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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2019
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Senators move for increase in DOH budget By Macon Ramos-Araneta SENATE Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Tuesday recommended that part of the P75 billion in “insertions” slashed from the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways be given to the Health department whose budget suffered a P28-billion cut. Drilon, along with Senator JV Ejercito, is also pushing for an increase in the Health department’s budget by at least P24 billion this year. During his interpellation of the department’s budget, Drilon pushed for an additional P16.8 billion for the agency’s Health Facilities Enhancement Program. But Ejercito, who was defending the department’s budget, said the agency needed another P7.4 billion for the Human Resource for Health program. The fund in the HRH will be used for the continuous employment of more than 10,000 nurses and health professionals deployed throughout the country, Drilon said in a statement. During the continuation of the interpellation on the Health department’s budget, Drilon proposed to that the controversial additional funding that was allegedly inserted into the budget of Public Works and the Interior departments be realigned to restore the slashed budget of the Health department. “The amount could be sourced from the P75 billion in additional funding that went to the DPWH or the P27.7 billion supposedly for assisting local government units that went to DILG,” Drilon said. Both agencies denied requesting additional funds and were clueless as to how they would spend the additional funding, Drilon said. Senator Panfilo Lacson said “[the Senate] will discuss the final resting place for the P75 billion that we have already agreed to delete from the DPWH proposed budget.”
Group... From A1 consumers for the current year,” said LKI president Victorio Mario Dimagiba, referring to the second round of excise tax increases under the Tariff Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law. “This computation is also applicable on the first tranche of excise taxes on fuels for 2018 and resulted in overpayment of P0.085 per liter of VAT,” he said. LKI urged the Finance department to “take appropriate remedies, rebates or refunds as allowed by law” to correct the overcharge. Under the second tranche of TRAIN Law’s implementation, an additional excise tax of P2.00 will be imposed per liter of diesel and gasoline, and P1.00 per kilogram on household LPG. There will also be an additional 12 percent value-added tax, which totals to P2.24 for both diesel and gasoline, and P1.12 for LPG. Meanwhile, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said it will file a petition for a P355 wage increase in all regional wage boards to raise the salary of workers amid rising prices as a result of TRAIN. TUCP president Raymond Mendoza said the labor center is monitoring the movement of prices of goods and services following the increase in the prices of diesel and gasoline effective Jan. 8 this year. Based on TUCP computation, they might file a minimum of P313 to a maximum of P355 wage increase petition based on the current prices of commodities and services to regional wage boards nationwide despite strong opposition from employers and business groups. “We will be citing supervening conditions in filing the petitions. We are also going to test once again the capacity of the wage boards to remain relevant with their mandate to raise the minimum wage to an amount that can ably support a family,” Mendoza said. Workers groups have denounced the wage increase granted by all 17 wage boards as inadequate.
Sino trader... From A1 Branch 46 denying the petitioner’s motion to quash the criminal charges. “The issues raised in the instant motion are but mere reiterations of the grounds already judiciously evaluated and passed upon in our aforementioned decision. We, therefore, find no compelling reason to modify or reverse the same,” stated the ruling penned by Associate Justice Ramon Garcia. “While he enumerated several grounds justifying this failure to file a motion for reconsideration, he failed to establish that this case falls under any of the said exceptions.” In his petition, Chen accused the Department of Justice of forum shopping for refiling the criminal case before the Manila RTC after the Valenzuela RTC Branch 171, where the case was first filed, dismissed the charges. However, the CA held that the Manila RTC was correct in dismissing the motion to quash filed by Chen. It explained that the Valenzuela RTC junked the case merely for lack of jurisdiction.
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Palace to bishop: Be Christian-like By Nat Mariano
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NSTEAD of lambasting President Rodrigo Duterte’s remarks, Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos should act more Christianlike by praying for the Chief Executive, the Palace said on Tuesday after Santos called Duterte’s presidency a disgrace and a disappointment to the country.
Meanwhile, Novaliches Bishop-Emeritus Teodoro Bacani Jr. challenged Duterte to walk the streets without his bodyguards to protect him. “My challenge to President Duterte is to do what we are doing if he is really brave,” Bacani said. His dare came after Duterte’s recent remarks urging the jobless people to rob and kill Catholic bishops because they had plenty of money.
Expressing sadness over Santos’ “unfortunate” views, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said Santos may also fit the definition of disgrace. “What is a disgrace is when a member of the clergy uses unsavory language against President Duterte who only fulfills and complies with his constitutional mandate to lead the government in serving the Filipinos and protecting them from what bedevils our society,” Panelo said in a statament.
