According to an exclusive report by Malou Mangahas of GMAnews.tv, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had authorized the negotiations and subsequent awarding of the NBN contract to ZTE months before NEDA reviewed and approved it. Senator Mar Roxas, reacting to the news, said Arroyo could now be held liable for the anomalous project. So is this why former NEDA chief Romulo Neri, during the Senate hearings last week, tried his darndest best to shield Arroyo? Read Mangahas’s report here.
Monthly Archives: September 2007
Wahyu was silent for six minutes, so, it was my turn to seethe with fury. Then, all of a sudden, he appeared again onscreen. “Hahaha!” he laughed, “I don’t know why you are very pessimistic! I think the Filipino people power was an inspiring thing for peoples in other Asian countries struggling for democracy.” “Inspiring?!” I asked.
Human Rights Watch today released a report saying that it had obtained a copy of a Philippine government blacklist of 504 people who are banned from entering the country. The Philippine government has the right and duty to protect its citizens from genuine security threats, said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. But labeling peaceful critics as Al-Qaeda or Taliban only serves to sap public confidence in counter-terror measures and exposes them as a cover for suppressing dissent.
Banned. Writer Ninotchka Rosca was among those banned by the Bureau of Immigration, citing her alleged ties to the Taliban — a charge Rosca found laughable.
Blogs have officially become agenda-setters (sort of) in national affairs. I thought of this the moment Senator Jamby Madrigal read a portion of ANC correspondent and anchor Ricky Carandang’s Sept. 24 blog entry during yesterday’s Senate hearing on the NBN-ZTE scandal.
The Arroyo administration took a one-two punch on Wednesday. The first blow was former NEDA chief Romulo Neri’s testimony at the Senate hearings that Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos offered him a bribe. The second came from Transparency International, which released that same day its annual Corruption Perceptions Index. In it, the Philippines ranked 131, out of 180 countries that was surveyed, with 1 being the least corrupt and 180 the most corrupt. The Philippines joins the ranks of such countries as Burundi, Honduras, Nepal, Libra and Iran. Last year, the country’s ranked much better, at 121. View the CPI here.
Jose Miguel Mike Arroyos name cropped up in a corruption scandal once again. It has barely been a week since the Sandiganbayan found former President Joseph Estrada guilty of plunder and a scandal has erupted again involving the husband of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The Arroyo administration was in short dragged scratching and screaming into arresting and charging Estrada. Once compelled to do so by the forces that had put it in power, it had to go through the motions, but kept its options open, and most probably tried to make some deal with Estrada, including offering him the option of exile instead of a trial.