Republican Stops Jobless Benefits

Once again, a stubborn Senate Republican is blocking speedy passage of a stopgap bill to extend jobless benefits, saying its $9 billion cost should not be added to the national debt.
This time it's Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who's insisting that the measure be "paid for" so as not to add to the nation's $12.7 trillion debt.
"What we are doing is stealing future opportunity from our children," Coburn said Thursday.
The clash comes less than a month after Republicans abandoned a similar battle that led to an interruption in unemployment benefits eligibility for some people and a two-day furlough for about 2,000 Transportation Department employees.
A stopgap law enacted early this month extends though April 5 unemployment insurance for people who have been out of a job for more than six months, provides health insurance subsidies for the jobless and protects doctors from a sharp cut in Medicare payments.
But another short-term extension of the jobless benefits is needed while House and Senate Democrats work through negotiations on a long-term measure that would provide them through the end of the year. Those talks have slowed, prompting Democrats to move to extend benefits for an additional month.
Last month, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., blocked a similar extension of jobless benefits, but Republicans ended up on the losing end of a public relations battle and Bunning backed away.
Unlike the prior battle, this time there's no immediate danger of jobless people becoming ineligible for benefits. The unemployment benefits don't expire until April 5, leaving time to work through the problem. But lawmakers are also antsy to go home for a two-week spring recess.
The House passed the stopgap bill last week by a voice vote.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky tried to move to legislation to extend the jobless benefits and other provisions, but the move was immediately quashed by Democrats. Democratic leaders say that jobless benefits are an emergency and don't need to conform to the new pay-as-you-go budget law, which requires new benefit programs to be offset with spending cuts or tax increases so they don't increase the deficit.
"We really believe that the unemployment situation is an emergency economic situation. Republicans do not accept that," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the majority whip. "They want to cut off unemployment benefits or pay for it with stimulus funds that are creating jobs."
"I understand that Republicans are upset they didn't get their way on health care," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "But Republicans should not take out their anger on the least fortunate, which is exactly what they are doing. They should not kick the unemployed while they're down."

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Priest Accused for Molesting

Arthur Budzinski says the first time the priest molested him, he was 12 years old, alone and away from home at a school for the deaf. He says he asked the Rev. Lawrence Murphy to hear his confession, and instead the priest took him into a closet under the stairs and sexually assaulted him.
Budzinski, now 61, was one of about 200 deaf boys at the St. John's School for the Deaf just outside Milwaukee who say they were molested by the priest decades ago in a case now creating a scandal for the Vatican and threatening to ensnare Pope Benedict XVI.
Some of the allegations became public years ago. But they got renewed attention this week after documents obtained by The New York Times showed that Murphy was spared a defrocking in the mid-1990s because he was protected by the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now the pope.
The Vatican on Thursday strongly defended its decision not to defrock Murphy and denounced what it called a campaign to smear the pope and his aides.
In recent weeks, Benedict has also come under fire over his handling of an abuse case against a priest in Germany three decades ago when he was a cardinal in charge of the Munich Archdiocese.
In the Milwaukee-area case, Murphy was accused of molesting boys in the confessional, in dormitories, in closets and during field trips while working at the school for the deaf from the 1950s through 1974. Murphy died in 1998 at age 72.
Budzinski, now a bicycle and furniture assembler at a department store, said Murphy preyed on him during the 1960s. The priest was fluent in sign language and often told the boys they were handsome, Budzinski said Thursday during an interview in which his daughter interpreted his sign language.
He said he avoided Murphy as much as he could afterward, but when he went to Murphy's office the following year to make another confession the priest led him to an adjoining room and sexually assaulted him again.
"It seemed like my father would be walking into a trap every time," said Budzinski's 26-year-old daughter, Gigi Budzinski.
He said Murphy assaulted him a third time the next year in Budzinski's bed in his dormitory room. Other boys were similarly assaulted, he said.
"They would sleep in a large open room in bunk beds," Budzinski's daughter said. "My father saw other boys being molested, too. They'd never talk about it."
Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Ratzinger to let them hold a church trial against Murphy.
However, Ratzinger's deputy at the time decided the alleged molestation occurred too long ago and said Murphy — then ailing and elderly — should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese, according to the documents.
Murphy's alleged victims also included at least one teen in a juvenile detention center in the 1970s.
Donald Marshall, now 45, said Murphy visited him several times a week at the detention center where he was sent at age 13 for burglary. Murphy seemed nice when others were around, Marshall said. But Marshall said he was later isolated in a cell after a fight — and the priest paid him a visit there.
"He was sitting on my bed, reading the Bible to me, and he put his hand on my knee," Marshall said. "He leaned over and started kissing me. That's when he tried to put his hand down my pants."
The Associated Press does not normally identify victims of sex crimes but Budzinski and Marshall allowed their names to be used.
One of the documents, written by the Rev. Thomas Brundage and dated October 1997, said some of Murphy's assaults began in the confessional, where he began by asking the boys about their being circumcised. Brundage said at least 100 boys were involved.
"Odds are that this situation may very well be the most horrendous, number-wise, and especially because these are physically challenged, vulnerable people," Brundage wrote.
Another deaf student, Steven Geier of Madison, said Murphy molested him four times in a St. John's closet in the mid-1960s starting when Geier was 14. During the first assault Murphy demanded Geier remove his pants, and when he refused Murphy pulled them off, Geier said through a sign language interpreter.
"Father Murphy put everything into the context of God. I felt like I was really brainwashed," Geier said. He spoke in harsh terms about the pope, calling him "stupid" for allowing the abuse of children even though he is supposed to be doing God's work.
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee entered mediation in 2004 with a number of people who claimed to have been victimized by priests. The archdiocese has paid compensation to Murphy's victims, but spokeswoman Julie Wolf would not say how much. Budzinski said he received $80,000.
Through mid-2009, the archdiocese said, it paid out $28 million to settle allegations of clergy sexual abuse.
"Murphy's actions were criminal and we sincerely apologize to those who have been harmed," the archdiocese said in a statement Thursday.
Budzinski said that when he was 26, he and two others victimized by Murphy went to police. He said the police investigated Murphy but didn't arrest him.
E. Michael McCann, then the Milwaukee County district attorney, said his office reviewed the case but couldn't file charges because the six-year statute of limitations had run out.
Budzinski said he suspected that Murphy targeted deaf boys whose parents weren't deaf. Back then, he said, those parents didn't know how to communicate with their deaf children, so those youngsters were less likely to expose Murphy's actions.
The Vatican issued a strong defense of its handling of the Murphy case. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the Murphy case did not reach the Vatican until 1996 — some 20 years after Milwaukee church authorities first learned of the allegations. Lombardi said the absence of more recent allegations was a factor in the decision not to defrock Murphy.
On Thursday, a group of Americans who say they were sexually abused by clerics held a news conference outside St. Peter's Square in Rome to denounce Benedict's handling of the case.
Peter Isely, the Milwaukee-based director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called the Murphy case the most "incontrovertible case of pedophilia you could get."
"The goal of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was to keep this secret," he said.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Iphone Side to Side with AT&T Apps

