Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Hearing on Maguindanao massacre case reset

Hearing on Maguindanao massacre case reset

 
MANILA, Philippines — The hearing this Wednesday morning of the Maguindanao massacre case has been reset for next week as the court trying the case joined others in going on a holiday in support of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona.

However, Private Prosecutor Nena Santos said the hearing was rescheduled to December 21 because the Office of the Court Administrator, headed by Supreme Court spokesman Midas Marquez, sent a “notice” for the court to go on holiday.

Quezon City Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes issued the order re-scheduling the hearing late on Tuesday afternoon. The hearing this morning was to be held at Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig.
“It seems they have something for Corona…..I got a text from someone from the [Quezon City] court that they received a notice from the [Supreme Court] Court Administrator,” Santos said in an interview.
When asked how her clients felt about the postponement, Santos said: “It’s ok because there is an order from the Court Administrator to go on holiday in support of the chief justice.”

However, a Quezon City court official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak officially, denied that there was such an order from Marquez’s office.
“No. The court is doing this because the we support…..you know. And it’s not just [Judge Reyes] who is doing this but also the [other Judges] here [in Quezon City],” the official said.

He said the court was supposed to arraign today six accused in the massacre case — five policemen and one militiamen. Their arraignments have been reset to December 21.
International media groups and the families of the 57 victims of the massacre have previously criticized the slow pace of the trial.

Philippines Current Events 

4 suspected car thieves killed in shootout with cops in Antipolo

MANILA, Philippines — Four men believed to be car thieves were killed in an alleged shootout with police authorities in Antipolo City on Wednesday before dawn, a few hours after the car of a Korean national was stolen in a nearby town.
Senior Superintendent Manuel Prieto, Rizal police chief, said the firefight, which lasted for about four minutes, happened at a chokepoint on Blue Mountain Drive in Barangay (village) Sta. Cruz, Antipolo City around 2 a.m.
Three of the suspects died on the spot while one was rushed to the Amang Rodriguez Medical Center but was later pronounced dead on arrival.
The identities of the suspected car robbers remained unknown as of Wednesday morning.
Prior to the encounter, a Korean identified as Sang Gu Choi went to a police station in Taytay, Rizal, before midnight to report a robbery incident.

The Korean told the police his gray Chevrolet with plate number XBL-353 was taken from him at gunpoint by four armed men along Ortigas Extension in Barangay San Isidro in Taytay.
Prieto said immediately after the incident was reported, the police issued a flash alarm and ordered a dragnet operation to block all the possible exits of the robbers.

Two hours later, the robbers were cornered by a joint team from the Antipolo police, provincial police and the Highway Patrol Group at one chokepoint.
“Perhaps thinking there is no way to escape, the suspects opened fire which prompted our men to retaliate,” Prieto said.

No one was hurt on the side of the police while the stolen car was recovered and would soon be turned over to its Korean owner.

Philippines Current Events  

Anti-Corona public may result in Senate conviction–Palace exec


Chief Justice Renato Corona. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — MalacaƱang believes adverse public opinion of Chief Justice Renato Corona will help convince senator-judges to convict the country’s highest magistrate of the impeachable offenses alleged against him by the House of Representatives.

“I think the senators will realize the strength of the impeachment complaint as well as the overwhelming support of the people against Corona,” said Secretary Ronald Llamas, President Benigno Aquino III’s adviser on political affairs.

“The mere fact that Corona’s trust ratings in the recent Pulse Asia survey were the lowest among key government officials shows that the people are convinced that his loyalty is only his former boss GMA [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] and not to the people,” Llamas said in a text message.

In a survey conducted from November 10 to November 23, Corona managed to only get a 29-percent trust rating from among 1,200 respondents nationwide.
“As representatives of the people, just like the almost 200 members of the house of representatives who impeached corona, I believe the Senate will side with the people who are overwhelmingly for the impeachment of Corona,” Llamas said.


