De Venecia elected to 5th term as House Speaker

De Venecia elected to 5th term as House Speaker
By Christian V. Esguerra, Norman Bordadora
Inquirer
Last updated 01:16am (Mla time) 07/24/2007

IN THE END, it all boiled down to who had the numbers.

 

Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia on Monday was elected to an unprecedented fifth term as Speaker of the House of Representatives following a lengthy, chaotic debate described by some lawmakers as a sham.

 

It got to a point where, for a while, it seemed uncertain that the House would be able to elect a Speaker before President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo arrived to deliver her State of the Nation Address.

 

De Venecia’s election came barely an hour before Arroyo walked in.

 

“This is a sham procedure,” Camarines Rep. Luis Villafuerte, who campaigned for Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia for Speaker, told reporters while lawmakers were holding a roll-call vote to elect the Speaker.

 

The 81-year-old Garcia, groomed by a faction of the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi) headed by Villafuerte to challenge De Venecia, was never nominated.

 

“Why didn’t they (Garcia’s supporters) nominate him?” Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin asked. “At least Julius Caesar was invited inside the forum before they stabbed him. He (Garcia) was stabbed on the way to the bathroom by his own allies. It was really weird.”

 

Villafuerte said it was Garcia who said he did not want to be nominated anymore.

 

“He advised me that he didn’t want to participate anymore in this procedure, which is a total sham,” he said. “We are not recognizing it. We are not participating.”

 

Villafuerte predicted a turbulent 14th Congress, citing the “arrogant” manner De Venecia was elected. De Venecia mustered a total of 159 votes.

 

De Venecia’s road to a fifth term was anything but a breeze.

 

Up to the plenary
Until a few hours before the House opened its session, he was conducting last-minute discussions with fellow congressmen apparently to ascertain his victory on the floor.

 

With matters still unresolved, the fates of De Venecia and Garcia inevitably went to the plenary. In the past, the choice for speaker was decided in informal discussions, with the actual election being only a formality.

 

Garcia’s allies said Monday’s proceedings were mere “preliminary skirmishes.”

 

“We will push through with our recommended reforms. If he [De Venecia] will ignore them, there will be more problems for him,” Villafuerte told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

 

Call for reforms
Villafuerte said many members of the majority coalition would call for a Garcia speakership if De Venecia shunned reforms on improved attendance, greater staff support and funding, and equity in the distribution of committee chairmanships.

 

Villafuerte questioned the number of those who actually voted for De Venecia.

 

“Many of those whose votes were counted might deny that they did because they either abstained or just kept quiet,” he added.

 

De Venecia’s opponents opened the session by promptly questioning the authority of secretary general Roberto Nazareno to act as presiding officer.

 

The debates dragged on for more than four hours, threatening to delay–if not postpone–the President’s State of the Nation Address scheduled for 4 p.m.

 

Process railroaded
The minority bloc was particularly incensed after Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales II motioned to elect De Venecia as speaker.

 

“It’s still morning but you’re already railroading the process,” Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casiño said.

 

The issue of Nazareno’s legitimacy to preside was “settled” in a disputed vote, with 160 lawmakers backing his right to be presiding officer against 40 others who were opposed.

 

Locsin said the decision not to field Garcia was meant to avoid having an administration lawmaker serve as minority leader.

 

Under the rules, the contender with the second highest number of votes automatically becomes leader of the minority.

 

Offer of reconciliation
In his acceptance speech, De Venecia extended the hand of reconciliation to Garcia and Villafuerte.

 

He praised Garcia as one of the most brilliant men in the 14th Congress and Villafuerte as his “other good friend.”

 

“There were whirlwind challenges and debate during the past few weeks as we contemplated the leadership that our House needs at this time,” De Venecia said.

 

“That process was unprecedented in its ferocity…. Now I extend a hand of reconciliation and friendship to those who were, only momentarily, my rivals,” he added.

