AFP – Page 3 – Maniolas

Palace assailed over comment on journalist killings

News

Nov 302013

Palace assailed over comment on journalist killings

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma. Photo from http://pcoo.gov.ph MANILA, Philippines—The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Saturday assailed Malacañang for downplaying the killing of journalists in the Philippines, noting that yet another broadcast journalist was shot dead on Friday in Bukidnon. Barely a week after Palace spokesperson Herminio Coloma dismissed the summary execution of journalists in the country as “not so serious” and insinuated that the body count had been bloated, motorcycle-riding gunmen in Valencia City killed broadcaster Joas Dignos of dxGT radio. Dignos, 48, known for his critical comments against local officials on his weekday show ‘Bombardier,’ died from gunshot wounds in the head. The killing worsened the country’s record as one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, press and human rights groups the group said on Saturday. HRW said 24 journalists had been killed since President Benigno Aquino III took office in 2010 and promised to mitigate the murders. HRW Deputy Asia Director Phelim Kine accused the Aquino administration of insulting the victims and downplaying the problem, citing the remarks of Coloma. Inflated count Coloma said the number of journalists and media workers killed during the first three years of President Aquino’s administration from 2010 to 2013 had been inflated because “a driver of a network, employees of fly-by-night newspapers and a blocktimer selling skin whiteners” were included in the count. The numbers had not been validated to include only the killings of bona fide media practitioners, he said. The problem was “not so Read More …

Yolanda death toll feared to hit 7,000

News

Nov 232013

TACLOBAN — The number of people dead or missing after one of the world’s strongest typhoons struck the Philippines climbed towards 7,000 on Saturday, as the United Nations warned much more needed to be done to help desperate survivors. The government’s confirmed death toll rose to 5,235, with another 1,613 people still missing more than two weeks after Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) destroyed entire towns across a long stretch of islands in the central Philippines. Yolanda now rivals a 1976 tsunami on the southern island of Mindanao as the deadliest recorded natural disaster to strike the Philippines, which endures a never-ending battle against typhoons, earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions. The typhoon has triggered a giant, international aid effort, with dozens of countries and relief organizations rushing to deliver food, water and health services to more than four million people who lost their homes. However UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, after visiting the disaster zones, warned the world was still not responding fast enough. “Much more needs to be done. Food, clean water and shelter remain the top priorities,” Amos said as a UN appeal for funds was raised from $301 million to $348 million. Amos said huge numbers of people were still exposed to bad weather in the nine provinces ravaged by the storm, as she warned particularly of the dangers for babies, children and mothers. “I am very concerned that some 1.5 million children are at risk of acute malnutrition and close to 800,000 pregnant and nursing mothers need Read More …

AFP forms coordinating center to institutionalize foreign assistance

News

Nov 212013

AFP forms coordinating center to institutionalize foreign assistance

By Julliane Love de JesusINQUIRER.net 7:40 pm | Thursday, November 21st, 2013 Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Emmanuel Bautista. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO MANILA, Philippines—Since foreign aid had been pouring in after the onslaught of supertyphoon Yolanda, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Thursday has decided to institutionalize the military assistance given by 16 countries, particularly the United States, to the Philippines in the form of the Multinational Coordinating Center (MNCC). AFP Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Emmanuel Bautista, in a press briefing at the Office of Civil Defense headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, officially announced the creation of the MNCC “to coordinate and synchronize military to military operations and facilitate the cooperation between the AFP and the US Joint Task Force in support of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).” As foreign contingents of 61 air assets, 14 naval vessels and seven C-130s fly and dock to the country for relief missions, Bautista said the newly-established council was tasked to ensure that the movements of foreign aid were monitored “perfectly to the general situation of the disaster relief efforts of the national government.” Representing the members of US Marine Corps, Lieutenant General John Wissler said the American forces will continue to provide their relief efforts and augmentation forces for as long as these are needed, noting that the US forces are “simply here to support.” “This tragedy would have brought every nation to Read More …

