Maniolas

Balloons and a walk highlighted early Tuesday the start of the voters’ registration for the May 2016 national and local elections. In Ilocos Norte, the Commission on Elections released blue balloons into the air to kick off an activity marking the event, GMA News’ Tina Panganiban-Perez reported. A Vine video showed the Comelec releasing the balloons to mark the start of “Walkah Walkah,” a walk that seeks to drum up awareness and support for the registration. Comelec personnel in Laoag City also processed the application forms of early registrants, Panganiban-Perez reported. Another Vine video she posted showed a band joining the “Walkah Walkah.” The Comelec’s “Walkahwalkah” Instagram account showed several people taking part in the Laoag City walk. Meanwhile, in Manila, early birds lined up at the Comelec’s Manila office for the voters’ registration, radio dzBB’s Glen Juego reported. A photo posted by dzBB’s Juego on Twitter showed voters lining up at the Comelec’s Arroceros Street office. The Comelec on Tuesday opened the registration for voters for the May 9, 2016 elections. The registration runs until Oct. 31, 2015.  Register early  On Monday, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez urged first-time voters and previously registered voters who need to give their biometrics data to take advantage of the early start of the registration period.    “Kung hihintayin natin na du’n tayo sa dulo magpaparehistro, magsisiksikan tayo diyan. Malamang sa hindi, mahihirapan kayo, baka mawalan kayo ng gana lalo. Bakit hindi niyo gawin ngayon habang maaga?” Jimenez said in a live interview on Read More …

ROME — After canonizing Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, the Holy See is now looking into beatifying Pope Paul VI, possibly as early as October when bishops from around the world meet in the Vatican for the Synod of Bishops on the Family. Raising Paul VI to the status of “blessed” has become a strong possibility after medical and theological experts reportedly approved as a miracle a United States case in the 1990s involving a fetus with brain damage whose mother had refused physicians’ advice that it be aborted. After reportedly praying to the late Pope, the mother gave birth to the child, who grew up healthy and normal. According to the Italian weekly magazine Credere of the Pauline Fathers, cardinals and bishops who are members of the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints will meet on May 5 to confirm the miracle. Once the bishops and cardinals approve the miracle, Pope Francis will likely proclaim Paul VI’s beatification in October at the end of the Synod of Bishops, according to Credere. One of only three co-chairpersons appointed by Pope Francis to preside over the synod is Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle. Pope from 1963 to 1978, Paul VI promulgated the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which St. John XXIII called in 1962, and issued the controversial encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” reaffirming the Church’s teaching against abortion and contraception. Paul VI has special relevance to the Philippines, as he was the first pope to visit the Read More …

Sen. Joker Arroyo. FILE PHOTO MANILA, Philippines—The Aquino administration has “cleverly” gotten around the constitutional prohibition on the establishment of foreign bases in the country by allowing the use of Philippine military facilities by United States forces under a new agreement on defense cooperation, former Sen. Joker Arroyo said on Saturday. “The Constitution forbids foreign bases. [But] this is even worse. You allow your bases to be used by the American forces,” Arroyo said in a phone interview. The mere act of allowing US forces “unimpeded access” to Philippine military facilities constitutes basing, which is prohibited by the Constitution, he said. “What you can’t do directly, you can’t do indirectly … What is forbidden is forbidden,” Arroyo stressed. He said the constitutional prohibition does not make a distinction between small or big bases. “It simply says bases.” The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca), signed last Monday in time for US President Barack Obama’s visit to the Philippines, grants US forces unimpeded access to and operational control of “agreed locations.” So far, the US has requested access to its former bases in Clark and Subic, as well as Poro Point, La Union, and the Camp Aguinaldo military headquarters, sources in the military said. Defense Undersecretary Pio Lorenzo Batino, who headed the government panel that negotiated the new agreement, insisted that the Edca was not a treaty that would require Senate ratification. The new agreement merely continues the policies set forth by the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the US, he said. Read More …

FLYING HIGH The flight certificate says it all for David Lagman, ABC News’ Filipino journalist on board Air Force One, during US President Barack Obama’s four-nation Asian swing. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ MANILA, Philippines—While Filipino journalists scrambled to take selfies with US President Barack Obama in the background giving a speech or walking behind them during his visit to Manila, two of their colleagues were just a bit luckier. They got to ride on Air Force One and got close enough to Obama to actually smell him. “He smelled good!” veteran Filipino journalist David Lagman told the Inquirer on Friday. “He’s not really elegant but he’s casual and cool. His grip is tight, his strides are sure and he makes it a point to make eye contact, even with us,” Lagman said of Obama. But the most the US President said to Lagman was, “Hey, how ya doin’?” A freelancer, Lagman was tapped by the US network ABC to be its cameraman to work in tandem with the network’s Filipino reporter. Covering heads of state is nothing new to Lagman. In fact, one is a close friend. Lagman, 55, has known President Aquino since they were small boys at Ateneo de Manila University. Lagman has covered former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and rode on the press plane with the rest of the White House correspondents, but never had the chance to be these presidents’ close-in media. Lagman first learned that Obama was coming to Asia from his wife, Read More …

Gary Cunningham, center, of the Scotland Police, addresses the media during a news conference Friday, May 2, 2014 at the Philippine National Police headquarters in Quezon City. Philippine police, backed by Interpol, have arrested dozens of suspected members of an online extortion syndicate who duped hundreds of victims worldwide into exposing themselves in front of webcams or engaging in lewd chats, including a Scottish teenager who committed suicide after being blackmailed, officials said. Listening to him are William Wallrapp of the US Department of Homeland Security Investigations and Hong Kong Police Chief Inspector Louis Kwan. AP MANILA, Philippines—The leaders of the international “sextortion” ring that has victims all over the world have been identified, but Philippine authorities will not disclose their identities just yet as they are still being hunted down. A multinational police operation busted the syndicate in the Philippines on Wednesday, with 87 people being arrested, including three men identified as the Internet con artists who victimized a Scottish teenager, Daniel Perry, whose suicide last year led to the discovery of the “sextortion” ring. Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, spokesman for the Philippine National Police, told the Inquirer by phone Saturday that authorities on top of the investigation already know who are running the syndicate. “Many of them have been identified because of the investigation but no details are given at the moment because operations are still [going on]. Authorities are still in pursuit of the many reported cases of this sort,” Sindac said in Filipino. Sindac said Read More …