 

De Venecia also said: “This will be the hardest working House of all time. I commit to exercise fair and decisive leadership over the next three years.”

 

A De Venecia ally, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, said the Speaker would be unhampered in pushing for reforms to alleviate poverty, including passage of the cheaper medicine bill.

 

The opposition manifested that the minority bloc was choosing San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora as its leader.

Police hunt fellow cops in kidnap, robbery gang

By Alcuin Papa
Inquirer
Last updated 06:26am (Mla time) 07/22/2007

MANILA, Philippines—Police in Southern Tagalog have launched a manhunt for six policemen suspected of being members of a robbery and kidnap gang operating in the region.

 

Chief Insp. Jess Kabigting of the Regional Special Operations Group (RSOG) identified the suspects as Police Officers 2 Ronald Digman and Eric Advincula; Police Officers 1 Diego Tagros, Marcelo Ochave and Lobell Cabagay, and their leader PO2 Billy Anciro.

 

“We are conducting pursuit operations against them and we are scouring known hideouts in the Southern Tagalog region,” Kabigting said.

 

He said that Anciro was a member of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency while the others were members of PNP Region 4-A Headquarters Support Services Group who had gone Awol (absent without official leave).

 

According to Kabigting, the suspects were members of a robbery, holdup and kidnap-for-ransom gang which operates in Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and the National Capital Region.

 

The gang, he said, has been operating for two years and is on the wanted list of the National Bureau of Investigation.

 

Digman, Advincula and Tagros were positively identified by their victims and have been charged with robbery and kidnap-for-ransom before the Cavite provincial prosecutor’s office.

 

The manhunt was an offshoot of the arrest on July 17 of two of the group’s civilian cohorts identified as Marjun Macam and Eliza Baluyut.

 

The two were nabbed in an entrapment operation after they met with kidnap victim Rafael Sanchez in Cavite.

 

The two had asked Sanchez, who was earlier abducted by the group but who was released after paying a P100,000 ransom, to buy back his cellphone which was taken from him when he was abducted.

Teenage boy shot by security guard

By Chris Ligan
Cebu Daily News
Last updated 03:53pm (Mla time) 07/23/2007

Cebu City, Philippines – A teenage boy was shot by the security guard of a drug store chain at the corner of Fuente Osmeña and General Maxilom Avenue, Cebu City about 2:45 a.m. Sunday.

 

The victim, aged between 14 and 16, was placed under observation at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) after he sustained a gunshot wound in the right side of his body.

 

He was allegedly shot by Marlon Sedano, 41, of Bulacao, Talisay City.

 

Witnesses, who include a cigarette vendor and a taxi driver, told police investigators that the victim was sitting in front of the Mercury Drug Store when Sedano ordered him to transfer to another area.

 

The boy refused and Sedano allegedly kicked him, which prompted the boy to run.

 

In retaliation, the boy picked up a stone and hurled it towards Sedano. He missed and instead hit the glass wall of the drug store, causing it to break.

 

Sedano allegedly chased the boy and opened fire at him.

 

After he hit the boy, Sedano, himself, brought the victim to the hospital.

 

Sedano surrendered to the police and was temporarily detained at the Fuente police station.

 

Sedano turned over his service firearm, a .38 caliber revolver, four live bullets and an empty shell.

Manila mayor leads burning of video betting machines

Manila mayor leads burning of video betting machines
By Allison Lopez
Inquirer
Last updated 05:49pm (Mla time) 07/23/2007

MANILA, Philippines — Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim on Monday led the destruction of 59 units of “video karera” and fruit games as part of his campaign against vices that lure the youth.

 

Lim and Manila Police District (MPD) acting director Danilo Abarzosa burned down the machines, which were seized by MPD’s various units, at Bonifacio Shrine Monday morning.

 

Last week, the mayor ordered the banning of students from playing computer games during class hours, in shops near their schools.

 

He said concerned parents have called for an immediate stop to activities that distracted students and sometimes caused them to skip their classes or spend their allowance.

