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Mubarak’s Wife and Son Flee to London amid protests with 97 suitcases

Published by Ellen on January 31, 2011

Signs of beginning of the end. This was the scene that preceded the fall of Mohamad Reza Pahlavi,Shah of Iran, Doc Duvalier of Haiti, Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand. In the case of Marcos, he and the family all left together.

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
IsraelNationalNews.com

The wife of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and their son Gamal, considered the successor to his father as president, have fled to London with 97 suitcases after unprecedented massive protests in Egypt, an Arab website reported. Egyptian officials denied the claim.

egypt_protest — Anger in the streets.Photo from http://www.ahmedrehab.com/

The plane also reportedly carried Gamal’s daughter, the Akhbar Arab website reported. It also said a Twitter account was blocked to prevent a social network campaign to urge the ousting of Mubarak, who is over 80 and is reportedly is suffering from cancer.

Mubarak forms cabinet amidst shouts of get out!

Dozens of Twitter messages have been sent saying that Mubarak’s wife Suzanne was identified at Heathrow Airport in London, where she and her son and granddaughter arrived in a private jet.

In Egypt, calm has returned to the streets but authorities have arrested hundreds of protesters. Three people – two of them demonstrators — were killed in Tuesday’s rallies that spread throughout the country.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)

Frantic exodus from Egypt (culled from several news reports)

CAIRO — Cairo’s international airport was a scene of chaos and confusion Monday as thousands of foreigners sought to flee the unrest in Egypt and countries around the world scrambled to send in planes to fly their citizens out.

Garcia’s letter

Published by Ellen on January 30, 2011

I don’t know if retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia will confirm this if asked in a Senate hearing but I learned that when he was in detention, he wrote a letter addressed to three persons detailing his version of the multi-million (even billion) mess in the military that he was embroiled in.

The letters, I learned, were placed in the safekeeping of those three persons with the instruction that in case something happens to him, the contents of the letter would be divulged.

This should give sleepless nights to all those involved in grand theft of the money intended for the soldiers, who lay down their lives, for the country’s peace, stability and security and for the upgrading of military equipment, that have become a laughing stock in the region.

Mukhang may natutunan si Aquino sa mga naunang palpak

Published by Ellen on January 30, 2011

Visiting bus blast victims — Click to view enlarged

Mga alas-dos ng hapon ng sumabog ang bomba sa isang bus ng Newman Goldliner sa EDSA noong Enero 25, alas –singko ng hapon, may statement na si Pangulong Aquino na nakikiramay sa mga nasawi at nasaktan at nangakong hindi titigil hanggang maparusahan ang gumawa ng karumal-dumal na krimen.

Aba, malaking bagay yan. Tatlong oras lang ang nakalipas, nagsalita na siya. Kahit pa sabihin nating “motherhood statement” lang ang sinabi niya, kahit naman papaano nagsalita at bumisita pa ng gabing yun din sa mga dinala sa ospital.

Malayong-malayo sa nangyari noong Agosto 23 nang nanghostage ang isa maykasong pulis ng isang bus na puno ng turista galing Hongkong. Umaga nagsimula ang panghu-hostage, inabot na ng gabi ni isang sentence, walang sinasabi si Aquino. Hindi nga alam ng marami kung nasaan siya ng mga oras nay un at kung alam niya ang nangyayari.

Naisalba ni Rabusa ang konsyensa at kaluluwa

Published by Ellen on January 29, 2011

Sa Senate hearing noong Huwebes, tinanong ni dating chief of staff ng Armed Forces of the Philippines Angelo Reyes si dating military budget officer Lt. Col. George Rabusa,”During the time that I was chief of staff, if I became greedy?” (Noong panahon na ako ang chief of staff, naging gahaman ba ako?

Ang talagang tumbok nang tanong ni Reyes ay kung siya ay naging madamot at sinusulo lang ang pera.
Sinupalpal siya ni Sen. Jinggoy Estrada: “Hindi isyu kung ikaw ay gahaman. Ang isyu ay kung ikaw ay corrupt na hepe ng Armed Forces. Anong paki-alam namin kung ikaw ay galante?”

Shocked talaga si Reyes sa paglitaw ni Rabusa na iba na ang tuno ng kinakanta. Kasama na dito si Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia, dating military comptroller na ang kanyang ma-eskandalong plea bargain agreement sa Ombudsman, ang ini-imbistiga ng Senado at House of Representatives. Pati na rin siguro si retired Lt. Gen. Jacinto Ligot, dating military comptroller din katulad ni Garcia at Rabusa ay inakusahan ng pandarambong sa pamagitan ng paggamit ng pera na para sa mga sundalo para sa kanilang pansariling kapakanan.

Prosecution flaws bog down fight vs drugs

Published by Ellen on January 28, 2011

By IBARRA C. MATEO AND YVONNE T. CHUA
VERA Files

Cai Qing HaiFOR many years, Chinese national Cai Qing Hai had been on the list of Asia’s “most wanted drug manufacturers and traffickers,” with law enforcers from three countries—the Philippines, China and Malaysia—hot on his trail.

Cai was no ordinary drug dealer. He headed a transnational syndicate which Chinese authorities said produced 1.7 tons of methamphetamine hydrocloride or “shabu” in the three countries. He was also slippery prey—in 2005, he escaped prison by bribing his jailers in Malaysia just as they were about to hand him over to Chinese law enforcers. Cai then fled to Manila, which he has considered his second home since he was 13.

