Focus 
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‘Pawikan’ meat sold in Cebu barangay
By NESTOR B. RAMIREZ
CEBU CITY—Business is brisk, judging from the throng of people and cars parked outside this makeshift eatery in Pasil, a shoreline barangay. The customers, some in long sleeves and tie, do not mind the heat and the dishevelled slum area. They are here for one reason: To eat their favorite stewed dish of sea turtle or pawikan, an endangered species whose hunting, sale and killing have been banned by law since 2001. [UPDATE: Philippines goes after sea turtle restaurants] »Read More -
Woman with cerebral palsy fights for PWDs’ right to vote
By YOLANDA SOTELO FUERTES, MARIO IGNACIO IV AND ARTHA KIRA PAREDES
FIFTY-seven-year-old Charito Corazon Manglapus, who has cerebral palsy and moves around in a wheelchair, knows how difficult it is for persons with disability (PWDs) to exercise the right to suffrage. She herself voted for the first time only in the 2010 elections. She is now among those leading the campaign to get PWDs to register and vote in next year's elections . »Read More -
Few rape cases filed, prosper
By ADELLE CHUA
NORMA Escobido, family health officer of the Department of Health, has been with the agency for 35 years but has only been working with its Women and Children Protection Unit (WCPU) for two years. She goes around the country, visiting WCPUs in DOH-administered hospitals, talks to rape victims and tells them about their option to pursue their attackers in court. “Only roughly 10 percent of them file cases,” she said. These few women find that government agencies are unable to use the evidence they have collected. »Read More -
Systemic silencing: Little incentive to cry ‘rape!’
By ADELLE CHUA
LOCKED up in a small, dark, musty room with broken windows at the bottom of one of the ground-floor stairs of the Philippine General Hospital are hundreds of white boxes—rape kits full of specimen from victims. But the boxes lie idle, exposed to heat and to bugs and rats, their contents ignored and later disposed of without accomplishing their purpose. »Read More -
Finding the true Filipino in EDSA
By BOOMA CRUZ
IN the last 26 years, Filipinos troop to EDSA to celebrate and commemorate a brief shinning moment in the nation’s history that led to the dismantling of the Marcos dictatorship on Feb. 25, 1986. The 31-kilometer, 10-lane stretch, the birthplace of people power, has since been most identified with the Filipino. It has in fact become the Filipino. »Read More -
Domestic abuse fueled suspicions of foul play
By MALTE E. KOLLENBERG
WOMEN'S rights and migrant advocates in South Korea say complaints of domestic abuse are not uncommon here, and the story of Cathy Deocades is no exception. Cathy’s story started out as a hopeful search for a better life in South Korea, whose cultural exports like K-Pop-music and Korean dramas often paint a picture of domestic harmony. Cathy met her husband, who turned to the Philippines in search for a woman he could not find in South Korea, through a marriage broker. Shortly after the two met for the first time they got married. The couple did not have time to get to know each other. »Read More -
An Asian tragedy called Cathy
By MALTE E. KOLLENBERG
GONGJU, South Korea —Two and a half hours south of Seoul by land lies the farming village of Tapgok-ri, a remote part of the city of Gongju. It is nothing like the glittery and glamorous world shown in Korean dramas and K-Pop music videos, which are increasingly popular among Filipino women. Here on Jan. 11, 2011, Cathy Deocades, 24, was found hanging from a wooden bar in an abandoned house several meters from her home. The police came and concluded suicide. Investigations stopped and the case was closed. »Read More -
DepEd questioned on P1.32B textbook contracts
By YVONNE T. CHUA
IF things go as planned, the Department of Education will start delivering this month 61.4 million copies of textbooks and teachers’ manuals worth P2.58 billion to public elementary and high schools nationwide. But civil society watchdogs as well as several former and current education officials say about half the books, or just over 30 million copies valued at P1.317 billion, were procured by direct contracting, a mode they said violates Republic Act No. 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act. The law sets competitive or public bidding as the rule for all state procurements and allows direct contracting only in “highly exceptional cases.” »Read More -
Lagayan, Abra: ‘Big-time corruption in a small town’
By LUZ RIMBAN
TWO prominent members of a powerful political family in Abra are facing plunder charges for allegedly embezzling more than P130 million in municipal funds, in what a whistleblower has called “big-time corruption in a small town.” Named in a complaint-affidavit are former Abra congresswoman Cecilia Seares-Luna and her eldest son Jendricks »Read More -
Comelec exec who probed overpriced ballot folders loses office
By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
A COMMISSION on Elections executive who investigated the overpriced P690-million ballot secrecy folder contract bought for the May 2010 elections with OTC paper supply has been put on “floating” status. »Read More
