News in the Philippines: November 2011

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Broadcaster survives slay try in Cagayan de Oro

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines – Unidentified assailants shot and seriously wounded a broadcaster here on Thursday evening – one day after the observance of International Day Against Impunity – while he was driving home from work.

The National Union of the Philippines said Michael James Licuanan of Bombo Radyo Cagayan de Oro was nearing the Cogon market here around 9:30 p.m. when he was fired at by one of two men on a motorcycle.

The first shot missed Licuanan, an NUJP alert said, but caused him to crash his motorcycle.
One of the armed men got off and fired at the broadcaster, who was trying to escape, and hit him on the left buttock. The bullet exited through his abdomen, the NUJP report said.
“Both men were wearing full-face helmets and black jackets and had been tailing Licuanan,” the NUJP said.

According to information provided by the station’s security guard, the armed men had been seen outside the radio station hours before the incident.
Senior Inspector Elmer Robas, station commander of the Cogon Police Precinct, said despite being hit, Licuanan was able to run to a nearby fire station where he was able to ask for help.
Police sent to the area later recovered two empty shells fired from a .45 caliber pistol.
Licuanan was taken to a hospital where he underwent what an NUJP bulletin described as a successful operation.

Celso Maldecir, Bombo Radyo Cagayan de Oro City station manager, said Licuanan had been commenting and reporting on the arrest of a Sammy Yusop by Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) agents.
Yusop was arrested on the parking lot of a mall here after claiming a package of shabu sent through a popular courier company.
PDEA agents seized from him 1.5 kilograms of the illegal drugs with an estimated street value of P15 million.

Licuanan was the ninth journalist attacked in the Philippines this year.
In Davao City, Jessie Casalda, NUJP-Davao region chair, said the risks faced by media practitioners in the country were a testament to the culture of impunity.

“This monster is cloaked by an inefficient and largely discriminatory justice system against the powerless. This monster feeds on a system that breeds warlords, who ride roughshod over the rights of ordinary people and would not hesitate to strike out at anyone who dares go against their wicked ways,” he said.

As natural consequence, NUJP said, any media practitioner who just does the job religiously becomes easy prey.

“While we are confronted with a low conviction rate of perpetrators of these journalist killings and attacks, we continue to see one colleague fallen after another, if not subjected to harassments of various forms – either receiving death threats, their radio stations or media offices attacked, their houses lobbed grenades, ambushed, if not, being unduly held by men in uniforms during coverage,” Casalda said. With reports from Orlando Dinoy, Inquirer Mindanao; Radyo Inquirer 990AM

Local News in the Philippines

Toy gun used in robbing courier service of P130,000

MANILA, Philippines – Two men, one of them armed with what turned out to be a toy gun, robbed a remittance and money transfer station in Manila of more than P130,000 on Thursday evening, police said.

And, as if adding insult to injury after terrifying employees of the LBC branch at the J&T Building on Ramon Magsaysay Boulevard near Santol Street in Sta. Mesa, the robbers threw away the toy gun as the fled with their loot.

Senior Police Officer 2 William Gondranios of the Manila Police District theft and robbery section said that the robbery happened at around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, as customer associate Linder Mista, 38, was closing shop.

Gondranios said Mista was accosted by two men while he was locking the doors. One of the men brandished what appeared to be a .45-caliber pistol and ordered the LBC employee to open the doors.
The other man stood watch as his companion ordered Mista to empty the drawers of cash and to place the money inside a bag. After the drawers had been ransacked, the robbers fled and threw away the pistol, leaving behind the stunned employee who immediately reported the incident to the police.
Gondranios and other investigators of the MPD theft and robbery section later recovered the pistol, which turned out to be a toy pellet gun closely resembling a .45-caliber pistol.

Mista told investigators that he could have fought off the gun-toting man had he known it was a toy, pointing out that the pistol looked like the real thing.

The LBC branch in Manila was robbed a day after two knife-wielding men robbed another LBC branch at the Robinsons Mall in Fairview, Quezon City, also at about closing time.

Local News in the Philippines

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Comelec files poll sabotage raps vs Arroyo

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections has filed charges of electoral sabotage against former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a spokesman for the poll body said.
In a television interview Friday, James Jimenez said the case was filed before the Pasay City regional trial court.

