Now is your chance to fly to the Philippines for FREE!

By PDOTSF / PNS
June 10, 2006

MANILA, Philippines –  Americans and Canadians as well as the Global Filipino communities in North America can finally push through with their plans to visit the archipelagic wonder composed of 7,107 tropical islands, now that the Philippine Department of Tourism (PDOT) has offered free roundtrip air tickets Manila through its latest program, The Philippines: Explore, Experience, and Return (PEER).

As part of the Philippine Tourism Grand Campaign for North America, this program is an online raffle promo that offers Global Filipinos from the United States and Canada the chance to visit the Philippines -- explore its natural and manmade wonders, experience its multifaceted culture and age-old traditions and return for an enjoyable and enriching vacation – for free!

To join the program’s first phase “Free Flight Giveaway” promo, participants can log on to the new portal www.experiencephilippines.ph for a chance to win one of the 250 round-trip plane tickets via Philippine Airlines and win a balikbayan box full of prizes during the second phase “Out-of-the-Box” promo, which will start later this year.

The Philippines: Explore, Experience, and Return (PEER) program will be launched during the annual Fiesta Filipina celebrations on June 10-11, 2006 at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco, California, USA.  It will be televised on the “WOWOWEE” show over The Filipino Channel.

During the pledging ceremonies with the program sponsors recently held at the Makati Shangri-la Hotel in Metro Manila, Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano said that this travel initiative will sustain, if not exceed, last year’s volume of North American visitors to the Philippines. Of the approximately 3.3 million Global Filipinos living the United States alone, some 580,000 reportedly arrived in the country in 2005. Half of them were first-time visitors.

Through its “Out-of-the-Box” promo, PDOT will be handing out a fully-furnished condominium unit, discounted hotel accommodations, tour packages and balikbayan boxes – full of prizes for them to bring back home.

The initial set of corporate sponsors participating in this promo consists of Abenson, American Eye Center, Avis, Globe Telecom, Jollibee Foods Corporation, Kuok Group (EDSA Shangri-la, Makati Shangri-la and Traders Hotels, The Shangri-la Plaza Mall and The Shang Grand Tower Corporation for the St. Francis Towers), Philippine Airlines and the Philippine National Bank.

AHRC welcomes news that anti-torture bill going to parliament and death penalty abolished

Press Release
By Asian Human Rights Commission
June 8, 2006

HONG KONG  –  The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on Wednesday warmly welcomed news that a bill to criminalise torture would shortly go to the Philippines' parliament and called for it to be promptly made into law, while praising the abolition of the death penalty there.

"These are very significant steps in bringing the Philippines into line with its international obligations," Basil Fernando, executive director of the Hong Kong-based regional rights group, said.

"Many groups and human rights defenders in the Philippines and abroad have fought long and hard to get the death penalty abolished and the pending anti-torture bill passed into law," Fernando said.

"The parliament should follow up on its firm abolition of the death penalty by quickly passing the anti-torture bill, which the government must then ensure is implemented without further delay," he said.

"The criminalisation of torture is a matter of great urgency for uncounted numbers of victims and their families around the country," Fernando stressed.

On Wednesday Representative Satur Ocampo said that a committee under the Philippines' House of Representatives had approved the pending anti-torture bill to go before parliament.

"Ocampo was reported as saying that the bill is long overdue, and this is a sentiment very much shared by the AHRC and other human rights defenders in the Philippines and abroad," Fernando said.

The Philippines became a party to the UN Convention against Torture in 1986, but up to now has failed in its obligations to introduce domestic law and institutions in accordance with the treaty.

"This move to criminalise torture is especially important in view of the Philippines' election in May to the new UN Human Rights Council," Fernando noted.

"As the Philippines was elected to the council for only one year, if in that time it can take firm steps to eliminate the widespread torture and cruel and inhuman treatment practiced by law-enforcement authorities there then it will do much for its reelection chances," he added.

The AHRC has reported on numerous cases of torture in recent times, including the alleged brutal torture of 11 persons, including two minors, by security forces in the northern Benguet Province.

It earlier identified the government's persistent failure to criminalise torture as one of the main reasons that it should not be given a seat on the Human Rights Council.

It had also called for the abolition of the death penalty following the commuting of the sentences of all death-row inmates on April 15.

1,202 patients benefit from LCDE, COMMED med mission’s free services

By RANDY ANTONI, LCDE Advocacy Officer
June 6, 2006

BASEY, Western Samar  –  The public school of Sitio Rawis in Brgy. Guirang in this town virtually became a busy health center as more than a thousand villagers from three barrios swamped the area to avail of free health care services.

