Archive - Top Stories

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS. IT took a week for President Aquino to realize that the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman by a member of the Philippine Coast Guard team in the disputed waters of South China Sea could lead to serious repercussions for the country. On the seventh day  of the incident, President Aquino last

By MIKHA FLORES COMMISSION on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said he will resign if the six senators-elect proclaim med on Thursday will not be part of the Magic 12 once canvassing of election results is done. Brillantes dared critics to prove the proclamation of six senators Thursday night was premature. Critics say the certificate of

Race to the capitol | By YVONNE T. CHUA SAVE for tightly contested races in a handful of provinces, this year’s gubernatorial elections are all but over. But unlike in the congressional polls where President Benigno S. Aquino III and his Liberal Party have made significant strides, the ruling party will control in the next

By CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS, MindaNews COTABATO CITY – Cheat? No, it’s CHEAT. Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu denied allegations his team resorted to election irregularities in last Monday’s elections and rallied his people behind “CHEAT Maguindanao.” He said Maguindanao was viewed in past elections as “cheating capital,” apparently referring to the role Maguindanao, the vote-richest among

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS THE great thing about last Monday’s election is that, Grace Poe topped the senatorial elections. It must be ego-shattering for the three re-electionists – Loren Legarda, Chiz Escudero, and Alan Cayetano –whose desire for the number one slot is not a secret to the public. Other pluses about Monday’s polls are the

PESO bills circulating in Samar province had taken on a slightly different look till the runup to election day itself.  On their face appeared new names: those of candidates, both administration and opposition, that dwarfed the names of heroes to whom the bills have been assigned. In Cabanatuan City, eight Ford XLT 15-seater passengers unloaded about

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS PHILIPPINE  Representative in Taiwan Antonio Basilio said Sunday his apology to the family of the fisherman who was killed Thursday by a member of the Philippine Coast Guard in an incident in the disputed waters off Northern Philippines is not the government’s formal apology being demanded by Taiwan. In an interview, Basilio,

By VERA Files CANDIDATES in Monday’s midterm elections have been using “Mother’s Day” and birthday celebrations, among others, as cover to buy votes, a political think tank said Sunday. A statement issued by Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) on election eve said election cheating has worsened and poll automation “is powerless against it.” CenPEG

By LALA ORDENES and IRENE ROSALES CEBU City—Unless they grow a pair of wings on election day, 1,770 public school teachers who are on poll duty here may not be able to cast their votes on May 13. Three teachers will man each of Cebu City’s 592 clustered precincts as members of the Board of

By MELISSA LUZ LOPEZ OF the 36,778 polling centers in the country, only two—both in Dasmariñas City in Cavite—will have designated polling places for persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Monday’s elections. And only 17 voting centers will have two sign language interpreters each to assist PWD voters registered there. Salawag Elementary School and Area E

By MIKHA FLORES THE Supreme Court stopped the Commission on Elections on Friday from imposing limits on cash withdrawals intended to curb vote-buying during the election period. Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno issued the status quo ante order after the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) questioned the constitutionality of Resolution 9688 which limits cash

By MIKHA FLORES THE Commission on Elections has identified the 234 towns and municipalities across the country where a random manual audit (RMA) will be conducted after the May 13 elections. Election Commissioner Christian Robert Lim said the audit will check whether the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines accurately counted the votes cast. “It is

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS LAWYER Harry Roque   tried last Wednesday  to withdraw P100,000 to pay the tuition fees of his children and was told that he couldn’t because of  the stupid Comelec Resolution 9688 which prohibits “the withdrawal of cash, encashment of checks and conversion of any monetary instrument into cash from May 8 to

By VINCE NONATO, LEILANIE ADRIANO, REYNARD MAGTOTO and CLTV 36 Was it a P1.4 billion well spent? Airfreight 2100 (Air 21), one of the two freight and cargo forwarding firms awarded by the Commission on Elections a P1.4 billion contract to deploy poll machines on Monday, caused massive delays and confusion in polling precincts for

By MIKHA FLORES AFTER starting with more than 300 names, party-lists allowed to run in the May 13 elections are now down to a little over a hundred. They will be vying for 58 seats in Congress. The Commission on Elections began with 352 party-lists—187 holdovers from the 2010 elections and 165 new entrants. The