Earlier in the day, the Comelec voted 5-2 for the filing of electoral sabotage against Arroyo in relation to allegations of fraud in 2004 presidential elections.

Complete stories on our Digital Edition newsstand for tablets, netbooks and mobile phones; 14-issue free trial. About to step out? Get breaking alerts on your mobile.phone. Text ON INQ BREAKING to 4467, for Globe, Smart and Sun subscribers in the Philippines.

Philippines Current Events

Ship rams fishing boat; 1 killed

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines — One person was killed and several others were injured when a Manila-bound Superferry ship rammed a disabled fishing boat off Maasim, Sarangani, early Friday, police said.

Superintendent Edgar Cuanan, chief of the regional police’s maritime office in Central Mindanao, said the fishing boat had engine trouble and was dead in the water when it was hit by the Superferry.

House of Representatives divided, embattled

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

The House of Representatives is the new arena in the battle over whether to allow former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to leave the country for medical treatment.
At least 50 Liberal Party (LP) members have signed a resolution in support of the decision of President Benigno Aquino III and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to stop Arroyo from leaving the country.

A separate statement from the Akbayan party-list group said the LP draft resolution supported the “extraordinary political will” shown by the Aquino administration in preventing Arroyo’s departure from the country.

Quoting portions from the draft, the group said the government’s move was “in line with President Aquino’s covenant with the Filipino people to be the nation’s first and most determined fighter of corruption.”
Deputy Speaker Lorenzo “Erin” Tañada III said the LP decided to consolidate its forces in response to a resolution filed by at least 30 opposition House members led by Minority Leader Edcel Lagman on Wednesday.

The resolution called for a House investigation of Department of Justice and Bureau of Immigration officials for defying a Nov. 15 Supreme Court ruling upholding Arroyo’s constitutional right to travel.
Talk of impeachment

“There has been talk from some quarters saying they are thinking of filing an impeachment complaint, thus, we need to consolidate our ranks, too,” Tañada said of Lagman’s announcement to file an impeachment complaint against Mr. Aquino for the Arroyo travel fiasco.
“This will show that the House stands with the President on this issue in the continuing pursuit of justice,” Tañada said.
Tañada said that the still unnumbered resolution was being circulated for more signatures and would be formally filed on Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
“It is an LP initiative although members of the (majority) coalition are welcome to sign it. Initially, 50 LP members have signed it but we expect more to join us. We are still refining the language of the resolution,” he said in an interview.

There are 84 LP members in the 285-member chamber.
It would be the second showdown between the majority and the minority in seeking congressional action with respect to the issue of the former President’s right to travel.
Fence-sitter
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said he would not sign a resolution.
“As a Speaker, I would like to represent all the various members of the coalition of the majority and not the Liberal Party. I guess eventually, they would like anybody to sign it but as for me really I’m as much the Speaker of the NPC (Nationalist People’s Coalition) and all the others parties,” Belmonte said.
Quimbo measure

Lagman has filed a bill seeking to give the courts exclusive jurisdiction over the issuance of hold-departure orders (HDOs) against individuals, obviously an attempt to strip the justice department the power to issue the same under DOJ Circular No. 41.
On Wednesday, however, Marikina Representative Romero “Miro” Quimbo countered Lagman’s move by filing a measure that seeks to give the secretary of justice the power to issue HDOs, watch-list orders and allow-departure orders to prevent any miscarriage of justice, protect national security, guard public safety and ensure public health.
Quimbo said his measure would not set aside any doubt on the power of the justice secretary to issue these orders particularly against individuals whose cases are not yet filed with the regular courts but are still going through a preliminary investigation.

“The recent drama that pitted legal minds against each other in a magnified debate over the appropriateness of the HDO issued against former President Gloria Arroyo has placed the nation under unnecessary stress and has needlessly encouraged the people to doubt the wisdom of the DOJ, the judiciary and the Supreme Court,” Quimbo said.

Ifugao Representative Teddy Brawner Baguilat Jr. said the resolution assured the people that the LP was behind the political decision to stop Arroyo’s flight.
Humanitarian reasons

Bishop Jose Romeo Lazo of San Jose in Antique province doesn’t share the position of the administration lawmakers.