At least 1,202 patients from the villages of Guirang, Inuntan and Mabini benefited from free circumcision, surgical, dental and medical services provided by the medical mission held from May 29 to June 1.

In the medical mission, 890 patients availed of medical services, 224 for dental service, 74 had circumcision while 14 patients underwent cyst removal operation. The team noted that among the chief complaints of the patients include upper respiratory tract infection, cardiovascular disease, rheumatic arthritis, intestinal parasitism and urinary tract infection. Meanwhile 19 patients were diagnosed of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB).

According to Jazmin Jerusalem, Executive Director of the Leyte Center for Development, the poor state of health care delivery in the three barrios was their basis for selecting these areas as beneficiaries of the mission.

“Government health care services are nil in the recipient communities due to the lack of health professionals. Worse, the villagers cannot avail of services from private or public hospitals because of financial constraint,” Jerusalem said.

Ignacio Guimbaolibot, village chief of Brgy. Guirang, attested to the shortage of health workers in the three barrios.

“Only one midwife attends to the health needs of more than 5,000 villagers in the three barrios,” he said. Guimbaolibot further said that the supply of medicines provided by the local government is not also enough to meet the health needs of the villagers.

Meanwhile, Dr. Julie Caguiat, Training Officer of the Community Medicine Development Foundation, stressed the need to increase the budget for the health sector.

“Because of the progressive reduction of government subsidy for the health sector, many public hospitals have started to step up cost recovery measures. The patients are now being made to pay hospital bills, which they cannot afford,” Caguiat said.

She cited that from 2000 to 2005, the share of health to the total budget has fallen from 1.9 percent to 1.3 percent, which has made health care services more inaccessible to the poor.

Caguiat further said that the working and living conditions of the health professionals in the country continue to worsen due to the insufficient budget.

“Our doctors and nurses work extended duty hours but their wages are below the statutory minimum wage and are sometimes delayed. This is the reason why most of our health professionals leave the country annually for employment in foreign hospitals, which offer better working conditions,” Caguiat said. She added that the mass exodus of health professionals to work abroad has made rural areas more vulnerable to human resources deficiencies.

The four-day medical mission was jointly sponsored by the Leyte Center for Development (LCDE) and the national office of Community Medicine Development Foundation (COMMED). It was participated in by a team of medical professionals sent by COMMED and volunteer students from UP Palo School of Health Sciences and St. Scholastica’s College.

The LCDE is a nongovernmental organization assisting natural and man-made disaster-stricken communities in Eastern Visayas while COMMED is a Manila-based NGO whose work focuses on community health and organizing health professionals.

ULAP sees no impediment to Cha-Cha

By ELI C. DALUMPINES, PIA Samar
June 5, 2006

CATBALOGAN, Samar   –  Officials of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) saw no impediment to the charter amendment they advocated.

Leyte Board Member Carlo Loreto, who was one of the guests in the recent Charter Change Advocacy Forum with local government officials in Samar, allayed public fears that the move to amend the constitution through people’s initiative might not push through since he and other members of ULAP saw no legal problem that can bar its implementation.

Loreto stressed that the charter change ULAP advocated focused on the shift of the government structure from the present Presidential-Bicameral to Parliamentary-Unicameral which affects only one provision of the Constitution.

This, he said, is the assurance that this move will not be barred by the Constitution, contrary to what the critics believed. He informed that the Constitution granted people’s initiative as a mode of amendment provided that the change is confined to one provision only.

The only fear that ULAP is facing is the issue on the lack of enabling mechanism to the people’s initiative as a mode of amending the Charter which was the Supreme Court ruling to resolve the issue raised by PIRMA petitioners in 1998.

However, Albay Board Member Philip Berces expressed confidence that there is a chance that the said ruling will be reversed since two of the Supreme Court justices who aired dissenting opinion regarding the issue are still around.

Berces named the present Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban (who was then an Associate Justice) and Associate Justice Reynato Puno as the two who belong to the group who voiced dissenting opinion on the issue.

Earlier, Fr, Joaquin G. Bernas, the country’s leading authority on Constitutional Law and a member of the Constitutional Convention which framed the 1987 Constitution, in a TV interview said the shift from Presidential to Parliamentary is a structural change and constitutes a major amendment so that it cannot be done by way of a people’s initiative.

New Samar PNP Chief vows loyalty to police organization

By ELI C. DALUMPINES, PIA Samar
June 1, 2006

CATBALOGAN, Samar  –  The newly-installed Provincial Director of the Samar Police Provincial Office (SPPO) based in Camp Lukban here made no specific promises save his loyalty to the organization where he belongs.

