Manila Standard - 2016 September 17 - Saturday

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PH to US: Show respect Filipinos no longer America’s little brown brothers—Yasay By Vito Barcelo

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OREIGN Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. told US officials in Washington that Filipinos “are no longer the little brown brothers of America” and appealed for mutual respect between allied nations.

“Don’t teach us about human rights,” Yasay said as he defended the government’s war on illegal drugs, which has claimed almost 3,000 lives since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power. The Philippines understands the sanctity of life and respects everyone’s rights and freedom, he said before the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washingtonbased think tank. “The two countries should work within the premise of being sovereign equals,” Yasay said against the backdrop of strained relations over US criticism of the rising bodycount in Duterte’s war on drugs. “We are asking our American friends and American leaders to look at our aspirations. We cannot be forever the little brown brothers of America (as we were) at one point in time. We have to mature, we have to develop, we have to grow,” Yasay said. Yasay also said that the alliance between US and Philippines should not be conditional and insisted that the Philippines understands the sanctity of life and freedom, which led to the struggle for independence from America in the 1940s. Next page

UNDAUNTED PUNISHER?. President

Rodrigo Duterte addresses Army Scout Rangers at their regiment training camp in San Miguel, Bulacan Thursday, on the same day a self-confessed hitman, testifying under oath during a Senate hearing, tags him in Davao killings when he was still mayor—claims quickly denied by Malacañang and some members of his Cabinet. AFP

8 high-profile inmates to testify against Leila By Rey E. Requejo JUSTICE Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II on Friday said eight high-profile inmates from the national penitentiary who will testify against Senator Leila de Lima have already been transferred to a military camp. Aguirre revealed that the two inmates who will testify against De Lima include convicted robber-turned-singer Herbert Colangco and convicted kidnapper Noel Martinez, leader of the Genuine Ilocano, one of the biggest gangs inside the New Bilibid Prison.

Colangco and Martinez belonged to the so-called Bilibid 19, high-profile inmates transferred to the National Bureau of Investigation after authorities found out that they managed to live a posh lifestyle in jail. From NBI detention, they were transferred to Building 14, a highly secure facility inside Bilbid’s Maximum Security Compound, isolated from other inmates. Aguirre said 10 to 12 highprofile inmates will testify against De Lima during the legislative investigation by the

VOL. XXX • NO. 217 • 4 SECTIONS 20 PAGES • P18 • SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2016 • www.thestandard.com.ph • editorial@thestandard.com.ph

The Punisher: War on illegal drugs continues FOUR months after TIME Magazine Asia edition featured then incoming President Rodrigo Duterte on its cover page as “The Punisher,” the same weekly publication highlighted on its cover a man whose face is wrapped in a packaging tape. The cover of the magazine’s September 26 issue, already out and available at bookstores in Metro Manila, is seen by ob-

servers as portentous, given the title in white letters “Night Falls On the Philippines” imposed on the background in plain creepy black–color of mourning in predominantly Catholic Philippines. There was no immediate reaction to the TIME feature from Malacañang or any of the President’s Cabinet men. “The Punisher” has reference to the 71-year-old Duterte,

who took his oath as President of the Philippines on June 30, who claimed during the election campaign he had criminals in his home city of Davao killed by the Davao Death Squad. He promised during the campaign hustings in May he would have thousands of criminals slain to make the Philippines, a country of 102 million people–nearly 13 million in the national capi-

Senator’s action got Cayetano’s goat—Koko

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Palace: DDS hitman a ‘perjured witness’ A PALACE official on Friday told Senator Leila de Lima, allegedly the protector of selfconfessed hitman Edgar Matobato, to “do her homework” as he assailed his testimony before the Senate on Thursday. Calling Matobato a “perjured witness,” Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said his accusations against President Rodrigo Duterte didn’t hold water and questioned his motives for not making his revelations when Duterte was still mayor of Davao City. “Why are you saying

tal–safe for the ordinary man in the streets. In the Sept. 26 issue, writer Rishi Iyengar displayed the writer’s perception of the trajectory of the unrelenting government war on what hitherto was a hardly attended to war in Philippine society–with almost 2,000 supposed drug pushers and drug users killed in police operations as Next page of mid Septrember.

By Macon Ramos-Araneta

that [only] now? There is no sane reason for not telling all these things before when President Duterte was still the Mayor [of Davao City.],” Panelo said. “Second, your handler is Secretary De Lima. Senator, why not reveal that information before?” In other developments: * Vice President Leni Robredo slammed Senator Alan Peter Cayetano over the “serious” allegations against her and the Liberal Party to which she belongs over an alleged plot to oust Duterte using self-confessed hitman Matobato.

NO WAY. Manila Police District cops throw a protective cordon in

front of the US Embassy beside Manila Bay during an anti-American rally Friday marking the 25th anniversary of the bilateral bases treaty rejection. Danny Pata

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TURNING off the microphone of a fellow senator during a hearing is unacceptable, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said Friday. He was referring to Senator Antonio Trillanes IV who turned off the microphone of Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, who had been questioning confessed hit man Edgar Matobato during Thursday’s hearing on summary killings by the justice committee led by Senator Leila de Lima. Matobato had claimed that President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the killing of criminals and

Binay sees anti-Du30 ‘telenovela’

LIFT AND THRUST. A go-go

man in Manila’s tourist Malate district offers his Flying Bird Flapping Its Wings for P100 which can negotiate 50 yards up, almost like an ornithopter, an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings– imitating the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats and insects. Lino Santos

By Joel E. Zurbano FORMER vice president Jejomar Binay dismissed hearings at the Senate that tagged President Rodrigo Duterte as the brains behind the Davao Death Squad, saying they were in aid of demo-

lition, not legislation. “What we saw Thursday at the Senate was a replay of the demolition telenovela against the former vice president,” Binay’s spokesman Joey Salgado said in a statement. “Every rumor, half-truth, and

hearsay broadcast or published; every accusation accepted and presented as truth--complete with dramatic pauses and gestures--by some senators,” he added. ”Once again, a political personality--this time no less than the President Next page

Gloria cleared in ZTE mess Oust-Rody prank fails to catch fire

“IT ain’t no sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just so long as you don’t break any.” That was how the Sandiganbayan concluded its decision junking the remaining corruption case against former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo over the $329-million national broadband network (NBN) project involving the Chinese multinational company ZTE Corporation. The court’s fourth division quottwitter.com/ MlaStandard

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ed the 1937 American movie “Every Day’s A Holiday” in granting two demurrers to evidence in the graft and ethics cases lodged against Arroyo, her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo and former elections chief Benjamin Abalos. The former leader’s lawyer Lawrence Arroyo said Arroyo was deeply grateful for the decision that was filed against her in 2011, a year into the adminisration of former President BeNext page nigno Aquino III.

A GROUP opposed to President Rodrigo Duterte called on people to converge at the Edsa People Power Monument on Friday to press for Duterte’s resignation, but no one came. In a text message through Next page

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