Lazo said the government should allow the former President to travel abroad to seek medical treatment.
“I think they should abide by the Supreme Court decision and allow her to go for humanitarian reasons. Of course, there should be precautions but no case has been filed against her yet,” Lazo said in a telephone interview.

A human rights lawyers’ group does not think that the rights of Arroyo were violated when the justice department barred her from leaving the country.
License to flee

The National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) described the TRO issued by the Supreme Court on a DOJ hold-departure order as a “license to flee” for the former President and her husband.
“[Her] attempts to escape justice and frustrate efforts to prosecute her are in plain view that nobody could have missed it. The minute she steps out of the country, the quest for justice will almost certainly fall apart,” the group said.

Lawyer Homobono Adaza, for his part, said De Lima was creating a dilemma for everybody.
The decision of the Supreme Court on the inclusion of Arroyo in the immigration bureau’s watch-list order, after all, was “final and executory,” Adaza, who was visiting a client, told reporters at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City. With reports from Kristine Felisse Mangunay and Jerome Aning in Manila; and Nestor Burgos Jr. and Carla P. Gomez, Inquirer Visayas

Robredo: Who’ll cops obey, court or Palace?

Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo

Who will the police follow in the event that the Supreme Court calls on them to help implement its temporary restraining order (TRO) on the inclusion of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband in the watch list of the immigration bureau?

“The positions [of the executive and judicial branches on the issue of Arroyo’s plan to travel abroad] are not the same, so [it is important] to make sure there will be no chaos,” said Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, who was among the Cabinet members who saw off President Benigno Aquino III Thursday at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City. The President is attending the 19th Asean summit in Indonesia for the next three days but his instructions to the Cabinet is to maintain the peace. His predecessor’s failed attempt to leave the country on Tuesday night had sparked a crisis.

Robredo said the President had directed him and his colleagues to “ensure the peace if there are developments.” He cited the possibility of street protests and said authorities would make sure that the mass actions would be respected.

Robredo also said the Cabinet would monitor Friday’s special en banc session of the Supreme Court, which was called to allow the justices to deliberate on various petitions concerning the averted foreign trip of Arroyo, now a Pampanga representative.

“Maybe the most significant development will happen [Friday],” Robredo said.
Not wanting the police to be put on the spot in the ongoing row between the Supreme Court and the Department of Justice (DOJ), Robredo said he was seeking legal advice on the matter.

Despite the TRO issued by the high court at noon on Tuesday, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima had insisted that the watch-list order on Arroyo and her husband remained in effect. She ordered immigration and airport authorities to bar the couple from leaving, and directed the Philippine National Police to assist authorities in making sure that the watch-list order would be implemented.

Police in legal dilemma?
On Thursday, De Lima said Mr. Aquino had instructed the Cabinet members concerned to “assess the situation and come up with an appropriate plan of action, depending on the developments.”
“We do have a pending motion for reconsideration [at the high court], so my directive to the Bureau of Immigration stays. That is to prevent the Arroyos from leaving,” she told reporters.

Robredo said he wanted clarification in a situation in which the executive and judicial branches held divergent views on Arroyo’s plan to go abroad, ostensibly to seek medical treatment for her bone ailment.

He pointed out that the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the police were under the executive branch and were thus following its decisions, but that at the same time, the judiciary had issued a ruling on a matter now opposed by the executive.

“Because of their opposing positions, it’s also important that we take a stand that is according to the law,” Robredo said, noting that the police were normally sought to assist the clerk of court in serving court orders.
On the other hand, he said, the government could not afford to have the police entangled in a legal dilemma.

Robredo said that while his office was trying to get legal advice on the “high-profile” case involving the former President, there were past instances in which the police were confronted with problems in the course of assisting in the servicing of TROs.

But he observed that the TRO issued by the high court was not the usual one: “This is the only TRO that, instead of maintaining the status quo, changes [it].”
Robredo also said that lawyers at the DILG had been looking into the matter, and that he expected feedback from them in one or two days. He said the effort to seek legal advice was his own initiative and based on his “reading of the situation.”

