Arroyo firm: I did not plot speaker’s ouster

by Ma. Reina TolenTino ManilaTimes.net

HOUSE Deputy Speaker and Pampanga Second District Rep. Gloria Macapagal

Arroyo on Sunday, May 28 reiterated that she did not plot to unseat Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez.

“A report is going around that I was ‘duped’ by a congresswoman into thinking that the alleged House coup had the blessings of the first lady Marie Louise ‘Liza’ Araneta-Marcos,” Arroyo said in a statement. “I am truly sorry that she should even be dragged into this political fantasy of a House coup — it is disrespectful to her and to her intelligence.”

by MelVin Gascon, nesToR coRRales Inquirer.net

MANILA — Opposition senators on Tuesday, May 30 raised “grave concerns” over the impending passage of the law creating the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), alleging that this venture was not driven by the need to pump-prime the economy but by the interest of “crony capitalists.”

In his turno en contra speech, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III detailed 12 grounds on why they should not approve Senate Bill No. 2020 that seeks to put up the MIF, flagging the measure for constitutional and procedural issues.

Pimentel wondered who broached the idea of creating the MIF, as it was never mentioned by then-presidential candidate and now President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during the campaign and

CA Attorney General Rob Bonta seeks to improve hate crime reporting, solutions

by Donnabelle GaTDula-aReValo AJPress

CALIFORNIA Attorney General

Rob Bonta has vowed to pursue broader and concrete measures to improve the reporting system on racial-related hate crimes.

Bonta recently hosted a roundtable with Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) press in the state to provide updates on his statewide initiatives in line with the celebration of May as AAPI Heritage Month.

As the first Filipino American attorney general of California and the second Asian American to occupy the post after now Vice President Kamala Harris, who served between 2011 to 2017, Bonta underscored the need to improve the way hate crimes are being handled, especially in California, a state home to nearly 6 million AAPIs.

A former state assemblymember,