“I wonder if he has asked himself, ‘What is a disgrace?’ One who is a member of the clergy making unsavory language against a man or against the President who is only doing his constitutional duty to serve and to protect the people? Or one, like the President who instead of throwing mud, would rather smile and joke about it?” Panelo told reporters. “If someone throws stones at you, then throw a piece of bread in return. That’s a Christian doctrine and that is a teaching of the Church. It appears that the good bishop is not practicing what he teaches and what he has learned in the seminary. “The good bishop, I think, is misinformed of the survey results, which shows that majority of the Filipinos accept the style of governance of the President. And his style of delivering speeches is factored in that survey. So either he is misinformed,
Casiguran mayor denies being Diokno in-law By Maricel V. Cruz CASIGURAN Mayor Edwin Hamor on Tuesday denied being in-laws with Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno amid the allegations his municipality in Sorsogon was favored in the allocation of funds for infrastructure projects. At the resumption of the House of Representatives’ committee on rules’ hearing into the alleged “insertions” in the 2019 national budget, Hamor said it was his wife who was the in-law of Diokno. “Ang tawag niya [Diokno] sa akin mayor. Pero hindi ko balae,” Hamor said. “Mas lalong hindi ko kaano-ano si Diokno.” Hamor made his statement even as House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. on Tuesday said there were at least P81 million worth of alleged deposit slips from Aremar Construction Corp., the company owned by the family of embattled Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno’s in-laws.
NPC... From A1 chairman of APO Production Unit Inc. “We can access everything.” “Our IT guys were able to do something about it. That’s why the data was restored,” he added. Last week, Locsin said the French contractor ran off with the personal data because it was “pissed off” when its contract was terminated. This meant that some holders of older passports who were renewing them would need to present their birth certificates so that the DFA could rebuild its database, he said at the time. The Palace, however, has declared that this was an unnecessary burden on passport holders and said their old passports should be enough. On Tuesday, Locsin seemed to agree, noting that APO agreed with him “that old passports are best evidence of identity.” “Join me in despising those who don’t agree with me,” Locsin said. The DFA issues 10,000 passports daily or three-million passports a year, but that huge demand balloons to 25,000 per day during the peak travel seasons.
Palace... From A1 Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo, however, said he knew nothing of Andal’s mission. “He is not involved in the negotiation process,” Panelo said, but added that backchannel talks would not be unusual, saying the President is open to talks as long as the communist New People’s Army stop their attacks and extortion activities. “Enough of these ambuscades, enough of these extortion activities and we will sit down. And most likely, they may finally listen to the urgings of the President. I think they are also tired of fighting the government,” he added. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said there was no such order from the President. “It is fake news. The President says he never ordered him to do so,” Lorenzana told Palace reporters. Andal, a current member of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, said Duterte personally instructed him in Manila last week. “I kept mum on this. I didn’t know the media will know about it. I would even prefer not to talk about this until I have successfully delivered what the President has asked me to do,” he said. He said he has already reached out to communist leaders, who were “extremely glad” to find out that the government has opened the door for peace anew. “I will talk to the people who are involved in this. I would also persuade them that the President is serious in his desire to have peace in the country,” he said.
Andaya,... From A1 matters need not be specifically alleged in the present informations because an information need only state the ultimate facts, or those facts which the expected evidence will support,” the Sandiganbayan said in the resolution promulgated on Jan. 8. The resolution was written by Presiding
not informed, or he is ignoring the results. “Rather than lambaste the President, it would be more Christian-like to pray for the one whom you feel to be sinning against whatever doctrines you had in mind.” Panelo said the Church should lead in the prayers for the success of Duterte in his presidency. “We must remember that all of us are parts of one whole... The success of President Duterte is the success of the whole nation,” Panelo said. In an interview with Church-run Radio Veritas, Santos viewed Duterte’s presidency as both a disappointment and a disgrace to the country, infamously known for its “kill, kill, kill” policy. The Catholic bishop was reacting to the President’s recent attacks against the prelates, saying that loiterers should kill and steal from “rich bishops.”