 

Meanwhile, Lim also praised the MPD chief on Monday for the arrest of suspected drug pusher Ismael Ibrahim Elid, who was caught with about 400 grams of shabu valued at P1.3M.

 

Elid, a native of Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur, was apprehended over the weekend by Station 8 operatives on the corner of Rawatun and Palanca Streets in San Miguel, Manila.

 

Station 8 commander Chief Inspector Ganaban Ali said the arrest was a result of a week-long surveillance on the alleged rampant illegal drug trade on Palanca Street.

 

He said policemen approached Elid when he was spotted in the area clutching a plastic bag, but the 46-year-old man chose to run as the cops pursued him.

 

Transparent plastic sachets containing the illegal drug were reportedly found by the policemen inside the suspect’s bag.

 

Appropriate charges were being readied against Elid, as the mayor ordered the MPD to go after the “big fish” or those supporting the suspect’s operations.

Cops seek law requiring banks to install security cameras

By Kristine L. Alave
Inquirer
Last updated 05:55pm (Mla time) 07/23/2007

MANILA, Philippines — Chief Superintendent Luizo Ticman, Eastern Police District director, has urged local government officials in the area to pass laws that would require banks to install cameras and other security equipment inside and outside their establishments.

Ticman on Monday said this system would speed up the identification of robbers.

At present, not all banks have a closed circuit television system that monitors what is happening both inside and outside their establishments, he added.

 

According to the EPD chief, local governments should also compel banks to improve their security and alarm systems. He proposed that city councils pass an ordinance requiring banks to have sophisticated security systems and those which fail to comply with the requirement should not be given a business permit.

Ticman earlier asked banks to install cameras in strategic parts of their establishments after a series of robberies in the eastern part of Metro Manila.

Deputy Director General Reynaldo Varilla, head of the National Capital Region Police Office, also ordered the city’s police districts to establish a desk that would solve bank heist complaints and conduct operations against syndicates.

He also ordered the activation of the Anti-Bank Robbery Special Operations Task Force to oversee the progress of the project.

The order, Varilla said, came after a June 29 meeting between the top brass of the NCRPO, bank security managers and members of the Joint Anti-Bank Robbery Action Committee.

Varilla directed the activation of the task force after bank officials “expressed dismay over the failure of police authorities to pursue cases and arrest suspects of bank robberies.”

CBCP protests unresolved probe into Indonesian priest’s slay

CBCP protests unresolved probe into Indonesian priest’s slay
By Nikko Dizon
Inquirer
Last updated 09:28pm (Mla time) 07/23/2007

MANILA, Philippines — As the euphoria over the release of Father Giancarlo Bossi swept the nation, the Society of the Divine Word Missionaries (SVD) and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) rued the slow progress of the investigation into the death of Indonesian missionary Father Fransiskus Madhu.

 

SVD missionaries said they were still awaiting the police determination of the motive for the murder of the 30-year-old priest, killed more than 100 days ago.

 

“The case has made little progress,” said Father Jerome Adriatico, SVD provincial superior of the SVD northern province.

 

Adriatico was quoted in an article posted over the weekend on CBCPNews, an online magazine of the Catholic bishops’ organization.

 

Madhu, who came from Indonesia’s predominantly Catholic Flores Island, was killed on April 1 as he prepared for Palm Sunday Mass at Mabongtot Elementary School in Lubuagan, Kalinga.

 

The young priest was shot five times with an armalite rifle.

 

Police identified and later arrested the prime suspect, Nestor Wailan, alias Sukman, and three other men.

 

But the SVD lamented that “the case is still under investigation and the motive for the killing has not been established.”

 

The CBCP article said that 100 days after the killing, a group of Indonesian Catholics protested at the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta and demanded that the Philippine government “expedite the investigation of the murder of Father Madhu.”