By MIKHA FLORES, MELISSA LUZ LOPEZ, MARK PERE MADRONA and VINCE NONATO DELAYS, confusion and malfunctioning machines marred the testing on Monday of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines, raising fears that these incidents might cause voter disenfranchisement on election day. But Commission on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. dismissed these incidents as minor glitches

By MIKHA FLORES THE good news is the source code for the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines will be finally available for review by interested groups and political parties. The bad news is any review will not be completed until after the May 13 elections. Commission on Elections Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. said Monday

By DARLENE CAY Fighting for press freedom is like flying a kite, some journalists found out today. Both have hits and misses and their share of disappointments. Journalists from different media organizations flew about a dozen kites to commemorate World Press Freedom Day at the University of the Philippines Diliman Oblation Grounds. Nine kites had

By MIKHA FLORES ELECTION watchdogs and civil society organizations filed a complaint against the Commission on Elections before an international human rights body on Friday for allegedly compromising the May 13 elections and violating their right to vote. A group of 33 individuals from civil society groups filed a 52-page complaint before the United Nations

By MARK PERE MADRONA The unsolved and unpunished killings of media people in past years have kept the Philippines in third place among countries listed as the most dangerous in the world for journalists.

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS SPIN, in media lingo, is using information to support a particular bias or slant. It’s not exactly false but some aspects of the truth may have been glossed over. As the campaign for the 2013 elections heats up, spin doctors are becoming more creative that sometimes, I get startled  by what

By JONATHAN DE SANTOS TO reform the Philippine public school system, they have to start at an early age. And that doesn’t mean students. That means teachers. This was the message of Wendy Kopp, founder of a U.S. group called Teach for All, who is in the Manila to promote the idea of getting the

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS WITH two more weeks to go before Election Day, candidates are moving heaven and earth to get that much coveted post. Expect more black propaganda, vote buying, junkings and soul-selling. Senatorial candidates would be dealing individually with local politicians. The declaration of Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, head of the Liberal Party

By VINCE NONATO Photos by DANIEL ABUNALES She’s been housekeeper for 23 years, but for the first time this year Gigi Sacare might just be receiving benefits on top of her pay. Sacare, 35, migrated from Davao to Metro Manila and has been working as a domestic helper since she was 12. Today, May 1,

By LUCILLE SODIPE CEBU City–Just like any brand of shampoo, diaper, energy drink or deodorant, candidates need to be properly ‘packaged’ to become sellable to the Filipino voters. With the help of image builders, they employ various marketing strategies to convince voters they are the best brand in the market. Political analyst Prospero De Vera

By JOHANNE MARGARETTE R. MACOB DAGUPAN City – Who’s the better man? Or who’s facing fewer charges? It’s a battle all the way to the top for Pangasinan gubernatorial candidates Amado Espino Jr and Hernani Braganza in their race to claim Urduja House, amid plunder charges filed against them. Just last week, both candidates were

By MELISSA LUZ LOPEZ CALOOCAN City -A sea of yellow bathed the Caloocan High School Auditorium. No, it was not a campaign rally for administration candidates. Rather, it was the signing of a manifesto of support for a 10-point agenda asserting the rights of persons with disabilities (PWDs). With the theme “Action! To Make the Right

By JONATHAN DE SANTOS RESIDENTS of Casiguran opposed to the construction and land conversion at the Aurora Pacific Economic and Freeport Zone (APECO) may be barking up the wrong tree, APECO spokesman Kent Avestruz said Tuesday. In a telephone interview with Vera Files, Avestruz said APECO has been doing road construction in areas covered by the

BY CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS, MindaNews MARAWI CITY – It was his first visit to the province of Lanao del Sur in his nearly three-year old administration and he was supposed to have campaigned for his “Team PNoy” – the Liberal Party candidates for the Senate, the province and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) – but the message he wanted to deliver could hardly be understood due to technical problems.

By JONATHAN DE SANTOS CHRISTIAN Losano, an 18-year-old Agta Dumagat, can cite several reasons why he is opposed to the freeport zone project in Aurora province, but he gets really emotional when he talks about how the venture is tearing their community apart. The Aurora Pacific Economic Zone (APECO), the pet project of the Angaras,