’s been around. In fact instead of just complaining about it, we’re doing something about it," he said.

National Competitiveness Council co-chairman Cesar B. Bautista acknowledged that corruption will indeed erode the country’s competitiveness, which the council is trying to boost. But he added that the council is doing its best to make government processes transparent.

"We have to keep it simple so we have less room for corruption."

Mr. Forbes likewise noted increased efforts by the Ombudsman and the Customs bureau, though these have resulted in "very few convictions."

He emphasized that putting bribe-taking officials and bribe-paying businessmen in jail "will improve the country’s image, especially if the persons sentenced are ’big fish’, not ’minnows’."

But Philippine Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) chairperson Constancia de Guzman said there is no "big fish" or "small fry" because they give equal importance to all the cases they handle.

In its report, PERC said that the dragged-out corruption trial of deposed President Joseph E. Estrada was one reason for the Philippines’ negative assessment.

The MBC’s Mr. Lim said this might be so because Mr. Estrada is practically a "poster boy" for corruption. "Getting a conviction in this country has always been very difficult doesn’t mean to say actual corruption on the ground is worse," he said.

Measurable accomplishments

Ms. de Guzman stressed "due process" takes time, a lot in most cases, but it doesn’t mean the government is not doing anything.

She pointed out the PAGC’s "measurable accomplishment". Last year, they forwarded 92 cases to the Office of the President (OP), of which 31 had punitive recommendations while 61 were non-punitive.

From January to February this year, the PAGC sent the OP 13 cases, one of which involved a cabinet official, on top of eight left over from last year for which the OP has not yet issued a decision.

Amcham’s Mr. Forbes, meanwhile, cited rampant smuggling of used cars from Subic which continues to hurt the local car industry. Other areas - red tape, infrastructure, power pricing, competition policy for aviation and ports - also need a lot of work .

"Corruption is only one of the fronts which the Philippines must fight on to improve its international image in order to attract more investments and create enough jobs for its fast-growing population. We are confident that with enough political will these challenges can be met successfully," Mr. Forbes said.

Mrs. Arroyo herself contested perception-based corruption surveys, saying "They don’t work on up-to-date data".

Mr. Lim said "This ranking may not reflect reality," while Mr. Dee decried the practice of "rating us on the basis of perception of people."

Mr. Broadfoot agreed that perceptions do not always reflect reality but neither is it simple to relegate it as unimportant.

"The perception is more important than reality," he argued, as this would likely affect their business decisions.

Former Finance Secretary Jesus P. Estanislao meanwhile, said "the most insidious [consequence] of this problem is the loss of confidence in public authority," he told BusinessWorld.

Mr. Estanislao, who founded the civil society group Institute for Solidarity in Asia, said if the problem remains unchecked, the country would be left behind since its resources are not as extensive as some of its neighbors.

"It has been said that Indonesia has the same level of corruption as that of the Philippines. But Indonesia has more resources and we do not have that advantage. We should be more wary of our limited resources," he said.

Evelyn Singson, former president of the Management Association of the Philippines, said the results of the survey might serve as a "disincentive" to investors.

"I think the leadership must be determined to stomp [out corruption]. They can do it by providing example and by ensuring that the justice system would really punish those who are at fault," she said

"We don’t need new laws. The government must enforce [the existing ones]," Ms. Singson said.

RP most corrupt economy in Asia

(http://www.philstar.com/philstar/News200703140404.htm)

RP most corrupt economy in Asia

The Philippine Star 03/14/2007


In a grading system with zero as the best possible score and 10 the worst, the Philippines got 9.40, worsening sharply from its grade of 7.80 last year. Indonesia had been deemed Asia’s most corrupt country in 2006.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sikat na may black-eye

WOWOWOWEEE!!! KONTI NA LANG!!! 10 na!!!! :banana: :banana: :banana:
PUROS LIFESTYLE CHECK WALANG NAKUKULONG!

They're just jealous because the Philippines is becoming more popular as an investment destination, even among Chinese investors. Di na dapat ito pinatulan ng media natin. Not that there is no corruption in the Philippines, but we certainly are far from being at the top of the list.