Even at the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Summit in Bali, Indonesia, Mr. Aquino was hounded by the controversy over the decision of the executive branch to bar Arroyo from leaving despite the high court’s TRO.
‘Domestic concern’
One of the flurry of questions thrown by foreign journalists at Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang had to do with the “domestic concern” that forced Mr. Aquino to put off his Wednesday-afternoon departure for Bali to Thursday morning.

In response, Carandang reiterated his earlier explanation to Filipino journalists covering the summit: that the decision to bar Arroyo from leaving had to do with a technicality—the Supreme Court’s failure to serve a copy of its TRO on the justice department.

He said that Arroyo was facing an investigation on graft charges and had to seek permission to travel from the DOJ, which is authorized to issue hold-departure orders on persons with pending criminal cases.

“Under Philippine legal procedures, if you are facing an investigation you will need to seek permission before you leave the country. So we’ve applied a statute that has been enforced for many and we applied it in this case as well,” Carandang said in a briefing at the Bali Nusa Dua Convention Center.
Besides, he said, government doctors had determined that the treatment Arroyo would seek abroad for an ailment could be had in Manila.

“Therefore there was no need for her to leave,” he said, adding that the decision on whether to continue to bar Arroyo’s foreign travel lay with the DOJ, which had asserted that the high court’s order would not be final until it ruled on the government’s appeal.

Responding to constitutional experts’ views contradicting the DOJ stand, Carandang said: “Well, I don’t think all the constitutionalists will have that same view. I think what you’re seeing is a typical situation where you have a legal question, five lawyers and maybe six opinions. We don’t expect the legal community to agree all the time on the minutiae of the interpretation of laws.” With a report from TJ Burgonio in Indonesia

TRO issue moot if raps vs Arroyo filed

Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.

AFP/Philippine Daily Inquirer File Photos

Having locked horns with Malacañang yet again, the Supreme Court holds a special full-court session Friday to deliberate on various petitions concerning the question of whether former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should be allowed to leave the country.
But the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by the high court could become moot.

Philippine Daily Inquirer sources said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) might file a case of electoral fraud against Arroyo Friday.
In an informal press conference at the lobby of St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City, Arroyo spokesperson Elena Bautista-Horn also said they had “received information” on the supposed plan of the joint panel of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Comelec to file a resolution of probable cause for electoral sabotage in connection with the alleged fraud in the 2007 elections.

Latest petition
The latest petition, filed Thursday, is from Arroyo herself, who is now asking the Supreme Court to stop Justice Secretary Leila de Lima from further blocking her foreign travel. Only on Tuesday, the high court issued a TRO on the inclusion of Arroyo and her husband in the immigration watch list.
Court observers said the special session could also be a showdown between the appointees of Arroyo and of President Benigno Aquino III to the high court. In issuing the TRO favoring Arroyo, the justices voted 8-5, with three of the President’s appointees opposing the majority decision.

De Lima’s petition
Jose Midas Marquez, the high court’s administrator and spokesperson, on Thursday told reporters that the 15-member chamber would also discuss the petition filed by De Lima seeking the lifting of the TRO, which allowed Arroyo to leave for purported medical treatment abroad.

But Marquez said the decision of Chief Justice Renato Corona to call for a special en banc session was not peculiar to Arroyo’s case. “This has been done numerous times before,” he said.
The justices are also to deliberate on the request of Arroyo’s lawyer, Estelito Mendoza, to move the November 22 schedule for oral arguments on Arroyo’s case to an earlier date, and De Lima’s supposed defiance of the high court’s TRO, Marquez said.

“The court is just monitoring what is happening and the pleadings that have been filed. The court is concerned, of course, about the compliance with its order,” Marquez said. “The court will address all these pending matters.”

De Lima said the DOJ would closely monitor the court proceedings and would oppose Mendoza’s request to reset the date of the oral arguments.

“We find that objectionable because we’re already pressed for time in filing our comment to the TRO. We practically have less than three days to comply with the order of the court,” she said. “The justices will not have reasonable time to go over our comment if the oral arguments will be held earlier.”
De Lima said while the government was hoping for a favorable decision on its motion for reconsideration, “we’re preparing for the worst-case scenario, which is a denial.”