Philippines Current Events 

LA Times editor steps down after 4 years

LOS ANGELES — Russ Stanton, who led the Los Angeles Times to three Pulitzer Prizes in the midst of massive staff layoffs, has stepped down as editor and executive vice president, the newspaper announced Tuesday.
No reason for his sudden departure was given. Stanton will be replaced on December 23 by Trinidad-born Davan Maharaj, who is the newspaper’s managing editor and has been with the Times for more than 20 years.
Neither Stanton nor the newspaper immediately indicated whether Stanton was fired or resigned. A statement from the newspaper did not provide a reason for the change or indicate Stanton’s future plans.

Stanton was known as a “clear and outspoken” advocate for the journalism profession, said Bryce Nelson, journalism professor at University of Southern California’s Annenberg School. His abrupt departure indicates that the Times is still undergoing financial tumult that led to the short-lived tenures of several of Stanton’s predecessors, Nelson said, noting that Stanton lasted longer than other editors immediately before him.

“There’s a lot of turmoil about revenue, the power of the online edition, the role of the print edition,” Nelson said. “This is going on in every American newsroom but it’s been especially anguished at the Times.”
Stanton, 52, joined the Times in 1997 as a business reporter in Orange County. During his four years as editor, the newspaper was among many faced with declining circulation and advertising revenue. Its newsroom staff shrank from more than 900 people to about 550 and its parent Tribune Co. is still working to emerge from bankruptcy protection.
At the same time, the paper expanded into digital realms and became a 24-hour operation with more than 17 million readers each month around the world, the paper said.
The Times won three Pulitzers under Stanton’s stewardship, including the coveted Public Service Award in 2011 for exposing a huge municipal scandal in the suburban city of Bell. In the wake of reports about city officials voting themselves exorbitant salaries, several stepped down and are facing criminal charges.

Maharaj, a 49-year-old Trinidad native, will become the paper’s 15th editor. He holds a political science degree from the University of Tennessee and a master’s degree in law from Yale, the newspaper said.
Maharaj has worked at the paper for 22 years in Orange and Los Angeles counties and in Africa. He was an assistant foreign editor and then business editor before becoming managing editor in 2008. “Living on Pennies,” his six-part series on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, won the 2005 Ernie Pyle Award for Human Interest Writing.


Philippines Current Events 

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Big promise is seen in 2 new breast cancer drugs

SAN ANTONIO — Breast cancer experts are cheering what could be some of the biggest advances in more than a decade: two new medicines that significantly delay the time until women with very advanced cases get worse.

In a large international study, an experimental drug from Genentech called pertuzumab held cancer at bay for a median of 18 months when given with standard treatment, versus 12 months for others given only the usual treatment. It also strongly appears to be improving survival, and follow-up is continuing to see if it does.

“You don’t see that very often. … It’s a spectacular result,” said one study leader, Dr. Sandra Swain, medical director of Washington Hospital Center’s cancer institute.
In a second study, another drug long used in organ transplants but not tried against breast cancer — everolimus, sold as Afinitor by Novartis AG — kept cancer in check for a median of 7 months in women whose disease was worsening despite treatment with hormone-blocking drugs. A comparison group that received only hormonal medicine had just a 3-month delay in disease progression.
Afinitor works in a novel way, seems “unusually effective” and sets a new standard of care, said Dr. Peter Ravdin, breast cancer chief at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio. He has no role in the work or ties to drugmakers. Most patients have tumors like those in this study — their growth is fueled by estrogen.
Results were released Wednesday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium and some were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine. They come a few weeks after federal approval was revoked for another Genentech drug, Avastin, that did not meaningfully help breast cancer patients. It still is sold for other tumor types.
The new drugs are some of the first major developments since Herceptin came out in 1998. It has become standard treatment for a certain type of breast cancer.

“These are powerful advances … an important step forward,” said Dr. Harold Burstein, a breast expert at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston who had no role in the studies.

A reality check: The new drugs are likely to be very expensive — up to $10,000 a month — and so far have not proved to be cures. Doctors hope they might be when given to women with early-stage cancers when cure is possible, rather than the very advanced cases treated in these studies.
Even short of a cure, about 40,000 U.S. women each year have cancer that spreads beyond the breast, and treatment can make a big difference in their lives.