Naku sobrang laki ng utang natin. Mga taong di pa napapanganak sa Pinas ay may utang na.
Why is the Philippines debt continue to remain very high despite the prepayments?

Despite $3B in prepayments, debts stay at P3.89T
Daily Tribune
03/13/2007
http://www.tribune.net.ph/business/20070313bus1.html

Despite a strong currency and early retirement of loans, the debt of the central government remained barely changed at P3.85 trillion by the end of last year from P3.89 trillion in 2005 or a reduction of P40 billion.

The government claimed it prepaid $3 billion, or some P150 billion, in debts last year including $575 million in Brady bonds, which were named after former United States Treasury chief Nicolas Brady and issued in the 1990s to retire debt papers that carried more expensive credit terms.

The government also earlier said for every peso appreciation against the dollar, interest expense falls by P2.2 billion. Since the rolled over 2005 budget was pegged at an exchange rate of 53 per dollar, the peso at the current 48 per dollar, would have resulted in some P11 billion in savings.

The high level of government borrowings is constantly being brought up by credit rating agencies and multilateral lenders of the country as a threat to sustained development.

Just this month, the Central Bank’s policy-making Monetary Board allowed the Bureau of Treasury to exercise its call option and prepay the remaining $126 million of the bonds that were set to mature in December 2009 and June 2010.

In relation to the gross domestic product (GDP), however, the debts have been reduced substantially.

Higher revenues helped trim the central government debt to 64 percent of GDP at the end of last year from 72 percent of GDP in 2005, according to the Bureau of Treasury.

In monetary terms, the national government debt fell 0.9 percent over the period to P3.85 trillion, of which P1.70 trillion is owed to foreign creditors and P2.15 trillion to domestic creditors, it said in a statement.

The government is aiming to pare the debt further to 56 percent of GDP by 2008.

“This is the result of the republic’s debt consolidation program,” National Treasurer Omar Cruz said in the statement.

Domestic debt fell 0.5 percent while the foreign debt dropped 1.5 percent as the government prepaid some obligations to take advantage of the rise in the peso and third currencies against the dollar.

The government debt total excludes “contingent debt” or obligations of state-run corporations which are backed by guarantees issued by the government.

Total contingent debt dropped 2.79 percent to P569.93 billion, the treasury said. AFP

WOWOWOWEEE!!! KONTI NA LANG!!! 10 na!!!! :banana: :banana: :banana:
PUROS LIFESTYLE CHECK WALANG NAKUKULONG!

Dude, 33 executive officials have already been dismissed from office. As sandrin has said, the fact that tax collection has improved is indicative that the government's anti-corruption efforts have also improved - especially since 80% of corruption is on the revenue side.

The fact that there are few convictions does not belie the gains of the anti-corruption campaign, since it is the work of the courts to convict. But it does pose a challenge to the judiciary to ensure that its wheels turn more speedily.

Hostage crisis in Taguig ends, hostage taker killed

^^ It was early last week when I've read a news article as to the dismissal of the head of a certain government office because of graft and corruption.

This kind of progress on the government's efforts to eliminate graft and corruption should be made known to the public.

Dude, 33 executive officials have already been dismissed from office. As sandrin has said, the fact that tax collection has improved is indicative that the government's anti-corruption efforts have also improved - especially since 80% of corruption is on the revenue side.

The fact that there are few convictions does not belie the gains of the anti-corruption campaign, since it is the work of the courts to convict. But it does pose a challenge to the judiciary to ensure that its wheels turn more speedily.

... but no one gets jailed thats the sad part... dismissal is not the answer, these dismissed government officials are no different from cellfon snatchers, murderers, rapists and holduppers ...

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. — Aesop (620-560 BC)

Magbubukas pa lang ng negosyo ang mga foreign businessmen, kokolektahan na kaagad. :lol:

3 US businessmen ang kakilala ko na hindi na tinuloy ang negosyo nila dahil para lamang i-submit ang proposal nila ay sinisingil na sila kaagad ng bayad just to meet with the city officials in the local office.
Even to open a franchise of a fast food chain, naka!, pati Mayor, kelangan lagyan. :lol:

Tax collection numbers are just data, they can be manipulated to present a good standing of the revenues, but where are all those collections going thru?

