Archive for March 27th, 2007
Ebdane: ‘Militants, not troops should leave Metro villages’
MANILA, Philippines — Those complaining about the military’s presence in depressed Metro Manila communities should be the ones to pull out, not the soldiers, Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. said Tuesday.
“They should leave. Those who are complaining over the [troop] deployment should leave,” Ebdane said in an interview with reporters.
“The residents themselves are not complaining, its them [militants]. If they cannot live with these soldiers around, why stay? What are they doing there in the first place?” Ebdane added.
Left-wing party list groups have accused soldiers deployed in the metropolis of campaigning against them and harassing their supporters but an internal investigation in the military and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Metro Manila office found no evidence of electioneering against the troops.
Ebdane reiterated that the deployment would continue even as the defense leadership studies the CHRs’ recommendation for a pullout.
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Spratlys code of conduct ‘working,’ says RP commander
MANILA, Philippines — The military commander in the western Philippines said on Tuesday that a code of conduct between claimant countries in the disputed Spratly Islands is “working” and there has been no monitored build-up of military forces recently.
“I can tell you that the code of conduct is working. As a matter of fact, we see no encroachment in the area and there is mutual cooperation between occupants in case of emergency,” said Vice Admiral Tirso Danga, Armed Forces Western Command (Wescom) chief.
“We observed no additional fortification, everything has remained status quo and I believe that with this peaceful condition the exploration of its potential is up and coming,” Danga told reporters in an interview.
The reported oil-rich Spratlys are being claimed in whole or in part by the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
In October 2006, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo proposed a joint seismic research of the Spratlys with China and Vietnam during a meeting of Chinese and Southeast Asian leaders in Nanning, China.
Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. agreed with Danga’s assessment, saying there has been “no hostile incident” in the South China Sea island chain recently.
The military is stationed on Pagasa island in the Spratlys.
Ebdane is set to visit troops there Thursday, bringing along with him a P13-million water treatment facility that will provide soldiers and residents with clean drinking water for the first time.
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Doctor comes home to run for Senate and ‘give back’ to poor
MANILA, Philippines — Doctor Martin Bautista left a lucrative practice in the United States, where he was earning as much as $4,500 a day as a gastroenterologist, and returned to the country in 2005, wanting to “give back” to his poor countrymen.
At the wake of his uncle, former De La Salle University (DLSU) president Rafael Donato in November 2006, Bautista said he found what he was looking for when “Ang Kapatiran” president Nandy Pacheco offered him a slot in the party’s senatorial ticket for the May mid-term elections.
Bautista said it took Pacheco a month to convince him to run. Now, he is one of three candidates of the “Ang Kapatiran,” alongside Zosimo Paredes, former Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) commission chief and lawyer Adrian Sison.
“Hindi lahat ay nasusukat sa limpak limpak na salapi [Not everything is measured in tons and tons of money]. You can’t take that with you to your grave,” Bautista said.
“I felt we have been blessed. We needed to get back to the Philippines,” he said in a podcast interview with INQUIRER.net editors and reporters.
Bautista and his wife, a pulmonologist, left for the US in 1989, after graduating from the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Medicine.
“It wasn’t really that we had a choice. It was contingent to the promise that we will return. We felt it was right to come back when we were prepared to come back,” he said.
Two years after graduation, Bautista said 82 of the 140 graduates in his UP class had gone to the US.
Bautista said he performed procedures worth $600 to $900 five times a
day, on top of his professional fees.
Bautista said he and his wife, Sylvia Tan-Bautista, felt “blessed” when in the 18 years that they had stayed in the US, they established successful practices and had remained healthy, while some of their contemporaries had been stricken with disease, like cancer.
The couple returned in June 2005. Their four daughters, Kathryn, Victoria, Andrea, and Anna followed a year later.
Bautista said he and his wife offer their services for free and join Church-organized medical missions across the country. He said his family lives off their earnings from their US practice.
“Eighteen years after, the conditions [in the country] are even worse. Politics here is so corrupt, people make a living out of it,” Bautista said.
If elected, Bautista said he would push for the production of medicine locally. He said the hypertension drug Amlodipine, which is manufactured by a multinational, would cost P70 per tablet but a local alternative, hydrochlorothiazide, would cost only P0.10.
Like all Kapatiran candidates, Bautista said he would like to serve as senator only for one term, which he said was enough to initiate reforms.
“A politician thinks of the next elections, but a statesman thinks of the next generation,” he said.
He will oppose efforts to amend the 1987 Constitution, saying, “What this country needs is not another set of laws.”
He said he would favor a “compromise” between the government and former president Joseph Estrada who is on trial for plunder, saying it will be “more practical.”
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Arroyo to media: Report the ‘good news’
MANILA, Philippines — Acknowledging the power of the media to “change the nation,” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has urged its members to report more on the “good news.”
“All of us, all of you will serve your time well by having good news that unite and inspire,” the President said in a speech at the opening of the Publish Asia summit at the Manila Hotel Tuesday.
Arroyo acknowledged that the media has the power to “change the nation through information and persuasion.”
“A free, dynamic, and responsible press can get the people moving towards the right direction, towards national renewal and reform,” she said.
Arroyo said she did not always agree with the media, but that she understood that this was “just part of the give and take of politics.”
