De Lima gives 'threats' vs. Napoles benefit of the doubt

 News
Aug 302013
 
De Lima gives 'threats' vs. Napoles benefit of the doubt

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Friday said the government is verifying the alleged security threats on controversial trader Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains behind the P10-billion pork barrel scam. For the meantime, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said they are giving Napoles’s claims that her life is in danger “the benefit of the doubt.” “Even if hindi pa naba-validate, I think we can give these allegations the benefit of the doubt,” De Lima said on Friday, noting that the embattled businesswoman had formally told the Court of Appeals that there were threats to her security. She said that in a motion filed with the CA, Napoles claimed being in “grave, imminent and real danger” and receiving death threats. Napoles, currently detained at the Makati City Jail, is asking the CA to allow her transfer to a safer detention cell. “We can give this some preliminary merit na kasi possible nga namin dahil may mga ibang nadadawit ay magisip na gumawa ng masama,” De Lima said. Napoles’s lawyer Lorna Kapunan had earlier cited these threats as reason why her client chose to surrender to President Benigno Aquino III, saying he’s the only one they could trust. De Lima said the Philippine National Police is still currently verifying “credible information” that there are people who want to “silence” Napoles. De Lima’s statement came a day after she told the media that she and the National Bureau of Investigation, which is under the Department of Justice (DOJ), were unaware of any threats Read More …

US encourages peaceful resolution of West PHL Sea dispute

 News
Aug 302013
 
US encourages peaceful resolution of West PHL Sea dispute

The United States on Friday encouraged all the countries involved to resolve peacefully the dispute over the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea). “We encourage nations to peacefully resolve their disputes to internationally accepted mechanism and accordance with international law, including the Law of the Sea and without coercion,” Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said during a press conference in Malacañang on Friday. He said he supports ASEAN efforts to negotiate the South China Sea Code of Conduct which he said will help peacefully manage disagreements and tensions arising from competing territorial and maritime claims. Hagel also said he “appreciates” the Philippines’ efforts to solve the dispute through peaceful means. The Philippines sought arbitration under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) last January to try to declare as “illegal” China’s nine-dash claim, which covers almost all of the South China Sea, including sections that have been declared as the West Philippine Sea. China has resisted Manila’s move to let a U.N. body intervene in the disputes, saying the Philippines’ case was legally infirm and carried unacceptable allegations. China prefers to negotiate one on one with other claimants, which would give it advantage because of its sheer size compared to smaller rivals that have less military force. Hagel, however, said China “clearly understands” that “the world is interconnected and all powers must develop relationships and get along with each other for their own economic development, for stability, security, peace.” “You cannot have growth, development, and possibilities for the Read More …

Janet Napoles gets prison food for lunch as safety measure

 News
Aug 302013
 
Janet Napoles gets prison food for lunch as safety measure

PNP releases Napoles mug shot. The Philippine National Police on Thursday, August 29, released the mug shot of Janet Lim-Napoles at Camp Crame following her surrender to President Aquino on Wednesday night, August 28. Napoles’s surrender came hours after the President offered a P10M reward to anyone who could give information that will lead to her arrest. Janet Napoles, the trader tagged as the brains behind a P10-billion pork barrel scam, had prison food for lunch at the Makati City Jail Friday noon. The decision to serve Napoles food prepared by the prison was part of precautionary measures to ensure her safety, radio dzBB’s Manny Vargas reported. Napoles, who was brought to the jail from Philippine National Police headquarters in Camp Crame before midnight Thursday, was served “ginisang toge at tokwa,” the report said. Jail officials were quoted in the report as saying Napoles liked the food. The report quoted officials as saying serving Napoles prison food was part of strict security measures due to possible threats to her life. Jail officials are wary of the possibility that food brought in from the outside could be poisoned, it added. Napoles surrendered to President Benigno Aquino Wednesday, hours after Aquino announced a P10-million reward for information leading to her arrest. Her lawyer Lorna Kapunan said this was due to Napoles’ fears that some groups were out to silence her. While Napoles stayed at Camp Crame on Wednesday night, the Makati City court that ordered her arrest for serious illegal detention ordered Read More …

Too drastic, Egyptian envoy says of Filipinos’ evacuation

 News
Aug 292013
 
Too drastic, Egyptian envoy says of Filipinos’ evacuation

By Tarra Quismundo, Tina G. SantosPhilippine Daily Inquirer 6:46 am | Friday, August 30th, 2013 Chaotic protests continue in Egypt. AP file photo MANILA, Philippines—While saying an evacuation order was too drastic for the situation, Egypt has expressed its deference to the Philippines’ decision to initiate mandatory repatriation amid continuing violence across the Arab country. In an interview, Egyptian Ambassador to Manila Mahmoud Mostafa Ahmed assured the Philippines that his country would protect Filipinos caught in the violence, emphasizing that the interim government was exerting all efforts to contain what he described to be pockets of violence in his homeland. “We respect what the Philippines issued. Despite that, we think that most Filipinos will not be willing to come back,” Ahmed told reporters at a briefing at the Egyptian Embassy in Makati City yesterday.   Emergency visits “The Secretary (Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario) has made two visits in 12 days to Cairo, and he raised the fourth degree [of emergency alert] based on his assessment. Despite that, my point of view is it (the situation) doesn’t deserve it,” he said. Other than the Philippines, only Thailand has ordered a mandatory evacuation of its citizens following clashes between supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and security forces, which has led to the hundreds of deaths and destruction of churches, courts, schools, hospitals and other critical infrastructure across Egypt. On Aug. 19, Del Rosario placed Filipinos in Egypt under Crisis Alert Level 4, the highest emergency alert for Filipinos overseas, Read More …