I don't want to be pessimistic but that's the truth. Grabe na nuon pa, mas grabe ngayon, just my observation.

Bottomline is this: After 6 years with GMA and EDSA 2. What is the score regarding corruption? It has gotten worse. The main reason they say why EDSA dos happened is because of the fight vs corruption represented by ERAP. Now the Philippines is still a country where corruption is alive and well and we are taken over by every country in Asia in moving against corruption. There are many high profile corruption scandals na hanggang ngayon walang napaparusahan.

The most expensive highway: Diosdado Macapagal - may naparusahan ba?

Fertilizer Scam: May naparusahan na ba?

Comelec Poll Automation Scandal: May naparusahan ba?

Jueteng operation sa lahat ng bahagi na Pilipinas: May jueteng lord na bang nakulong?

Yung mga taong nasa likod ng Shabu Tiangge sa Pasig pinoprotektahan pa ni Secretary Gonzales.

Mark Jimenez $2Million bribery case: May naparusahan ba?

Yung mga corruption fighters na pumasok sa gobyerno sila ang unang nasisibak.

Tapos sasabihin nila dayuhan lang ang nagsasabi na talamak ang korupsyon sa Pilipinas. Pwe.

^^ add garci and Jocjoc's cases.:nuts:

And lately -- The Officials of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and the Lanao Hydro Development Corp who will be facing graft cases.

I also agree that dismissal alone is not enough. they should be convicted and put into jail, freeze their bank accounts, audit their wealth, and force them to return what they've stolen.

we cant deny the fact that measures are being taken by the government to improve this situation. the question is whether these measures are effective against fighting corruption, or if we have enough political will to enforce them.

Bottomline is this: After 6 years with GMA and EDSA 2. What is the score regarding corruption? It has gotten worse. The main reason they say why EDSA dos happened is because of the fight vs corruption represented by ERAP. Now the Philippines is still a country where corruption is alive and well and we are taken over by every country in Asia in moving against corruption. There are many high profile corruption scandals na hanggang ngayon walang napaparusahan.

The most expensive highway: Diosdado Macapagal - may naparusahan ba?

Fertilizer Scam: May naparusahan na ba?

Comelec Poll Automation Scandal: May naparusahan ba?

Jueteng operation sa lahat ng bahagi na Pilipinas: May jueteng lord na bang nakulong?

Yung mga taong nasa likod ng Shabu Tiangge sa Pasig pinoprotektahan pa ni Secretary Gonzales.

Mark Jimenez $2Million bribery case: May naparusahan ba?

Yung mga corruption fighters na pumasok sa gobyerno sila ang unang nasisibak.

Tapos sasabihin nila dayuhan lang ang nagsasabi na talamak ang korupsyon sa Pilipinas. Pwe.

^^ add garci and Jocjoc's cases.:nuts:

And lately -- The Officials of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and the Lanao Hydro Development Corp who will be facing graft cases.

^^ Wala pa rin napaparusahan sa NAIA 3 fiasco as well as the rampant killings of those critical of the Gov't which the UN and US are now investigating.

Gloria: Corrupt RP is just a perception ‘Foreigners are happy over reforms’
BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR
Malaya
http://www.malaya.com.ph/mar15/news1.htm

MERE perception. Not reality.

This was how President Arroyo yesterday described a survey conducted by the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) that ranked the Philippines as the most corrupt economy in Asia.

Arroyo said business groups, including foreign investors, are very happy to do business in the country because of economic reforms she has initiated, including transparency in the bidding process.

She said in the bidding for Maynilad Water Services Inc. and the Magat and Pantabangan power plants, "even the losers were very happy; they found it transparent."

"They saw that it was very transparent. You see this survey is perception-based … but when you talk of these examples where there could have been a lot of anomalies, even the losers were happy," she said.