 

“It has been three months now since he was murdered. There has been a lot of talk, a lot of promises, a lot of press releases regarding the solution of his murder, but up to now, they are just talk,” Father Agercio Orbos, mission secretary of the SVD central province, said in the CBCP article.

 

Archbishop Oscar Cruz, Pangasinan archbishop and former CBCP president, said the government’s treatment of the cases of the two missionaries were “poles apart.”

 

“Without questioning the merits of the all-out search for Fr. Bossi, practically nothing was done for Father Madhu,” Cruz told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone when sought for comment.

 

Bossi, a 57-year-old member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, was abducted by armed men on June 10 while on his way to say Sunday Mass in a remote village in Zamboanga Sibugay.

 

He was released by his kidnappers Thursday after 40 days in captivity.

2 Pasig children allegedly killed by their parents

By Kristine L. Alave
Inquirer
Last updated 01:50am (Mla time) 07/24/2007

MANILA, Philippines — Two children — aged 9 and 3 — died at the hands of their parents in two separate incidents in the village of Maybunga, Pasig City over the weekend, police said Monday.

In both cases, the boys’ neighbors banded together to file complaints against their parents who allegedly maltreated them and brought on their sudden and early deaths.

The nine-year-old boy, identified as Fernando Alabado, allegedly fell down the stairs on Sunday evening and neighbors accused the boy’s parents, mother Mary Anne Soriano and her live-in partner Gregorio Oroseo, of maltreating him.

The family lived in West Bank Road, Floodway, in the village of Maybunga, Pasig City, reports said. Neighbors said the boy had been physically abused by his mother and stepfather several times.

Around Sunday midnight, the family’s next-door neighbor Marilyn Baarde, 29, said she was standing outside her house when she heard a loud thud from Soriano’s house.

When she checked inside, Baarde said she saw Alabado sprawled on the landing, unconscious and his hands tied.

Baarde said she and her siblings rushed the boy to the Pasig City General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

In their sworn statements to the police, Baarde and the family’s other neighbors said Soriano and Oroseo regularly beat up the boy.

“The boy always has bruises in different parts of his body,” Nenita Encenas, another neighbor told the police.

Soriano was charged with parricide while Oroseo was charged with child abuse at the Pasig City Office of the Prosecutor Monday morning, Police Officer 1 Clifford Hipolito, the investigating officer, said. He said the police would order an autopsy on the child’s body.

In another incident reported Monday, Bryan Gonzales, a three-year-old boy from the same village died after his own mother slammed his head against the wall.

Neighbors who went to the Pasig City police Monday morning accused the boy’s mother, identified as Michelle Gonzales, 22, of abusing the boy and eventually killing him on Saturday.

Jocelyn Lansang, Gonzales’ neighbor, said Bryan’s mother resented the boy and that she regularly beat him, hitting him in different parts of his body.

She reported that on Saturday, at about 11 a.m., she saw Gonzales force the boy to eat. When Bryan refused to eat, the mother got angry at her son and repeatedly slammed the boy’s head on the wall. In a tearful account, Lansang said she saw the boy convulse and die on the spot.

Lansang told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that she and other members of the community had previously warned Gonzales against beating her son, who had become withdrawn.

But recently, Lansang said Gonzales returned to her old ways. The neighbor said Gonzales resented the boy because his father left her.

The Pasig City police had sent investigators to Gonzales’ house to determine her liability.

Cops dismiss terrorism angle in Cebu resort bomb try

By Jhunnex Napallacan
Visayas Bureau
Last updated 10:49pm (Mla time) 07/23/2007

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Lapulapu City police dismissed the terrorism angle in the recovery of a bomb on Sunday dawn just outside the Hilton Cebu Resort and Spa, one of the posh resorts in Cebu located in the city.

 

Superintendent Louie Oppus, chief of the Lapulapu City Police Station, concluded that personal motive was behind the incident.

 

“Definitely, it’s not related to terrorism,” Oppus said on Monday.