For a little $1 iPhone app, Line2 sure has the potential to shake up an entire industry.
 It can save you money. It can make calls where AT&T's (T) signal is weak, like indoors. It can turn an iPod Touch into a full-blown cellphone.
And it can ruin the sleep of cellphone executives everywhere.
Line2 gives your iPhone a second phone number -- a second phone line, complete with its own contacts list, voice mail, and so on. The company behind it, Toktumi (get it?), imagines that you'll distribute the Line2 number to business contacts, and your regular iPhone number to friends and family. Your second line can be an 800 number, if you wish, or you can transfer an existing number.
To that end, Toktumi offers, on its Web site, a raft of Google (GOOG) Voice-ish features that are intended to help a small businesses look bigger: call screening, Do Not Disturb hours and voice mail messages sent to you as e-mail. You can create an "automated attendant" -- "Press 1 for sales," "Press 2 for accounting," and so on -- that routes incoming calls to other phone numbers. Or, if you're pretending to be a bigger business than you are, route them all to yourself.
The Line2 app is a carbon copy, a visual clone, of the iPhone's own phone software. The dialing pad, your iPhone Contacts list, your recent calls list and visual voice mail all look just like the iPhone's.
(Let's pause for a moment here to blink, dumbfounded, at that point. Apple's (AAPL) rules prohibit App Store programs that look or work too much like the iPhone's own built-in apps. For example, Apple rejected the Google Voice app because, as Apple explained to the Federal Communications Commission, it works "by replacing the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls." That is exactly what Line2 does. Oh well -- the Jobs works in mysterious ways.)
So you have a second line on your iPhone. But that's not the best part.
Line2 also turns the iPhone into a dual-mode phone. That is, it can make and receive calls either using either the AT&T airwaves as usual, or -- now this is the best part -- over the Internet. Any time you're in a wireless hot spot, Line2 places its calls over Wi-Fi instead of AT&T's network.
That's a game-changer. Where, after all, is cellphone reception generally the worst? Right -- indoors. In your house or your office building, precisely where you have Wi-Fi. Line2 in Wi-Fi means rock-solid, confident reception indoors.
Line2 also runs on the iPod Touch. When you're in a Wi-Fi hot spot, your Touch is now a full-blown cellphone, and you don't owe AT&T a penny.
But wait, there's more.
Turns out Wi-Fi calls don't use up any AT&T minutes. You can talk all day long, without ever worrying about going over your monthly allotment of minutes. Wi-Fi calls are free forever.
Well, not quite free; Line2 service costs $15 a month (after a 30-day free trial).
But here's one of those cases where spending more could save you money. If you're in a Wi-Fi hot spot most of the time (at work, for example), that's an awful lot of calling you can do in Wi-Fi -- probably enough to downgrade your AT&T plan to one that gives you fewer minutes. If you're on the 900-minute or unlimited plan ($90 or $100 a month), for example, you might be able to get away with the 450-minute plan ($70). Even with Line2's fee, you're saving $5 or $15 a month.
Line2 also lets you call overseas phone numbers for Skype-like rates: 2 to 5 cents a minute to most countries. (A full table of rates is available at toktumi.com.) As a handy globetrotters' bonus, calls home to numbers in the United States from overseas hot spots are free.
All of these benefits come to you when you're in a Wi-Fi hot spot, because your calls are carried by the Internet instead of by AT&T. Interestingly enough, though, Line2 can also make Internet calls even when you're not in a hot spot.
It can, at your option, place calls over AT&T's 3G data network, where it's available. Every iPhone plan includes unlimited use of this 3G network -- it's how your iPhone sends e-mail and surfs the Web. So once again, Line2 calls don't use up any of your monthly voice minutes.
Unfortunately, voice connections on the 3G network aren't as strong and reliable as the voice or Wi-Fi methods. Cellular data networks aren't made for seamless handoffs from cell tower to tower as you drive, for example -- there's not much need for it if you're just doing e-mail and Web -- so dropped calls are more likely. Fortunately, if you're on a 3G data-network call and you walk into a hot spot, Line2 switches to the more reliable Wi-Fi network seamlessly, in midcall.
Whenever you do have an Internet connection -- either Wi-Fi or a strong 3G area -- you're in for a startling treat. If you and your calling partner are both Line2 subscribers, Line2 kicks you into superhigh audio-quality mode (16-bit mode, as the techies call it).
Your calling partners sound as if they're speaking right into the mike at an FM radio station. It's almost too clear; you hear the other person's breathing, lip smacks, clothing rustling and so on. After years of suffering through awful cellphone audio, it's quite a revelation to hear what you've been missing.
Now, this all sounds wonderful, and Line2 generally is wonderful. But there's room for improvement.
First, as you've no doubt already concluded, understanding Line2 is complicated. You have three different ways to make calls, each with pros and cons.
You miss a certain degree of refinement, too. The dialing pad doesn't make touch-tone sounds as you tap the keys. There's no Favorites list within the Line2 app. You can't get or send text messages on your Line2 line. (The company says it will fix all this soon.)
There's a faint hiss on Line2 calls, as if you're on a long-distance call in 1970. The company says that it deliberately introduces this "comfort noise" to reassure you that you're still connected, but it's unnecessary. And sometimes there's a voice delay of a half-second or so (of course, you sometimes get that on regular cellphone calls, too).
Finally, a note about incoming calls. If the Line2 app is open at the time, you're connected via Wi-Fi, if available. If it's not running, the call comes in through AT&T, so you lose the benefits of Wi-Fi calling. In short, until Apple blesses the iPhone with multitasking software, you have to leave Line2 open whenever you put the phone to sleep. That's awkward.
Still, Line2 is the first app that can receive incoming calls via either Wi-Fi or cellular voice, so you get the call even if the app isn't running. That's one of several advantages that distinguish it from other voice-over-Internet apps like Skype and TruPhone.
Another example: If you're on a Wi-Fi call using those other programs, and someone calls your regular iPhone number, your first call is unceremoniously disconnected. Line2, on the other hand, offers you the chance to decline the incoming call without losing your Wi-Fi call.
Those rival apps also lack Line2's call-management features, visual voice mail and conference calling with up to 20 other people. And Line2 is the only app that gives you a choice of call methods for incoming and outgoing calls.
All of this should rattle cell industry executives, because let's face it: the Internet tends to make things free. Cell carriers go through life hoping nobody notices the cellephant in the room: that once everybody starts making free calls over the Internet, it's Game Over for the dollars-for-minutes model.
Line2, however, brings us one big step closer to that very future. It's going to be a wild ride.
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Police release Frenchman who hacked Obama Twitter page

French police have released a hacker who gained access to US President Barack Obama's account in one of his attacks on the wildly popular micro-blogging site Twitter, police said Wednesday.
The unemployed 25-year-old, who lived with his parents and used the pseudonym "Hacker Croll", was arrested Tuesday after an operation conducted jointly with US agents from the FBI that lasted several months.
He was questioned in police custody in the central city of Clermont-Ferrand and has been ordered to appear in court in the same city on June 24.
"He explained how he did it. He's not a genius," said the source.
"He was a young man spending time on the Internet. He acted as a result of a bet, out of the defiance of the hacker. He is the sort who likes to claim responsibility for what he has done," added prosecutor Jean-Yves Coquillat.
Hacking into a database is a crime in France which carries a maximum two-year prison sentence.
San Francisco-based Twitter did not immediately reply to an email from AFP about the arrest while the FBI said it was looking into the report.
In July, leading US technology blog TechCrunch.com reported that it had received a file containing 310 confidential corporate and personal documents from "Hacker Croll" about Twitter and Twitter employees.
TechCrunch said the documents included executive meeting notes, partner agreements, financial projections, calendars, phone logs, office plans, and other information.
TechCrunch published some of the documents and declined to publish others.
Twitter founder Evan Williams acknowledged to TechCrunch at the time that documents had been obtained in the attack but insisted that the hacker did not gain access to any Twitter user accounts.
The hacker, who attacked the Twitter accounts of several US celebrities, had also attacked Facebook pages and email accounts operated by Google and other providers, the police said.
But he had never attempted to profit financially from his hacking activities on Twitter, in which users can send out messages of 140 characters or less, they added.
He had managed to secure Twitter's administrator codes and was able to create, modify or delete accounts at will, the source said, adding that the hacker set up a blog to share his discoveries.
The hacker had no particular technological expertise, said police, but simply guessed people's passwords by working them out from information on their blogs or online pages they had created about themselves, police said.
He would also do this by answering the "secret question" on web-based email accounts -- which people often answer by giving their maiden name or the name of their pet -- and then use this to gain access to Twitter passwords.
"Hacker Croll" liked to post electronic copies of the pages he hacked into on French online forums to prove that he gained administrator access to Twitter accounts, according to online reports on his activities.
The French hacker was known to police for minor scams that had netted €15,000 ($20,000), according to the police.
The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) alerted French authorities to his presence on French territory in July last year.
Four FBI agents worked with French police for several months to track down "Hacker Croll" and stop the attacks on Twitter, which has millions of users across the world.
In January last year, dozens of Twitter accounts, including that of pop star Britney Spears, were hacked into and fake messages sent out.
Hackers knocked the site offline for several hours last August.
While an everyday chatting tool for many, Twitter has become a weapon used by dissidents to circumvent censorship in places where freedom of speech is suppressed.
Twitter said last month that users were creating 50 million messages per day.
The San Francisco-based Twitter does not release figures on the total number of users of the service, which was launched in August 2006

