Maniolas

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago reiterated Friday her appeal to her colleagues and the public to support her bills to instutionalize gender equality. Santiago, author of the Magna Carta of Women (Republic Act No. 9710) and co-author of the Reproductive Health Law (RA No. 10354), said some of her proposed legislation on women and gender equality remain at the committee level. “I have written the committee on women, family relations, and gender equality earlier this year to ask that it prioritize public hearings for my bills,” the senator said in a press statement One of the measures pending in the committee is the proposed Child Support Act (Senate Bill No. 403), which seeks to penalize any parent who refuses to support a child. “This will protect single parents, especially women, from being financially abandoned by the child’s other parent,” the senator said. She also filed the Safe Haven Bill (S.B. No. 2457), which caters to women unprepared or unfit for motherhood, while ensuring the safety of their babies. The bill seeks to allow women to turn over their newborns with government-assigned safe haven providers rather than haphazardly abandoning them. Another pending measure is the Battered Women’s Testimony Bill (S.B. No. 1558), which seeks to facilitate the use of expert testimonies in cases of women subjected to domestic violence. Santiago is also pushing for the creation of a task force that will recommend a national strategy to protect women against violent crime. The senator also filed Senate Bill No. 1751, which seeks Read More …

The police findings on the Jan. 25 Mamasapano clash may already be available online, but Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has chosen to suspend her judgment on the matter, saying “speculations” cooked up by some sectors only threaten to aggravate the situation. De Lima told reporters on Friday that she has yet to receive an official copy of the Philippine National Police’s probe results prepared by its Board of Inquiry “Talaga namang bibigyan kami ng copy, hopefully within the day, matanggap namin para ma-evaluate agad namin,” De Lima said. She added that if she gets her hands on the report by today (Friday), she will spend her weekend going over the report, which had already been posted online by the PNP earlier in the day. “I cannot be commenting on something I havent seen or havent read yet. I cannot rely on media accounts on what purportedly are contained in that report. Hindi maganda iyan kasi lalong magkakaroon ng sari-saring ispekulasyon,” De Lima said. “Iyan nga ang dapat iwasan natin ngayon, yung mga ispekulasyon kasi may mga sectors na nagfu-fuel ng mga ganyan, para instead na magkaroon ng maayos na closure, may mga sectors na mas gustong nagkakagulo,” she added. Separate DOJ investigation underway The DOJ, through the National Bureau of Investigation and the National Prosecution Service, is in the middle of a separate probe on the incident. The joint task force has committed to come up with findings by Apr. 2. Apart from the BOI report, De Lima is Read More …

Top officials of property developer Alphaland Crop. skipped on Thursday the continuation of the Senate probe on the controversial land deal it entered into with the Boy Scouts of the Philippines, which supposedly benefited Vice President Jejomar Binay. Alphaland president Mario Oreta was not able to attend the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee hearing due to “medical reasons,” his lawyer told the panel. To this, Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, who is heading the investigation, commented, “Medical reasons? He doesn’t want to hear the opinion of Commissioner [Kim] Henares?” Henares, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) chief, was present during Thursday’s hearing. She is expected to give her insights on whether Oreta’s supposed failure to declare his share from the land deal was tantamount to tax evasion. Alphaland owner Roberto Ongpin was also absent during the hearing. He is currently in Europe, according to his lawyer. During the last hearing, former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado accused Binay of getting as much as P651 million from the land deal between Boy Scouts and Alphaland Corp.    Binay’s camp has repeatedly said that Mercado’s accusations are politically motivated. Boy Scouts and Alphaland officials also insisted that the land deal they entered into was not anomalous. — RSJ, GMA News

(Updated 9:47 a.m.) If Philippine National Police Board of Inquiry chairman Director Benjamin Magalong would have his way, he would release the BOI report on the bloody Jan. 25 Mamasapano clash to the public. “The public should know,” said Magalong in a text message to GMA News Online. Magalong is also head of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.  “But it depends on SILG [Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Manuel Roxas II], who has the final say. It was he who created the BOI,” he added. At the same time, Magalong said the Board will “definitely” submit the report on Thursday, adding that the turnover will be announced to members of the media by PNP officer-in-charge Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina. On Wednesday, Espina told reporters that the decision to make the BOI report public is up to the members of the Board and higher officials. The BOI was supposed to submit its report on the Mamasapano bloodbath by end of February, but the team had asked for an extension twice since last week. Forty-four elite police troopers died during the Mamasapano clash with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, members of its splinter group, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, and some gunmen of other armed groups in Maguindanao. At the time, the police commandos were on a mission to arrest Malaysian terrorist Zulkifi bin Hir alias Marwan of Jemaah Islamiyah and Filipino bomb-maker and Abu Sayyaf member Basit Usman. Authorities claimed Marwan was killed but Read More …