ellen tordesillas Posts

Sen. Miriam Santiago is among those being considered for the position of Supreme Court chief justive which will be vacated when Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban retires on Dec. 7, 2006.

Senate Majority Floorleader Francis Pangilinan, ex-oficio member of the Judicial Bar Council (JBC) confirmed the inclusion of the name of Santiago, known as an ally of Gloria Arroyo. She was nominated by the Young Lawyers Association of the Philippines. Others in the list are Supreme Court justices Reynato Puno, Leonardo Quisumbing, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, and Antonio Carpio.

Santiago has not been shy about her interest for the position of Supreme Court justice. Last year, she threatened to cut the budget of the JBC, which screens nominees for the Supreme Court, when the body refused to extend its deadline to accommodate her late nomination.

Filipino women may soon find themselves more economically-stable as the Canadian government, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), has committed to provide more than PhP 315 million in grant support to the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW) for a project that will contribute to women’s economic empowerment.

The 5-year Gender Responsive Economic Actions for the Transformation of Women (GREAT Women) project will start this month and run until 2011. The project aims to support and promote the economic well-being of women, by having several government agencies such as the Department of Trade and Industry, the Technology and Livelihood Resource Center (TLRC), Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and others, review their policies and guidelines that will create a more accessible and friendlier business environment for women.

There will also be partnerships among local government units, civil society, and the private sector, on how to enhance women’s participation in micro-enterprises in pump-priming the local economy.

(The following column by Federico D. Pascual Jr. appeared in Philippine Star today.)

Mike’s throwing weight around hurts President

HONG KONG (Via PLDT) – Do not let the dateline fool you. Yes, I am in the former British colony all right, but only at the airport tarmac unable to set foot literally on this special administrative region of China.

The “Via PLDT” means I have been using PLDT facilities. Its WeRoam wireless card in my laptop enables me to send-receive email, surf the net, update my ManilaMail website, and do other communication tricks, from any point in the world reached by radio signals of Smart and its co-operators.

Seated on this Philippine Airlines Airbus 330, I am tapping away at my IBM laptop-tablet as Chinese workers clean and resupply this erstwhile presidential plane coded PR 001.

The latest survey of Social Weather Station on hunger in the Philippines underscores the irreconcileable gap between Gloria Arroyo’s claims of economic success and reality on the ground.

While Arroyo was in China waxing ecstatic over strong peso against the dollar (“The highest ever!”, Malacañang exults) and projected economic growth of 5.5 and 6.5 percent in 2007, SWS released its latest survey that more and more Filipinos are experiencing hunger. Nothing to eat!

SWS said a record high of 16.9% of families experienced hunger at least once in the past three months was reached again in September 2006.

The immigration officer, Edgardo Padlan, who was rude at Luli Arroyo, was wrong when he attended to a foreigner who was behind her in the queue at the airport.

But firing him was overacting on the part of Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez. A suspension would have sufficed.

Here’is ABS-CBN’s story on the incident:

Reporters without Borders urges internet users to join in 24-hour online demo against internet censorship

Where: www.rsf.org

When: 11 A.M. on 7 November to 11 A.M. on 8 November