Archive - Top Stories

By ERWIN MASCARIÑAS
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – After the shock and the tears, people here and in Iligan City are starting to pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives two weeks after tropical storm Sendong ravaged their homes and their land. Lack of sufficient water supply, electricity and other basic necessities, did not stop the survivors of Sendong from moving on.

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
FORMER President Gloria Arroyo knew of the irregularities in the $339 million national broadband project to be undertaken by the Chinese ZTE Corp but she facilitated approval for her personal gain.

BY ERWIN MASCARIÑAS
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Floodwaters brought by storm “Sendong” swept Cagayan de Oro and Iligan city and other parts of Central Mindanao while people were sleeping Friday night last week.

By ARTHA KIRA PAREDES
BANGUED, Abra.—Five years ago today, the then highest-ranking politician of Abra province was shot dead outside a church in Quezon City in broad daylight, signaling the fall of one of Abra’s most prominent families and the rise of other political dynasties. The killing also ushered in a period of intensified violence that has made the province one of the country’s most dangerous places, its capital Bangued the so-called “murder capital of the north.”

AT the recent Prisoners’ Week celebration at the Batangas provincial jail, Governor Vilma Santos-Recto bought packs of the fried crispy garlic made by inmates inside the jail.

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.”

By PATRICK KING PASCUAL
DEC. 1 is World AIDS Day. In the Philippines, World AIDS Day is commemorated with concern that the number of HIV cases and deaths from AIDS-related illnesses continues to rise although on the decline in other parts of the world.

By KLARIBELLE ANNE LANGUAYAN
AT gunpoint, his police interrogator asked him to recite a poem. Already subjected to torture, poet and peasant activist Axel Pinpin couldn’t think of any as he hadn’t memorized any, so he made up one: Ihimlay mo kami sa piling ng mga gahis, sa ritmo ng awit ng putok ng baril at sa ngalit ng tugmaan kong matatabil!

By DEXTER CABALZA
HIS hair was not spiked; it was flat. His face was not as white as paper; it was brown. He breathed not through gills; he had lungs. He did not wield a large sword; his best friend was his laptop. Most of all, he was not a member of an assassin organization, yet he said he was Kisame Hoshigaki—then disclaimed it.

By ELIZABETH ESCAÑO
CHANMI, Jo Sung Mo and Sooyoung. To the average Filipino, these words probably mean nothing, but they are special for Jean Jaizel Margarejo. Jheng, as she is known by those close to her, is a certified Korean pop (K-pop) fan, cosplayer and performer. In cosplay(costume play),a person dresses up as another person or character. Jheng, 19, cosplays K-pop idols and performs their songs and dances.

By HOMER TEODORO
CENTRAL LUZON TV
HACIENDA LUISITA, TARLAC CITY--Farmers of Hacienda Luisita were jubilant when they heard from their leaders in Metro Manila Thursday morning that the Supreme Court has junked the Stock Distribution Option and ordered the Hacienda Luisita, Incorporated to distribute the more than 6,000 hectares of land to the more than 5,000 farmers of the sugarcane plantation that belongs to the family of President Aquino.

Photos by MARIO IGNACIO IV
Text by ELLEN TORDESILLAS
MARKING the second year of the Maguindanao massacre, journalists pledged to resist any attempt to trample a person’s right to life and free expression.

By KHRYSTA IMPERIAL RARA
THE 25 dolphins from the Solomon Islands that are now in Subic are well-cared for and free to interact with each other, according to Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) in Singapore.

By ARIEL C. SEBELLINO
IT has been two years since a most heinous crime happened in the town of Ampatuan in Maguindanao province in Southern Philippines. On Nov 23, 2009, 58 persons were killed, 32 of them journalists and media workers, earning for the Philippines the notorious tag as the second most dangerous place for media practitioners in the world, next only to Iraq.

By KHRYSTA IMPERIAL RARA
REPRESENTATIVES of Manila and Singapore-based animal protection groups are blocking the reported plan to send the dolphins in Subic to Singapore. They also want them returned to where they came from- Solomon Islands.

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
FORMER President Gloria Arroyo is now under arrest for the unbailable crime of electoral sabotage. The warrant of arrest, issued by Judge Jesus Mupas of the Pasay City Regional Trial Court, was served at 6:30 p.m. Friday by members of the Philippine National Police seven hours after the Commission on Elections filed electoral sabotage charges in connection with the 2007 elections against Arroyo, former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. and former Comelec election supervisor Lintang Bedol before the Pasay City RTC.

