By Yvonne T. Chua and Luz Rimban | VERA FILES
(Conclusion)
When Quedancor negotiated with the banks, it was already in the red because of its various failed lending programs.
Second Part: Politicians Dip Hand Into Quedancor Funds
First Part: Quedancor Swine Program Another Fertilizer Scam

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today “scrapped a government peace panel negotiating an end to a deadly and drawnout Muslim rebellion in the nation’s south,” Agence France Press reported this morning.

By Yvonne T. Chua and Luz Rimban | VERA FILES
(Second of three parts)
The Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor) does not only give out loans to the poor. It also “lends” money to “needy” politicians, congressmen included. Insiders say Quedancor is the one government corporation politicians know they can run to when they want cash — for political reasons or otherwise. The “loans” are known within Quedancor as “political accounts.”
First Part: Quedancor Swine Program Another Fertilizer Scam

By Diosa Labiste, Luz Rimban and Yvonne Chua | VERA FILES
(First of three parts)
Documents and interviews show that officials involved in questionable Quedancor transactions were the same ones implicated in the P728-million fertilizer scam: then Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo, who chaired Quedancor, and then Agriculture Undersecretary for finance and administration Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante who was at the time also a director of the Land Bank of the Philippines from which Quedancor obtained billions of pesos in loans.

Anakpawis party-list Representative Rafael Mariano today dared President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to immediately disarm and dismantle the armed vigilante group Reform Ilaga Movement in the province of North Cotobato saying “the resurrection of the dreaded armed group will only escalate the armed conflict in the region and lead to massive human rights abuses.”
“We demand Ms Arroyo [...]

Responsibility for the escalating armed conflict in Mindanao should be laid squarely on the US-backed Arroyo regime. Through its self-serving and deceitful maneuvers, the Arroyo regime has severely damaged the peace process, provoked armed confrontation, and allowed escalating foreign intervention in the country’s internal affairs including armed conflicts.

By Carlos H. Conde
Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project
Given that Arroyo doesn’t have any remaining political capital to work with, the MILF should probably think about suspending negotiations with the government. If the MILF plays its cards well and controls its troops -– it bears repeating that the MILF gains nothing from attacking civilians — the burden of stilling the guns and keeping the peace in Mindanao lies with Arroyo.

Heto pa ang isang nanggagago.
In her State of the Nation Address on Monday, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo boasted that text messaging in the Philippines now costs only 50 centavos each message sent. She said this was her government’s response to the clamor by poor Filipinos to reduce prices — and text messaging being popular among the [...]

Pulling a 21-foot effigy of a sinking ship, members of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan marched from Tandang Sora Avenue to just beyond EVER Commonwealth to join other anti-Arroyo groups in a “People’s SONA”. The counter-SONA described the state of the nation as “a sinking ship with the captain even robbing its passengers”.

The reported trip of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the United States to meet with US president George W. Bush and presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama will mark another low point in RP-US relations, according to the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.
“It will be an extravaganza of terror and economic plunder, the two [...]

MANILA, Philippines — It will be a meeting of two of the most unpopular presidents in their respective countries, a summit between a colonial master and a puppet.
These were the words used by the umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan to describe the reported meeting between United States George W. Bush and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal [...]

Statement of the President, 26 May 2008
The non-stop increase in oil prices and the unprecedented food price shock now roiling the world are adversely affecting household incomes and forcing families to cut back on spending, if not do away altogether with certain necessities.
At an average of P450 per unit, parents are spending about P10,000 for [...]

KMU chairman Elmer Labog, in a statement, said the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was responsible for the deteriorating health of AnakPawis Rep. Crispin Beltran, which may have been a factor in the accident that led to his death. “It cannot be denied that the arrest and detention of Ka Bel at Camp Crame and Philippine Heart Center last 2006 due to fabricated cases of rebellion was a cause for his physical deterioration,” Labog said. (Click here to read the statements and tributes to Ka Bel.)

House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Satur C. Ocampo today condemned the killing of an official of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas on Thursday in Davao City and blamed it on President Macapagal-Arroyo’s order to carry on counter-insurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya 2 that includes extra-judicial killings.
The KMP identified the victim as [...]

Among the recommendations put forth at the UNHRC’s review of human rights in the Philippines is the intensification of efforts to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of extrajudicial killings.

ZTE-NBN scandal whistleblower Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada says he has paid the price for telling the Filipino people what they already know “and yet do not want to be told.”

Various anti-Arroyo groups will come together in protest once again, but this time, the focus will be the economy.
Groups aligned with the United Opposition (UNO), the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), Edsa 3 Coalition, Laban ng Masa, the Be not Afraid Movement and other Opposition forces will converge at Plaza Miranda in Manila at 4:00 pm [...]

House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Satur C. Ocampo today warned President Macapagal-Arroyo that her government’s failure to effectively address the rice crisis because of her wrong food security policy adds ground to the people’s mounting calls for her ouster.
“The Filipino people are getting fed up and now begin to understand that Ms [...]