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At the resumption of the congressional inquiry into the alleged irregularities in the budget preparation involving Diokno, Andaya, chairman of the House committee on rules, alleged that the committee “established an initial paper trail of possible corrupt money transfer from dummy corporations to Aremar involving P81 million, an amount that breaches the P50-million plunder point.” Most big-time contractors that deal with the government merely use their “Triple A” qualification in bagging major projects and then farm these out to smaller contractors in exchange for “royalties.” This emerged as the House of Representatives’ Committee on Rules continued its investigation into the alleged irregularities in the preparation of the national government budget. Andaya on Tuesday chastised a local Commission on Audit official for allegedly failing to determine the presence of a Bulacan-based construction company’s equipment in differ-
ent places and projects “all at the same time.” Diokno’s daughter, Charlotte, is married to Jojo Sicat, the son of Sorsogon Vice Governor Esther Hamor from a previous marriage. At the same time, Hamor told lawmakers that the infrastructure projects poured into his municipality were all meant to lower the poverty incidence. During the hearing, Andaya even asked Hamor if he had seen Diokno in the past. Hamor said he only saw the budget chief at a wedding. He rejected the allegations that Aremar Construction Corp. cornered at least P551 million in government contracts in 2018 from the Department of Public Works and Highways. Hamor slammed the claim of Andaya that Aremar Construction Corp. was favored owing to his ties to the Budget secretary. He said Aremar was established in 2014 when he was out of the government and when he was in the private sector.
Despite Locsin’s clarification, NPC Commissioner Raymund Liboro said the agency has invited officers from the DFA to get to the bottom of the alleged loss of personal records. “We need to gather more facts to ascertain if there was a personal data breach,” he said in Filipino. Earlier, he had said there was no immediate proof of any data breach. The Philippine National Police, meanwhile, said it considered the loss of passport data a threat to privacy and national security. PNP chief Oscar Albayalde said the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group would be ready to help if its services are required. The Palace on Tuesday said the President would not allow any data breach and said the DFA would do its job to secure the passport database. He also pointed out that the most serious breach to date, at the Commission on Elections, had happened before Duterte took office. Also on Monday, APO Production Unit denied reports that it had subcontracted the job of printing passports to the privately-owned United Graphic Expression Corp., which it described as its joint venture partner. UGEC imports materials to be used by
APO in the printing of passports but is not involved in the printing of the documents, said Michael Dalumpines, chairman of APO. In an interview on GMA-7, Dalumpines said APO needed a joint venture partner because it had no capability to import printing materials. Former Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. also said the former contractor had not run away with the data, as Locsin had earlier said. It only failed to help resolve a system mismatch because the government and a new subcontractor were too embarrassed to ask for help, he said. In an interview with radio dzMM, Yasay said under the Arroyo administration, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas was in charge of printing machine readable passports that were compliant with standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The succeeding Aquino administration, however, shifted to e-passports “for no compelling reason,” Yasay said. APO, under the Presidential Communications Operations Office, won the contract for printing the new passports, but could not transfer the passport data to its own system because they used a different data format.
Andal said the President might have chosen him for his connections and background with leftist groups. He said he was a member of the CPP decades ago when President Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law. He said he has not yet coordinated with the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process. In November 2018, National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultants were supposed to return to Manila to have informal talks with Duterte. But NFDP leader Fidel Agcaoili said the Duterte administration’s peace negotiators informed him and his fellow NDFP consultant Luis Jalandoni to cancel their trip for unknown reasons. Panelo said the NDFP leaders only feared that they might be arrested once they set foot in the country. In November 2017, peace talks between the government and communist rebels bogged down after Duterte walked away from the negotiating table, repeatedly blaming the rebels for violations of the unilateral ceasefire. Duterte then had imposed a number of conditions for a revival of the talks, but Sison shrugged off the government’s push for localized peace talks, labeling it as a “cheap trick” that has failed many times. In the town of Sibagat, local officials declared the NPA persona non grata after communist rebels abducted 14 militiamen and two army troopers on Dec. 19, 2018. The declaration was signed by Sibagat Mayor Maria Liza Evangelista, and through Municipal Resolution 137-18, approved by the Sibagat’s Sanguniang Bayan on Dec. 21 last year, two days after the NPA abduction.