UN seeks int’l aid for Bohol

News

Oct 252013

Volunteers for and members of the Philippine Red Cross team carry goods that were transported through a boat after a bridge collapsed from a massive quake that hit Bohol. ALANAH TORRALBA/ IFRC The United Nations on Friday appealed for $46.8 million (P2.01 billion) in international aid for more than 380,000 people in Bohol province now living in tents after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Central Visayas last week. Australia was the first to respond, announcing on Friday that it would provide up to P124 million in aid to support the Philippine government’s response to the humanitarian emergency caused by the earthquake in Bohol and Cebu province. The earthquake flattened homes, schools, clinics, centuries-old churches and other vital infrastructure, killing more than 200 persons. A further 35,000 families need emergency shelter while more than 380,000 residents of Bohol require assistance for basic needs like water, sanitation, food and health services for six months, UN resident humanitarian coordinator Luizha Carvalho said. “At this moment, the Philippines is the one [country] that really stands alone with the highest of needs and the highest requirements,” Carvalho told a news conference. Carvalho said she hoped donors would still give money despite a series of recent natural and man-made disasters that also required international assistance, such as a destructive typhoon in December last year and Moro rebel attacks that destroyed parts of the southern city of Zamboanga last month. “We have a very interesting pattern of several events that are happening almost simultaneously and we still hope Read More …

DEVOTEES WEEP AS QUAKE DAMAGES CHURCH TREASURES

News

Oct 152013

DEVOTEES WEEP AS QUAKE DAMAGES CHURCH TREASURES

CEBU CITY — Devotees wept after a deadly earthquake on Oct. 15 rocked the birthplace of Catholicism in the Philippines, badly damaging the country’s oldest church and leaving other historic places of worship in ruins. (In photo is the limestone bell tower of the Philippines’ oldest church, Cebu’s Basilica Minore del Santo Niño, in ruins.) Ten churches, some of which have crucial links to the earliest moments of the Spanish colonial and Catholic conquest in the 1500s, were damaged as the 7.2-magnitude quake struck the central islands of Cebu and Bohol. “It is like part of the body of our country has been destroyed,” Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua, a history lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila, told Agence France-Presse. He said the damage was particularly painful because the Philippines had already lost so many of its cultural treasures to war, typhoons, earthquakes and poverty-driven neglect. In Cebu, shocked devotees said prayers as they gathered in front of the Basilica Minore de Santo Niño (Basilica of the Child Jesus), the oldest church in the Philippines and home to one of the country’s most important religious icons. The limestone bell tower of the church, the latest version of which was built in 1735, was destroyed in the quake. “I wanted to seek sanctuary here but it turns out the church was damaged,” Fraulein Muntag, 32, a mother of two, told AFP as she wept and prayed the rosary at the site. Muntag was among 100 people who had gathered amid Read More …

No Obama? No problem

News

Oct 052013

President Barack Obama. AP FILE PHOTO Malacañang on Saturday played down the absence of US President Barack Obama from two key regional meetings—the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum in Bali, Indonesia on Monday and Tuesday and the East Asia Summit in Brunei on Wednesday and Thursday—to be attended by the region’s leaders, including President Benigno Aquino III. “I don’t think the Philippine objectives, which are a peaceful and rules-based resolution to [its territorial dispute with China], are going to be affected greatly by the absence of President Obama at one or two meetings,” Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang told journalists here. “Certainly, his presence here is welcome but this is a long game and if President Obama is not present in one or two meetings, then that’s not going to have an impact on our position,” Carandang said. Obama scrapped his attendance in the two meetings and visits to the Philippines and Malaysia this week because of the partial shutdown of the US government, forced by deadlock between the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress on the budget. US Secretary of State John Kerry is attending the two summits and visiting Manila and Kuala Lumpur in Obama’s place. Good for China But without Obama, the largest presence in the room at the two meetings will be that of China’s leader, Xi Jinping, who is already in the region visiting Malaysia and Indonesia to boost Beijing’s reputation after straining its relations with the Philippines and Vietnam over territorial disputes in the West Read More …