Rachel Midgett is an example. The 39-year-old Houston woman has breast cancer that spread to multiple parts of her liver, yet she ran a half-marathon in Las Vegas on Sunday. She has had three scans since starting on Afinitor nine months ago, and “every time, my liver lesions keep shrinking,” she said.
“My quality of life has been wonderful. It’s amazing. I have my hair. … If you saw me you wouldn’t even know I have cancer.”
Genentech, part of the Switzerland-based Roche Group, applied Tuesday to the federal Food and Drug Administration for permission to sell pertuzumab (per-TOO-zoo-mab) as initial treatment for women like those in the study.
The drug targets cells that make too much of a protein called HER2 — about one of every four or five breast cancer cases.
Herceptin attacks the same target but in a different way, and the two medicines complement each other.
The study tested the combination in 808 women from Europe, North and South America and Asia and found a 6-month advantage in how long the cancer stayed stable. All women also received a chemotherapy drug, docetaxel.

“That’s a huge improvement” in such advanced cases, said study leader Dr. Jose Baselga, associate director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. He is a paid consultant for Roche.
So far, 165 deaths have occurred — 96 among the 406 women given Herceptin and chemo alone, and only 69 among the 402 women also given pertuzumab. Doctors won’t know whether the drug affects survival until there are more deaths.

The most common side effects were diarrhea, rash and low white blood cell counts, which often occur with cancer treatment. The dual treatment did not cause more heart problems — an issue with other
Herceptin combinations.
“We’re really pleased that there were no new safety signals” and that pertuzumab is so promising, said Dr. Sandra Horning, Genentech’s global development chief of cancer drugs.

Another study is testing pertuzumab in 3,800 women with early breast cancer. Genentech says it has not set a price for pertuzumab, but sells Herceptin for $4,500 a month to doctors, who mark it up and add fees to infuse it. Herceptin’s U.S. patent expires in 2019, so combination treatment might be more affordable once generic Herceptin is available.



Philippines Current Events 

SC to hear arguments on constitutionality of DoJ-Comelec panel

MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court will resume hearing the arguments on the constitutionality of the Department of Justice (DOJ)-Commission on Elections (COMELEC) panel that filed charges of electoral sabotage against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo before a local court.
Solicitor-General Jose Anselmo Cadiz will argue on behalf of the government.

Arroyo has been put under hospital arrest because of her health condition. he Pasay regional trial court Branch 112 where the case has been filed issued the warrant.
In a petition before the Supreme Court in November, former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo asked that “all the acts so far performed by Respondent JointCommittee, as well as all proceedings emanating and arising therefrom”, including the filing of the electoral sabotage case before the Pasay Court be declared null and void by the Supreme Court.

including the prosecution of the electoral sabotage case filed against his wife former President, now Pampanga Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

“It was evident that the Joint Committee intended to rig and railroad the preliminary investigation of the subject Electoral Sabotage Case to deprive herein Petitioner, and his co-respondents, of the right to secure effective relief from this Honorable Court, by unjustifiably precipitating the case and making inutile any injunctive relief that Petitioner may be able to secure,” the petition stated.

Respondents in the petition include Justice Secretary Leila De Lima and Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes as heads of the joint committee.


Local News in the Philippines

No handcuffs for Arroyo during transfer—Robredo, police

MANILA, Philippines — Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will not be handcuffed when she is transferred by authorities to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) on Friday, officials said on Thursday.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo said that he personally thought Arroyo would not be handcuffed for the transfer, a statement supported by National Capital Region Police Office spokesperson Senior Superintendent Dionardo Carlos.
Carlos said over a phone interview that “there is no need to handcuff the former president considering her current (medical) situation.”

Authorities however, remained mum on whether Arroyo would be transferred to the government-owned hospital via land or air transport on Friday.
Robredo however commented that there have been enough preparations for both modes of transport, further stating that authorities have thought through and finalized their security preparations to safely move Arroyo from St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City.

The police are likewise prepared for both modes of transport, Robredo explained, as they considered possible actions by both pro and anti-Arroyo groups once she is travelling.
“They had to consider what other modes of transport could be used,” said the DILG secretary.
Carlos said that every detail of their security plan has been ironed out during a short meeting Thursday morning with the concerned police units.
Arroyo has been under hospital arrest since November 18, for charges of electoral sabotage.


Local News in the Philippines