Bayan said that Aquino, as the appointing authority, should immediately remove from office those officials facing charges for past scams. “The lingering perception is that many Aquino appointees who get into trouble for past and present misdeeds are treated with kid gloves, especially if they fall within the KKK category,” Reyes said.

“The only source of disorder on the Hacienda Luisita issue are the Cojuangco-Aquinos who intend to rewrite history, deprive the farmworkers of their rightful claim, continue to terrorize by using the military, on the other hand, the agents of reform and change are the farmworkers and their supporters who propose a better future for their next generation,” Joseph Canlas, AMGL chairman said.

In view of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) fund controversy wherein huge amounts of money were expended in rather questionable ventures, ACT Teachers Party-List Representative Antonio L. Tinio said that the so-called ‘intelligence fund’ amounting to P325 million could have helped the shortages of critical school inputs such as classrooms.

Quoting reports coming from Hacienda Luisita farmers and farm workers, UMA chair Lito Bais, said that a certain Juanito Luna, a supervisor of HLI, is paying P5,000 each farmer. At the same time, Buena Timbol, secretary of HLI vice-President for administration Ernesto Teopaco, President Aquino’s uncle, has summoned Barangay Captains in the 10 barangays (villages) of Hacienda Luisita.

There are thousands of ghost employees in the city’s payroll, most of them supposedly working for the councilors. Each of the 26 councilors has 124 employees but only 20 or so of them are real flesh-and-blood employees. The others are non-existent. They exist only in the payrolls and in the personal data sheets, most of which are fake. Somebody collects and pockets their pay every month.

This poster hangs outside the army base along a busy road leading to The Fort and to the airport, for all the public to see, a few days before the commemoration of Marcos’s declaration of martial law on Sept. 21. It is offensive. It dishonors not only the other men in those posters who genuinely defended this country but the whole Filipino nation as well who suffered under Marcos’s tyranny.

Members of the state’s pension fund today brought the issue of Government Service Insurance System President and General Manager Winston Garcia’s removal literally at President Benigno Aquino III doorstep.
Carrying an enlarged replica of their urgent appeal, government employees represented by the militant COURAGE staged a picket rally at Times Street, President Aquino’s residence and submitted their letter. COURAGE Secretary General …

Mr. Aquino, 50, takes over a country that saw much political turbulence in the nine years under his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. He reiterated a pledge to investigate allegations of corruption and abuses under her government.

“Here, on this day, ends the reign of a government that is indifferent to the complaints of the people,” he said.

Anti-Arroyo protesters (Bulatlat.com)

The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan today challenged the newly-created Truth Commission chaired by former Chief Justice Hilario Davide to “leave no stone unturned in the prosecution of Arroyo and other incorrigible offenders from her regime.”
“The Truth Commission will not lack evidence for the successful prosecution of Arroyo and her officials. The evidence on election fraud, corruption and human …