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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NSO's Highest in 7 years

THE COUNTRY’S IMPORT BILL GREW BY 30.3 percent year-on-year in January to $4.261 billion—the strongest in seven years, the National Statistics Office said Thursday.
Based on the NSO’s latest report on external trade, the combined value of goods shipped in and out of the country rose by 35.6 percent to $7.841 billion in January.
As a result, the trade balance stood at a deficit of $682 million, or a tenth less than the $799-million deficit registered the previous year.
Also, shipments grew by 9.4 percent month-on-month from a revised $3.986 billion in December.
The value of imports have been increasing year-on-year since November, following 13 months of decline due to the global downturn.
Growth in imports may be sustained and will mirror a rise in exports, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Augusto B. Santos said in an interview.
Rise in imports is considered positive because it reflects a similar movement in exports. The Philippines relies heavily on foreign electronics inputs to fuel its export revenues.
“The government expects imports to grow this year by 13 percent to 15 percent, while exports expand by 7 percent to 9 percent,” Santos said.
NSO data show that electronic products accounted for 31.4 percent of total imports in January. The value rose by 2.2 percent to $1337 billion year-on-year.
Also, electronic imports in January increased by 8.6 percent month-on-month from $1.231 billion in December.
All products accounted for a combined bill of $3.319 billion, or 77.9 percent of total import payments in January.
The United States is back as the biggest source of imports, accounting for 13.4 percent of total cargoes, or $570.72 million—a decrease of 1.4 percent year-on-year.

David Mikael Taclino
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Venezuela to Shut Down Power during Holy week

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on Wednesday a week-long holiday over Easter, shutting government and public institutions three days longer than usual, to save power amid a growing energy crisis.
"Holy Week is coming. We've declared Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday a holiday. All of Holy Week will be a holiday," Chavez said during a televised event in Caracas.
Next week's measure extends the official Easter holiday by three days. Like most other predominantly Catholic Latin American nations, Venezuela normally takes Thursday and Good Friday off as holidays.
"The chief aim (of the measure) is not laziness, but to save power," the leftist leader added.
A severe drought has dropped water reserves at the country's massive Guri Dam hydroelectric complex on the Orinoco river close to the "emergency level," the government said. The complex supplies 70 percent of the country's power needs.
The opposition instead blames the energy crisis on lack of investment and inefficiencies in the energy sector.
The energy crisis last month prompted government-mandated power-saving measures including a 10-percent cut in electricity use for individuals and 20 percent for companies, with fines imposed for any infraction.
Earlier this week, the government switched off power for 24 hours to 96 companies and stores, as punishment for exceeding their power quotas.
Authorities in January imposed rolling brownouts across Caracas that triggered such a public outcry they were discontinued after only a few days.

David Mikael Taclino
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Pentagon eases rules on gay ban in US military

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced new measures Thursday to make it harder to discharge gays in the US military, saying the move offered "a greater measure of common sense and common decency."
Gates said the changes seek to enforce "in a fairer and more appropriate manner" the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law which requires gays to keep quiet about their sexual orientation or face expulsion from the military.
The guidelines represent an interim step to ease the effect of the law even as Congress debates President Barack Obama's call to repeal the policy entirely.
Under the decision, only higher-ranking officers will be allowed to initiate and oversee discharge cases. And information passed on to lawyers, clergy, psychotherapists and medical professionals would be deemed confidential, Gates said.
The guidelines, which go into effect immediately, also raise the threshold for what is accepted as "credible" information, discouraging the use of hearsay, requiring those providing evidence to take an oath and "special scrutiny" for fellow troops possibly out to harm their comrades.
"I believe these changes represent an important improvement, in the way the current law is put into practice, above all by providing a greater measure of common sense and common decency, to a process for handling what are difficult and complex issues for all involved," he said.
The measures, which apply to all pending cases, reflected in part suggestions from activists working to repeal the ban, which welcomed the defense secretary's move.
"The regulatory changes announced today are another major step forward in making the 1993 ban less draconian," Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Service Members Legal Defense Network, said in a statement.
"At least a gay service member can divulge his or her sexuality to a physician or therapist without fear of getting fired. Service members can also report domestic abuse without the fear of being discharged."
Gates had previously expressed concern that soldiers who had kept their sexual orientation quiet and abided by the law were sometimes forced out after they were exposed by others, including by those who might hold a grudge.
Earlier this month, a group of US senators introduced legislation to end the gay ban -- a plan backed by Obama but opposed by some top US military officers.
A similar bill was introduced in the House of Representatives in July 2009.
The top US military officer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, has strongly endorsed ending the ban, saying the current law "forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens."
But in a March 8 letter to the Stars and Stripes newspaper, a three-star Army officer, Lieutenant General Benjamin Mixon, publicly urged troops to speak out if they oppose lifting the ban on gays serving openly.
Mullen and Gates both said on Thursday the general was out of line in declaring his views publicly.
"I think that for an active-duty officer to comment on an issue like this is inappropriate," Gates said.
Mullen said the matter was being addressed in the "chain of command."
Gates has launched a review of the current policy, due to be completed by December 1, designed to examine the possible effect of repealing the 1993 law.
The review will seek the views of troops and military families on the issue, as well as take into account the experience of NATO allies and other armies that permit gays to serve openly.
More than 13,500 service members have been dismissed under the law since it was adopted.
The 1993 law replaced an outright prohibition against homosexuals in the military.
Former president Bill Clinton agreed to the compromise policy after meeting stiff resistance from commanders and lawmakers when he proposed allowing gays to serve openly.

David Mikael Taclino
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King of Herion Arrested

Mexican police have arrested a suspected top supplier of heroin to the United States, known as "The King of Heroin," security officials said here on Thursday.
Jose Antonio Medina was presented to the press in Mexico as a new US government report underlined the growing dominance of Mexican drug cartels on the illegal US drug market, including an increasing production of heroin in Mexico.
Medina, also known as "Don Pepe," delivered an average of 200 kilos (440 pounds) of heroin a month to the United States, mainly to Los Angeles, earning some $12 million, Ramon Pequeno, head of the anti-drug squad, said at a news conference.
The 36-year-old, who was captured on Wednesday, "is considered by US authorities to be the main supplier of heroin to this country," Pequeno said.
Medina hid the drugs in secret compartments of vehicles crossing between the Mexican city of Tijuana and the US city of San Diego, one of the world's busiest border crossings, Pequeno alleged.
The US State of California was seeking Medina's arrest and extradition, he added.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led a senior delegation to Mexico this week to reinforce joint efforts to tackle spiraling attacks blamed on powerful, feuding drug traffickers.
A US Justice Department report out Thursday meanwhile said that Mexican drug cartels were increasing their control of the illegal US drug market through closer ties with street gangs and increased production.
The Mexican drug cartels last year "increased the flow of several drugs (heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana) into the United States, primarily because of the increased production in Mexico."
According to US government estimates, Mexico's production of heroin more than doubled in one year, from 17 pure metric tons in 2007 to 38 pure metric tons in 2008.
The Mexican government has deployed more than 50,000 troops nationwide in a so far unsuccessful bid to take on drug gangs and organized crime.
A Spanish businessman was among 16 people killed, including one beheading, in the latest attacks in the northern state of Chihuahua, justice officials said on Thursday.