The President said that the Philippines hosting of Publish Asia for the first time showed that “Filipinos believe[d] in the freedom of the press.”
Arroyo has come under fire here and abroad for failing to stop the extrajudicial killings of journalists and left-wing activists.
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Arroyo: ‘I don’t have tolerance for human rights violations’
MANILA, Philippines — Amid mounting criticism here and abroad, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said on Tuesday that she had “no tolerance” for human rights violations, deplored extrajudicial killings and was “prepared to work” with allies to “break the cycle of violence once and for all.”
At the same time, Arroyo called on communist insurgents to stop their “mindless murders” and welcomed the European Union’s planned inquiry into the killings as well as the United States’ offer to help seek “impartial justice” for the victims.
“Let me take this opportunity once again to deplore extrajudicial killings, where it may be from left or right, especially against journalists,” Arroyo said in a speech during the Publish Asia summit at the Manila Hotel.
“The Philippines is the most democratic country in the region. I don’t have tolerance for human rights violations,” she said.
Arroyo said she was determined to “break the cycle of violence once and for all.”
“We are prepared to work with legitimate institutional and well-meaning allies in the international community on this issue,” the President said.
The human rights group Karapatan has listed over 800 extrajudicial killings since Arroyo assumed office in 2001.
On Sunday, the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) based in The Hague found Arroyo guilty of human rights violations and blamed the military for the murders, echoing findings by United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston and the Palace-formed Melo Commission, led by retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Jose Melo.
The military for its part has insisted that the communist rebels themselves were behind the killings.
“It must be said that the communist party and its armed insurgents must also put down their arms and seize their mindless murders,” Arroyo said.
On Monday, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales urged both the military and communist rebels to stop the killings.
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Legarda, Villar top Inquirer-SWS survey
MANILA, Philippines — Former senator Loren Legarda and reelectionist Senator Manuel Villar lead in the March pre-election survey of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Social Weather Stations, with an administration and an opposition candidate tied for the 12th slot.
Depending on how the tie between former senators Vicente Sotto III and John Henry Osmeña will be broken, the Genuine Opposition (GO) could win six or seven of the 12 Senate seats up for grabs, while the administration’s TEAM Unity (TU) could win three to four seats.
Two independent bets made it to the so-called magic 12 –former senator Gregorio Honasan, who is detained on rebellion charges, and Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan, who dropped to third from first place in February.
The study polled 1,200 respondents — 300 each from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao — from March 15 to 18. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
A comparison to previous surveys is available on the Survey Says section of INQUIRER.net’s Eleksyon 2007
special site.
The full text of the survey may be downloaded here.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer is the parent company of INQUIRER.net.
Fifty-eight percent of the respondents said they would vote for Legarda, who lost to fellow ABS-CBN television news anchor Noli de Castro in the 2004 vice presidential elections.
The study showed that TU bets “hardly gained” from the February survey, with only reelectionist Senator Edgardo Angara entering the probable winners’ circle at 8th place from 13th place previously.
Angara joins reelectionist Senators Joker Arroyo (10th to 11th place) and Ralph Recto (7th place), one half of the Senate Wednesday group, in the magic 12.
Another Wednesday group member, Senate President Villar, jumped to a statistical tie with Legarda in March from third place in February. Pangilinan is the fourth member of the Senate club, who were all elected in 2001 under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s ticket.
Other GO bets in the winners’ circle are reelelectionist Senator Panfilo Lacson (4th), Sorsogon Representative Francis Escudero (5th), Taguig-Pateros Representative Alan Peter Cayetano (6th), and Tarlac Representative Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III (10th to 11th).
GO candidate Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, son of incumbent Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., ranked 14th but remained in “statistical contention” for the bottom four seats with Honasan, Arroyo, Sotto, and Osmeña.
The study warned that based on the March rankings, it was possible that only two TU bets could win in the May mid-term elections.
Those ranked “statistically away” from the winners’ circle are as follows:
• Former presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor (15th)
• Sonia Roco, the late former senator Raul Roco’s widow (16th)
• Bukidnon Representative Juan Miguel Zubiri (17th)
• Zambales Governor Vicente Magsaysay (18th-19th)
• Movie actor Cesar Montano (18th to 19th)
• Surigao del Sur Representative Prospero Pichay (20th)
• Ex-Navy lieutenant Antonio Trillanes IV (21st), actor Richard Gomez (22nd to 23rd)
• Former senator Teresa Aquino-Oreta (22nd to 23rd)
• Former senator Anna Dominique Coseteng (24th)
• Ilocos Sur Governor Luis “Chavit” Singson (25th)
Joselito Pepito Cayetano (26th), whom Representative Cayetano is seeking to disqualify, was the highest-ranked bet from the Marcos party Kiluang Bagong Lipunan (KBL, New Society Movement), whose slate was recently dismissed by the late dictator’s son, Ilocos Norte Governor Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, as “nuisance” candidates.
Doctor Martin Bautista (26th), was the highest-ranked of the three candidates of the Ang Kapatiran party, which is running on a “God-centered” platform. Lawyer Adrian Sison ranked 34th to 57th while former Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) commission chairman Zosimo Paredes ranked 58th to 80th.
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