Manila Standard - 2016 October 03 - Monday

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PINAY CROONS HER WAY TO ‘VIETNAM IDOL’ A 28-YEAR-OLD Filipina based in Hanoi has won the popular singing competition Vietnam Idol. Janice Buco got 54.25 percent of the votes, bagging the 600-million Vietnamese dong or P1.2-million award, the local paper Vietnam Ex-

press International reported over the weekend. Buco, the first foreigner to win the competition, charmed local audiences with her rendition of the popular song “Hello Vietnam” during the finale on Friday.

Local Vietnamese media said Buco’s win “prove the adage that all Filipinos can sing.” Local contestant Viet Thang, a 22-year-old singer from the northern province of Hai Duong, placed second.

Buco has lived in Vietnam for seven years now, performing professionally at bars and clubs. She auditioned for the seventh edition of Vietnam Idol earlier this year when the reality TV show opened to expatriates for the first time.

VOL. XXX • NO. 233 • 4 SECTIONS 20 PAGES • P18 • MONDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2016 • www.thestandard.com.ph • editorial@thestandard.com.ph

JANICE BUCO

Rody rues remark on Holocaust

Solons regroup over ‘sex video’ By Christine F. Herrera, Rio N. Araja and Rey E. Requejo THE 55-member House committee on justice will divide the house to decide on whether or not to allow the showing of the sex video allegedly involving Senator Leila De Lima and her alleged ex-lover Ronnie Dayan. The decision to hold a vote was reached after Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, panel chairman, could not decide if he would allow Next page

By Sandy Araneta

P

RESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday apologized to the Jewish community for his remarks comparing his bloody war on illegal drugs to Adolf Hitler’s killing of sixmillion Jews during the Holocaust.

Duterte, who delivered a speech at the opening of the 37th Masskara festival in Negros accidental, said he did not intend to derogate the memory of slain Jews. “There was never an intention on my part to derogate the memory of six-million Jews murdered by the Germans,” Duterte said. “I apologize profoundly and deeply to the Jewish community,” Duterte also said. Duterte supporters online bashed two Filipino correspondents working for foreign wire services because they led their

stories with Duterte’s Hitler remarks. But in Davao Friday, Duterte did liken his war on drugs to Hitler’s efforts to exterminate the Jews, and said he was “happy to slaughter” millions of drug addicts. Duterte also lambasted Western critics of his unprecedented law-and-order crackdown, which left more than 3,000 people dead in three months and raised concerns about a breakdown in the rule of law in one of Asia’s most chaotic democracies. Next page

Du30 vows to scrap Edca if US meddles NO OFFENSE MEANT. President Rodrigo Duterte apologized to the Jewish community, saying he did not intend to derogate the memory of sixmillion Jews murdered by the Germans during the reign of Adolf Hitler.

DoJ insists Alvarez junks anti-poor tax plan on Jaybee’s ‘tell-all’ testimony By Rey E. Requejo JUSTICE Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said Sunday he was willing to meet with inmate Jaybee Sebastian, who was accused of collecting drug money for Senator Leila de Lima when she still headed the Justice department, but said the convict must tell all that he knows about the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison. Aguirre said he was willing to meet with Sebastian, who heads the Presidio Side faction inside the maximum security compound of the NBP, even though President Rodrigo Duterte had turned down Sebastian’s request for a meeting. “He should tell everything he knows, without selection of details. Anyway, he will be joined by his lawyer if we agree to talk,” Aguirre said Sunday. Aguirre, who is investigating the case against De Lima and other officials from the previous administration, said Sebastian needs to come up with a Next page

THE House has rejected the Palace-proposed comprehensive tax reform package meant to raise P178 billion by imposing new excise taxes on fuels, the lifting of the exemption of the 12-percent value-added tax on goods and other commodities, and the scrapping of the tax exemption on the 13th-month pay.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and other lawmakers said they found the tax package “anti-poor and regressive” and ran counter to President Rodrigo Duterte’s desire to ease the plight of the poor. Not one lawmaker has volunteered to author and file the 25page tax reform package bill drafted and submitted by the Finance

department to Congress last week. The new taxes were slated to be implemented on Jan. 1 next year. The lawmakers also questioned the basis of Finance’s proposal to exempt from tax only those people with an annual salary of P250,000 and to scrap the tax exemption on the 13th-month pay. Next page

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday warned the United States to stop interfering in his war on drugs as he hinted that he is ready to stop the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between Manila and Washington. Duterte made the statement as lawmakers in the United States said the extrajudicial killings could have an impact on future US aid to the country. “Edca has not been signed by President Benigno Aquino III,” Duterte said, noting that the 2014 pact was only signed by then Defense secretary Voltaire Gazmin and US Ambassador to the Phil-

ippines Philip Goldberg. “Better think twice now, because I will be asking you to leave the Philippines altogether... If you Americans are angry with me, then I am also angry with you,” added the President. For his part, US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel dangled the concept of “people power” as he cautioned against more anti-US posturing. “I think it would be a serious mistake in a democratic country like the Philippines to underestimate the power of the public’s affinity for the US. That’s people Next page power,” Russel said.

Aid cuts eyed amid ‘killings’

‘The fighter for the good’ laid to rest

By Sandy Araneta

By Macon RamosAraneta

AN INTERNATIONAL human rights group on Sunday urged the United States and the European Union to send a strong message to President Rodrigo Duterte that the Philippines “risks an immediate suspension of aid unless the abusive ‘war on drugs’ and its skyrocketing death toll come to a halt.” Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, also decried Duterte’s comments referencing Nazi party founder Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, calling his words “obscene.” Kine said the public should not underestimate the impact Next page

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K-9 AND BATO. Marking the World Animal Day, members of the K9-Unit of the Philippine National Police’s

Special Action Force and Explosives Detention with the PNP chief Ronald De La Rosa’s ‘Bato mascot’ take part in a mass blessing for rescue dog at St. John Paul II Parish in Eastwood City, Quezon City. Manny Palmero

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SENATOR Miriam DefensorSantiago was laid to rest Sunday afternoon at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina. Santiago, who died in her sleep on Sept. 29 at the age of 71, after battling Stage-4 lung cancer for more than two years, was given a 21-gun salute before she was buried beside her son Alexander who died in 2003. Novaliches Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani hailed her for championing the good but refusing to use evil means to stamp out evil. President Rodrigo Duterte paid his final respects to her at Next page

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