David Mikael Taclino
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California to Vote on Marijuana issue

Californians will vote in November on an initiative to legalize marijuana, state election officials have said, setting the stage for a heated campaign on relaxing drug laws.
Using the drug for medical purposes has been legal for 14 years in California.
But the new initiative, which state election officials announced on Wednesday had obtained enough signatures to be on the ballot during this fall's mid-term elections, also seeks to legalize recreational marijuana use.
The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 would allow counties and cities in the state to adopt ordinances to authorize cultivating, transporting and selling marijuana, raising revenue through taxes similar to those on alcohol and cigarettes.
Supporters are hoping the taxes will help garner support for the measure at a time when the Golden State is suffering from a crippling budget crisis.
The initiative would save "up to several tens of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments on the costs of incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders," Secretary of State Debra Bowen said in a statement.
She also pointed to "unknown but potentially major tax, fee, and benefit assessment revenues to state and local government related to the production and sale of marijuana products."
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has already spoken in favor of imposing a tax on marijuana consumption in a bid to bridge the economic gap plaguing the country's richest and most populous state.
Under the measure, people aged 21 and older could own up to one ounce (28 grams) of pot for personal use. Possessing an ounce or less of marijuana has been a misdemeanor with fines of $100 since 1975, when a law was passed that reduced tougher penalties.
It would also allow adults to grow up to 25 square feet (two square meters) of cannabis per residence or parcel.
According to drug legalization supporters, arrests for marijuana possession have risen dramatically in California over the past two decades.
"Our current marijuana laws are failing California," said Aaron Smith, California policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project.
"Year after year, prohibition forces police to spend time chasing down non-violent marijuana offenders while tens of thousands of violent crimes go unsolved -- all while marijuana use and availability remain unchanged."
Yet polls have shown that while most California voters want to legalize marijuana, there is not a large enough margin to ensure the measure would pass.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Venezuela arrests TV network owner, Chavez critic

Venezuelan police on Thursday arrested the head of Globovision, a TV network critical of leftist President Hugo Chavez, on charges that he was trying to flee the country to avoid criminal charges.
Attorney General Luisa Ortega said that she issued a warrant for the arrest of Guillermo Zuloaga, who "was about to leave the country trying to get himself out of a criminal case."
Zuloaga confirmed by telephone to his network that police detained him at the airport in the northeastern city of Punto Fijo, where he said he was planning to travel to the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean with his family on vacation.
He said that he had not been informed of any arrest warrant against him.
"This is another abuse," Zuloaga told Globovision. "I have no intention of leaving Venezuela now nor any time soon."
Earlier in the week Venezuela's National Assembly asked Ortega to investigate recent Zuloaga statements at an Inter American Press Association meeting in Aruba (Netherlands Antilles) to consider legal action.
According to the assembly, which is dominated by pro-Chavez legislators, Zuloaga lied about the Venezuelan government activities, and was attempting to portray Chavez as a criminal to tarnish his reputation.
Chavez has accused Globovision of "media terrorism."
The network in 2009 was forced to pay a $4.1-million fine for failing to acknowledge having aired ads in favor of an opposition strike in 2002.
The network claims that government action against it are politically motivated.
Zuloaga's arrest comes on the same day as the publication of a damning report by The Inter American Commission on Human Rights, denouncing Venezuela's persecution of political opponents, and accusing it of using the power of the state to attack its political enemies.
Public debate in Venezuela "is being increasingly reduced through the use of instruments such as the criminal justice system to silence critical or dissident expressions," said the commission, an independent rights body of the Organization of American States, located in Washington.
"It is extremely troubling that those who make allegations or state opinions about the situation in the country are charged with such offenses as the instigation to commit a crime."

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Car and Money Accident in Ohio

People fell onto a bag of cash like a pack of hungry piranhas after more than $100,000 tumbled out the back of an armored truck onto an Ohio street, local media reported.
The bag split open after it fell off the back of the vehicle Wednesday and the driver drove away without noticing.
But a whole bunch of people spotted the cash blowing down the street in Whitehall, a Columbus suburb, and a mad dash for cash ensued.
"People were jumping out of their vehicles," one witness told NBC4 news.
"Like when you throw some fish in and you've got a school of piranhas and they haven't eaten for a long time. It was funny."
Another witness described a surreal atmosphere with people laughing, smiling and taking as much as they could carry.
Workers at a nearby flower shop helped police gather up the money in boxes. Several people ended up bringing some of the cash into the police station.
But only about $10,500 had been recovered by the end of the day, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
"We're hoping that more people do the right thing," Whitehall Police Sergeant Randy Snider told the paper.
Police are examining surveillance camera video and photographs from cell phone cameras to try to track down the people who grabbed the money.

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CHED stops Universities to THI

There will be no tuition hike in state colleges and universities, but protesting students will have to answer for the estimated P1 million worth of public property that they damaged or destroyed during their protests, Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) chair Emmanuel Angeles said Thursday.
No tuition increases have been approved for the Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Manila, Dr. Espinosa Memorial State College of Agriculture and Technology in Masbate, and the Mindanao State University campus in Sulu—the three state institutions that are seeking fee hikes.
Angeles said he would also try to convince 290 private tertiary schools across the country to defer planned tuition increases in the coming school year.
“The public shouldn’t worry. I will not allow it,” he said.
Angeles made the announcement after days of student protests, particularly at PUP, where “more than half as million pesos” worth of school property was damaged or destroyed.
On Wednesday, students took their protests to the CHEd office in Quezon City which sustained damage of “half a million pesos,” Angeles said.
“They behaved like uneducated people. They’re studying in universities but they’re acting as if they’re uneducated,” he said.
Angeles said the protesters who destroyed public property should be held liable for their actions.
“Those who can be identified, I think they have to answer for this action because we are still a democratic country,” he said.
Angeles said the CHEd would try to provide money or help raise funds for the three SUCs which, he said, only wanted to raise fees to improve their facilities.
“The tuition of P12 per unit (at PUP) is not sufficient to get a good education, but P200 per unit is exorbitant. I have just talked to PUP president Dante Guevarra and I told him that this is not the time for increasing fees,” he said.
“We’ll try to help them from our limited funds, plus donations alumni and business. We’ll do some fund-raising to improve their facilities,” he added.
Angeles said the students should take their protest to Congress and agitate for it to increase the government budget for education.
“Our education budget is only a little over 1.2 percent of GNP when in other countries it is about four percent. That’s why they have first-class education,” he said.
Angeles said the 290 private tertiary schools which are asking for tuition-hike approval will have to “go through the eye of the needle.”
“Out of 1,781 tertiary schools, 290 are intending to increase as of March 23. This is not yet final so I intend to appeal to them so that their increase would be reasonable,” he said.
Angeles said the private schools are seeking an average increase of 10.19 percent.
The biggest number of private tertiary schools seeking an increase come from Metro Manila (74 schools), Calabarzon (50), Central Luzon (39), and Central Visayas (24).

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196 More to be Arrested in Maguindanao Massacre