PSSupt. Ashdali Idja Abah, who replaced PSSupt. Arcadio B. Lelis as SPPO chief, however, promised to ‘go an extra mile’ in delivering his duties as provincial police chief so as not to frustrate the people he is serving now.

Supt. Abah assumed post as SPPO chief Thursday, June 1, following the promotion of Lelis as Chief, Directorial Staff of PNP Regional Office 8 based in Camp Kangleon in Palo, Leyte on the same date.

Abah served as the group director of the PNP’s Regional Mobile Group stationed in Capoocan, Leyte before his appointment as Samar police chief. He was, however, designated as officer-in-charge of SPPO for two weeks way back in 2004.

Meanwhile, Supt. Lelis, in an interview, denied that his relief from the command was politically conditioned saying it was simply a promotion issue as the post he is holding now is somewhat higher compared to his previous assignment.

He informed that the PNP Regional Director offered him the post and he saw it as an opportunity so he took it. “I think it is time for me to go,” Supt. Lelis said.

The outgoing Samar police director is at odds with Samar’s 1st district Congressman Reynaldo S. Uy following the arrest of one of the Congressman’s alleged armed men, who reportedly posed as a Bantay Dagat operative, along the shores of Almagro town on late January, this year (news).

The authorities confiscated four M16 Rifles and the motorboat which the alleged armed men used following the encounter. But Uy slapped Lelis with charges of frustrated homicide after the incident.

FROM PUNCHING BAG TO SLOT MACHINES

Homesickness wears down  ex-OPBF champ Santillan

By ALEX P. VIDAL / PNS
May 30, 2006

ILOILO CITY  –  “Kasubo man gyud di kaayo. Gina agwanta ko lang (I feel so sad here but I’m trying to overcome my homesickness).”

This was the terse remark in mixed Cebuano and Ilonggo made by former Oriental boxing champion Rev “Gentle Giant” Santillan in a long distance call to this writer at around 7:30 in the evening May 25 from his apartment in Osaka, Japan where he now works as “Panchinko” slot machine cash collector in hotels and casinos.

“I missed the punching bag and jogging every morning,” averred the 28-year-old southpaw from Tacas, Jaro, Iloilo City, in vernacular. “I’m still in the period of adjustment and I share a room with a male Filipino worker who handles the room master key.”

He admitted his new task and environment have slightly affected his conditioning as a boxer even as he insisted he has not yet retired from the ring.

Resume training

Santillan (22-3-1, 16 KOs),  vowed to resume his training for a possible rematch with his conqueror Hiroshi Yamaguchi who will tackle his first defense before facing the Cebu-trained boxer in a rubber match before the year ends.

Manager Rex “Wakee” Salud said he approved of Santillan’s stay in Osaka to work “so he can earn for a living while we are contemplating his future as a prizefighter.” Salud has not confirmed whether he was closing the curtains down for the Ilonggo ex-champion whom he considers as one of the most talented among his wards.

After Santillan’s controversial split decision defeat to the 27-year old Yamaguchi in an OPBF title defense in Tokyo last April 20, Salud, 53, hinted of convincing Santillan to retire “in order to protect his eyes” which have been blinking fast and bothering him in his last four fights.

Santillan left the country last May 16 to sign up a “renewable” six-month contract with a company arranged by his 56-year-old millionaire admirer Toshiaki Kobayashi. Before he left, his spiritual adviser Jack Hall, a retired US contractor now living in Cebu, exhorted him to “work for the Lord, not for men.”

Big salary

His salary is a whooping 260,000 Japanese yen or an equivalent of more or less P93,000 a month, excluding his over time and extra pays, twice higher than the salary of a bank executive in the Philippines.

Under the term with his employer, Santillan, a bachelor, will remit P40,000 a month to his mother in the Philippines while the employer will retain the remaining amount until the contract has been completed.

This is to make sure that he brings a lump sum when he comes back to the Philippines, said Kobayashi’s Filipino wife, Linda of Leyte.

Santillan said although he doesn’t speak and understand the Japanese language, he was entrusted to carry large sums of Japanese yen that runs to millions he regularly collects from slot machines.

Kobayashi, who had promised to give the boxer a brand new Toyota car if he toppled Yamaguchi in their recent duel, said Santillan was supposed to work in a manufacturing factory but decided to assign him a “safer” task “to protect his arms and fists.”

“Nalooy gyud si Kobayashi nia (Kobayashi pitied him),” said Salud who traced Santillan’s eye ailment to have started on January 26, 2001, the day he wrested the OPBF belt from a durable Korean champion in a bloody, tension-filled 12-round split decision in Cebu City.