 

Oppus said they had “leads” on the identities of the people who could be behind in the bomb blast attempt.

 

He said one of the angles that they considered was the implementation of a strict policy by the resort’s security guards and village watchmen in the area against public utility vehicles, mostly van-for-hire, parked along the road.

 

Oppus said many vans-for-hire parked along the road outside the resort waiting for passengers either from the resort, the nearby Shangrila’s Mactan Island Resort and Spa or from the small port where several tourists would arrive after their site-seeing activities or island hopping.

 

He theorized that the target of the bomb could be the security guards or village watchmen whose outpost is also located there.

 

The hotel management alerted the police about the paper bag left by two motorcycle-riding men in front of the resort’s security guard’s booth at 2 a.m. on Sunday.

 

Authorities who searched the bag, found an MK2 bomb, a pineapple-shaped bomb used during the World War 11, Oppus said.

 

Though it was just a grenade, Oppus said, it could have killed people had it exploded.

 

Oppus said members of his Special Weapons and tactics (SWAT) team detonated the bomb hours after it was recovered.

Basilan folk flee homes as fight looms

By Julie Alipala, Alcuin Papa
Inquirer
Last updated 02:34am (Mla time) 07/23/2007

MARINES have begun deploying on Basilan island and residents have started to flee their homes in the face of defiant Moro rebel announcements that there will be no compliance with the military ultimatum for the surrender by Sunday of those responsible for the grisly killing of 14 soldiers.

 

“We are not going to war,” said Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, in a text message to reporters in Camp Aguinaldo Sunday. “We are going to punish the beheaders.”

 

Mohaqher Iqbal, chief negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Sunday that the MILF was rejecting government demands to turn over fighters involved in the July 10 ambush in Basilan during which 10 of the 14 Marines killed were subsequently beheaded and mutilated–an act denounced by officials as “barbaric” and contrary to the norms of war.

 

The soldiers were searching for kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi when they were ambushed by MILF rebels, allegedly assisted by al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf bandits. Bossi, 57, was freed on Thursday after 40 days’ captivity in Karomatan, Lanao del Norte.

 

Iqbal said there was no “moral basis” for the government demand because the killings happened during a “legitimate encounter” and there was no provision for such a demand even in the ceasefire accord between the MILF and the Philippine government.

 

“We will wait for the aggressors to come,” he said. “Our fighters in Basilan will now invoke our right to self-defense, which is God-given to anyone who is attacked right in his home.”

 

Residents flee
Bas Sattar Ali, an MILF member and representative to the Basilan’s ceasefire monitoring team, said rebel forces numbering “thousands” had been instructed to maintain a defensive position.

 

“If we are being fired at, we will not fire back. But if the government soldiers enter our territory, we will defend it to our last breath,” Ali told the Inquirer in a phone interview.

 

Mayor Jakilan Karam said most of the 10,000 residents in his town of Albarka were staying but some residents in the barangays of Ginata, Dinapa, Makalang and Linungan had fled their homes.

 

Acting Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales on Saturday ordered the military to mount punitive action against those responsible for the beheading of the soldiers unless the MILF surrenders them by Sunday.

 

But as time ticked, only defiant statements came from MILF spokespersons.

 

Brig. Gen. Ramiro Alivio, 1st Marine Brigade commander in Isabela, said he was waiting for the signal from higher-ups on when to launch the punitive action.

 

“We are just buying time right now. We cannot declare when and how, it’s operational in nature,” Alivio said.

 

No deadline extension
Western Mindanao Command chief Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo earlier said the ultimatum for the MILF to turn over those who were involved in the beheading would end Monday. He said the military did not have any plan to extend the deadline.

 

“The MILF leadership already knows our intention, that we have given them a time limit for them to understand what will be the consequence if they will not surrender the people who murdered our soldiers,” he said.

 

But Eid Kabalu, speaking for the MILF, said it had not been “determined if indeed MILF forces were behind the beheading.”