ALMOST A MONTH after the justice department recommended the filing of charges against the suspects, 196 more accused in the November 2009 Ampatuan massacre have been indicted at a Quezon City court on 56 counts of murder.
In an order dated March 24, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes admitted the amended information for multiple murder charges against the 196, which include five high-profile members of the Ampatuan clan as well as police officers.
With seven of the accused in the amended charge sheet already in custody, the court issued separate arrest warrants for 56 counts of murder against the 189 who are considered at large. No bail was recommended.
Only Andal Ampatuan Jr. was charged with 56 counts of murder last month. He entered a plea of not guilty.
In the amended information, also charged with the mass murder were Andal Ampatuan Sr., Zaldy Ampatuan, Akmad Ampatuan Sr., Sajid Ampatuan and Anwar Ampatuan who are all detained in different police camps in Davao and General Santos City.
Also under detention are two other accused—Jakpan Dilon and Esmael Casapia.
Court staffers said the court issued the order for the indictment and the arrest warrants on Wednesday, but the arrest warrants were released to be served only yesterday.
The police officials who were ordered arrested were Chief
Insp. Sukarno Dicay; Senior Insp. Abdulgapor Abad of the Regional Mobile Group (RMG); Supt. Abusana Mundas Maguid, Maguindanao provincial police director; Supt. Bahnarin Kamaong and Supt. Abdulwahid Pedtucasan of the RMG; Insp. Rex Ariel Diongon of the Provincial Mobile Group (PMG); Insp. Michael Hoy Macaney; and Insp. Saudi Mukamad of the PMG.
Also ordered arrested was the vice mayor of Sultan Barongis town, Zukarno Badal.
Members of the Ampatuan clan were implicated in the mass murder of 57 people, including women, lawyers and journalists accompanying the relatives of Esmael Mangudadatu, who was set to contest the position of Maguindanao governor against a member of the Ampatuan clan. The Ampatuans have denied any involvement in the killings.
The DOJ has also filed a rebellion case against the Ampatuans, which is now pending before Quezon City Judge Vivencio Baclig.
Early this week, Reyes junked a defense motion seeking her inhibition from the case. Reyes maintained that she was not biased or partial against the accused.
The court has yet to announce where the next hearing of the case will be. Previous hearings were held in Camp Crame.
“In order not to frustrate the ends of justice, let warrants of arrest be issued against all accused,” said an excerpt of Judge Reyes’ order.
Four Ampatuans are detained at the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) compound at Camp Fermin G. Lira Jr. in General Santos City—Zaldy, Sajid, Anwar and their uncle Akmad.
The Ampatuan patriarch, Andal Sr., is in a military hospital in Davao City.
Families of journalists killed in the massacre said they welcomed the arrest warrants but expressed fear it will still not lead to swift justice.
Monet Salaysay, widow of Mindanao Gazette publisher Napoleon Salaysay, said the issuance of the warrant of arrest came as a piece of good news at a time they were starting to doubt the outcome of the case.
“What I cannot understand is why they keep on arguing about bail. Isn’t it clear that murder is nonbailable?” she said.

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Organ Trafficking

According to a 2007 special report by Reuters, a shortage of donated organs in rich countries had given rise “to organ trafficking and a black market for rich people and ‘transplant tourists’ who travel to poor countries to buy body parts from people with a few other routes to a better living.”
Among the countries cited were China, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Colombia and the Philippines.
In a government-hosted forum held on March 31, 2008, the nonprofit Asia Against Child Trafficking (AsiaACT) issued the grim finding that Filipinos were considered among the sources of the cheapest kidneys, with local kidney sellers getting $1,500, or 20 times lower than what sellers in the United States were getting.
According to AsiaACT, kidney sellers get a minimum of $30,000 in the United States, while sellers get as much as $20,000 in Israel, $7,500 in Turkey, $6,000 in Brazil, and $2,700 in Moldova and Romania.
Clusters of 100 donors
In the same forum, the Philippine Society of Nephrology also reported finding “clusters” of more than 100 donors in Quezon province, mostly farmers and tricycle drivers, who sold their kidneys for about P112,000.
When polled, 73 percent of these donors admitted that selling their kidneys failed to improve their lives financially, while 79 percent said their health eventually suffered and affected their work.
The Philippines had actually enacted a law against human organ trafficking five years prior to these findings. In 2003, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Republic Act No. 9208, or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.
Implementing rules
A section of the law prohibits the recruitment or abduction of people for the purpose of removal or sale of organs. However, this was not fully implemented for years due to lack of implementing rules and regulations (IRR).
A forum on the proposed IRR for Organ Trafficking was held in Manila on Oct. 17, 2008, which then Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral said would “address the apparent gaps in the law and existing policies on the ‘donation’ of organs by a living non-related donor.”
The IRR finally took effect on June 21, 2009. The IRR categorically prohibits the buying and selling of human organs. Violators face up to 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to P2 million.

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WORLD to he fight ‘transplant tourism’ in RP

Moves to combat “transplant tourism,” in which patients from rich countries pay large sums to have organ transplants in poor ones, are gaining pace, experts told an international conference.
The Philippines is counted among countries most notorious for organ trafficking.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Union (EU) have led the way in tackling the problem, the Madrid conference on organ donations and transplants heard.
“Stopping the illegal trafficking of organs and ending transplant tourism is an objective shared by all countries,” said Spanish Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez.
“The EU has a harmonized model in which no one puts a price on an organ, and the WHO is making a great effort to spread this model,” she added.
Rafael Matesanz, head of Spain’s national transplant organization, said efforts to curb transplant tourism “began in 2005 with the very decisive action of the WHO and the international Transplantation Society to establish laws in the countries where it does not exist.”
Dr. Luc Noel, a coordinator of the WHO on the subject, said a “common front” was now emerging in the battle against the practice.
Worst offenders
Noel noted that laws against the trafficking of organs had been adopted in five countries considered among the worst offenders: China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Egypt and Colombia.
In all these countries, many poor people sell their livers or kidneys to patients in rich countries in need of them.
Noel said that although organ transplant tourism continued in China, legislation passed there in 2007 had already led to the arrest of a gang of traffickers.
Dr. Huang Jiefu, China’s deputy health minister, attended the Madrid conference to emphasize his country’s efforts in this regard.
“Since the beginning of this century, organ transplantation has become a booming health industry” in a country where “over 90 percent of the organs still come from executed prisoners,” Huang said.
“The trading of human organs emerged in China in an under-regulated environment, forming a tremendous profit chain that is against the principles of equality and the goal of building harmonious society in China,” he added.
$180,000 for new liver
The Spanish newspaper El Pais recently reported the case of a Spaniard, Oscar Garay, who paid 135,000 euros ($180,000) to receive a new liver at a hospital in the Chinese city of Tianjin in 2008.
Huang admitted that since the 2007 law, “we still have some hospitals trading with illegal organ agencies and … selling organs to foreigners for profit.”
But he noted that seven hospitals had had their licenses withdrawn for carrying out transplants.
The head of the Transplantation Society, Jeremy Chapman, said “China is working very hard to stop the trade” in organs.
But Chapman said such work must go hand in hand with efforts in the countries of origin of the “tourists.”
“To stop the trade you must stop the need. There are some very successful examples where patients used to leave the country and now they hardly do it at all. I would pick Saudi Arabia as a success story,” he said.

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Cebu Gov. still support Teodoro

