Archive - Top Stories

By CARLO FIGUEROA DAVAO CITY—Kalabasa (squash) pancakes, camote doughnuts, lemongrass and ginger juice. They sound like they’re part of a menu for adults on a special diet. But in reality, these recipes will soon be available for students, especially in public schools in this city. Thanks to its Food Revolution project, Davao City tries to

By JAKE SORIANO LAWYER Darlene Pajarito had her first brush with human trafficking in 2004 as an assistant prosecutor in Zamboanga City. Since then securing justice for victims of the crime has become almost like a mantra to her.

By YVONNE T. CHUA  THE University of the Philippines-Diliman approved today a proposal to change the start of the academic calendar from June to August starting this 2014-15 schoolyear. The University Council voted 284-164 in favor of the change. Eight abstained. UP students held a protest action during the deliberation of the council presided by

  BY ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS HOPEFULLY, this latest controversy involving broadcasters in a government corruption case would result in reforms in the media industry. A Philippine Daily Inquirer report said three broadcast journalists received payments from National Agribusiness Corp. (Nabcor), an agency under the Department of Agriculture that was used as conduit for the release

By MELISSA LUZ LOPEZ ELECTION duties should include non- public school teachers and Persons with Disabilities (PWD),   poll watchdog The Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE) recommended based on a study it conducted during the 2013 barangay elections. In a presentation Wednesday of  “Project Teacher,” LENTE said during the October 28, 2013 barangay elections, various

) Stage actress Monique Wilson is this year’s Hildegarde Lifetime Achievement awardee. The Hildegarde Awards is administered by St. Scholastica’s College “to celebrate women’s achievements in the mass media and its allied fields.” The award ceremonies are held  during the International Women’s Month. St. Scholastica’s program said St. Hildegarde, a German Benidictine nun, “was an

By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS I learned something new  last Saturday when I went to St. Scholastica’s College to receive the award together with my colleague, Luz Rimban, for VERA Files. St. Scholastica cited VERA Files’s stories  about victims of Yolanda super  typhoon being vulnerable to human traffickers. We thank St Scho for recognizing our contribution

  By  ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS DENNIS Cunanan, the deputy director general of Technology Resource Center (TRC), said of the some P600 million PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) or pork barrel that passed through his office and ended up in the pockets of three senators and Janet Napoles, he didn’t get a single centavo. Incredible! As

  BY ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS THESE are the political alliances shaping up for the 2016 presidential elections. Interior Secretary Mar Roxas for president and Sen. Chiz Escudero for vice president for the Liberal Party;  Vice President Jejomar Binay and Gawad Kalinga founder and chairman Tony Meloto for the United Nationalist Alliance; and Senators Alan Cayetano

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS   WHY did it take Armed Forces Chief of Staff Emmanuel Bautista almost a month to tell the President and the Department of Foreign Affairs about the Chinese Coast Guards using water cannons against Filipino fishermen in Bajo de Masinloc? The incident was reported when Bautista told Monday the foreign correspondents in

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS NOW we know there is a problem with Malacanang’s communication system. Whether Malacanang knows that is a completely different matter. Two letters that later on became of national, even international, importance did not reach President Aquino. The first one was a letter from the late Jamalul Kiram III sent in 2010 in

By IRMA FAITH PAL DUMAGUETE CITY – Some 278 fishermen from Negros Oriental have been waiting for nearly two-and-a-half years for P13.424-million in back compensation from a fishing company that was found by the National Labor Relations Commission in 2011 to have violated Labor Wage Standards.

    By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS         WE did not fully get what we asked Supreme Court regarding the  Republic Act 10175 otherwise known as the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 which was to declare the whole of it as unconstitutional  primarily because of its libel provisions. But we can live with the Supreme

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS Photos by MARIO IGNACIO IV YOLANDA survivors Lito G. Abucejo, 47, a carpenter and his wife, Rebecca, 44, marked the 100th day after the super typhoon  slammed into Manicani Island in Guiuan, Eastern Samar, in a newly-built house. The Abucejos have folded their United Nations-donated tent, which was their shelter the past

  By ALEX C. DELOS SANTOS TWENTY-EIGHT years ago, a murder was executed at high noon in San Jose, the capital of Antique in Panay Island that outraged the Filipino people struggling to free themselves from the clutches of a dictatorship. The assassination of  Evelio Bellaflor Javier (EBJ) on Feb. 11, 1986 sparked the flame

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS SORRY, but I don’t share the euphoria of Sen. TG Guingona, chair of  the Blue Ribbon Committee, over the testimony of  Ruby Tuason in the Senate yesterday. After the hearing Guingona  enthused:  “A three-point shot na buzzer beater na, winning shot pa.” Haaaah? Sure, Tuason detailed her  role as “commissioner”  in the

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS  DOES Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario have a problem with the case filed with the United Nations Arbitral Court against China’s nine-dash line map that prompted him to commission Social Weather Stations  to do a survey which focused on the case and the problem with China in the West Philippine Sea? SWS

By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS IN a meeting with Vietnamese Defense Minister  Gen. Phung Quang Thanh in August last year, President Aquino  asked the visiting official how they are able to maintain good relations with China despite conflicting territorial claims. ( Despite a ferocious battle over the Paracels Islands in the South China Sea  40 years