“The kidnapping and abduction perpetrated by the NPAs is a manifestation of betrayal of achieving peace, thus disrupting the peace and security of the community,” the resolution said. On Tuesday, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court has dismissed the illegal possession of firearms case filed against NDF consultant Rafael D. Baylosis and his companion Guillermo Roque. In a decision released Tuesday, RTC Branch 100 Presiding Judge Editha G. MinaAguba ordered the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Taguig City to release Baylosis. Roque, who posted a PP120,000 bail for his temporary liberty, was also cleared and allowed to get back the bail he posted. “The search being illegal, the evidence confiscated cannot be used as evidence against the two accused,” Aguba said, stressing that any evidence obtained in violation of the right against unreasonable searches and seizures shall be inadmissible for any purpose in any proceeding. “This rule prohibits the issuance of general warrants that encourage law enforces to go on fishing expeditions. (I)t is viewed that the confiscation of the subject items is illegal. It is not a product of a search incidental to a lawful arrest, or a stop and frisk search, or the plain view doctrine,” she said. Police charged Baylosis and Roque with illegal weapons possession after they were arrested at the corner of Aurora Boulevard and Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on Jan. 31, 2018. Police said they found two .45 caliber pistols and a fragmentation grenade inside a plastic bag containing brown rice from the two suspects. With PNA
Natural Resources will kick off the rehabilitation project to reduce the coliform bacteria in the bay and make it swimmable by December. At a news conference, Secretary Roy Cimatu said the quality of water at Manila Bay known for its famous sunset is “330 million times” dirtier than the waters of Boracay Island. “On Jan. 27, we will have an initial announcement of establishments not compliant [with the Clean Water Act],” he told reporters. “A non-compliant establishment could be penalized with a fine of P20,000 to P200,000 per day,” he warned. Phase one of the rehabilitation effort is the identification of squatter families along Roxas Boulevard for relocation, he said. The relocation of 20,000 to 30,000 informal settlers in Bacoor, Cavite, and the removal of piggeries along Pampanga River are part of the rehabilitation effort, he added. “If you go there [in Bacoor], I have been there, you will see too many people staying along the bay,” he said. “Here in the National Capital Region, our effort will involve the cleanup of the Baywalk area between the Manila Yacht Club and US Embassy, where people often and frequently go and swim,” he said. “We hope there would be no bloody removal of the informal settlers. There is no need for such. We are prepared to face them,” he added. Cimatu called on the other stakeholders of Manila Bay to “be part of history” and support rehabilitation efforts. “This mission is not impossible. This mission calls for dedication and hard work from all those who will help us in this operation,” he said.
Justice and Division head Amparao CabotajeTang, with the concurrence of Associate Justices Bernelito Fernandez and Lorifel Pahimna. Andaya, and his several co-accused in the case, including detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, and 22 others are facing 97 counts of graft and of misusing public funds. They are accused of diverting P900 million from the Malampaya funds allocated by the Budget department to the Depart-
ment of Agrarian Reform in 2009, and in the process using 12 Janet Lim Napoles-led non government organizations as conduits to the alleged fraud. Andaya, who was then Budget secretary, allegedly released the funds through the Agrarian Reform department. The anti-graft court also denied the motions for reconsideration filed by eight other individuals, including former Agrarian Reform secretary and now
Masui City, Lanao del Sur Mayor Nasser Pangandaman, as well as Napoles’ children James Christopher and Jo Christine. The anti-graft court also said the elements of graft and funds misuse were in the informations filed by the Office of the Ombudsman. “A plain reading will show that the acts and/or omissions complained of are alleged in plain, ordinary, and concise language,” the Sandiganbayan said.
jackpot prize,” said Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office general manager Alexander Balutan. The lone winner picked the winning draw combination of 43-55-15-02-29-56 Sunday night. “The winning ticket was purchased from a franchise owned by the Lucky Circle Corporation, with a ticket outlet at SM Bacolod in Negros Occidental,” Balutan said. Arnel Casas, PCSO’s assistant general manager for the gaming sector, said the odds of winning in Ultra Lotto 6/58 is one in 40.4 million.
Trump... From A1 American fastfood paid for by me,” the president quipped, as he prepared to host the Clemson Tigers university players to celebrate their national championship win. “I think they’d like it better than anything we could give,” said Trump, after landing back at the White House following a day trip to New Orleans. “We have pizzas, we have 300 hamburgers, many, many French fries, all of our favorite foods—I want to see what’s here when we leave, because I don’t think it’s going to be much,” the president mused. Asked to name his own favorite fast food—as he stood smiling behind the gargantuan spread—Trump demurred, insisting: “I like them all.” “If it’s American, I like it. It’s all American stuff.” “The reason we did this is because of the shutdown,” he added. “We want to make sure that everything is right, so we sent out, we got this.” Around 800,000 federal employees—including much of the White House residence staff—have been on mandatory leave or working without pay for 24 days as Donald Trump and Congress wrangle over funding for a wall on the southern border. AFP
‘Bay rehab... From A1