Archive - Focus

By MALTE E. KOLLENBERG
GONGJU, South Korea —Two and a half hours south of Seoul by land lies the farming village of Tapgok-ri, a remote part of the city of Gongju. It is nothing like the glittery and glamorous world shown in Korean dramas and K-Pop music videos, which are increasingly popular among Filipino women. Here on Jan. 11, 2011, Cathy Deocades, 24, was found hanging from a wooden bar in an abandoned house several meters from her home. The police came and concluded suicide. Investigations stopped and the case was closed.

By YVONNE T. CHUA
IF things go as planned, the Department of Education will start delivering this month 61.4 million copies of textbooks and teachers’ manuals worth P2.58 billion to public elementary and high schools nationwide. But civil society watchdogs as well as several former and current education officials say about half the books, or just over 30 million copies valued at P1.317 billion, were procured by direct contracting, a mode they said violates Republic Act No. 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act. The law sets competitive or public bidding as the rule for all state procurements and allows direct contracting only in “highly exceptional cases.”

By LUZ RIMBAN
TWO prominent members of a powerful political family in Abra are facing plunder charges for allegedly embezzling more than P130 million in municipal funds, in what a whistleblower has called “big-time corruption in a small town.” Named in a complaint-affidavit are former Abra congresswoman Cecilia Seares-Luna and her eldest son Jendricks

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
A COMMISSION on Elections executive who investigated the overpriced P690-million ballot secrecy folder contract bought for the May 2010 elections with OTC paper supply has been put on “floating” status.

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS and YVONNE T. CHUA
THE military fact-finding board created to investigate allegations of the soldiers’ involvement in the 2004 election cheating did not pursue information given by two Marine officers of the money distributed by a general during and after elections that did not need liquidation.

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS and YVONNE T. CHUA
RETIRED Vice Admiral Mateo M. Mayuga once said he would bring the results of his factfinding mission on the purported involvement of the military in the cheating in the 2004 presidential elections that enabled Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to stay in power to his grave. But Mayuga isn’t getting his way. Recently, President Benigno S. Aquino III declassified his “secret” report, popularly known as the Mayuga Report, and the 15-page executive summary has made its way to the news media.

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
THE resignation of Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim has left unresolved the problem with a politically well-connected tourism official he has brought to the attention of President Aquino. Highly reliable sources said Lim has informed President Benigno S. Aquino III about alleged questionable activities of Mark Lapid, chief operating officer of Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA).

By TESSA JAMANDRE
AN aggressive overflight reconnaissance over Philippine-claimed isles in the oil-rich Spratlys group of islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) had been monitored and reported to the Philippine military shortly after Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario returned from his visit to Beijing.

By LUZ RIMBAN
A NEW study by the United Nations has urged the Philippines to end the practice of political appointments at the Commission on Elections and professionalize the electoral body as a step toward addressing the problems of fraud and violence during elections.

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
THE government paid a price for getting Merceditas Gutierrez to resign as Ombudsman, a deal one official justified by saying that subjecting her to a drawn-out impeachment trial would have been an emotional and divisive political exercise.

By LEILANIE ADRIANO
BADOC, Ilocos Norte.—The birthplace of famous Filipino painter Juan Luna here, 340 kilometers north of Manila, appears to be a peaceful community of hardworking farmers on the outside. But some households own at least one high-powered gun, sometimes more, especially in the village of Nagrebcan that has been dubbed a haven of hired killers.

By ROLAND SIMBULAN
YOU were snatched from us "as swift as the wind" as you were on your way to meet your high school batchmates that fateful evening of May 13, 2011. Your life and character, as eulogized by so many, personified you as "gentle as a forest, fierce as fire, firm as a mountain," to borrow from Sun Tzu.

By KATHLYN DELA CRUZ
IF the gauge of a successful information campaign is awareness of its target beneficiaries, the government's media group appears to have bungled its job once again.
A month after the government started distributing fuel cards to the public transport sector on May 2, many jeepney drivers have still not availed themselves of the subsidy simply because they were not aware of it.

By MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN
THEY came at the first light of day.
Walking through the unsuspecting mossy forests, they passed by the life-size images of Jesus and Roman Centurions depicting the Christianity's Station of the Cross just below the two gigantic government television antennas and half a dozen more communications transmitters.

THE U.S. Court of Appeals has found probable cause for former Police Officer Michael Ray Aquino to be extradited to the Philippines to stand trial for the Dacer-Corbito double-murder case. “Upon review of the record, we conclude that competent evidence supports the probable cause finding in this case,” according to a May 3 certified true copy of the court’s judgment affirming the ruling handed down by the District Court for New Jersey last Oct. 14.

By GREGORY PAUL H. YAN
INSIDE a dank, dimly lit corner shop within the sprawling Cartimar pet complex in Pasay City, a representative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) gazed at a large and brightly lit aquarium where the shop’s most expensive fish are displayed for sale.

By AMER R. AMOR
AFTER the earthquakes that hit Japan and New Zealand, volcanologists are drawing attention to the possibility a big one could hit Baguio, but the city lacks a comprehensive disaster management program and has in fact repeatedly failed to enforce environment rules that could mitigate disaster.

By ED SITJAR
JEANNE sat with her 2-month-old baby at a fastfood restaurant in a mall in Caloocan City, looking like a regular customer. In reality, she was there to make a sale, and waiting for a client to pick up the merchandise.