By Leilani Adriano and Bobby Labalan VERA Files Photos of most wanted criminals in Ilocos Norte are posted in public places, with the promise of…
Making life worth living.
Category: Vera Files
The Asia Foundation and VERA Files will be presenting their latest work, Democracy at Gunpoint: Election-Related Violence in the Philippines, on March 2 at 5 p.m. at the Magellan Room, 41/F of the Discovery Suites in Ortigas Center, Pasig City.
In the 2010 elections, The Asia Foundation partnered with VERA Files in producing a series of journalistic accounts—news, features, in-depth reports on election-related violence in nine provinces that were traditionally considered as election hotspots. VERA Files consolidated the journalistic pieces into a book to provide a comprehensive, in-depth report that examines election-related violence in the Philippines.
The 212-page Democracy at Gunpoint: Election-Related Violence in the Philippines examines why election violence happens in 10 provinces known for being hotspots. While violence was the thread that stitched all provinces together, each one had particular characteristics that aggravated the problem.
“That violence still happens more than two decades after the ouster of Marcos and the restoration of democracy, and well into 21st century Philippines is cause for consternation and frustration,” wrote book editors Yvonne Chua and Luz Rimban in the preface.
Whistleblower Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada could be the perfect example of how, in this country, people like him who dare spill the beans on wrongdoing get punished, not rewarded. It is a practice that he said must change under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III.
Three years after he faced the Senate as star witness exposing the corruption-ridden contract for a national broadband network, Lozada still faces a slew of lawsuits while the people he has accused of making millions of pesos in commissions have mostly escaped sanctions.
“Masigasig sila sa kakahabol sa kaso ko, eh (They’re determined to pursue the cases against me),” said Lozada, who still faces a P19.5-million malversation case related to the jathropa project of the Philippine Forest Corp. which he used to head. He also faces a graft case allegedly for the anomalous purchase of motor vehicles, fencing materials and other equipment worth P15 million.
By Luz Rimban and Artha Kira Paredes VERA Files BANGUED, Abra.—A spate of killings here has left at least five people dead in a span…
By IBARRA C. MATEO AND YVONNE T. CHUA
VERA Files
Cai Qing HaiFOR many years, Chinese national Cai Qing Hai had been on the list of Asia’s “most wanted drug manufacturers and traffickers,” with law enforcers from three countries—the Philippines, China and Malaysia—hot on his trail.
Cai was no ordinary drug dealer. He headed a transnational syndicate which Chinese authorities said produced 1.7 tons of methamphetamine hydrocloride or “shabu” in the three countries. He was also slippery prey—in 2005, he escaped prison by bribing his jailers in Malaysia just as they were about to hand him over to Chinese law enforcers. Cai then fled to Manila, which he has considered his second home since he was 13.
In October 2007, Philippine anti-narcotics agents caught up with Cai, then 36 and using the alias Bruce Esteban Ong, in his clandestine shabu laboratory in Sta Cruz, Laguna. They thought they had helped put an end to the activities of one of Asia’s most dangerous men.
By Yvonne T. Chua and Ellen Tordesillas
VERA Files
For related documents: list of assets and properties, plea bargain agreement and the OSG intervention, click here -VERA Files.
But the request, made about a week after the Sandiganbayan on Dec. 16 allowed Garcia to post bail on the basis of his plea bargain agreement with special prosecutors, has only strengthened Heidi Mendoza’s resolve to reveal what she says is “the truth behind the Garcia case.”
“It is plunder; it is more than P50 million. I am standing by my story,” said Mendoza who left her job at a multilateral bank on Friday to embark on a “truthtelling” mission.
Plunder, the acquisition of ill-gotten wealth of at least P50 million by a public officer, is nonbailable and punishable by life imprisonment.
Mendoza, who headed a special six-member team the Commission on Audit detailed with the Office of the Ombudsman from 2004 to 2006 to investigate Garcia’s transactions, is the lone prosecution witness who told the court that the former comptroller committed plunder.
By Tessa Jamandre
VERA Files
Aerial shots taken in October by the Philippine Air Force on routine reconnaissance flights show the 20-by-20-meter structure complemented by parabolic antennas and domes on the reef, which the Philippine government calls “Zamora” and lies only 26 kilometers southwest of Pag-asa that is part of Kalayaan town.
The lighthouse is intended to expand and fortify China’s claim over the hotly contested Spratly group of islands, experts said.
by Jenny S. Santiago VERA Files If you gather all the Philippine coins circulating in the market today, their combined weight would be equivalent to…
By Booma CRUZ VERA Files The smile vanishes as soon as soon as she hears a deafening roar across the Abuan River in Isabela province.…
by Karen Tuason and Rodolfo Desuasido VERA Files and Task Force Mapalad Part I – Farmers’ CARP dreams weaken as Teves dynasty strengthens Part II…