The PERC survey showed that in a grading system with zero as the best possible score and 10 the worst, the Philippines got 9.40, which ranked the country as the most corrupt among 13 economies in the Asian region. The Philippines scored 7.80 in 2006.

PERC, however, said while the while Philippines’ score worsened, it has not noted any worsening in the actual situation in the country.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said government acknowledged that a "culture of corruption has crept into several areas of Philippine society and politics" but the Arroyo government is doing all it can to address graft and corruption.

Bunye said these efforts are done through the criminal justice system and administrative controls. Procedural reforms, he said, are focused on graft-prone revenue agencies, those in the frontline of day-to-day public services and local governments that "tend to be out of the anti-corruption radar in the past."

He said records from the Sandiganbayan, the Ombudsman and the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission prove the government is doing something to curb graft and corruption.

"Results have been gained and reforms are being made although we realized that the Philippines has to deal with negative perceptions that are still rooted in the past," he added.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said it is "really both a matter of perception and reality."



EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

He said the problem lies in the difficulty in coming up an "effective communication," particularly in highlighting the positive rather than the negative.

He cited the case of a Social Weather Station survey in 2005 which showed a decrease in incidents of bribery.

In the survey, the respondents were asked if they had been asked to pay bribe while dealing with the national government. Among those who said "yes," there was a decline from 42 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in 2005.

Of businessmen dealing with local government units, there was also a decline from those who said they were asked for bribe, from 52 percent 2000 to 30 percent in 2005.

On those who were asked for bribe while paying taxes, the number of those who said "yes" declined to 30 percent in 2005 from 52 percent in 2000.



MEDIA REPORTING

Cabinet secretary Ricardo Saludo said PERC recognized there was no noted increase in the corruption.

PERC also took note that in some cases, the media in countries like China and Vietnam were not as free to report about corruption cases as compared to other economies in the survey, he said.

Saludo said media’s reporting of mostly negative issues might have contributed to the perception of corruption in the Philippines.

In some cases, he said, reports of government officials being dismissed for corruption add to the negative perception instead of being seen as proof that government is doing something to clean up the bureaucracy.

Ermita said to address the negative perception, ordinary people could help by avoiding offering bribes when dealing with government. The administration, he said, could hold road shows to highlight the measures adopted to fight corruption.



NOT SURPRISING

Genuine Opposition senatorial candidates said Arroyo need not have to look for somebody to blame for the PERC findings.

Panfilo Lacson, Loren Legarda, John Osmeña, Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III and Francis "Chiz" Escudero also said the findings were "not surprising."

Escudero said PERC merely confirmed what the IMF-World Bank, Asian Development Bank, USAID, and other ratings organizations have found out.

He said there is a correlation between corruption and poverty. He added the higher the corruption index, the lower the quality of life.

"The high incidence of poverty is an indication of corruption," Escudero said. "And the people instinctively realize it without being told, since it is they who feel the effects of corruption most, being its direct victims.

He said the prices of basic commodities have steeply gone up since President Arroyo took over the reins of power.

"As a result of unbridled corruption, hunger stalks the land," he said.



STILL NEGATIVE

Lacson belittled the supposed "improvement" of satisfaction rating of the President, as shown by an SWS survey, to -4 from -16.

"If it’s negative to negative I don’t see any improvement. If negative to positive or positive or to better positive. For as long as wala ni isang kababayan natin na nagtitiwala sa kanya, at bagkus mayroon pa siyang utang wala akong makitang improvement dun," he said.

He said this was validated by the PERC.

He said this should be the cue for Arroyo to go into "self reflection and self-analysis" instead of saying the opposition is creating the impression of corruption.

"They are also blaming the PERC, the survey firm itself. Hindi talaga maso-solve pag ang kanilang attitude ay sisihin ang kung sino-sino maliban sa kanilang sarili," Lacson said.

He said the PERC rating would also affect the candidacies of Team Unity. "Ang ibig sabihin, dagdagan ang fiscalizer sa Senado, dagdagan sa Kongreso," Lacson said.



BAD FOR INVESTORS

Legarda said the opposition should not be "feasting" on the PERC findings.

