She captured our hearts with her stirring performances in “Sophie’s Choice” and “Deer Hunter.” She helped us forget our problems with enjoyable performers in “Mamma Mia” and “The Devil Wears Prada.”
She was a joy to watch in last year’s movie, “Florence Foster Jenkins.”
But her acceptance speech for being honored with the Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement at last Monday’s Golden Globes melted our hearts. She was awesome!
It was only Thursday last week that Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, Jr. knew the agony that Filipinos who are applying for a new or renewing their passport had to go through.
In a post in my Facebook last Friday, Yasay said: “I am hearing for the first time that there are incessant breakdown or interruptions in internet connections which I will address today.”
Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
How the problem that has caused so much stress to many Filipinos finally got to the Secretary underscores the usefulness of Facebook.
By Charmaine Deogracias and Ellen Tordesillas
VERA FIles
The Department of Budget and Management denied violating procurement rules when it bidded out the P2.8 billion contract for the hosting of the 2017 ASEAN conferences in the country, saying it has full discretion in determining the rules for such processes.
The DMB-Procurement Service came under fire for classifying the contract as a procurement of goods and not consulting services, and for awarding the contract to the sole bidder, StageCraft International. The DBM insisted StageCraft has already acquired expertise for such projects, having handled the Philippine hosting of the Asia Pacific Economic Conference in 2015, and therefore will supply “goods and services.”
“The procurement was designed to be most advantageous to the government,” the Department of Budget and Management-Procurement Service (DBM-PS) said in a statement on Wednesday, in reaction to allegations the transaction would be “manifestly and grossly disadvantageous to government.”
Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said he ordered his office to award the P2.8 billion contract for the 2017 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) conferences in the Philippines to the lone bidder, despite complaints about alleged irregularities in the bidding.
In a press briefing in Malacanang Tuesday, Diokno insisted that the government complied with the bidding process and said he agreed with Director General Marciano Paynor, Jr. of the ASEAN National Organizing Committee (NOC) that government should talk to just one bidder in the biggest contract in the history of events management in the Philippines.
“(Paynor said) we should just have one bidder, I want to talk to one person. So that’s what happened there,” Diokno said.
He added, “EON is just a small company…. Ignore that EON complaint.”
By CHARMAINE C. DEOGRACIAS and ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS
VERA Files
Conclusion
WHEN the government bidded out the P2.8 billion events management contract for the 50th anniversary of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations to be held in the Philippines this year, it tailor-made the criteria so that a favored company would bag the deal, a company excluded from the bidding said.
In fact, sources say, when the bidding was held Dec. 1 at the DBM-PS office on Cristobal Street in Paco, Manila, only one company showed up: StageCraft International.
With a bid of P1 billion, StageCraft, headed by Francisco Zabala, logically got the gargantuan contract, the biggest in Philippine history of events management.
But Events Organizer Network Inc (EON), a company which took part in the initial process, wrote the executive director of the DBM-PS and asked her “to reject the sole bid of submitted, declare a failure of bidding, or not to award the contract to the sole bidder.”
By CHARMAINE C. DEOGRACIAS and ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS
VERA Files
First of two parts
THE Department of Budget and Management-Procurement Service (DBM-PS) has allegedly violated the government procurement law when it bidded out the gargantuan P2.8 billion events management contract for the hosting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations conferences this year, a company excluded from the bidding said.
The contract is supposedly the biggest of its kind and involves the management of 48 international conferences from January to December 2017, the 50th anniversary of the ASEAN’s founding and the year the Philippines is ASEAN chair.
The sole bidder and apparent winner is Stagecraft International which offered P1 billion at the bidding held Dec. 1, 45 days before the commemorative launching of the Philippine chairmanship of ASEAN on Jan. 15, 2017 in Davao city.
But Events Organizer Network Inc. (EON), a company that participated in the initial procurement process, alleges that the DBM-PS bidded out the contract as “goods” instead of “services,” in violation of the government procurement law Republic Act 9184.
A tense situation transpired 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay in Zambales last Thursday when China seized the underwater drone installed by the United States Navy. Philippine top officials were unconcerned about it.
The Duterte government’s nonchalant attitude towards China’s seizure of the United States’ underwater drone in Philippine territory reflects its hazy understanding of sovereignty.
Sovereignty is the supreme right of the state to command obedience within its territory.
By CHARMAINE DEOGRACIAS, VERA Files
In a departure from the previous administration’s support of the United States freedom- of-navigation activities in the South China Sea, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Thursday. the Philippines for will not allow the use of former American military bases – Clark and Subic -for FON patrols of the United States Armed Forces.
Lorenzana said President Duterte is not in favor of U.S. vessels venturing into disputed waters in the South China in the name of freedom of navigation.
“As he said we will avoid any provocative actions to de-escalate tension in the South China Sea. So I think it is unlikely (that Philippines will support US FON operations),” Lorenzana said in doorstop interview at the Pilipinas Conference held at the Peninsula Hotel.
Asked further to explain the Philippines’ turn-around, Lorenzana said, “We are just trying to avoid tensions because one of the things that we see there is, to the Chinese, we allow our land as base for the American’s incursion towards their area, so we will avoid that.”
• Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr is being considered to be governor of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
• Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is being eyed to be foreign secretary but she really wants to be speaker of the House of Representatives.
• Businessman and Philippine Star columnist Jose Manuel “Babes” Romualdez will be the Philippine ambassador to the United States.
The term of BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco, Jr., who has held that position since July 2005, ends in July 2017. The spokesperson of the Finance Department, Paola Alvarez, said on Nov. 22 that President Duterte has authorized Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III to ask Tetangco to stay for another term.
There’s a hitch, however. The charter of the BSP allows only two terms for the governor. Congress has to amend the charter for Tetangco to serve another term.
President Duterte must be euphoric after the seven-minute phone conversation with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump Friday night, he thought the latter invited him to visit the United States.
The Presidential Communication Office released the following notes by the President of his conversation with Trump:
“The President-elect Trump wishes the, to extend his warmest regards to the Filipino people. And in just a few minutes, we were talking a lot of things.
“He was quite sensitive also to our worry about drugs. And he wishes me well to, in my campaign and he said that… well we are doing it as a sovereign nation, the right way.
“And he wishes us well.