Not so fast, Manny Villar; Cebu is still for Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro.
Speaking at a meeting of the One Cebu party on Wednesday night, Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia said that nothing had changed since her party late last year endorsed the former defense secretary and administration standard-bearer in the May 10 elections.
“In this season of shifting political alliances, they say there is no such thing as word of honor, but I beg to disagree,” she said, stressing repeatedly that she was keeping her “palabra de honor” in her 20-minute speech in Cebu City.
“I hope that you are with me here. I hope that you will join me in this firm commitment. Because if you do not then perhaps it is best I risk losing all of your support; but I would rather lose that than lose my self-respect,” she said.
Earlier, One Cebu congressmen reportedly met with Villar, the Nacionalista Party presidential candidate, on Wednesday and vowed to support him.
The governor’s father, Rep. Pablo Garcia of the second district confirmed in an interview on Wednesday afternoon that he and his son, Rep. Pablo John Garcia, had met with Villar, who said he was just exchanging pleasantries with the congressmen.
Official stand
But the 84-year-old family patriarch Thursday declared in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the family remained solid behind Teodoro.
“The party has an official stand and the party is supporting Gibo Teodoro,” the elder Garcia said. He said Teodoro would attend a planned mammoth rally of the party in Cebu Friday to officially launch the campaign for local candidates.
“The governor is my daughter and I am with the governor (on this issue),” he said. “The governor has the support of 90 to 95 percent of all the mayors and is supported by all the congressmen.”
Francis Manglapus, Lakas-Kampi-CMD secretary general, said by phone that Teodoro was attending the One Cebu rally.
“We’re flying there. That’s where you’re going to see Gwen is solidly behind Gilbert. Her father and brother will be there,” he said.
“This is the big event. This is where you will see the sentiments of the Cebuanos. Actions speak louder than words,” he added.
‘She’s sticking it out’
Teodoro told Radio Mindanao Network that he had spoken with the Cebu governor and had gotten assurance of her continuing support.
“She’s sticking it out with us,” Teodoro said.
Aside from the Garcias, Villar reportedly met with Representatives Eduardo Gullas of the first district, Benhur Salimbangon of the fourth district and Nerissa Soon-Ruiz of the sixth district.
Gullas, whose Alayon Party has an alliance with One Cebu, earlier declared his support for Villar. Ruiz and Salimbangon were unavailable for comment Thursday.
Rep. Ramon Red Durano of the fifth district did not attend the meeting.
Former Mandaue City Mayor Alfredo Ouano, whose son Thadeo was privy to the discussion between Villar and the congressmen on Wednesday, said he got the impression that Winston Garcia, the governor’s brother, wanted One Cebu to support Villar.
Ouano said he had learned that Winston was concerned that he would lose his job as president of the Government Service Insurance System if Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III won the presidency.
The Inquirer tried to get Winston’s reaction, but he could not be reached by press time.
Mayor’s denial
Former Mayor Alvin Garcia of Cebu City, founder of Kugi Uswag Sugbo (Progress for Cebu), or Kusug, also denied having said that his cousin Winston arranged an alliance between Kusug and the NP so that the Garcias would support Villar.
“Definitely it’s not true,” he said.
Vice Mayor Maria Luisa Loot of Daanbantayan said she would abide by what the governor had announced. “We will still support Gibo,” Loot said.
The elder Garcia said it did not matter if Teodoro remained at the bottom of surveys of presidential candidates, whose two front-runners are Villar and Aquino.
“If we will go by the surveys then there is no more need for a campaign,” he said.
Drive to lift Gibo rating
Gwendolyn Garcia founded One Cebu. In the 2004 election, the party gave President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a 1-million-vote margin over her nearest rival, the late Fernando Poe Jr., in Cebu.
The administration party this week launched a major offensive to lift Teodoro’s poll rating, putting out new ads in prime time network shows to coincide with the start of the campaign for local positions.
The ruling coalition, which enjoys a headlock on 70 percent of local government positions, is pinning its hopes on superior resources and widespread party machinery to swing the tide in favor of Teodoro, according to political analysts.
Teodoro’s spokesperson, Mike Toledo, has said the commercials will be aired with frequencies rivaling those of Villar and Aquino.
Also Thursday, Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno shrugged off reports that the Garcias had abandoned Teodoro.
“As far as I know, the family, the organization of the Garcias is still working with Gibo. No one among them has left,” said Puno, Teodoro’s chief political strategist.


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FG in bad shape

Amid fresh controversies hounding his family, First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo was Thursday hospitalized with a heart ailment for the third time in three years. Doctors said his illness required “aggressive medical treatment.”
A medical bulletin Thursday night described Arroyo’s condition as “stable but guarded” after he suffered what a doctor interpreted as a recurrence of aneurysm “in another part of the heart.” Malacañang said he was under “intense medical care.”
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo canceled all her scheduled engagements from morning to evening to stay close to her husband at St. Luke’s Medical Center-Global City in Taguig City.
“Let’s pray for the health and the recovery of the First Gentleman,” the President’s spokesperson, Ricardo Saludo, told reporters.
Mike Arroyo, 63, was brought to the hospital at around 8 a.m. after experiencing what was initially described as “back pains.”
“I understand that it’s serious. He’s in the ICU (intensive care unit). I want to go there and see him,” Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno told reporters in Makati City, where he had presided over the oath-taking of new commissioners of the National Police Commission.
Ms Arroyo accompanied her husband to the hospital and stayed with him throughout the day, Press Secretary Crispulo Icban Jr. said by phone.
Mike Arroyo had been undergoing regular therapy at St. Luke’s since he had a high-risk open-heart surgery in April 2007 after being diagnosed with a dissecting aortic aneurysm, a condition involving a tear in a major blood vessel. Four months earlier, he underwent a coronary angioplasty.
Blood pressure
Quoting cardiac surgeon Dr. Rommel Cariño, Icban said Thursday morning that the President’s husband developed a “redissection of the thoracic aorta and experienced back pains.”
Icban said the condition called for “intense medical care to control the blood pressure and heart rate to prevent further redissection.”
“A rupture can cause compression of the blood supply to various vital organs,” Icban quoted Cariño as saying.
He said Arroyo was placed under “continuous monitoring” in the hospital’s coronary care unit.
Another aneurysm
In a bulletin issued at around 7 p.m., Arroyo’s attending doctor, Juliet Gopez-Cervantes, said the President’s husband “developed a neuter in the thoracic aorta, beyond the previously repaired part, called redissection in medical terms.”
“This needs aggressive medical treatment to prevent further dissection, which can compromise the blood supply of other vital organs,” the bulletin said. “Right now, his condition is stable but guarded.”
The doctor did not entertain any questions from the media.
Another doctor, Glen Garcia, said that Arroyo “suffered another aneurysm in another part of his heart.”
“What the bulletin is saying is that the previous condition of (Arroyo) could have recurred in a different area,” said Garcia, an emergency medical consultant at the hospital’s emergency room.
Garcia said the doctors were still managing Arroyo’s condition with medicines as indicated in the bulletin and that the possibility of doing another surgery on him seemed not to be an option at this time, at least based on what the bulletin indicated.
On hearing about Arroyo’s illness, Liberal Party standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III said: “We should pray for everyone who is sick.”
Former President Joseph Estrada wished Arroyo “full recovery.”
Arroyo’s latest medical episode coincided with opposition attacks against the President’s supposed intention to hang on to power by getting herself elected to Congress so she would be in a position to become prime minister if the Philippines switched to a parliamentary system.
The attacks were bolstered by a bid by Ms Arroyo’s elder son, Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, to become a party-list lawmaker—representing security guards—in the next Congress.
Other criticisms of Ms Arroyo centered around concerns—raised by her deputy spokesperson, Charito Planas, herself—that a military junta might take power if there was a failure of elections in May.
Mike Arroyo appeared jolly during Monday’s courtesy call on the President by Manny Pacquiao following the boxing champion’s return from his conquest of Ghanaian Joshua Clottey in Texas.
Saludo said he believed Arroyo’s illness was related to the old ailment.
Main blood vessel
“If you will recall, the First Gentleman had a condition some years back wherein he had to undergo a rather delicate operation and that condition also involved the thoracic aorta,” Saludo said at a press briefing.
“This is the main aorta or blood vessel coming out from the heart where oxygenated blood is pumped to the rest of the body. If that was the focus of an ailment then, it was corrected by surgery and this (latest ailment) is described as a redissection of the same aorta.”
Saludo said that Ms Arroyo and her three children—Mikey Arroyo, Rep. Diosdado “Dato” Arroyo and Luli Arroyo-Bernas—were at the hospital together Thursday night and that the President might stay there for the night.
Saludo could not say how Mike Arroyo’s illness would affect her attendance at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Vietnam on April 8-9.
“I’m sure the condition of the First Gentleman shall be a major consideration in the President’s own activities,” Saludo said.
Mike Arroyo’s health has been a source of family concern for some time.
In November 2008, a commercial jet carrying Ms Arroyo to an annual Asia-Pacific summit in Peru was forced to make an emergency landing in Japan after her husband suffered what the Palace later said were severe abdominal pains.