"That’s bad for our investors. That’s bad for public international perception and it’s the responsibility not only of the government but of the media, of us, in politics, even in the opposition. It’s a very bad reputation," she said.

She said the timing of the release of the PERC rating "is bad" and "ominous."

"But more than the timing, it’s the message. The message is very clear – we must get our acts together to get ourselves out of this rot we are in," she said. – With JP Lopez

Foreign businessmen are only SOURGRAPING because they couldn't own properties in the Philippines hence they couldn't extract any monetary exploits from the current growth of the country's economy. Their rating instigate pressure for the Philippine economy to open up. Regardless of their frustrations, smart American investors are in the Philippines willing to take advantage of the developing market. And it is good for the long term, not like the overhype ones good only for the short term period.
And it was mentioned on the Manila Standard Today that the two city states rated higher play host to the ill gotten wealth of businessmen and politicians from other Southeast Asian countries. Isn't it corruption itself when you become the keeper of the ill gotten wealth. Read the last three paragraphs of this article: http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=news1_Mar14_2007

A ‘rotten’ criminal justice system
by: Alecks P. Pabico on 13 March 2007 at 7:24 pm
Inside PCIJ
http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=1530

A NEW report by a Hong Kong-based regional rights group damns the Philippines’s criminal justice system for failing to deliver justice to its people and contributing to the widespread human rights violations in the country.

Calling the criminal justice system in the country “rotten,” the 192-page report of the Asian Legal Resource Center (ALRC) describes how the police and the courts fail to investigate and solve various human rights violations because of the lack of sincerity, despite well-established institutions on paper.

The ALRC report comes barely a month after a United Nations special rapporteur scored the military for remaining in “a state of almost total denial” on the issue of extrajudicial killings, and which was followed by the release of the Melo Commission report pointing to circumstantial evidence linking some elements of the military to the executions.

The ALRC is an independent regional non-governmental organization with general consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council. It is the sister organization of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC).

This is the first lengthy report the ALRC has published exclusively on the Philippines, gathering 110 cases of killings, torture, disappearances, abductions, illegal arrests and intimidation involving 227 victims in the last two years. Of 81 cases of killings it has documented, none has been solved so far.

Basil Fernando, ALRC and AHRC executive director, says these stories reveal a pattern of extreme cruelty and state complicity.

“Filipinos are being threatened, tortured, abducted, killed and destroyed with a brutality that no civilized state would permit. This cruel behavior is permitted, and encouraged, because the country’s institutions for criminal justice are in fact so barbaric that together they bear no resemblance to any modern system of justice.”

Fernando also points out that activists are not the only ones targeted. “Common people also suffer. The entire people of the Philippines are targeted under this rotten system. Even in a case of common murder, it is unlikely that any investigation or prosecution is carried out.”

The ALRC report also notes that the abuses are happening despite a constitution that has assimilated modern international human rights and the country’s ratification of international laws on human rights more than any country in Asia. The Philippines was even elected last year to two key United Nations bodies: the Human Rights Council and the Economic and Social Council.

“The fact that the country has failed to implement key recommendations that the UN Human Rights Committee made in December 2003, in accordance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, also speaks of the low value that the government places on its commitments under international law, despite appearances to the contrary,” the report adds.

With the collapse of law enforcement, Fernando says there is now a virtual impunity in the country — one that is “written largely across the face of criminal justice in the Philippines: perpetrators of killings, torture, abductions and other gross abuses have easy assurances that they will get away with whatever they have done.”

ALRC’s analysis of the “deep institutional rot” afflicting the criminal justice system identifies the following basic problems:


Flawed and misguided criminal investigations

The police are the first and biggest obstacle to victims and their families obtaining justice in the Philippines. Where family members and witnesses come forward, they often find that police investigations contradict their versions of incidents. Police investigators sometimes make premature pronouncements about the motive for a killing and its cause, flatly rejecting alternative suggestions, particularly where state officers or persons allegedly connected to them are among the possible suspects.

