Archive - Focus

By TESSA JAMANDRE SIXTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD Kumiko Nakasone last saw her Japanese father at the close of World War II. The family was separated when her father and brother were repatriated to Japan shortly after, leaving her and two other siblings behind. Nakasone’s father is now dead, but Nakasone has always yearned to see her brother and

By YVONNE CHUAUNLIQUIDATED cash advances of national government agencies and local government units have ballooned to P10 billion, prompting the Commission on Audit to restore the pre-audit of select government transactions starting next month. The COA said it was restoring the practice of pre-audit in a bid to check what it described as the “rising

VERA FILES trustees Yvonne Chua and Luz Rimban, and contributor Diosa Labiste won the top prize at the 2009 Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism (JVOAEJ) for their investigative report “Quedancor swine program another fertilizer scam.” Roel Landingin of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism won the other Award of Distinction for his

By TESSA JAMANDRE THE Oakwood mutiny, the Marines standoff and the Manila Peninsula siege have left a mark not only in history but also in the hearts of three young girls. Thea Trillanes, Faye Querubin and Aika Lim have had to endure the prolonged absence of their fathers—former Navy captain and now senator Antonio Trillanes IV,

PRESIDENT Gloria Arroyo will make a “secret” trip to Colombia after her state visit to Japan ends Saturday. Sources at the Department of Foreign Affairs said they learned of the inclusion of Cartagena, Colombia in the President’s itinerary only Friday and were taken aback that Malacanang had not disclosed to them the scheduled trip. The

By ANDREW JONATHAN BAGAOISAN and MARK ANGELO CHING OFFICIALS of the Commission on Higher Education are used to dealing with members of congressmen making all sorts of demands—from requests for scholarships to following up the permits of nursing schools. But the buck of political pressure does not stop in Congress. It goes all the way

By ANDREW JONATHAN BAGAOISAN and MARK ANGELO CHINGNURSING schools all over the country will be opening their doors this week to thousands of students with the great white cap dream—getting a nursing degree, working in a hospital abroad and earning a comfortable living.  But not all these schools are qualified to offer the Bachelor of

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS FORMER presidential chief of staff Mike Defensor has withdrawn the perjury case he filed against whistleblower Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada, accusing the judge of bias. “I write to respectfully inform you that I am no longer interested in pursuing the case,” Defensor said in a letter to Judge Jorge Emmanuel Lorredo, delivered to

By IBARRA C. MATEO THE five provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) have performed the poorest in terms of life expectancy, school enrollment, literacy and incomes among all 77 provinces in the country, according to the 2008/2009 Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR) which was released Wednesday. The PHDR surveyed Metro Manila and the

By JENNIFER SANTIAGO HIGH dropout rates. Low pupil performance. Poor teacher quality.  Inappropriate language of learning. Irrelevant textbooks. Excessive centralization. Inadequate financial resources. This is how Yale University professor George Counts described the Philippine educational system in 1925, when he did a study on the performance of the country’s school system. More than eight decades

By IBARRA C. MATEO and YVONNE T. CHUA IN next year’s elections, voters should put in office an “education president” who will make quality education the national priority and the key strategy in reducing poverty. The call was made Monday by representatives from a broad spectrum of society, including academe, business and civil society, at

By SHERRIE ANN TORRES SHE USUALLY works from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday to Friday. But these days, Rosario “Bea” Obsequio Riel, director of the Internal Audit Department (IAD) of the House of Reprentatives, stays awake, working even at home, until three in the morning. Riel is compiling evidence for a case she is