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Arroyo's in Congress

Five Arroyos cannot elect the Speaker of the House of Representatives, according to Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo.
Defending his family’s move to expand its presence in the House—a move seen as intended to keep his mother, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in power—Mikey Arroyo said critics had run out of legal arguments and had resorted to cooking up wild conspiracy theories.
“[Our critics] have upped the ante by saying that the entry of five Arroyos into Congress is to ensure that my mother gets elected as Speaker so she can assume the presidency in case there is a failure of elections …,” the congressman said Thursday in a text message.
“But has it escaped their minds that five Arroyos alone cannot elect a Speaker? And second, in the rule of succession [to the presidency], the Speaker is only fourth in line. We still have the Senate President. Take note that we have a very much functioning and active Senate which would be expected to block such a move,” he said.
Marcos’ ‘playbook’
The First Family’s purported plan to keep Ms Arroyo in power, as well as speculation that a failure of elections would serve to extend her term beyond June 30, has elicited a call for “people power” from Avelino “Nonong” Cruz, who once served as her defense secretary.
At a press briefing in the Senate, Cruz said people power was necessary for not only guarding the votes in the May 10 elections but also in watching Ms Arroyo’s moves.
According to Cruz who is now aligned with Liberal Party standard-bearer Sen. Benigno Aquino III, Ms Arroyo may be following the “playbook” of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos before the latter declared martial law in 1972.
He pointed out that Marcos also “coopted” the Supreme Court and installed loyal military officers in key positions.
‘Welgang bayan’
As it turned out, even the son and namesake of the late dictator, who was himself hounded out of Malacañang in February 1986 by people power, has called for street protests.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., a senatorial candidate of the Nacionalista Party, described a “welgang bayan” (people’s strike) as “a persuasive instrument to prevent an Arroyo holdover government.”
He said “a public protest done on a massive scale,” including demonstrations, sit-down strikes, work stoppage, and a boycott by the transport sector, “would have to be launched to force [Ms Arroyo] out of Malacañang if she should refuse to leave at the end of her term.”
But Marcos stressed that no armed component should join the “welgang bayan” because any violent takeover “will only spell failure for the administration that will succeed the Arroyo regime.”
“There is no way that the people will accept Gloria Arroyo remaining in office even a minute longer beyond her term. While the specter of a failure of elections hovers threateningly, the public has to be doubly on guard against any possible machination by the present administration to perpetuate itself in power,” Marcos said.
No legal basis
Although eligible to seek a third term as representative of the second district of Pampanga, Mikey Arroyo has given up his seat to allow his mother to run for it, and is now a nominee of the party-list Ang Galing Pinoy.
Bristling at the ensuing criticism, he said no one had yet provided a legal basis for proposing that he be disqualified as a nominee of the party-list group claiming to represent security guards.
Mikey Arroyo said there were only two requirements governing party-list representation—that the sector one intended to represent was truly marginalized, and that one was a true advocate of the sector’s cause, interests and goals.
He said he fulfilled both.
He added that unless critics could provide a legal basis to disqualify him and his mother from seeking seats in the House, they should mind their own business and focus on their own campaigns.
The other Arroyos in the House are Ms Arroyo’s younger son, Camarines Sur Rep. Diosdado Arroyo; her brother-in-law, Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio Arroyo; and her sister-in-law, Kasangga Rep. Ma. Lourdes Arroyo.
First step is to coopt
Cruz said the President’s dilemma was that she would lose her immunity from criminal cases at the end of her term.
He said this was why he would not put it past her to indulge in certain “options,” such as ensuring that “a friendly candidate” would win as president, or extending her term.
Cruz said he believed that Ms Arroyo was “seriously putting” a term extension “in the works.”
“Because why would you insist on appointing a Chief Justice in clear violation of the constitutional ban that 60 days before an election and until your term, you cannot appoint any public official except in the executive and acting capacity? That has been a 50-year-old rule,” he said.
He added that it was first invoked by no less than Ms Arroyo’s father, the late former President Diosdado Macapagal.
Another point of suspicion is Ms Arroyo’s appointment of Gen. Delfin Bangit, a close ally, as the new Armed Forces chief of staff, Cruz said.
He said this showed a “pattern.”
“In the playbook of President Marcos, the first step is you coopt. He appointed his classmates to the Supreme Court,” Cruz said.
He said Marcos’ next step was to install a loyal AFP chief of staff in the person of Fabian Ver.
Empiricist
Cruz said Ms Arroyo’s other option was to back a friendly candidate. He said he did not think she would back Aquino or even her candidate, the administration standard-bearer Gilbert Teodoro.
“The President is an empiricist. She looks at the surveys and she wants to be with the winning candidate,” Cruz said.
And with Aquino, who had promised to form a commission to investigate the corruption cases during her watch, off her list, “who would be the logical next best bet for her?” he said, adding:
“My appeal is [for] people power to guard the votes. And we need people power so we can fight attempts to extend the term of the President.”
Cruz also said people power would be even more urgent because the Commission on Elections had “removed the safeguards” in the Automated Election System Law.
Suspicious moves
Marcos Jr. also warned the public of the recent “suspicious moves by Malacañang” that included Bangit’s appointment as AFP chief of staff and the recent statement of Charito Planas, a deputy spokesperson of Ms Arroyo, that a military junta would wield power in the event of a failure of elections.
He likewise said the Supreme Court ruling authorizing Ms Arroyo to appoint a new Chief Justice despite a ban on midnight appointments “has only served to worsen the already jittery political climate.”
“We are seeing all the unsettling signs of a shadowy design to subvert the Constitution and our democratic process. Sadly, the nation can no longer rely on any assurances from this administration about respect for the law and for the popular will,” Marcos said

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Bush - Clinton Helps Haiti (update)

Haiti's President Rene Preval, center, former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush, right, and Bill Clinton pose in front of Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince, on March. 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) © 2010 AP

While reporting on a story about Monday's visit to Haiti by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, AP's Jonathan M. Katz took note of the ex-presidents' differing styles and receptions.


Clinton and Bush traveled through Port-au-Prince together, but they seemed to be on totally different trips. Jointly appointed by President Barack Obama to lead U.S. fundraising after the Jan. 12 earthquake, they have distinct Haiti resumes: Bush had never been before. Clinton – the U.N. special envoy to Haiti – has been six times in the past two years, visited as president and famously (here at least) made a honeymoon trip with Hillary back when.

Bush was reserved from the get-go at the press conference with President Rene Preval. Clinton was gregarious and even aggressive – correcting the wording of an Al-Jazeera reporter's question about his recent apology for trade policies that destroyed Haitian agriculture, and assuring locals his “credentials as a friend of this country" are intact.

When they left the high green fences, the contrasts popped. Bush didn't understand the Creole chants against him from a small but loud assembly of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's supporters -- he was flown into exile aboard a U.S. plane during Bush's presidency -- but he looked concerned enough to have gotten the gist.

Their first stop was a fenced-in area of the sprawling Champ de Mars homeless camp. There was a pungent smell and everyone, the presidents included, sweated profusely.

Bush looked nervous but went for it and approached some homeless Haitians. After two steps he was met with shouts of "No Preval!" (They'd been chanting against Bush before too, but showing characteristic politeness did not want to insult him to his face). He was pulled back to his SUV.

Then Clinton walked up, grabbed outstretched palms and dove in. He walked six tarp-shelters back and, Preval in tow, chatted with tarp-dwellers, aid workers and officials. He made time for a few reporters' questions as he left.

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Capturing unique images in thirsty India on World Water Day

This picture powerfully captures the harshness of the environment in some parts of India.The stark image shows a village boy in the eastern state of Orissa, surrounded by seemingly endless drought-cracked earth. In a glance, it presents the fragility of nature when water is scarce and the complexity of the country's environment; other areas of India, of course, produce lush crops, sometimes using irrigation.

People fill containers at a public water supply at Siddharth Nagar slum in Mumbai, on March 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade) © 2010 AP

Here, what appears a simple scene illustrates a complex truth about water supplies in India. For many women, like the ones pictured at this public water point in a Mumbai slum, collecting clean water for their families to wash in and to drink is a daily ritual. And it's one that saves lives. The World Bank estimates that nearly a quarter of communicable diseases in India are related to contaminated water, often drawn from polluted rivers.

