Category: Malaya

Media in Manila should learn from Cebu media a thing or two on cooperation.

This I saw as participant in a forum “Challenges of New Media in Governance” sponsored by the Embassy of Canada, which was part of the activities in Cebu’s Press Freedom Week last week.

On its 12th year, this year’s Press Freedom Week had for its lead convenor Cebu Daily News, an affiliate of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. CDN Publisher Eileen Mangubat was on top of the activities with the active cooperation of all Cebu journalists. There was the eminent Juan L. Mercado, founding director of the Philippine Press Institute and who now writes columns for the Inquirer, CDN and Sun Star Cebu. We met Pachico A. Seares, editor-in-chief of Sun.Star Cebu, Valeriano “Bobit” Avila, who writes a column for The Freeman, and many more.

As Mangubat extolled, “Nowhere in the country can you see media competitors cooperating for a worthy project.”

There was a part of the account of the first hours of the coup in Thailand in the wee hours of Sept. 20 that reminded me of the 1986 coup staged by then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce-Enrile and then AFP vice-chief of staff Fidel Ramos.

Reuters account of the coup staged by Thai Army chief Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said, “Thaksin, who was in New York at the UN General Assembly, apparently tried to head off the putsch by phoning a Thai television station to announce a state of emergency but was cut off after 10 minutes.”

Thaksin was never put on the air.

This is good.

Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante, former agriculture under-secretary and once trusted operator of Mike Arroyo, is offering to talk on condition that his tourist and business (B1B2) visa to the United States is restored.

The problem is that he is offering the deal to the wrong person.

Malacañang’s two-pronged offensive to change the Constitution – by People’s Initiative and Constituent Assembly – tries to give the impression that Gloria Arroyo is on a roll, especially how her allies in the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments adopted Resolution 1230 convening Congress into a Constituent Assembly after only two hours of debate.

These crass moves – Singaw ng Bayan’s fake People Initiative and the railroading of HR 1230 – however, betray a suicidal administration who knows they have nothing more to lose with what they are doing because the remaining option is much more grim.

That’s Gloria Arroyo being out of power, at the latest, in 2010 and ending up in jail for the numerous crimes she has committed against the Filipino people foremost of which is cheating in the 2004 elections.

This is Harry Roque’s latest report on Bolante, whose petition for asylum will be heard today in Chicago. Harry is in Chicago for it: Bolante…

I have not cheated anyone of his vote, I have not diverted a single centavo of money of the people to my pockets, and I drive myself to the limits of my strength working to earn an honest living.

Like many honest, trustworthy and hardworking Filipinos, I admire Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano for exposing bank account No. 87570-23030-32100-6271-571 in Hypo-und Vereinsbank in Munich, Germany which international investigating agencies have been keeping an eye on since 2002.

The huge sums going to this account has been credited to a person who is said to be part of the government armed agency and is known to be close to a person belonging to the most powerful family in the country today.

Here are two articles on the expose of Rep. Allan Peter Cayetano about a secret bank account in a German Bank which is believed to be belonging to the Arroyos.

The first article is Arroyo, speaking for the first time on the issue, accused Cayetano of peddling lies.

The second article is the column of Lito Banayo in last Saturday’s issue of Malaya.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel named Presidential Chief of Staff Mike Defensor as the cabinet official who intervened in behalf of Sentosa Recruitment Agency, being accused by a group of Filipino nurses in the United States of reneging on the terms of their contract.

One of the nurses who was victimized is Elmer Jacinto, the topnotcher in the 2004 board examination for doctors.

Pimentel identified Defensor in a privilege speech delivered today. (Click here for Pimentel’s privilege speech)

Jocjoc Bolante must have realized by now that he got the shorter end of the bargain when he agreed to Mike Arroyo’s bright idea for him to seek asylum in the United States instead of coming home to the Philippines and tell the Senate how he diverted the P728 million fertilizer fund to the campaign chest of Gloria Arroyo in the 2004 election.

Bolante has filed with a Wisconsin court a petition for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus or release from jail. Earlier, he filed for a motion for bail and to strike out the amicus brief filed by the group of lawyer Harry Roque, Jr. of the Institute of International Legal Studies at the University, who submitted documents related to Bolante’s involvement in the fertilizer scam.

Bolante, as we all know,was the Arroyo couple’s most dependable Rotarian next to Efraim Genuino of Pagcor, when he was calling the shots at the Department of Agriculture where he was installed as undersecretary.

Now that the Commission on Elections has dismissed the petition of Malacañang’s Singaw ng Bayan to verify the signatures they had resourcefully gathered to change the Constitution through People’s Initiative, the next battleground is the Supreme Court.

Nobody was actually surprised at the Comelec decision. The Counsels for the Defense of Liberties, one of those who opposed Singaw’s petition, said last week: “According to the game plan of pro-Chacha advocates, Sigaw will file a petition with the Comelec which will immediately dismiss it due to the permanent injunction, so that Sigaw can immediately go up to the Supreme Court. They then expect the Supreme Court to immediately abandon Santiago vs. Comelec and hastily allow the setting of a plebiscite without any opportunity for opposition.”

I saw last Tuesday on “Strictly Politics” election lawyer Leila de Lima say the same thing.