Incredible! As incredible as Cunanan, a college undergraduate, getting appointed by Gloria Arroyo as executive director of the Commission on Higher Education.
Thanks Karina Constantino-David for reminding the public of that attempt by Cunanan to put one over the Filipino people.
Four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with claims in the South China Sea failed to take a united stand on China’s growing aggressiveness after Brunei opted out of a recently held meeting in Manila.
Brunei was a no-show in the 1st ASEAN Claimants Working Group Meeting held at Pan Pacific Hotel in Manila Feb. 18, and is expected to skip the second round in Malaysia on March 25,diplomatic sources privy to the talks said.
The meeting, however, saw a more engaged Malaysia, which has abandoned its former passive attitude toward China’s military activities in the region.
These are the political alliances shaping up for the 2016 presidential elections.
Sources said Roxas and Binay both wanted Sen. Grace Poe as running mate but the lady senator feels she is not ready yet to run for a higher position in 2016.
The Mar Roxas and Chiz Escudero ticket is the handiwork of President Aquino, several sources said.
Both Roxas and Escudero, gave up their long-harbored presidential ambitions in 2010, to give way to Aquino, whose candidacy came after the death of his mother,former President Cory Aquino, in August 2009.
We are reprinting this article,first published last year,as we prepare to have the most fun this summer.
By Ellen Tordesillas, VERA Files
Video by Mario Ignacio IV
The heat tells us summer is almost here. Time to prepare our bodies for the summer exposure.
Three physical fitness personal trainers – Angie M. Miranda and Jensen G. Centeno of Fitness First, Mall of Asia, and Christian S. Cerezo, formerly of Fitness First Southmall and now a freelance PT, share tips, that coupled with proper diet, will help you achieve the body worth a second glance when on the beach. In the video, they show several variations to the basic exercises like lunge or squat in order to give options, depending on one’s capability to perform the activity.
I did this article for Rogue Magazine (June 2013 issue). I’m re-printing it here as additional material in the discussion of the recently Supreme Court upheld provision on online libel in the 2012 Cybercrime Prevention Act and President Aquino’s defense of it.
In all his speaking engagements before media organizations, he has consistently grumbled about what he insists is the Philippine press’ penchant for negative stories, especially those about his government.
“It seems they have become accustomed to criticizing. It seems some are allergic to good news. When they can’t avoid such news, they look for the bad angle,” he told the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas, an association of radio and TV networks, point blank in November 2012.
A few months earlier, at the national conference of the Philippine Press Institute made up of newspaper publishers, Aquino was even harsher: He likened journalists to “crabs” who,he said, would pull down those going up.
The President’s main beef was what he deemed as media’s failure to highlight the accomplishments of his then almost two-year administration. Foreign media cared more about Philippine national interest, he took pains to stress, offering as proof a Newsweek report of the Philippines standing up to China on the conflicting territorial claims and a Time Magazine article that praised “the laggard of Asia (as) recovering the dynamism it had in the 1960s.”
Geography doesn’t matter to Aquino when he feels like bashing media.
The incident was reported when Bautista told Monday the foreign correspondents in the Philippines about the incident: “Chinese Coast Guard tried to drive away Filipino fishing vessels to the extent of using water cannon.
Asked if the Philippines would lodge a protest over the incident, Bautista said they would first have to investigate.
What? Twenty-eight days have passed and the government is still investigating?
Now we know there is a problem with Malacanang’s communication system. Whether Malacanang knows that is a completely different matter.
Two letters that later on became of national, even international, importance did not reach President Aquino. The first one was a letter from the late Jamalul Kiram III sent in 2010 in the first few months of the Aquino presidency and the other one was just last year from Maria Teresa Martinez, mother of Michael Christian Martinez, the 17-year old who, for the first time, enabled the Philippine flag to fly proudly in the Winter Olympics by making it to the finals of the 2014 Winter Olympics figure skating competition in Sochi, Russia. This, despite lack of financial support from the government.
We did not fully get what we asked Supreme Court regarding the Republic Act 10175 otherwise known as the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 which was to declare the whole of it as unconstitutional primarily because of its libel provisions. But we can live with the Supreme Court decision released yesterday.
We still have to fully analyze the SC decision which upheld the constitutionality of the controversial law but struck down the most odious “take down”provision which empowered the Department of Justice) to restrict or block access to any online post which it deemed violating the law without any court order.
The court also said only original authors of libelous material are covered by the cybercrime law, and not those who merely received or reacted to it. So those who “liked” and shared a libelous online item won’t be punished. Good luck to whoever is tasked to trace the original author after a post is shared and reposted thousands of times.
By Ellen Tordesillas, VERA Files
Photos by Mario Ignacio IV
Yolanda survivors Lito G. Abucejo, 47, a carpenter and his wife, Rebecca, 44, marked the 100th day after the super typhoon slammed into Manicani Island in Guiuan, Eastern Samar, in a newly-built house.
The Abucejos have folded their United Nations-donated tent, which was their shelter the past three months, and are now living in a new structure built where their old house once stood.
The Abucejo’s new house is one of the more than 400 being built by Nickel Asia Corporation (NAC), which owns a non-operating nickel mine in Manicani.
Coco lumber felled by Yolanda are being used for the 30-square meter houses, being built on the property of the survivors. They are expected to last four to five years.
By Tessa Jamandre, VERA Files President Aquino and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak are set to meet in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 27, when Aquino…