In October 2007, Philippine anti-narcotics agents caught up with Cai, then 36 and using the alias Bruce Esteban Ong, in his clandestine shabu laboratory in Sta Cruz, Laguna. They thought they had helped put an end to the activities of one of Asia’s most dangerous men.

Reyes got P50M as ‘send-off’ money, says AFP exec

Published by Ellen on January 27, 2011

Kimberly Jane T. Tan, GMANews.TV

A former budget officer of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Thursday accused former Defense chief Angelo Reyes of receiving not less than P50 million as “pabaon” (send-off money) when he retired as military chief of staff in 2001.

“Upon retirement we give some amount to the retiring chief of staff,” bared former Army Col. George Rabusa during the Senate hearing on the controversial plea bargain agreement entered into by former AFP comptroller Maj. General Carlos Garcia and the Office of the Ombudsman.

Other highlights of the hearing:

-Special Prosecutor Wendell said in the light of the Rabusa testimony they may re-open the probe on Garcia.

-“I’m not applying to become a state witness,” Garcia said when asked by Trillanes the possibility of changing his mind and cooperate with the government.

Rabusa said he and then AFP comptroller Lt. Gen. Jacinto Ligot, his superior, personally brought the money to Reyes at the AFP chief of staff quarters dubbed as the “White House.”

Harry Roque links COA report to Ortega murder

Published by Ellen on January 25, 2011

I did not have the privilege of knowing Dr Gerry Ortega but I join all those who condemn his murder Monday.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines has added Ortega’s name to the long list of journalists of have been killed in a country that prides itself as a democracy but at the same is one of the most dangerous working place for journalists.

Ortega was a veterinarian and environmentalist who was also a radio commentator. He was shot at close range while he was shopping in an ukay-ukay store. The gunman, Marlon Dicamata, has been apprehended.

Police has traced the gun used in the killing of Ortega to former Provincial Administrator Romeo Seratubias, who reports said claimed to have sold the gun to someone else.

Hindi na sana nag-iisa si Heidi

Published by Ellen on January 25, 2011

Nagulat ang marami sa pinakita ni Heidi Mendoza na P200 milyon na tsekeng pinirmahan ni dating Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia at sa kanyang kuwento kung paano pinaikot-ikot ng dating military comptroller ang pera hanggang naglaho na.

Si Mendoza ang government auditor na ang-imbestiga ng kaso ni Garcia na kinasuhan noong 2004 ng plunder o pandarambong sa halagang P303 milyon na pera para sa military.

Sa totoo lang noon pa yun nilabas ni Heidi nang siya ay tumestigo sa hearing ng kaso ni Garcia. Siya lang ang dumiin kay Garcia. Sabi niya 16 na beses siya tinawag ng korte. Nandyan na yung nililito siya sa mga pirma ni Garcia. Ngunit nanindigan siya.

The P200 million check: the smoking gun in Garcia plunder case

Published by Ellen on January 24, 2011

If the general public was appalled by the plea bargain agreement struck by Maj. Gen. (ret.) Carlos Garcia and the Office of the Ombudsman , one can just imagine how it was with Heidi Mendoza, the government auditor who was the lone prosecution witness who gave documentary evidence in the plunder case against the former military comptroller.

Mendoza, who withstood all kinds of pressure while she was investigating the Garcia plunder case, said it was so painful to hear and read government prosecutors say that the reason they had to accept Garcia’s offer for plea bargain was because the evidence was weak.

Related articles:

Prosecutors ‘dumped own witness’ by Jarius Bondoc: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=650902&publicationSubCategoryId=64

Auditor in plunder case launches truth campaign: http://verafiles.org/main/focus/auditor-in-plunder-case-to-launch-truth-campaign/

Go slow on Garcia, auditor told: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20110125-316387/Go-slow-on-Garcia-auditor-told

Transcript of Mendoza Dec 3, 2008 testimony: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20110125-316389/No-one-from-COA-gave-me-the-support-that-I-needed

She said that’s what everybody was telling her and her team when they were investigating. Garcia was a smart guy, there was no paper trail in the more than P300 million that he was accused of filching from government funds.

Auditor in plunder case to launch truth campaign

Published by Ellen on January 23, 2011

By Yvonne T. Chua and Ellen Tordesillas
VERA Files

A former state auditor who testified against ex-military comptroller Carlos Garcia disclosed over the weekend a “request” from a government office for her to tell the public the evidence in the plunder case against the retired major general is weak.

For related documents: list of assets and properties, plea bargain agreement and the OSG intervention, click here -VERA Files.

But the request, made about a week after the Sandiganbayan on Dec. 16 allowed Garcia to post bail on the basis of his plea bargain agreement with special prosecutors, has only strengthened Heidi Mendoza’s resolve to reveal what she says is “the truth behind the Garcia case.”

“It is plunder; it is more than P50 million. I am standing by my story,” said Mendoza who left her job at a multilateral bank on Friday to embark on a “truthtelling” mission.

Plunder, the acquisition of ill-gotten wealth of at least P50 million by a public officer, is nonbailable and punishable by life imprisonment.

Mendoza, who headed a special six-member team the Commission on Audit detailed with the Office of the Ombudsman from 2004 to 2006 to investigate Garcia’s transactions, is the lone prosecution witness who told the court that the former comptroller committed plunder.

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