Come back, Mercy!

I forgot to post this kahapon.

-- Maaga pa lang, abusado na ang OIC mayor ng Pasay na si Allan Panaligan.

-- Ebidensya sa areglo inilantad ni 'Nicole'

Ibinigay kahapon ng 23-anyos na Subic rape victim na si ‘Nicole’ kay Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez ang kanilang mga ebidensiya na nagpapatunay na hinikayat ni Department of Justice (DOJ) State Prosecutor Emilie Fe delos Santos ang kanyang pamilya na makipag-areglo sa 4 na US Marines na inakusahan nitong nanggahasa sa kanya.

Kabilang dito ang mga affidavit ng kanyang nakakatandang kapatid na si Ricsan at inang si Aling Susan, kasama ang kanyang liham.

Nabatid sa affidavit ni Aling Susan na dakong alas-singko ng hapon noong Hulyo 14, 2006, kasama niya ang kanyang anak na si Ricsan ng magkita sila ni Delos Santos na kasama naman ang kanyang asawa sa Coffee Bean and Tea Loft sa Olongapo City.

Sinabi umano ni Delos Santos na kung ano ang gusto at nais nilang hilingin ay isulat lamang. Puwede umano kung nanaisin ni ‘Nicole’ na mag-permanent status sa US habang si Aling Susan ay maaring mabigyan ng multiple entry visa.

Hinikayat din umano sila ni Delos Santos na sabihin lamang kung magkano ang salaping kakailanganin sa planong pag-migrate sa US.

More here: Prosecutor offered US migration to settle case — Nicole’s mom

The mother of “Nicole” has reiterated her claim that the government prosecutor handling the Subic rape case had tried to broker a deal for “a new life in America” for her daughter and family in exchange for amicably settling the case.

In a two-page sworn statement for Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, Nicole’s mother yesterday said senior state prosecutor Emilie Fe delos Santos invited her to a meeting at a coffee shop in Makati City last July 17 at 5 p. m. to discuss the proposed settlement.

-- PCIJ: Salonga on Ombudsman ruling: ‘Obscene attempt to cover up the truth’

Ricky Carandang of ABSCBN News notes the existence of a "cognitive dissonance" between the finding of the Supreme Court that the Law was broken by a "glaring grave abuse of discretion by Comelec" and the subsequent finding of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez that there was no Lawbreaker.

Indeed.

How can a Law have been broken, yet there is no Law Breaker to be arrested or investigated?

How can a Crime have been committed, yet there is no criminal to be prosecuted?

Eto pa from DJB: COMELEC: The Ombudmamasan's Legalized Whorehouse

-- Dean Jorge Bocobo on Mercy's decision: A Crime With No Criminals--Making a Jackass of the Supreme Court

-- Inquirer Editorial: "THE Ombudsman’s decision to absolve everyone involved in the anomalous Mega Pacific contract is a terrible blow against the rule of law. It not only insults our intelligence, it not only offends basic decency, it mocks the very justice it seeks to serve.

The decision of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez -- and it is all hers, despite the transparent attempt to let her deputies own it, while she is conveniently out of the country -- brings us to a new low in cynicism; it asks us to believe, against all evidence and experience, in a crime without criminals, an evil deed without evildoers."

-- Amado Macasaet: Pagtatakip ng ombudsman

-- Ellen Tordesillas: Sa pagsisirko ni Gutierrez, nahubaran siya

-- Where's Merceditas Gutierrez? Ask Dennis Villa-Ignacio.

There is something that chief state prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio apparently knows more of than what Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita does: the where-abouts of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.

Villa-Ignacio, during a press briefing, yesterday said Gutierrez had “committed to represent herself in an international con-ference” and “at the time she left, the resolution had been made,” referring to the Ombudsman’s ruling handed down last Monday that cleared all officials of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) of any accountability in an allegedly graft-ridden P1.3-billion contract that the poll body had entered into with the Mega Pacific consortium for the purchase of automated counting machines (ACMs).

He did not say where the conference is being held.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, for his part, earlier said Gutierrez is on an “official trip” to Switzerland but for what purpose he did not say, except that he was certain such trip has nothing to do with the ACM deal.

The Ombudsman “disappeared” a day before her decision to exonerate Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. and the poll commissioners was made public.

Come back Mercy! Don't worry, may tagapagtanggol ka sa mga administration solons.

-- Amando Doronila on the Arroyos' recent tactics to silence their press critics:

THE shot-gun blast fired by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s husband, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, at the Philippine press when he laid criminal libel charges against 43 journalists at all levels of the media hierarchy -- from publishers, editors, columnists to reporters -- escalates the grudge warfare she has been waging against the press.

Mind you, the charges did not come directly from the President, but it makes things even more pernicious that the action was mounted by a person, who is personally close to her and who does not hold an executive or elective position, in what is beyond doubt an act of harassment of the members of the press.

As pointed out by Christopher Warren, president of the International Federation of Journalists, the carpet-bombing cases were not only “outrageous,” but were “deeply concerning that the husband of the President, a man of considerable influence and power, can try and hinder free speech by suing journalists to submission.”

Read the whole thing.

-- More anomalies in People's Initiative petition exposed

-- Erap to sue Atienza over video ban

Atienza banned the showing on the ground that the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board has rated it "triple X," which means the video was unfit for public viewing.
.....

Rodriguez said "Atienza’s capricious and malicious order also runs counter to the wisdom behind the creation of freedom parks under B.P 880 to guarantee a venue for the free expression of political dissent."

-- Rudy Romero: "There are different kinds of silence. There, for one, is prayerful silence, as when a person observes silence in order to be able to concentrate on the prayers he or she is saying. Then there is obligatory silence, which is what comes into being when a person received is expected to be silent. There is also deafening silence, which is the awkward situation that materializes when a person is not heard from at all when he should be.

Yet another kind of silence is the kind that is being observed these days by House of Representatives chief Jose de Venecia Jr., this country’s leading propagandist for the parliamentary system of government. The kind I am referring to is embarrassing silence. Jose de Venecia is embarrassingly silent about what has been happening in Thailand, in particular the unparliamentary ouster of the Prime Minister of the country that Speaker Joe holds up as paragon of parliamentary government. It is as though JdV has never heard of Thaksin Shinawatra."