Philippine police prepare charges against Taiwanese fisherman — report

News

Sep 072013

Philippine police prepare charges against Taiwanese fisherman -- report

Taiwanese fisherman arrested after poaching off Batanes . Taiwanese fisherman Tsai Po (left, in red), 54, is escorted by a policeman on board his fishing boat after he was arrested for illegal fishing in the waters off Batanes on Wednesday, September 4. The PHL and Taiwan are trying to mend fences after the shooting incident that led to the death of a Taiwanese fisherman in May. AFP/Victor de Sagon/PNP Philippine police said Saturday there was strong evidence to charge a Taiwanese fisherman detained after he strayed into the archipelago’s waters — an incident that is threatening reviving relations between the neighbours. Government prosecutors are preparing poaching charges against Tsai Po who was held on Tuesday near the Philippines’ Batan Islands, close to the maritime border with Taiwan, police officer Victor de Sagon said. Police allege that Tsai, 54, intentionally entered Philippine waters and then tried to flee when a maritime fishing patrol approached him. “Our evidence is quite strong. He was collecting lobster, ornamental fish and sharks,” de Sagon told AFP. “It is obvious he was fleeing with the great speed. He did not drift here.” Tsai has made frequent visits to the area to poach for fish, de Sagon said, adding that was how officials knew where to catch him. Tsai, who is being held at Batan provincial police station, has said he does not know why he was detained and that he had been in Taiwanese waters when the incident happened. He also claims he was treated roughly Read More …

Philippines detains 18 Chinese for illegal mining

News

Aug 062013

Philippines detains 18 Chinese for illegal mining

Agence France-Presse 5:19 pm | Tuesday, August 6th, 2013 BLACK SAND mining by Chinese operators in Cagayan. MELVIN GASCON/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON FILE PHOTO MANILA – The Philippines has detained 18 Chinese men on suspicion of illegal black sand mining in the northern coastal town of Aparri, the justice department said Tuesday. Authorities say there has been a rise in the illegal extraction of magnetite – also known as black sand – which is an iron ore in huge demand by China’s steel mills. Justice department investigators raided two mine sites run by Chinese firm Hua Xia Mining and Trading Corp. last Thursday and detained 18 of its employees, department spokesman Alex Lactao told AFP. The company had a permit to dredge magnetite from a nearby river but not from the coast, he said. It is illegal to extract any minerals within 200 meters (656 feet) of a beach under Philippine law. “Nine Chinese nationals were burrowing and processing magnetite sand within the prohibited zone,” said Lactao. The other nine were arrested at a nearby beach where they were building a magnetite processing plant, he added. Environmental groups say illegal magnetite mining has been stripping Philippine coasts through erosion. They have blamed small-scale mining firms, most of them allegedly Chinese and often operating in collusion with shady local government officials, for the devastation. The men detained in Aparri lacked permits required to work in the Philippines and could face further criminal charges, said Lactao, adding they have now been handed over Read More …

AFP ready to repel attacks of NPAs out to avenge defeat in Sorsogon

Entertainment

Jul 102013

MANILA, July 8 (Mabuhay) — The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Monday said that it was more than prepared to respond should the New People’s Army (NPA) would decide to go ahead with its plan to conduct vengeance attacks against civilian and military targets in Sorsogon. This is in the wake of the […]

Unruly passenger on Qantas flight sent back to Australia

News

Jul 062013

Unruly passenger on Qantas flight sent back to Australia

By Jerome AningPhilippine Daily Inquirer 3:41 pm | Saturday, July 6th, 2013 MANILA, Philippines—Because of his alleged unruly behavior on a Qantas Airlines flight to Manila, an Australian man was sent back to Sydney immediately after arriving at Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Thursday evening, the police said Saturday. Mamudu Kamara, 33, was detained by air marshals of the Australian Federal Police aboard flight QF-019 after he allegedly tried to force his way into the cockpit two-and-a-half hours into the eight-hour flight from Sydney. An AFP agent detailed at the Australian Embassy in Manila notified the NAIA-based Philippine National Police’s Aviation Security Group about the incident. Upon the plane’s arrival at NAIA Terminal 1 at 7 p.m., the handcuffed Kamara was escorted by the four air marshals who had arrested him to the NAIA immigration office for document and then to the PNP-ASG clinic for a medical checkup. He was sent back to Sydney on the Qantas flight’s return trip about an hour later. Chief Inspector Felindo Navarro of the ASG, who responded to the embassy’s advisory, said Kamara became abusive to cabin crew members after finding out that his mini-television screen was not working. When the crew would not fix the monitor, Kamara became angry and then rushed toward to cockpit and tried to open the cockpit door, apparently to personally complain to the pilot. Kamara was then restrained by the air marshals with assistance from the crew. The pilot made the decision to continue the flight to Manila. Read More …

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