 

“That’s why we have to let the investigation begin. If war erupts, this will not be the making of the MILF,” Kabalu said.

 

A source in the military said command conferences had been going on since last week as plans for an operations against the MILF were being discussed.

 

Another source, a ranking official, said five Marine battalions had been dispatched to Basilan. Several battalions have also been deployed to the Lanao provinces for a possible outbreak of violence in Central Mindanao.

 

Basilan Rep. Wahab Akbar, in a phone interview on Saturday night, said while he could not prevent a possible military operation in his province, he did not want clashes to happen and cause displacement of thousands of civilians.

 

Akbar said he had met with Gov. Zaldy Uy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao on contingent measures for civilians and affected communities.

 

Fr. Ramon Ma. Bernabe, provincial head of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in the Philippines and former president of Norte Dame University in Cotabato City, said an impartial investigation should be “given a chance to work, according to the mechanisms of the prevailing ceasefire agreement.”

 

Administration Sen. Richard Gordon also appealed to the Organization of the Islamic Conference to exercise its influence on the MILF to help pacify the situation in Mindanao.

 

Gordon also joined the clamor for the AFP to give time to the tripartite body tasked to investigate the July 10 ambush.

 

“Whoever did that is an outcast, an outlaw,” Gordon said, condemning what had been widely described as a “barbaric act.”

Priest asks Arroyo: Make the poor feel SONA promises

Northern Luzon Bureau, Central Luzon Desk
Last updated 10:59pm (Mla time) 07/23/2007

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — A Catholic priest in Malolos town said the people, especially the poor, must benefit from the promises President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has made again and again in her State of the Nation Addresses.

 

“Whatever she said must be felt by the poor. Marami pa rin ang mahirap at corrupt (Many are still poor and corrupt),” said Father Dennis Espejo, head of the commission on service of the Diocese of Malolos.

 

“She has many good projects for the country, yet it seems people could not feel its good results. Many are still jobless,” said Mark Romer Eleogo, a tourist guide and driver from Bulakan town.

 

In Pampanga, Noel Valencia, a development worker, found the SONA a “variation on a theme that has defined her administration: a quest for modernity that doesn’t address a deep-rooted impediment to modernization — patronage politics.”

 

Chat Sebastian, professor at the University of the Philippines in Pampanga, said this was the first time in any recent SONA that Filipino science and math students and other academic achievers in international competitions were “honored.”

 

Still, Sebastian believed that “good macroeconomic fundamentals are needed.”

 

Vines Amameda, public information officer of the Department of Agrarian Reform in Central Luzon, said Arroyo’s speech “covered a lot of ground this time compared to the past.”

 

She said she “somehow agreed that [the President] has started much of the foundations of her vision.”

 

“She is unshakeable. Let’s pray for her,” Amameda said.

 

In Nueva Ecija, lawyer Emily Padilla of San Leonardo town said Arroyo’s statements showed a strong leader, similar to the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

 

“The President is a strong [leader] based on her statements… [like former] President Marcos,” she said.

 

But many farmers in Nueva Ecija chose to work in the farm than listen to Arroyo’s speech.

 

“Wala po kaming oras diyan. Nagtatanim po kami ng palay sa bukid. Sana po pagkatapos ng SONA na iyan madagdagan na ang pagkain namin at kita (We did not listen to the SONA… we do not have time for that. We are in the field planting rice. We hope that after that SONA, we will have more food and income),” said Wilfredo Bernardo, 36, a farmer from the Science City of Muñoz.

 

In Ilocos Norte, Laoag City Mayor Michael Fariñas said the President deserved to be applauded for her administration’s achievements.

 

Fariñas said Laoag was a beneficiary of the government’s infrastructure program with the completion of a Japanese-funded dam project that solved flooding in low-lying villages in the city.

 

In Isabela, public elementary school teacher Fortunato Bayucan said teachers were hoping that the pay increase that the President had promised would be released soon.