Criminal investigation in the Philippines is also mocked by way of the establishment of ineffectual and biased special “task force” units for specific crimes. In August 2006 the president of the Philippines reportedly instructed the police task force established to investigate cases of alleged extrajudicial killings (Usig) to resolve at least ten within the following ten weeks. This was never done. Had it been, it would still take 14 years to resolve all the cases of killings known at the time of the instruction. Evidently, the statement was intended as little more than a publicity stunt, as indeed the task force to which it was directed appears to be.


Non-existent victim and witness protection

Most victims of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines have had threats on their lives beforehand; some already having survived earlier attacks. Those who seek protection are frustrated by the unresponsiveness of state agencies that supposedly have obligations to assist in such instances. Many end up dead.

The failure of the witness protection program must be attributed squarely to the rotten condition of its implementing agency, the Department of Justice. Public prosecutors, who are its officers, have also failed in their duty to refer witnesses for inclusion in the protection programme. Even in the most serious cases of extrajudicial killing, torture and disappearance, they are not known to have made recommendations and applications for protection.

The justice secretary is directly responsible for the witness protection program, as recommendations on protection must obtain his endorsement, and as the program operates under his oversight. Yet instead of ensuring that his department works effectively for all witnesses in need of protection, Justice Secretary Gonzalez has on several occasions blamed witnesses and families of the dead for not cooperating.


Ineffectual and biased prosecutors

Prosecutors make little or no attempt to conceal bias in their handling of criminal complaints.

The extent of bias is again best illustrated by the head of the Department of Justice himself. Secretary (Raul) Gonzalez has gone out of his way to defend the government by flatly rejecting legitimate grievances about the inability of the authorities to stop extrajudicial killings, referring to them as “black propaganda.” He has adopted the language of the military and insinuated that unseen forces have taken advantage of the situation as “one way to destabilize the government” by way of creating lawlessness within the country, thereby putting the government into shame in the international community: as if the government was not sufficiently adept at creating lawlessness and putting itself to shame.

That Secretary Gonzalez feels safe in making open presumptions about the guilt or innocence of persons lodging criminal complaints and indicating that the extent of assistance given by his department depends upon what conclusions are drawn by its officers as to the merits of the complainant rather than the complaint speaks volumes about the rot at all levels of the criminal justice system of the Philippines.


Labeling “enemies”

Under section 14(2) of the Constitution of the Philippines “the accused shall be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved.” In practice the public labeling of accused persons or victims as “communist fronts,” “destabilizers,” “enemies of the state,” or “terrorists” negates this presumption and allows officials to do away with due process. The double standards in implementation of laws are most obvious in cases where such labels are applied. The use of labels also exposes victims, their families and colleagues to the possibility of further violence, and denies them any hope of protection. Once a person or organization has been labeled “leftist” or “enemy” then there is no possibility of safety. Whatever they may or may not have done, they are in a special category of persons and groups guilty by suspicion, for who the ordinary laws and procedures, to the limited extent they operate for everyone else, are suspended.

Anybody extrajudicially killed in the Philippines is likely to be labeled a leftist by virtue of the police having made a blanket assessment that these killings are the result of an “internal purge” within the communist movement.


Command irresponsibility

Even though the Melo Commission concluded that Palparan and other military commanders are liable for killings under the principle of command responsibility, there is as yet no clear indication of how the government intends to deal with senior officers found to be complicit in grave human rights violations.

The report recommends six steps which are intended more as starting points for new ideas and discussion to address the grave problems afflicting the country’s criminal justice system:

An urgent comprehensive review of the Philippines’s criminal justice system

The review will be done by an independent commission with the guidance and technical support of key United Nations agencies and other international bodies, to be comprised of senior judges, competent jurists, reputed academics and representatives from civil society, including human rights organizations.

The commission will also investigate, prosecute and adjudicate cases, through public consultations and other relevant methods, to identify defects and hindrances. It will make full recommendations to the government and notify the public of the same within six months.


