ellen tordesillas Posts

This Agence France-Presse report is from today’s issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

CAMP PENDLETON, California—A US Navy Fil-Am medic told a military court Friday how seven Marines dragged an Iraqi civilian from his home and shot him in cold blood before covering up the brutal slaying.

In dramatic testimony at the US Marine Corps base, Camp Pendleton, in southern California, Melson Bacos said he had watched in horror as 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad was bound and gagged before being gunned down.

Bacos, a Purple Heart recipient who is the son of immigrants from the Philippines and who was jailed for a year after a plea deal that saw him admit to kidnapping but cleared of murder, said the killing had arisen out of frustration at the reputed release of a “known terrorist.”

The highest-ranking Filipino -American in the White House resigns as the House of Representatives examines her ties with disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Bloomberg reports that Susan Bonzon Ralston, top aide of Karl Rove,White House political director, is resigning a week after a House Government Reform panel’s report documented her role in arranging tickets to sporting events for Rove from the lobbyist.

“She recognized that a protracted discussion of the matters in the House Government Reform Committee’s report would be a distraction to the White House, and she chose to step down,” assistant White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said. “We support her decision, and after a review of the report, we consider the matter closed.”

Malaya correspondent in Washington D.C. Jennie Ilustre reported the Fil-Am community is concerned that Ralston “might be used as a scapegoat.”

Police authorities said with the arrest of four suspects in the murder of Bishop Alberto Ramento of the Philippine Independent Church, the case is considered solved. Click here for Malaya story.

Ramento’s killing was a “plain and simple case of robbery with homicide, and not extrajudicial killing” as militant groups have alleged, said PNP chief Oscar Calderon.

But many find that difficult to accept.

(Retired Ambassador Reynaldo Arcilla writes a column for Malaya. This was his piece last Tuesday.)

Either Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wants to retire Foreign Secretary Alberto G. Romulo, or Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago desperately wants his job. Or both.

Last week, Santiago was reported to have said that Arroyo was amenable to nominating Romulo to the post of United Nations Secretary General. Incumbent Kofi Annan is vacating the post at the end of this year.

The report did not say whether or not Romulo was consulted on the matter, much less agreed to being nominated. He was in New York when Santiago made her statement.

(This news item by Jocelyn Montemayor appeared in the Oct. 3, 2006 issue of Malaya.)

THE libel suits filed by Jose Miguel Arroyo against at least 43 journalists might not prosper since the courts are likely to find him a public figure, presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor said yesterday.

“Di ba ang sabi ng mga rulings ng court, it’s so hard for a public official to file a libel case, di ba? Now I wouldn’t know how the courts would determine the First Gentleman’s but since may tainting ng pagiging public figure siya that is something that has to be determined by them,” Defensor said.

Defensor said Cabinet members as well as senators and congressmen are not that sensitive as far as libel cases are concerned since they are public figures.

(The following article by Dr. Alberto G. Romualdez, former health secretary, which came out in the Oct. 3 issue of Malaya, gives an-indepth analysis of the hypocrisy and incompetence of the Arroyo administration in handling the nursing exam leakage problem.

(As Dr. Romualdez said, the leakage was just a symptom of the bigger problem which was the commercialization of the nursing schools. The atras-abante order of Malacañang for a retake was designed for the Arroyo administration’s image-curing, not to solve the real problem.)

Every week for the last two months, this column has referred to the on-going tragi-comedy drama of the nursing board scandal that began last June and continues to unfold like a long playing soap opera.