A man identifying himself as Shakeel dives into the Yamuna River in New Delhi, on March 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan) © 2010 AP

In New Delhi, a foamy white layer of industrial effluent blanketing the surface of the Yamuna River does not deter a man from diving in. Why would anyone do such a thing? The answer is simple — poverty — and it's part of what gives special meaning to this almost surreal picture: The diver is scavenging for ornaments and coins left during Hindu rituals along the banks of the holy river.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Representative Weiner Threatened

A suspicious package containing white powder and a "threatening letter" was delivered to Rep. Anthony Weiner's office Thursday, police sources said.
Emergency service units evacuated the Democratic congressman's fifth-floor office in Kew Gardens, officials said.
The letter appeared to be related to the heated debate over national health care reform, sources told the Daily News.
"They came over the loudspeaker: 'Don't be alarmed. Just the fifth floor is being evacuated,'" said Kathy Farrell, 44, who works at an orthopedic surgeon's office next door.
"They weren't in too much of a rush to get us out."
The package was received about 1 p.m. No one was injured, but police said nine people were exposed and have undergone decontamination treatment.
The Department of Environmental Protection's health lab will analyze the powder.
Weiner issued a statement saying, "Earlier today an envelope containing white powder and a threatening letter was delivered to my community office in Kew Gardens.
"The NYPD was immediately alerted and have responded appropriately by sending a Haz-Mat team. Any questions related to their response should be directed to the NYPD
"My first priority is the safety of my staff and neighbors, and the authorities are currently taking steps to investigate and resolve the situation."
The Kew Gardens office will be closed until the investigation is completed. Weiner voted in favor for President Obama's landmark health care legislation.
Other members of Congress have also been targeted by opponents of the historic bill. Republican opponents have described the bill as "Armageddon" and the death of the republic.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Age Doesn't Matter

The wife of Latin music legend Eddie Palmieri is recovering from a shooting in Queens, and the suspect is her 81-year-old neighbor – a woman she's been feuding with for years.

Latin jazz great Eddie Palmieri has earned nine Grammys, and is still performing at age 73. He and his wife, Iraida Palmieri, also 73, have lived in the same apartment building in Forest Hills for more than a decade.

Living one floor below is Rafael Cartagena, whose 81-year-old wife, Maria, is charged with attempted murder after allegedly trying to shoot Mrs. Palmieri in the elevator.

Iraida Palmieri was already in the elevator, and when the doors opened on the 4th floor, she says that Cartagena was outside. She says Cartagena fired a bullet at her head, grazing her head and leaving a bullet hole in the elevator.

The suspect's husband claims Iraida Palmieri had a pair of scissors on the elevator and threatened his wife.

"She felt threatened from that lady there, standing on the elevator saying, 'come in, come in, come in,' with scissors in her hand," Rafael said.

Cartagena says he's made numerous complaints against the Palmieris for noise.

"They were determined to make us move out of the apartment, because they don't like us," he said.

Eddie Palmieri released the following statement:

"I am solely focused on the well-being and safety of my wife, who is resting comfortably after this unprovoked attack. It is deeply saddening to hear the allegations posed in defense of this criminal act."

Neighbors in the building are still in shock.

"70 and 80, I mean, you don't expect to be that tempered, to have that kind of reaction," neighbor Andreas Brandl said. "You can settle it – just talk to each other."

For now, Palmieri is still trying to recover. She was treated and released from Jamaica Hospital.

If convicted of attempted murder, Cartagena faces up to 15 years in prison. She was released from Riker's Island Thursday on bail.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Squeezing In Housing, City Squeezes Out Some Perks

A small asphalt lot fills a nondescript corner of Chelsea, visually bland, wrapped in iron fencing and carpeted with a couple dozen cars. The only thing remarkable about it is that it exists.

The lot provides cheap parking for tenants in the adjoining public housing development, the Elliott-Chelsea Houses, an unlikely perk in a neighborhood synonymous with the trappings and traps of success.
But the lot’s valiant fight against the physics of real estate and government finance is about to come to an end. The city Housing Authority is selling it to a developer for $4 million.
The sale is part of a sweeping citywide plan to shoehorn up to 6,000 homes affordable to low- and moderate-income families, along with some shops, into parcels of public housing property deemed “underutilized” — mostly open spaces and parking lots. Set in motion in 2006, the plan is now hitting its stride, with 3,500 units either finished or in the pipeline, including four projects completed and another eight under way.
The initiative is rooted in practical needs and grander hopes for the future of public housing. The new construction will help Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg reach his goal of preserving or creating 165,000 affordable units by 2014. It will also generate money for the cash-poor Housing Authority.
With their parking lots, greenery and open space, the city’s housing complexes were often “under-built to what zoning would allow,” said Ilene Popkin, the authority’s assistant deputy general manager.
Ms. Popkin said her goal was “to identify where the opportunities are for affordable housing development that makes sense.”
Sold-off parking lots will be replaced with new lots nearby, Ms. Popkin said. “No one lost a parking spot as a result of what we did,” she said.
Still, there is, not surprisingly, some resentment.
Until recently, Duwain Boyce, 18, who lives at Stapleton Houses, on the north shore of Staten Island, had a million-dollar view: the stalagmites of Lower Manhattan rising across the harbor, dingily framed by his bedroom window. He now gazes upon a building for low-income older people, under construction on a former parking lot and set to be eight stories tall when it opens later this year.
“It makes me feel claustrophobic,” Mr. Boyce said.
His mother added wryly that bringing elderly people into public housing might make them obvious targets for criminals.
The prospect of losing public housing land, and to tenants paying higher rents in many cases, has fanned fears that the authority wants to edge out its residents.
At Elliott-Chelsea, the new units on the site of the current parking lot, at Ninth Avenue and West 25th Street, will be open to households with annual incomes of up to $150,000 for a family of four. Assurances that lost parking spaces would be offset by spaces in a garage beneath the new building have done little to temper existing tenants’ misgivings. Rumors flew — all false — that the new units would be million-dollar apartments built by Donald J. Trump.
“It’s going to be too crowded, and this project is falling down around us,” said Karen Hodges, 52, who has lived at Elliott-Chelsea for two decades. “Sweetheart, they took a lock off my door and told me I had to wait until August to get it fixed.”
But at Stapleton, the new building has also lit a sense of hope. Perhaps it will ease the stigma the development carries, some tenants said. Perhaps it will even tamp down crime.
“It’s a great idea,” said Steven Nelson, a 39-year-old welder. “Maybe with a lot of older people in the neighborhood, some of the younger loose cannons will slow down in their activities.”
Geraldine Parker, president of the Stapleton tenants association, said several tenants hoped to move into the new building — open to people 55 and older — “to get away from young people and blasting music.”
“I wish I was old enough to get in there,” added Mrs. Parker, who is in her 40s.
Ms. Popkin, the authority official, said the new developments, planned in concert with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, were expected to bring in $75 million — money that could be used to fix up existing buildings — through sales of the sites and long-term ground leases to private developers that construct and own the buildings.
The new construction also dovetails with the authority’s efforts to refashion its original blueprint, modeled on the Le Corbusier vision of “towers in the park,” or soaring residential fortresses set in vast moats of green. Underpinning that vision, said Nicholas D. Bloom, author of “Public Housing That Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century,” was the belief that “if you put people in sanitary good housing, with air and modern facilities, all the problems of the slums would end.”
But the towers instead isolated residents from the thrum of the city streets, and critics decried some open expanses as too vast.
Michael Kelly, the Housing Authority’s general manager, said that along with the new construction, the agency was looking to reopen streets to integrate developments into the “tapestry of the surrounding neighborhood.”
Mr. Bloom said the success of the new program hinged on how thoughtfully it was executed.
“It all comes down to design,” he said, “and if they’re able to add new housing without destroying the nice qualities — apartments that have light and air and nice views.”
At Soundview Houses in the Bronx, where the green spaces are as big as city blocks and sown with gracious trees, three new buildings are planned for a boomerang-shape plot stretching between the development and the Bronx River, with a fourth set for a patch of land that now has picnic tables and barbecues.
Mary McGee, the tenants association president there, said residents were worried about asthma aggravated by construction, and more overcrowding of buses, community centers and schools. “They have to consider the people who are living here,” Ms. McGee said. “These people are going to come in and start utilizing what we have, and we don’t have anything.”
At Elliott-Chelsea Houses, the parking lot brought in only $1,396 in parking fees last year. But residents described it as more than the sum of its 42 spaces.
It is a buffer in an increasingly alien neighborhood filling up with high-end galleries, club-land debauchery, and multimillion-dollar glass lofts. Which is why people like Phyllis Gonzalez, the tenants association president, say there is reason to fear the 168-unit tower planned for the site.
“We are blessed to be here; we know that,” Ms. Gonzalez said. “But it’s getting tighter and tighter, and we’re going to have a big building in our face.”


David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

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