Rationalizing the deficient witness protection program and law

In the interim, both the Department of Justice and Philippine National Police should clarify and widely publicize a rational, accessible and comprehensive system of witness and victim protection in accordance with the Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act (RA 6981), together with an explicit set of operational guidelines for police that clearly stipulate officers’ duties to provide protection and spell out the sanctions that will be taken against officers failing to comply.

A full review of the implementation and limitations of the Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act must be included as part of the work of the proposed independent commission.


Strengthening agencies for the receipt, investigation and prosecution of complaints against police and military officials

This is to ensure that grievances by the victims are properly addressed and acted upon and that complainants obtain adequate protection, and interim measures immediately introduced by which to hold police accountable, through an explicit set of sanctions, for cases that have been filed in court that are found to have been deliberately fabricated.


Ending the use of labeling

There should be an explicit directive from the government that the practice of labeling by the armed forces and other agencies is prohibited and that officials found responsible for such practices will be removed from their positions and investigated for criminal liability in subsequent killings, attempted killings or other incidents that may have occurred in consequence.

Action on findings into extrajudicial killings

The findings of the Melo Commission should be followed by immediate investigations and prosecutions of persons identified as responsibile for extrajudicial killings and other abuses, whether directly or by virtue of command responsibility.

Enactment of domestic laws on torture, enforced disappearance and other fundamental rights in accordance with binding agreements under international treaties and the recommendations of treaty bodies

Aside from enacting domestic laws, implementing agencies should be established in accordance with the requirements of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The report also calls for the signing of the new International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; implementation of the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee of December 2003; and issuance of a standing invitation to all United Nations human rights experts to visit the country.

Yup same thing with my business partners here in the US. I had been trying to convince them to look into the Philippines as a possible site for direct investment but ultimately chose to go and invest in Thailand and China instead because of the rampant corruption, insufficient infrastructure, and the unfavorable business climate in the Philippines. Grabe daw sa Pinas masgarapalan ang lagayan kaysa sa China and this happened during the preliminary stages of talks palang. What more kaya if they went through with the project/business pa. :ohno: :ohno: :ohno:

Magbubukas pa lang ng negosyo ang mga foreign businessmen, kokolektahan na kaagad. :lol:

3 US businessmen ang kakilala ko na hindi na tinuloy ang negosyo nila dahil para lamang i-submit ang proposal nila ay sinisingil na sila kaagad ng bayad just to meet with the city officials in the local office.
Even to open a franchise of a fast food chain, naka!, pati Mayor, kelangan lagyan. :lol:

Tax collection numbers are just data, they can be manipulated to present a good standing of the revenues, but where are all those collections going thru?

I don't want to be pessimistic but that's the truth. Grabe na nuon pa, mas grabe ngayon, just my observation.

So why do you decided to buy properties here. hehehe. By doing so, you support how business is being run here. Isn't it a contradictory to what you are saying now? like an oxymoron.

Enough of your tell tales, both of you. How do you explain the sky rocketing expansion of the BPO industries which is an honest to goodness business. Or maybe your friends business is something like a monkey business not an honest to goodness one, huh mr. hooter guy hungry with chicken legs...

Hey take this from the Good JAPANESE - the most trustworthy of all Asian Investors. Even the skeptical Japanese are pouring money in the Philippines!

RP remains favorable investment site for Japanese companies, says Neri
By Rommer M. Balaba
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/03152007/economy01.html

THE Philippines remains a favorable destination among Japanese investors despite the bearish sentiment they now feel, accounting for about 20 percent of approved foreign direct investments aggregated during the previous years, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri said Wednesday.

Government data show net foreign direct investments were at $2.345 billion last year, from only $491 million three years ago.

More foreign investors are now choosing the Philippines as an investment area despite a Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro) survey that indicated the country was the second least favorite investment destination among Japanese companies.

Neri, who is also director general of the National Economic and Development Authority, likewise argued the recent signing of a trade pact between the two countries should further bolster investment flows into the Philippines.

Unlike other free-trade agreements, the Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement goes beyond market access and includes provisions to improve economic facilitation measures that cut across areas such as government regulations and controls, business efficiency, transportation, information and communications technology and the financial sector, Neri said.

