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VERA Files Frontpage
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Thursday, 25 June 2009 |
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VERA FILES trustees Yvonne Chua and Luz Rimban, and contributor Diosa Labiste won the top prize at the 2009 Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism (JVOAEJ) for their investigative report “Quedancor swine program another fertilizer scam.”
Roel Landingin of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism won the other Award of Distinction for his series “Aid inflow sparks scandals for GMA.”
Labiste, a community journalist based in Iloilo City, was also named Marshall McLuhan Awardee at ceremonies held at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati City. Labiste is the first community journalist to be named McLuhan Fellow since the awards were given out in 1995.
This is the fourth time that Chua and Rimban, both journalism professors at the University of the Philippines, have won the top JVO prize.
The three-part report, published in September last year, garnered the Award of Distinction for being “a thoroughly-documented and meaningful report, a substantial contribution to the urgent necessity to understand the link between the country’s continuing poverty and corruption, and which manages to hold reader attention while provoking thought as well as outrage.”
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Monday, 22 June 2009 |
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THE world has just celebrated Father's Day, but for three young girls, it was a day spent in prison, their fathers being the detained military officers Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, Col. Ariel Querubin, and former Navy Capt. now Senator Antonio Trillanes IV.
VERA Files' Tessa Jamandre spent some with these young girls--Aika Lim, Faye Querubin and Thea Trillanes--and talked to them about their fathers' lives and beliefs. Below is her report. |
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Monday, 22 June 2009 |
By TESSA JAMANDRE
THE Oakwood mutiny, the Marines standoff and the Manila Peninsula siege have left a mark not only in history but also in the hearts of three young girls.
Thea Trillanes, Faye Querubin and Aika Lim have had to endure the prolonged absence of their fathers—former Navy captain and now senator Antonio Trillanes IV, Marine Col. Ariel Querubin and Army Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim—who remain in jail and are standing trial for mutiny. But they are proud of their fathers and believe that what they did was right.
Recently, the three girls, 11, 15 and 18 years old, visited the places where their fathers left a footprint in history.
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Friday, 19 June 2009 |
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PRESIDENT Gloria Arroyo will make a “secret” trip to Colombia after her state visit to Japan ends Saturday.
Sources at the Department of Foreign Affairs said they learned of the inclusion of Cartagena, Colombia in the President’s itinerary only Friday and were taken aback that Malacanang had not disclosed to them the scheduled trip.
The Philippines has no embassy in Colombia. Colombia, however, has an honorary consul in the Philippines, former Miss International Stella Marquez-Araneta.
Asked why the President was traveling to Colombia, a person close to her said: "I am asking the same question." |
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Tuesday, 16 June 2009 |
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By ANDREW JONATHAN BAGAOISAN and MARK ANGELO CHING
OFFICIALS of the Commission on Higher Education are used to dealing with members of congressmen making all sorts of demands—from requests for scholarships to following up the permits of nursing schools.
But the buck of political pressure does not stop in Congress. It goes all the way up.
A former commissioner recalled being contacted by a Malacañang official to order CHED to relax its requirements, specifically the one requiring nursing schools to have a partner tertiary base hospital.
The former CHED official also pointed to a school owner, a close supporter of President Gloria Arroyo, applying to open other nursing campuses. The school, which did not meet the hospital requirement, was among 23 that were ordered closed by CHED in 2005. CHED then received an order from Malacanang to give that particular school a permit. |
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Monday, 15 June 2009 |
By ANDREW JONATHAN BAGAOISAN and MARK ANGELO CHING
NURSING schools all over the country will be opening their doors this week to thousands of students with the great white cap dream—getting a nursing degree, working in a hospital abroad and earning a comfortable living.
But not all these schools are qualified to offer the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. In fact, some of them were supposed to have been shut down years ago for failing to meet the requirements of the Commission on Higher Education, while some new ones were not supposed to have opened at all.
The fact is, many students are spending their parents’ hard-earned money on substandard nursing education because CHED has been unable to weed out the poorly performing nursing schools.
In 2004, CHED declared a moratorium on the opening of more nursing schools after professional nurses complained that nursing schools were sprouting like mushrooms, even as more students were failing the nursing licensure exams. The problem reached tipping point in 2006 when news of a leakage in the exams made headlines.
But political and business pressures exerted on CHED have been preventing it from effectively regulating nursing schools and closing down those that perform badly.
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Thursday, 28 May 2009 |
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By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
FORMER presidential chief of staff Mike Defensor has withdrawn the perjury case he filed against whistleblower Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada, accusing the judge of bias.
