Archive - Top Stories

By LALA ORDENES WITH Janet Lim-Napoles and the P10 billion “pork barrel” scam hogging the headlines, here’s a thought: In an ideal world where the pork barrel is spent on the projects it is originally allocated for and no government official is corrupt, will the pork barrel be a successful tool in improving the standard

  By JOHNNA VILLAVIRAY-GIOLAGON THE access agreement being negotiated between Manila and Washington – due to the ‘evolving’ security situation – will not put a ceiling on the number of American troops or military assets that will be allowed in the country at any given time. Negotiator Carlos Sorreta acknowledged that “we’re not talking about

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS RETIRED Marine Colonel Ariel Querubin remembers that when Jenny Napoles, the  pork barrel queen who is now a fugitive, wrote a check for  forty thousand pesos for the interest of the money she owed his  late first wife, Loretta (Cercenia), she didn’t know how to spell the word “forty.” “Ano nga ang

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS          MANY , including high-ranking Philippine officials, like to think that increased presence of American military in the Philippines, which is a subject of talks between the two countries starting today, is a commitment by the Americans to defend the Philippines in case of an armed conflict in the West Philippine Sea,

By JONATHAN DE SANTOS GOVERNMENT has been dragging its feet in implementing a law awarding financial compensation to victims of human rights abuses during the martial law years, despite the fact that their number is slowly dwindling. “Not a month passes without one of us dying,” Felix Dalisay, who spoke for Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban

By AMER R. AMOR IF you are a high school senior who has been preparing witty narratives to questions like “If your crush says he/she loves you, will you say you love him/her, too?” in this year’s University of the Philippines College Admission Test or UPCAT, you are in for a disappointment. UPCAT 2014 will

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS           NO doubt, the  Magdalo group of military officers and soldiers has come a long way from that early morning of July 27, 2003 when they jolted the nation with the protest they staged against Gloria Arroyo at Oakwood Hotel in the heart of Makati’s business district. So many things have

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS THE fourth State-of- the- Nation Address by President Aquino is notable for the number of issues that he didn’t touch. He did not mention anything about the Freedom of Information Bill which he promised to support when he was campaigning for the presidency. He did not say anything about China and Taiwan.

State of the Nation Address of His Excellency Benigno S. Aquino III President of the Philippines To the Congress of the Philippines

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS IS President Aquino going to announce at his fourth State of the Nation address what he is going to do with the investigation report of the National Bureau of Investigation on the May 9, 2013 incident in Balintang Channel where a member of the Philippine Coast Guard shot and killed a

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS There are issues about the K-12 program being implemented by the Department of Education but the one good thing about it is the use of  the  mother tongue or native dialect as medium of instruction for the first years in school. That means from Kindergarten to Grades 1 to 3. In

By MARIE GAY ALESSANDRA V. ORDENES HOW much is the government really getting from mining? How about other extractive industries such as gas and oil? How much is the industry actually paying the government? And, most important, do such payments comply with laws? Filipinos should be getting the answers to these and other questions about

By JONATHAN DE SANTOS WHO or what can stop political dynasties in the country from multiplying? Political dynasties have been taking over more and more elective positions because there are few alternatives to candidates from powerful families, says Professor Ronald Mendoza of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Center for Development Management. Ampatuans and Mangudadatus of

By MIKHA FLORES THE automated counting of votes in the May 13 elections proved 99.9747 percent accurate, according to results of a random manual audit (RMA) of votes in more than 200 precincts nationwide. The 99.9747 percent accuracy rate is slightly higher than the percentage reported in the 2010 elections, but still falls short of

By REX ROBLES LAST week, the US Navy released the result of its investigation on the Jan. 17, 2013 grounding of USS Guardian in Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea, pinning the blame on “lack of leadership” but praising the “heroic efforts of the crew to save their ship.” One reason why the report seems