These involve simplification and harmonization of customs procedures, the use of ICT, and paperless trading, along with measures to improve the business environment and competition policies, he added.

The planning chief likewise claimed the Philippines’ removal from the Special 301 Priority Watch List should also inspire US-based firms to pour their capital into the country.

“Outcomes such as this show that the Philippines is serious in upholding intellectual property rights and eradicating piracy and counterfeiting. We trust that these efforts will positively impact on investment promotion especially for the ICT sector, the copyright-related, and the patent-related industries. Also under way are efforts towards strengthening the legal system,” Neri said.

^^ Hehehe...si Security Blanket girl naman naprapraning nanaman basta nasasagasaan ang idol niyang si Ate Glo. If I am critical of your idol and her gov't, it's because I expect many good things coming from our leaders and public officials and nothing less. Though she has done a good job in other aspects, she has also done a poor job on others and so if there are problems we see that needs addressing, it's only right she should be accountable since it's happening on her watch. As an example just imagine how can you explain each street lamp light erected in Cebu for the ASEAN meeting could cost P300Thousand each? If that's not corruption, what the hell do you call that? And FYI yung project na tinutukoy ko eh for powerplants which the country could have used. :bash: :bash: :bash:

hehehe, who handled the street lamp project by the the way and why would you take the blame on PGMA when the people there managed the construction.
And you believe the IDIOT FOREIGN BUSINESSMEN perception survey.
Yes they are IDIOT. I hope the PERC members lost big time in stocks trading.

So why do you decided to buy properties here. hehehe. By doing so, you support how business is being run here. Isn't it a contradictory to what you are saying now? like an oxymoron.

Enough of your tell tales, both of you. How do you explain the sky rocketing expansion of the BPO industries which is an honest to goodness business. Or maybe your friends business is something like a monkey business not an honest to goodness one, huh mr. hooter guy hungry with chicken legs...

Hey take this from the Good JAPANESE - the most trustworthy of all Asian Investors. Even the skeptical Japanese are pouring money in the Philippines!

.

:lol: another fan of the term oxymoron pala si Sandrin. Medyo mababaw ang analogy niyo po ma'm, kaya I don't have reply on that. :lol:

:laugh: Ikaw wala kang analogy. Puro kwentong makaw lang yung sinabi mo just to prove your point. :laugh:.

Where is the headquarters in of PERC in Hong Kong. It is definitely populated by Chinese businessmen and other foreign suckers. They made that survey because of the overheating Chinese economy, the plunge in Shanghai stocks and the vague economic direction. They need the survey to protect their business interest and tarnish all other competing markets. In conclusion, they are now considered as Passe' economies.

WOWOWOWEEE!!! KONTI NA LANG!!! 10 na!!!! :banana: :banana: :banana:
PUROS LIFESTYLE CHECK WALANG NAKUKULONG!

No news here... shame shame

Ombud freezes lamp payment
By Karlon N. Rama Sun.Star Staff Reporter & Katrina Tabanao
Sun.Star
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2007/03/06/news/ombud.freezes.lamp.payment.html

SOME of the decorative lampposts that lit the streets during the Asean summit cost as much as P224,000 each, a preliminary conference at the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas yesterday revealed.

There are 124 sets of these lampposts lining the streets from the Ouano wharf up to UN Avenue that leads to the Marcelo Fernan Bridge. Its distinguishing feature is a round dome at the top of the post.

Pinoy Votes: Sun.Star Election 2007

And if businessman Crisologo Saavedra is to be believed, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) bought the lampposts at that amount from a supplier called Fabmik Construction and Equipment Corp., based in Pasong Tamo, Makati City.

The total amount, when computed, reaches P27,776,000.

But the DPWH, Saavedra admitted in an interview after the hearing, cannot seem to be solely faulted because the Office of the Mandaue City Mayor prepared the program of works that led to the purchase.

In fact, Saavedra alleged someone close to Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano followed up the release of the payment.

Sun.Star Cebu is withholding the name of the official pending comment or formal inclusion in the graft investigation.

Saavedra, in a move he admitted was