by Raymond Africa
Agents of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group yesterday arrested Malaya publisher Amado “Jake” Macasaet for a libel case filed against him nine years ago.
A CIDG team led by Senior Insp. Berlito de Guzman served the warrant on Macasaet, 72, in his Port Area, Manila office before noon.
The warrant was issued September 2 by Judge Emma Young of the Manila Regional Trial Court.
Macasaet was released after posting a P10,000 bail yesterday afternoon.
Erased na raw ang peace panel na nakikipag-usap sa Moro Islamic Liberation Front, sabi ni Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.
Ganoon lang ba yun? Paano na lang ang mga namatay at ang mga nawalan ng bahay na umaabot sa 250,000 dahil sa kanilang pinaggagawa sa Mindanao?
Ito ang statement ni Ermita:“President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has directed a new paradigm in the peace process by mandating that peace negotiations be refocused from one centered on dialogue with rebels to one of authentic dialogue.”
Hindi ko ma-translate sa tagalog dahil hindi ko maintindihan ang ibig sabihin. Ang nakukuha ko lang ay mas uunhain daw ang pakikig-usap sa mga taong apektado kaysa mga rebelde. Ngayon lang nila alam yan?
by Yvonne T. Chua and Luz Rimban VERA Files (Conclusion) Two months before the May 2004 elections, the Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor)…
Maybe I should thank the Commission on Human Rights for saying that the arrest of journalists who covered Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim at the Manila Pen on Nov. 29, 2007 “constitutes arbitrary arrest/detention in violation of human rights standards.”
It’s definitely better than the dismissal of our class suit by NBI- agent- turned-judge Reynaldo Laigo of the Makati RTC who said that our arrest, handcuffing, and detention was “justified’ and even added that we were “so lucky” that the police didn’t initiate criminal charges against us.
With a leader who has no respect for the Constitution and disdains truth, CHR chair Leila de Lima gives me some hope. Maybe I should thank her for making the Commission say that “there have been violations of the human rights of liberty, security of person and freedom from arbitrary arrest of the complainants in the Manila Peninsula Siege.”
Update: The VERA Files site is back. Note: The VERA Files website was hacked last night (Sept 1 ).We are still fixing the terrible damage…
Ang panibagong report ng VERA Files ay tungkol sa Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor) na sinasabing bangko ng mahihirap.
Kaya talagang nakaka-ngitngit madiskubre na ginagatasan pala ito ng mga tauhan ni Gloria Arroyo. Talagang walang patawad. Isusubo na lang ng mahihirap, aagawin pa.
Ang isang kaso na ginawang showcase ng Verafiles ay yung kay Aura Drew Escanlar ng Iloilo City na ginamit ang kanyang pera para sa kanyang review sa nursing board examinations noong December of 2004 sa pagpatayo ng piggery o babuyan.
The Commission on Human Rights said Monday there was no basis to justify the arrest and detention of several journalists during the Nov. 29, 2007 standoff at The Peninsula Manila hotel in Makati City.
In a news briefing, CHR chair Leila de Lima said some violations were committed during the arrest and processing of media personalities in the aftermath of the six-hour standoff between government forces and the group of Army Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and the Magdalo led by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.
In one of its resolutions, the CHR recommended that the case be “referred to the Department of the Interior and Local Government and to the Philippine National Police for internal inquiry and for filing of proper administrative disciplinary cases and measures applied to proper persons.”
Following is the first of a three-part series on Quedancor written by VERA Files.
by Diosa Labiste, Luz Rimban, and Yvonne Chua
VERA Files
(First of three parts)
ILOILO CITY— Aura Drew Escanlar was all set to take the nursing board examinations that December of 2004 when she decided instead to put up a piggery.
What changed her mind was an offer from the Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor). Called “the poor man’s financing institution,” the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) credit guarantee arm was giving out loans in the form of piglets and feeds, with a buy-back scheme that assured borrowers some income.
Escanlar then used her parents’ savings to build pigpens and buy piglets, and signed up for the Quedancor Swine Program (QSP). Less than a year later, Escanlar lost almost everything. The income from the buy-back scheme was always delayed, and the feeds came late or were not delivered at all. After 50 of her piglets died, Escanlar stormed the Quedancor regional office here. “You have turned my farm into a graveyard,” she told Quedancor employees.
Now that it’s becoming clear that the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is unconstitutional and could be grounds for the impeachment of the one who authorized it, Gloria Arroyo’s minions are scrambling to protect her saying she never saw the document that has now claimed more than 200 lives and rendered homeless more than 250,000 people.
At the final hearing of the Supreme Court on the MOA-AD, Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera said “The panel conveyed to me that the MOA was not submitted to the Office of the President..She never saw it, she was never shown a copy.”