By CHERRY JOY VENILES DAVAO City–A Cebu Pacific Airbus 320 flight from Manila overshot the runway of the Davao International Airport at 7:10 p.m. on June 2, leaving all 165 passengers and crew unhurt but badly shaken. The accident raises questions on aviation emergency preparedness, and the safety of budget air travel. The Civil Aviation

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS IT was insensitive of Kris Aquino to feature the Sultan of Johor at the time when the wounds of the February-March Sabah bloodfight have not healed and the root of the problem has not been addressed. Tuesday’s feature of Kris TV was the Sultan of Johor, Ibrahim Ismail, a close friend of

By MIKHA FLORES THE Supreme Court launched on Friday an electronic filing system that will digitize judicial processes in trial courts in Quezon City. Dubbed as “eCourt”, the system uses case management software that will allow judges and court personnel to organize case flows from the filing of the complaint up to its resolution and

  By JONATHAN DE SANTOS AT least a thousand cyclists marked 115th Philippine Independence Day on Wednesday riding in solidarity with 27 million modern-day slaves. The Freedom Ride, organized by the Dakila collective, was intended to raise awareness of the 1343 Action Hotline, a text and phone hotline for human trafficking cases in the Philippines,

By MIKHA FLORES WHEN the 16th Congress convenes next month, at least five political families will have two members sitting in the House of Representatives—one as a district representative and another as a party-list nominee. No thanks to how the party-list system has evolved, political clans have found another avenue to expand their turf, a

  By NORMAN SISON THE Philippine Revolution may be a memory, but not for a group of history re-enactors. For them, history is not only a record of events past but also lessons for the future. It began in 2003 with an epiphany. Like many Filipinos, electrical engineer Pedro Javier liked all things foreign. But

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS ON July 17, the Movie and Television Review Classification Board will conduct a Child and Family Summit at Balay Kalinaw at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. Participants will be parents and other family members including kasambahays.  A workshop will be held and the output will be presented to networks and

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS THE subject is still under discussion, says Chairman Eugenio “Toto” Villareal of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. The issue’s relevance has become urgent with the controversy caused by comedian Vice Ganda (who should appropriately be called Vice Vulgar), whose May 17 concert was made available to TV cable

By DARLENE CAY THE measures taken by the Commission on Elections to make voting this year more accessible to people with disabilities are just the initial steps of a challenging endeavor and should not be seen as something that would immediately remove the PWDs’ discomfort during elections. Election Commissioner Grace Padaca made these remarks in response

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS WE condole with the family of the seven Marines who were killed in Patikul, Sulu last Saturday and those of the eight policemen who were killed by a landmine allegedly planted by the New People’s Army in Allacapan, Cagayan Monday. The police officers killed were  Police Officers 2 Dexter Cubilla, Angelbert

  By  ELLEN TORDESILLAS HERE we go again. This time it’s over Ayungin Reef (Ren’ai Reef to the Chinese.) The Philippine Navy reported sightings of Chinese ships in the vicinity of Ayungin shoal as early as first week of May, the last stretch of the May 13 elections, and before the May 9 incident in

By DARLENE CAY EFFORTS of persons with disabilities and advocates in promoting the right of PWDs to suffrage went to waste in last week’s midterm elections, no thanks to the Commission on Elections, the executive director of the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA) said. In a strongly worded and emotional letter which she said

By LEILANIE ADRIANO LAOAG CITY, Ilocos Norte– At least 40 Chinese and 12 Taiwanese nationals who were found with several electronic and computer gadgets and accessories in a resort in Vigan were rounded up and detained for questioning, police said on Tuesday. They said they were investigating the foreign nationals, including 14 women, and the

By CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS, MindaNews DARAPANAN, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao – The victory of the President’s party in last week’s elections is victory for the peace process, Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said. “We’re quite happy that in the results of the election in both local and national level,

By VERA FILES CAN you do the math, and fast? Amid apprehensions over “untenable figures” used to proclaim the top nine senatorial candidates, a poll watchdog says there are two remaining ways to silence allegations of fraudulent results. The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections yesterday said one way to crosscheck figures is through the parallel