Archive - Focus

By YASMIN D. ARQUIZA DAVAO CITY—Once a week, the drone of airplanes shatters the early morning calm in Calinan, a cluster of small farmlands in the hilly terrain around Mount Apo. It is the signal for farmers to rush indoors or take cover and stop feeding livestock, for women to pull down clothes hanging out

By DIOSA LABISTE ILOILO CITY—Noel Bejo and his wife decided to start a piggery in their hometown of Banate 48 km from here when they returned from Libya where both of them had worked as nurses. Thinking it would be their goldmine, Bejo signed up for a contract growing scheme with the Quedan and Rural

By YVONNE T. CHUA and LUZ RIMBAN TWO months before the May 2004 elections, the Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor) obtained a P5-billion syndicated loan from Equitable PCIBank and Land Bank of the Philippines but only needed at most a fifth of the money it borrowed. It also presented “bloated figures” of its

By YVONNE T. CHUA and LUZ RIMBAN THE Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor) does not only give out loans to the poor. It also “lends” money to “needy” politicians, congressmen included. Insiders say Quedancor is the one government corporation politicians know they can run to when they want cash—for political reasons or otherwise.

Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor) called “the poor man’s financing institution,” the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) credit guarantee arm was giving out loans in the form of piglets and feeds, with a buy-back scheme that assured borrowers some income.

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS IT WAS NO accident that it was the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police that penetrated the Batasan Pambansa and stuffed the ballot boxes with fake election returns to make it look like Gloria Arroyo won the 2004 elections. Established in 1983 initially to help combat insurgency and later to

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS WHEN Gloria Macapagal Arroyo delivers her eighth State of the Nation Address at the Batasang Pambansa session hall today, she will be standing close to where, three years ago, police commandos say they replaced genuine election returns (ERs) with fake ones in ballot boxes that were being readied for a recount of

By YVONNE T. CHUA WITH seven years to go, the Philippines is in danger of not meeting all the targets that have been set for countries to provide “Education for All” by 2015. “Education for All by 2015 – Will we make it?”, a midterm review of progress across the six EFA goals released recently

By YVONNE CHUA and LUZ RIMBAN THE delivery of textbooks from the Department of Education in Manila to far-flung areas is usually a boring and mundane obligation. But come July, select communities in remote areas will be welcoming the arrival of textbooks with celebrations resembling town fiestas, complete with dances and décor.

By YVONNE CHUA and LUZ RIMBAN WHEN public high school sophomores get the new Social Studies textbook next week, they will be holding in their hands what could be a source of a diplomatic irritant:The book mentions Taiwan as a “country” separate from the People’s Republic of China, in violation of the one-China policy the

MALACANANG is at loggerheads with Congress on how best to establish the country’s new archipelagic baseline to conform to international law, but without giving up its claim over resource-rich Spratly islands and other disputed territories that fall within its extended continental shelf. Four baseline options reflecting these conflicting views are still being debated with no

By JESSICA HERMOSA and JOHANNA SISANTE   THERE IS perhaps no lawmaker as enthusiastic about biofuels as Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri. Zubiri was still congressman for the third district of Bukidnon when he became principal author of the House bill that eventually became Republic Act 9367 or the Biofuels Act. He campaigned hard to get