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PHILIPPINE National Police Chief Avelino Razon ordered yesterday Chief Superintendent Leocadio Santiago, director of the Special Action Force, to look into VERA Files two-part report that the elite police unit undertook the switching of  2004 election returns in the Batasan Pambansa.   Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, who is also president of the United Opposition, however,

MALACANANG issued today the following press release in reaction to a VERA Files  report that several police commandos have confirmed their participation in the switching of election returns at the Batasan Pambansa in early 2005 to make it look like Gloria Arroyo won the 2004 elections:   “Don’t believe in the baseless allegation, but, instead,

FORMER Cabinet members are asking Congress to pass immediately a law that would define the country’s baseline in keeping with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS.   The Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO), in a statement issued on July 11, cited the need to enact a baseline law in

THE Philippines is “far from achieving Education for All” by 2015, concluded a fact sheet released on July 11 by the National Statistical Coordination Board.   The NSCB, which consolidates facts and figures from different government agencies, pointed to the consistent drop in the net enrolment ratio or participation rate at the elementary level from

FORMER Vice President Teofisto Guingona will launch tonight his book, “Fight for the Filipino,” in which he reveals the reasons for his disillusionment with and eventual breakaway from President Gloria Macapagal–Arroyo, including her supposed order to then Justice Secretary Hernando Perez to approve the $470 million controversial agreement with the Argentinian power firm IMPSA (Industrias

THE U.S. State Department is urging the Philippine government to improve its record of prosecuting, convicting and punishing human traffickers. The State Department said in its “2008 Trafficking in Persons Report” released last month that while the Philippines demonstrated “exemplary efforts” to prevent cross-border trafficking and protect victims, it “demonstrated weak efforts to prosecute trafficking

A BATANGAS court sentenced to life imprisonment on June 30 a woman who had recruited two minors with the intention of making them sex workers in Puerto Galera, in what antitrafficking NGOs hailed as a “landmark conviction.” Judge Florencio Arellano also ordered the female trafficker to pay P2 million in fine and P50,000 in moral

THE Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance has joined the growing outcry against the dismissal of class action suit filed by Filipino journalists who were arrested while covering last November’s standoff at the Manila Peninsula Hotel. The coalition of press freedom advocacy groups in Southeast Asia said in a statement said the June 20 decision of

TWO leading newspapers assailed today the decision of a Makati court junking the P10 million class action suit filed by journalists arrested while covering the Nov. 29 standoff at the Peninsula Manila Hotel. The  Philippine Daily Inquirer in an editorial described the decision of Judge Reynaldo Laigo as “a terrible mistake.”

A MAKATI regional trial court has dismissed the P10 million class action suit filed by journalists arrested while covering the Nov. 29 standoff led by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim at the posh Peninsula Manila Hotel. Judge Reynaldo Laigo said the police order for journalists and other civilians then inside the

A PETITION of former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “JocJoc” Bolante seeking asylum in the United States has been denied twice. Both the Chicago Immigration Court and the Board of Immigration Appeals have ruled that Bolante has failed to prove his fear of persecution from the Philippine Senate.

THE Department of Education will continue distributing “Asya: Pag-usbong ng Kabihasnan “(Asia: Birth of Civilization) to public high schools without correcting the errors that depict Taiwan as a country, in violation of the one-China policy that the Philippine government upholds. A Daily Tribune report quoted Education Secretary Jesli Lapus as saying that the DepEd has no