by Greg Bishop
New York Times
LOS ANGELES — The condominium looks like a fraternity house, not the resting place for boxing royalty. Stained carpets cover the floor. Dartboards hang from the wall. Bowls of food, half-eaten leftovers, line the kitchen
Manny Pacquiao, one of the best boxers in the world, sleeps here. But he does not sleep alone.
Pacquiao, who faces Miguel Cotto in a welterweight title fight Saturday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, does not do anything alone.
In a press conference this morning at the Makati Shangrila, Manzano, 54, was presented by Teodoro and Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, who had earlier withdrawn from his declared vice presidential bid.
Manzano said the qualities of Teodoro, who has been trailing behind other candidates in the surveys, that had appealed to him are “credibility, integrity,hardwork.”
“I believe that we can lead this country forward,” said Manzano, who is a Lakas-Kampi member. He was chairman of the Optical Media Board until a few months ago.
The announcement surprised many political observers who were expecting Manzano to take his oath as Liberal Party member so he could be in LP’s senatorial ticket.
Manzano has rated within the top 15 among the senatorial aspirants in a number of credible surveys.
It’s very difficult for me to accept the recommendation of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee chaired by Sen. Richard Gordon to include Jose “Joey” de Venecia III and Rodolfo Lozada, Jr. among those who should be charged in connection with anomalous $329 million contract to build a national broadband network in the country with the Chinese firm ZTE Corp.
The recommendation to impeach Gloria Arroyo is fine. Although I’m sure Gordon knows that recommendation will just stay as recommendation given the time constraints. It’s also good that Mike Arroyo was not spared.
But why charge Joey de Venecia and Jun Lozada? Gordon said Joey cannot be considered a whistleblower because, “There were many times in this scandal that he could have blown the whistle but did not. He only started complaining when he did not get his way.”
So what if he did it when he didn’t win the contract? Did that make the information he gave useless? It maybe a case of sour grapping but the bottom line is because he squealed we learned how the Arroyos, through former Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos, tried to make Filipino taxpayers pay $200 million (P9.2 billion) more than the real cost of the project.
This is the part in the press conference of US State Secretary Hillary Clinton today that caught my attention. The presscon was held at the Goldberg mansion at the Malacañang compound. Although she said this in reference to Afghanistan, it could very well apply to the Philippines.
Question: Concerns re large troops in Afghanistan given concerns about corruption in Karzai government; talk about concerns of corruption and if they play role in determination of us war in Afghanistan?
Clinton: I continue to loath to share any advice received by the President in the course of his review. Its been an extremely thorough and thoughtful process and i will continue to honor the right of the President to hear from any of his government members or those outside government and to add that to the process of his decision making.
On the separate question with respect to corruption, lack of transparency, poor governance, absence of the rule of law, the concerns expressed not only by US but by others including PM Gordon Brown and many of our allies are ones that i share.
This is fun: Forwarded by Jawo
Hindi daw maintindihan ni dating Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos kung bakit siya isinama sa pinakakasuhan ng Senado kaugnay sa ma-anomalyang kontrata para sa pagpatayo ng telecommunication network sa Pilipinas (national Broadband Network) na gagawin sana ng ZTE, isang kumpanya sa China.
“Bakit? Nakasuhan na kami. Ano pa ang gusto nila?,” tanong daw ni Abalos. Ini-imagine ko lang na kuntodo paawa effect pa itong si Abalos.
Ano ang gusto ng mga tao? Makulong ka kasama ang iyong mga amo na si Gloria at Mike Arroyo.
Mabuti naman at isinama si Gloria Arroyo sa rekomendasyun ng Blue Ribbon Committee na pinamumunuan ni Sen. Richard Gordon ngayon sa kanilang mga rekomendasyun na kakasuhan at i-impeach.
Even whistleblowers don’t escape Gordon fire
by JP Lopez
Malaya
President Arroyo committed an impeachable offense, that of culpable violation of the Constitution, when she did not stop the corruption that attended the negotiations for the overpriced $329 million national broadband network project with the Chinese firm Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment, the Senate Blue Ribbon committee said in its draft report.
“There’s a culpable violation of the Constitution. Why did she not stop these people from committing crimes?” committee chair Sen. Richard Gordon said in a press conference.
Gordon routed the 127-page report among senators yesterday.
Aquino promised to put Hacienda Luisita under the land reform, but in 1989, instead of having the land distributed, Aquino implemented the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) program under which the 5,000 farm workers were given shares of stock in the company instead of individual titles to the hacienda land.
On the second week of November 2004, Hacienda Luisita sought the help of the Arroyo government, which gladly sent members of the Philippine national Police complete with armored vehicle carrier. Hostilities between the strikers and the police escalated. On November 16, the police fired at the strikers. Seven were killed on the spot , 72 were badly injured, 27 sustained gun shot wounds, and 110 were arrested by the police. That became known as the Hacienda Luisita massacre.
Seven more persons involved in the Hacienda Luisita case were later killed in separate incidents.
Last Sunday, Former Sectoral Representative Loretta Ann Rosales, Akbayan chair emeritus, wrote Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III, the Liberal Party presidential candidate on the Hacienda Luisita issue.
Starting today up to Nov. 27, 2009, the daily activities of Sen. Noynoy Aquino, Liberal Party presidential candidate,can be seen in capsule, in a video blog in his website:www.noynoy.ph.
Speaking from his residence in Times street via video satellite with reporters assembled at the office of Campaigns and Grey, an advertising and public relations firm, Aquino admits to being not so New Media- savvy but said “he is a student by nature.”
The Concerned Citizens movement today filed a Supplemental Motion for reconsideration from a decision of the Supreme Court upholding the legality of the COMELEC- Smartmatic Automated Election Systems.
In a 25 page motion, CCM singled out two new grounds both of which arose from “supervening events” since the High Court dismissed the CCM Petition against the COMELEC. The grounds alleged by CCM are as follows:
I. Comelec/Smatmatic will not be able to comply with the July 10, 2009 because of their failure to provide telecommunication facilities –both satellite and land-based- that will assure one hundred per cent communications coverage at all times during the conduct of the 2010 general elections as stated in the contract.
2. Smartmatic resorted to subcontracting to manufacture the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines in question, first to JARL-Tech, and now, to a Chinese company known as Quisdi, violates not only the Comelec’s own bidding rules but also Republic Act 9184, the government’s New Procurement Act.