“I write to respectfully inform you that I am no longer interested in pursuing the case,” Defensor said in a letter to Judge Jorge Emmanuel Lorredo, delivered to the court through Defensor’s private counsel Reynold Munsayac.
Defensor said he was standing by his accusation that Lozada lied about events that transpired in connection with Lozada's abduction just before he testified at the Senate on the NBN deal. But Defensor said, “I feel that I may not be able to obtain impartial justice from the Honorable Court. “ (Download Defensor's letter to Lorredo)
Lorredo, who said a prayer of thanksgiving upon reading Defensor's letter, terminated the pre-trial today and scheduled the trial proper on June 11, when Defensor, through the prosecutor, is expected to file an affidavit of desistance.
“With all due respect, even a cursory reading of the orders issued by the Honorable Court would expose the Honorable Presiding Judge's bias in favor of the accused,” Defensor said.
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Wednesday, 20 May 2009 |
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By JENNIFER SANTIAGO
HIGH dropout rates. Low pupil performance. Poor teacher quality. Inappropriate language of learning. Irrelevant textbooks. Excessive centralization. Inadequate financial resources.
This is how Yale University professor George Counts described the Philippine educational system in 1925, when he did a study on the performance of the country's school system.
More than eight decades since Counts’ study, the educational system has barely improved and is facing the very same, if not even more, problems of access, equity, quality, and relevance.
The dismally stagnant state of education in the country was scrutinized in the latest edition of the Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR) launched Wednesday by the Human Development Network in cooperation with the United Nations Devlopment Programme and the New Zealand Agency for International Development.
With the theme “Institutions and Politics,” the 2008/2009 PHDR gave special attention to the Department of Education (DepEd) being the largest institution in the country’s bureaucracy with one of the most important contributions to human development. It likewise looked into the crucial roles of the Civil Service Commission and the Department of Budget and Management. |
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Wednesday, 10 June 2009 |
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THEY joined marches, staged noise barrages, and even held concerts.
This was how Filipinos in various parts of the country showed their anger, displeasure and disgust over the passage of House Resolution 1109 which will transform Congress into a constituent assembly or “Con-ass” without the participation of the Senate.
Con-ass is expected to result in the shift to parliamentary form of government, and an extension of Gloria Arroyo’s stay in power beyond 2010 when she is scheduled to relinquish the presidency. Leaders from various sectors—business, the Church, civil society and the studentry, among others—have already spoken out in protest.
The focal point of the activities in Metro Manila was in Makati City, where a crowd of about 15,000 gathered to register their disapproval. Photojournalist Mario Ignacio immersed himself in the crowd and captured the ways by which Filipinos expressed their feelings over HR 1109. |
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Wednesday, 20 May 2009 |
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By IBARRA C. MATEO
THE five provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) have performed the poorest in terms of life expectancy, school enrollment, literacy and incomes among all 77 provinces in the country, according to the 2008/2009 Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR) which was released Wednesday.
The PHDR surveyed Metro Manila and the provinces, and ranked their human development index (HDI). The HDI assesses how a particular area performs in terms of people’s per capita incomes and access to basic services.
Sulu posted the lowest HDI, followed by Tawi-tawi, Maguindanao, Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Masbate, Sarangani, Eastern Samar, Zamboanga del Norte and Romblon.
Dr. Arsenio Balisacan, president of the nonstock, nonprofit Human Development Network (HDN) Foundation which published the PHDR, told reporters most of the 10 lowest-ranked provinces were conflict-ridden.
“Long-running conflict in these areas suspended the delivery of and access to services,” Balicasan said.
On the other hand, the province with the highest HDI was Benguet, followed by Rizal, Cavite, Bataan, Laguna, Pampanga, Ilocos Norte, Batanes, Nueva Vizcaya, and La Union. |
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Monday, 18 May 2009 |
By IBARRA C. MATEO and YVONNE T. CHUA
IN next year’s elections, voters should put in office an “education president” who will make quality education the national priority and the key strategy in reducing poverty.
The call was made Monday by representatives from a broad spectrum of society, including academe, business and civil society, at a forum on “Education Nation,” a multisectoral initiative to draw up an education agenda that they hope the next president would adopt.
Although they have yet to finalize the agenda they will unveil to the public in November, when the candidates file their certificates of candidacy, education reform advocates behind Education Nation urged the lengthening of the basic education cycle, which is from elementary to high school, to 12 years from the current 10 to boost the employability of graduates.
They also favor mother tongue instruction in the early years, citing local and global research that shows young children learning better when taught in their dialect.
