Category: General

From Malaya:

BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR

EDUARDO Mañalac yesterday said he resigned as president of the Philippine National Oil Co. because he feared he would be turned by the Palace into a Jocelyn “Joc Joc” Bolante for the May mid-term elections.

Bolante, former agriculture undersecretary, was tagged by a Senate investigation as the architect of the diversion of P728 million for fertilizers to the campaign chest of President Arroyo last 2004. He is detained in a Wisconsin detention facility over problems with his US visa.

Mañalac, in a radio interview, said he was pressured by Planning Secretary Romulo Neri to come up with P500 million to finance a nationwide program to plant jatropha, a shrub whose fruits yield a substitute for diesel.

Breaking news:

Defense Secretary Avelino “Nonong” Cruz, Jr. tendered his “irrevocable” resignation today effective Nov. 30, 2006.

His two- sentence resignation letter:

“I hereby tender my irrevocable resignation effective Nov. 30, 2006.

“Thank you for the opportunity to be of service to the nation.”

Cruz personally handed his resignation letter to Arroyo in a one-on-one meeting with her this morning.

Sen. Miriam Santiago is among those being considered for the position of Supreme Court chief justive which will be vacated when Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban retires on Dec. 7, 2006.

Senate Majority Floorleader Francis Pangilinan, ex-oficio member of the Judicial Bar Council (JBC) confirmed the inclusion of the name of Santiago, known as an ally of Gloria Arroyo. She was nominated by the Young Lawyers Association of the Philippines. Others in the list are Supreme Court justices Reynato Puno, Leonardo Quisumbing, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, and Antonio Carpio.

Santiago has not been shy about her interest for the position of Supreme Court justice. Last year, she threatened to cut the budget of the JBC, which screens nominees for the Supreme Court, when the body refused to extend its deadline to accommodate her late nomination.

Filipino women may soon find themselves more economically-stable as the Canadian government, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), has committed to provide more than PhP 315 million in grant support to the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW) for a project that will contribute to women’s economic empowerment.

The 5-year Gender Responsive Economic Actions for the Transformation of Women (GREAT Women) project will start this month and run until 2011. The project aims to support and promote the economic well-being of women, by having several government agencies such as the Department of Trade and Industry, the Technology and Livelihood Resource Center (TLRC), Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and others, review their policies and guidelines that will create a more accessible and friendlier business environment for women.

There will also be partnerships among local government units, civil society, and the private sector, on how to enhance women’s participation in micro-enterprises in pump-priming the local economy.

(The following column by Federico D. Pascual Jr. appeared in Philippine Star today.)

Mike’s throwing weight around hurts President

HONG KONG (Via PLDT) – Do not let the dateline fool you. Yes, I am in the former British colony all right, but only at the airport tarmac unable to set foot literally on this special administrative region of China.

The “Via PLDT” means I have been using PLDT facilities. Its WeRoam wireless card in my laptop enables me to send-receive email, surf the net, update my ManilaMail website, and do other communication tricks, from any point in the world reached by radio signals of Smart and its co-operators.

Seated on this Philippine Airlines Airbus 330, I am tapping away at my IBM laptop-tablet as Chinese workers clean and resupply this erstwhile presidential plane coded PR 001.

The latest survey of Social Weather Station on hunger in the Philippines underscores the irreconcileable gap between Gloria Arroyo’s claims of economic success and reality on the ground.

While Arroyo was in China waxing ecstatic over strong peso against the dollar (“The highest ever!”, Malacañang exults) and projected economic growth of 5.5 and 6.5 percent in 2007, SWS released its latest survey that more and more Filipinos are experiencing hunger. Nothing to eat!

SWS said a record high of 16.9% of families experienced hunger at least once in the past three months was reached again in September 2006.

The immigration officer, Edgardo Padlan, who was rude at Luli Arroyo, was wrong when he attended to a foreigner who was behind her in the queue at the airport.

But firing him was overacting on the part of Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez. A suspension would have sufficed.

Here’is ABS-CBN’s story on the incident:

Reporters without Borders urges internet users to join in 24-hour online demo against internet censorship

Where: www.rsf.org

When: 11 A.M. on 7 November to 11 A.M. on 8 November

Just got a text from Joey Salgado, with Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay’s media office: Sandiganbayan third division junked graft case against Mayor Binay for lack…

(The following article appeared in Malaya today. All is not well in Gloria Arroyo’s Enchanted Kingdom.)

BY DENNIS GADIL

FEARING a “coup” by Speaker Jose de Venecia, it was President Arroyo who dumped at the last-minute the people’s initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution by sending out word she would not be averse to a Supreme Court ruling against the petition of Sigaw ng Bayan and the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines, a source said yesterday.

The source said the message was relayed through the Villaraza and Angangco law office which counts Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz and Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio as founding members.