According to Benjamin Abalos, the next election will be clean with him and Esperon overseeing it.Ha!Ha!Ha!
COMELEC Chairman Benjamin Abalos yesterday said there would be no-repeat of the “Hello Garci” scandal in 2004 with the signing of a memorandum of agreement that would limit the role of the military in during elections.
“With the role of the military now well-defined…there’s going to be no Garci (controversy),” he said.
Sa “Strictly Politics” noong Martes ng gabi sa ANC (8 p.m.), sinabi ni Prof. Felipe Miranda ng Pulse Asia na humihingi si Gloria Arroyo ng kapahamakan (She is courting disaster) kung kakanselahin ang elections sa May 2007 para ipagpilitan ang Charter Change.
Sabi ni Prof. Miranda malaking bagay ang eleksyon sa mamamayan dahil yun lamang ang kanilang ideya ng partisipasyon sa pamahalaan. Maliban sa barangay kung saan magkakilala ang lahat at madali silang lumapit, ang pakiramdam nila napakataas at napakalayo ng national government. Tuwing eleksyon lamang sila pinapansin.
Paniwala nila sa tuwing eleksyon lamang sila binibigyan ng halaga at ayaw nilang alisin ang maliit na pagkakataon na yan.
The more Gloria Arroyo opens her mouth about North Korea, the more ridiculous she sounds.
Last Monday, she bested all Southeast Asian leaders in issuing a statement condemning North Korea’s nuclear test. Yesterday, she said North Korea’s nuclear test is a Damocles’ sword over Asia and underscored that the Philippines is “within striking distance” of a nuclear weapon fired from Pyongyang.
News reports said although it is widely believed that North Korea’s announcement of a successful nuclear test is true, the Hermit Kingdom has not yet developed a delivery system for its nuclear weapon.
Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez is back from her Swiss sojourn and wasted no time defending her decision to absolve Comelec officials led by Chairman Benjamin Abalos from responsibility in the anomalous P1.3 billion poll automation contract with Mega Pacific.
Photo below was taken during yesterday’s press conference. Beside her is Overall Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro who saw “no iota of evidence to show” that Comelec’s decision to award the contract to Mega Pacific “constitute manifest (sic) of partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence.”
North Korea that goes by the official name of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea announced today that it has successfully performed its first nuclear tests to the horror of the rest of the world.
“The field of scientific research in the DPRK successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions on October 9, 2006, at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation,” North Korea’s official statement said.
If the nuclear test is confirmed, North Korea becomes the ninth nuclear state. The others are the Britain, China,France,India,Israel,Pakistan, Russia, and United States.
The Ombudsman’s “brazen somersault,” in the words of the highly-respected Jovito Salonga, clearing all Comelec officials on the P1.3 billion poll automation deal shows how deeply enmeshed Gloria Arroyo is as she discards subtlety in the endless paybacks that she is and will be making just to continue holding on to her stolen power.
The “brazen somersault” that Salonga said did not refer to the Ombudsman’s departure from its June 28, 2006 report which recommended the indictment of Comelec officials and eight Mega Pacific (MPC) officers and that impeachment charges be filed against elections commissioner Resurreccion Borra.
That report was actually lame because it absolved other elections commissioners involved in the approval of the deal including Chairman Benjamin Abalos.
This Agence France-Presse report is from today’s issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
CAMP PENDLETON, California—A US Navy Fil-Am medic told a military court Friday how seven Marines dragged an Iraqi civilian from his home and shot him in cold blood before covering up the brutal slaying.
In dramatic testimony at the US Marine Corps base, Camp Pendleton, in southern California, Melson Bacos said he had watched in horror as 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad was bound and gagged before being gunned down.
Bacos, a Purple Heart recipient who is the son of immigrants from the Philippines and who was jailed for a year after a plea deal that saw him admit to kidnapping but cleared of murder, said the killing had arisen out of frustration at the reputed release of a “known terrorist.”
Nakakahanga itong si Chairman Purification Quisumbing ng Commission on Human Rights.
Ipinamukha ni Quisumbing sa Melo Commission kung ano talaga sila: tuta ng Malacañang.
Sa panahon ngayon na lahat ay sumisipsip o takot sa Malacañang, nanindigan si Quisumbing at ibinasura and subpoena ng Melo Commission para siya ay humarap sa kanilang imbestigasyon sa napakaraming extra-judicial killings o pagpapatay na hindi dumaan sa hustisya sa ilalim ng administrasyon ni Arroyo.
The highest-ranking Filipino -American in the White House resigns as the House of Representatives examines her ties with disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Bloomberg reports that Susan Bonzon Ralston, top aide of Karl Rove,White House political director, is resigning a week after a House Government Reform panel’s report documented her role in arranging tickets to sporting events for Rove from the lobbyist.
“She recognized that a protracted discussion of the matters in the House Government Reform Committee’s report would be a distraction to the White House, and she chose to step down,” assistant White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said. “We support her decision, and after a review of the report, we consider the matter closed.”
Malaya correspondent in Washington D.C. Jennie Ilustre reported the Fil-Am community is concerned that Ralston “might be used as a scapegoat.”
Police authorities said with the arrest of four suspects in the murder of Bishop Alberto Ramento of the Philippine Independent Church, the case is considered solved. Click here for Malaya story.
Ramento’s killing was a “plain and simple case of robbery with homicide, and not extrajudicial killing” as militant groups have alleged, said PNP chief Oscar Calderon.
But many find that difficult to accept.