“We’re still planning in the event that that will happen. We still have other options, but we can’t decide on it yet,” she said.

De Lima foiled the former First Couple’s attempt to fly out on Tuesday night, saying the watch-list order was still in effect because the justice department had yet to receive a copy of the TRO. She subsequently said they would continue to be barred from leaving until the high court had ruled on the government’s appeal.

‘Without a remedy’
Through her lawyer Mendoza, Arroyo on Thursday asked the high court in a 13-page urgent motion to direct De Lima and Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. to immediately implement the TRO.
Arroyo said De Lima’s actions in barring her from leaving the country were a “disregard” of the separation of powers of the three branches of the government.

“Under the circumstances, [Arroyo] is without any plain, speedy and adequate remedy but to ask the Court … to direct [the] respondents to cease and desist from preventing [her] … from leaving the country for her scheduled medical treatment abroad,” the petition said.

It said De Lima’s opposition to Arroyo’s travel “openly defied” the high court’s decision to lift the travel ban “in blatant disobedience of and resistance to a lawful order” of the tribunal.
The petition added: “In preventing [Arroyo] from leaving the country despite the TRO … the respondents are disregarding the core value of separation of powers among the coequal branches of the government and the principle of checks and balances which guarantee our basic freedoms.”

According to Mendoza, the “sad spectacle” of De Lima’s purported act of defiance showed how “the highest court of the land” was “being flouted and disregarded.”

“[W]ithout action for such an odious breach, then not only this high tribunal but the law itself stands in disrepute,” he said.

He also said moving Arroyo’s scheduled medical checkups to a later date would result in “irreparable harm and injury” to her.

Local News in the Philippines

Obama talks Bieber and beasts with Aussie students

CANBERRA—US President Barack Obama joked about Australia’s killer wildlife and said he would “say hi” to teen singing sensation Justin Bieber in a meeting with schoolchildren Thursday.
The president sat down with 18 pupils at Canberra’s Campbell High School after an address to the Australian parliament, greeting them with a bright “G’day” and taking questions from the teens, aged between 14 and 16.

Obama said that en route to the school, just five minutes from Parliament House, Prime Minister Julia Gillard had told him about the huge range of native Australian animals “that can kill you”.
“(There) seems to be a surplus of those here in Australia,” he joked to the children.

The vast island continent is known for its venomous spiders and snakes as well as deadly sharks and crocodiles.
A local firm has even offered Obama complimentary insurance against a crocodile attack for his two-hour tour later Thursday of tropical Darwin, which is Australia’s croc capital.
Obama, the father to two daughters aged 10 and 13, was met with screams of delight from the secondary school’s 670 students as his motorcade arrived.

He told the 18 Campbell pupils he was “always inspired when I meet with young people because you’re not stuck in some of the old stodgy ideas”, and shook hands with each one before settling into an armchair to take questions.

They discussed his plans for reforming the US education system, with a particular focus on helping impoverished students and lifting standards in mathematics and science.

Obama was then asked whether he had ever considered teaming up with a celebrity like pop star Justin Bieber to take his message to young people.

“I interact a lot with celebrities,” he said, explaining that a range of popular icons had supported his 2008 election campaign.

Local News in the Philippines

Arroyos will try to leave again today

MANILA, Philippines — Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband Jose Miguel will try to leave the country again today, Friday, their legal spokesman Raul Lambino said.

Lambino said the Arroyos have booked a flight with Singapore Airlines for 5 p.m. but their flight would only depend on the former president’s health condition and the result of the Supreme Court en banc session which would tackle whether Arroyo should be allowed to travel abroad.

“Her BP [blood pressure] is now okay perhaps after having a good sleep and taking medicine,” Lambino said over the phone.
“It’s important for her to have the appointment [with the doctor] in Singapore. It’s a matter of exercising their constitutional right to travel,” he said.
He added that the government could not prevent the Arroyos from travelling based on a “fabricated case.”

“The DoJ has no choice but to comply with the resolution of the Supreme Court. What we are going to follow here is not just the Supreme Court but the supremacy of the Constitution,” he said.
Lambino said he left the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City around 2 a.m. Friday and that Arroyo still managed to walk up to him and say “hello.”