San Francisco-Manila Sister City Committee sets up business mission to PH

 News
Aug 292013
 
San Francisco-Manila Sister City Committee sets up business mission to PH

By Harvey BarkinINQUIRER.net U.S. Bureau 6:21 am | Friday, August 30th, 2013 San Francisco-Manila Sister City briefing on a business mission to the Philippines; (from left) Trade Commissioner Michael Ignacio, SF Mayor’s representative Mark Chandler and Carmen Colet, committee chair. HARVEY BARKIN SAN FRANCISCO–Directed by Mayor Ed Lee to bolster economic and trade relations, the San Francisco-Manila Sister City Committee has began setting up a business mission to the Philippines for November 4 to 7 this year, in advance of Lee’s visit in February 2014. Although the Sister City Committee was founded in 1961, this is the first San Francisco-Manila business mission. It comes after Lee’s multicity business trips to China this year. The plan is to make the mayor’s annual visit to the Philippines official. At the helm of the committee is businesswoman and the first Fil-Am Commissioner of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Carmen Colet. She was appointed last year by the mayor to make the mission “not just social and fun but to add business.” Philippine Department of Trade and Industry Commissioner Michael Ignacio hosted the recent briefing for reporters, architects, designers, accountants, insurance agents and other business owners. There was even a Forex service rep offering money transmissions in excess of $10,000. Mark Chandler, director of the Mayor’s Office, represented Mayor Lee, who was on a weeklong vacation. Chandler, who has visited Manila “three or four times,” said, “If you come from San Francisco and go to the Philippines, they roll out the red Read More …

‘I always forget that I’m a woman’

 News
Aug 292013
 
‘I always forget that I’m a woman’

MAGSAYSAY AWARDS By DJ YapPhilippine Daily Inquirer 4:27 am | Friday, August 30th, 2013 On her first day at university in the late 1960s, Lahpai Seng Raw was put in the boys’ dormitory by mistake because school administrators thought her native Kachin name meant she was a boy. The only daughter in a house full of boys, Seng Raw didn’t make a fuss and proceeded to drop her bags and boxes in her assigned room in the dormitory. “So all the boys left and right looked at me and told me, ‘Hey, you cannot stay here,’” she said, laughing. “And I said, ‘Why not? That’s my name there,’” said the woman who would later on become a leading light of Burma’s civil society and a recipient of the 2013 Ramon Magsaysay Award. Eventually, administrators at Rangoon University resolved the mix-up and placed the psychology major in the girls’ dormitory. The incident illustrates how Seng Raw, a widowed mother of one, has never considered her gender to be an impediment to her endeavors, especially in spurring development in the marginalized borderlands of her country, which is still reeling from decades of military dictatorship. “I always forget that I’m a woman, anyway,” Seng Raw, 63, said in an interview with the Inquirer ahead of the presentation ceremony tomorrow of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards, one of Asia’s highest honors and sometimes described as its version of the Nobel Prize. If anything, she said her being a woman was actually something of an advantage Read More …

US rushing PH to approve military access agreement, says leftist lawmaker

 News
Aug 292013
 
US rushing PH to approve military access agreement, says leftist lawmaker

By Allan Nawal, Karlos ManlupigInquirer Mindanao 1:06 am | Friday, August 30th, 2013 Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. AP FILE PHOTO DAVAO CITY, Philippines—A lawmaker warned the US has been rushing the Philippines into signing an agreement that would allow US military to have access to the country’s military facilities. Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Zarate said US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel flew to the country and met with President Benigno Aquino III to “rush the country into signing the framework agreement on the increased rotational presence of US soldiers and give them wider access to facilities in the Philippines.” “US Secretary Defense Hagel and President Aquino are ramming the access agreement down our throats,” Zarate said. He said the meeting undermined the efforts of the Senate and Congress to review the constitutionality of the agreement and the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) and glossed over “protests against the increased and permanent presence of US soldiers in the country.” Zarate said the Makabayan bloc has called for the scrapping of the 13-year old Visiting Forces Agreement through House Resolution No.8. He criticized Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario over the latter’s statements that US soldiers might use Philippine military bases should a war break out between North And South Korea. “The Philippine government is freely letting the US government use our country as a staging ground for war against North Korea and China to the detriment of the Filipino people who do not know the real intention of their overdue stay in the Read More …

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