CONTRARY to the announcement of Supreme Court Spokesman Midas Marquez that the High Court voted 8-5 reiterating the temporary restraining order on the Watch List Order of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima issued on former President Gloria Arroyo and her husband, a highly reliable source said the tribunal, voting 7-6, actually declared its Nov. 15 TRO inoperative following the failure of the Arroyo camp to comply with all the conditions set by the court.

By MARK PERE MADRONA
A HAND-PAINTED sign on the gate of the 2.5-hectare assembly plant of the iconic Sarao Motors Inc. (SMI) in Pulanglupa, Las Pinas City welcomes both tourists and customers.

By JOSEPH HOLANDES UBALDE
IT may have been a 38-year wait for Marina Verma, but for her it was worth it. For the first time since she was born, the proud Teduray tribe woman from Maguindanao finally held in her hands the certificate of her birth.

By MARIEJO RAMOS
HE used to fight boredom by writing poems on cigaret foils. Seven years later, Marcelo Santos III, now 21, writes—no longer on palara of but for digital media. And he writes no longer for himself, but for his legion of fans enthralled by his "Love Story on Video" (LSOV) series.

By GIL ROY GORRE
I chanced upon a telecast of another beauty contest recently, and stayed on knowing that this one was not likely to get the sustained public and media attention that Shamcey Supsup got. Erramon Aboitiz, president and CEO of Aboitiz Power Corp., was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” for 2011, topped off with the “Master Entrepreneur Award.” He will represent the Philippines in the “World Entrepreneur of the Year Awards” in Monaco in 2012. One wonders if the United States will send Warren Buffet or whether Carlos Slim will don the colors of Mexico.

By CAROLYN MERCADO
DESPITE the advent of a new and popular administration and President Aquino’s promise to end all human rights violations, the country has not seen the last of them. Torture, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances continue with impunity. They continue to be widespread and systematic, with most victims tagged as “enemies of the state” and the majority of the suspects identified as state security forces.

THE secrets to a healthy, long life come free if one follows Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan's zero-cost prescription. An advocate of primary health care, sound nutrition and integrative medicine who had taken the road less travelled when he served in rural areas for a decade, Tan said the most number of centenarians in the world can be found in Asia. The Philippines doesn't figure in those statistics, he said, because "we have internalized the North American diet."

By ELIZABETH LOLARGA
WHILE a bloody encounter was playing out on a field in Basilan, journalist Cathy Babao Guballa was in the midst of preparing what Lorna Kalaw Tirol, a veteran editor, calls a "landmark book."

By LALA ORDENES LIKE most Filipinos, Cel loves to sing. When her father died when she was in third year high school, she thought of capitalizing on her beautiful singing voice to help support her family.

N0 one would think that 17-year-old Ariel Bowagan was a child offender before he became the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK)chairman of Barangay Dontogan in Baguio City.

By KHRYSTA IMPERIAL RARA
ASPINS, the Philippine native dogs, are finally making history. Two aspins have graduated with 25 other purebred dogs from the Philippine Coast Guard’s (PCG) K9 school and will be joining the roster of security dogs guarding the country’s ports against smuggled narcotics and bombs. They proudly trooped to the stage with their handlers to receive their diplomas during a ceremony honouring them at the PCG base camp in Taguig last week.

By HOMER TEODORO
TARLAC CITY—Six years after, the murder case of Hacienda Luisita labor leader Ricardo Ramos is expected to soon come to a close. The regional trial court here is scheduled to hand down on Nov. 16, 2011 its decision on the charge against Sgt. Roderick “Joshua” de la Cruz of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division.

THE Supreme Court on Tuesday granted the petition of eight of the country's largest banks for a temporary restraining order on the Bureau of Internal Revenue ruling imposing a 20 percent final withholding tax on the controversial 10-year Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificates (PEACe) bonds.

By Interaksyon.com
EIGHT banks on Monday asked the Supreme Court to stop the government from imposing a 20-percent final withholding tax on P35 billion worth of the controversial Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificates (PEACe) government bonds, which will mature on Tuesday, October 18. (Read the full report here)