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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

TWO more bills recommending that the Kalayaan Island Groups (KIG) in the disputed Spratlys group be declared a “regime of islands” have been filed in Congress. The proposals, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Rodolfo Biazon and in the House of Representatives by Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., bring to five the number of baseline

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS   DECLARING she was following President Arroyo’s order, Sen. Miriam Santiago, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, said Wednesday she will defer action on Senate Bill 1467 and House Bill 1202 that seek to define the country’s archipelagic baseline. Santiago described SB 1467 and HB 1202 as “honest and sincere,” but

CEBU Rep. Antonio V. Cuenco on Monday agreed to a proposal of House Speaker Prospero Nograles to postpone action on the baseline bill on third reading until the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council has met on the proposed legislation. “This is a brilliant idea to which I subscribe,” Cuenco, chair of the House committee on

THE POINTS raised by former Negros Oriental representative Herminio Teves in reaction to the VERA Files stories “Ethical lapses mark passage of biofuels law” and “Iggy Arroyo to use biofuels law to evade CARP?” written by Jessica Hermosa and Johanna Sisante had already been mentioned in the said reports.