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Page 1 of 7 |
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News
| AFTER three days of silence, Press Secretary Cerge Remonde confirmed that President Arroyo indeed spent the weekend in Cartagena, Colombia. He said it was just a “technical stopover” before proceeding for her state visit to Brazil coming from Japan. "Hindi iyon actually side trip. Parang stopover dahil alam ninyo napakalayo kasi nitong Brazil at may teknikal na pangangailangan iyung piloto at iyung eroplano. Hindi puwedeng tumuloy-tuloy, so nag-stop-over noong weekend sa siyudad ng Cartagena (It's not a side trip but a stopover. As you know, Brazil is far and the pilot and plane have technical requirements. The aircraft can't fly directly to Brazil so they made a stopover in Cartagena over the weekend)," he said. |
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WHISTLEBLOWER Navy Lt. Senior Grade Nancy Gadian asked the Supreme Court Monday to amend a decision of the Court of Appeals ordering the defense secretary to provide her protection.
Gadian, who exposed the alleged misuse of P46 million in funds earmarked for the RP-US Balikatan Military Exercise 2007 when she was then the deputy of the Civil-Military Operations, asked the High Court to place her instead under the protection of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines and provide the organization with the means to do so.
The Supreme Court on May 21 granted Gadian’s petition for a writ of amparo or protection order after she cited threats to her life and security after she expressed her wish to give details on the corruption in the Balikatan exericse. It also ordered the Court of Appeals to hear her petition.
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THE country’s leading business groups Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to declare as unconstitutional House Resolution 1109 which seeks to convene a constituent assembly or “Con-Ass” to amend the Constitution without the Senate’s participation.
“If and when the House is challenged for the legality of its actions, we call on the Supreme Court to strike down as unconstitutional the results of a constituent assembly that will not have included the Senate in its deliberations,” said a joint statement of the Makati Business Club, Management Association of the Philippines, Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, Action for Economic Reforms and the Foundation for Economic Freedom released on the eve of street protests scheduled to be held starting Wednesday to denounce plans to amend the Charter through Con-Ass.
Members of business, civil society, and religious groups, including the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines, have said they will participate in Wednesday’s mass action. |
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LAWYER Oliver Lozano and his daughter Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to nullify House Resolution No. 1109, saying the House of Representatives “railroaded” the measure to amend the Constitution to extend the term of President Gloria Arroyo.
HR1109, adopted by the House late Tuesday night, seeks to convene Congress into a Constituent Assembly, without participation by the Senate, to amend the Constitution.
Lozano and his daughter Evangeline said the resolution principally authored by Speaker Prospero Nograles deviated from “prescribed procedures to amend the Constitution by excluding the Senate of the Philippines from the complete process of proposing amendments to the Constitution.”
They also cited the “lack of thorough debates and consultations” by the House when it adopted the resolution.
Read the document in full: |
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SEN. Manuel Villar would top the presidential elections if they were held now, according to a Social Weather Stations poll.
The survey, conducted on April 16 to May 6 and commissioned by Villar, showed 22 percent of Filipinos were likely to vote Villar and 18 percent, Vice President Noli de Castro. The SWS polled 7,000 registered voters.
Others who got double-digit support were Sen. Francis Escudero and former President Joseph Estrada, both at 14 percent, and Sen. Loren Legarda, 10 percent.
Villar ranked fourth among presidential preferences in Pulse Asia’s May 2009 survey, garnering only 14 percent of support. The latest SWS poll showed the senator, who is being investigated by the Senate for his alleged involvement in the C-5 anomaly, gaining six points since February. |
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SENATORS Francis Escudero and Loren Legarda are the strongest contenders for the vice presidency if elections were held today, Pulse Asia said Wednesday.
Nearly the same percentages of Filipinos expressed support for Escudero (24 percent) and Legarda (21 percent), according to Pulse Asia’s May 4-17 survey which has a margin of error of ± 3 percent.
Almost one in five (17 percent) are inclined to reelect Vice President Noli de Castro and one in 10 would vote for Makati City Mayor Jejomar C. Binay. Slightly behind Binay is Sen. Francis Pangilinan (9 percent), who has announced he would run for vice president as an independent. All three, however, gained 3, 4 and 1 point respectively from Pulse Asia’s February survey.
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IF elections were held today, it would be a tight race among five presidential candidates: Vice President Noli de Castro (18 percent), Sen. Francis Escudero (17 percent), former President Joseph Estrada (15 percent), Sen. Manuel Villar, Jr (14 percent) and Sen. Mar Roxas (13 percent), according to the latest Pulse Asia survey.
Dislodged from the top five is Sen. Loren Legarda whose rating in the May survey slid to 7 percent from the 12 percent she got in February.
The Pulse Asia survey showed Roxas as the biggest gainer: He gained five points from the February survey where he got only 8 percent. |
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