Gordon hit over allegations vs Villar

The Nacionalista Party (NP) slammed Bagumbayan presidential bet Sen. Richard Gordon yesterday over allegations of unpaid loans by the companies owned by its standard-bearer, Sen. Manuel Villar Jr.


Lawyer Nalen Rosero-Galang, Villar’s chief legal officer, belied the allegations of Gordon, saying the senator from Olongapo has resorted to dirty tactics.

“We categorically deny that Manuela Corporation ever obtained a loan from the Social Security System (SSS). We challenge them to present documents to prove their allegations. We dare them to substantiate their accusations with solid proof,” Galang said in a statement.


Gordon claimed on Tuesday that Villar sent an emissary and offered to reimburse his expenses in the campaign in exchange for his backing out of the race.

He also accused the NP presidential bet during a radio interview of having unpaid loans with the SSS as well as the Pag-IBIG and Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF).
“This is an ‘ancient’ issue which has been repeatedly answered not only by Senator Villar but also by the government agencies concerned,” Galang countered. “None of the Villar corporations have existing unpaid obligation or undelivered undertaking or commitment to the HDMF.”

She said Villar’s corporations have meticulously observed and complied with all the policies, procedures and documentation required by the HDMF.

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Quick count is history, says Comelec

The slow count that prompted operation quick counts in the past may now be consigned to history.

The country’s first nationwide automated elections on May 10 are expected to produce results in two days, the Commission on Elections said.

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said media entities and other parties could still conduct their own count and call the results of the races.
But Jimenez told reporters on Wednesday that the wait for the official results to be posted on the Comelec website would not take long.
“The quick count would not be applicable because what could be faster than the official count now? The official count now would basically be the system used for the quick count in the past. The reason there was a quick count then was because there was a slow count, the one from Comelec. Now, there is no more slow count,” he said.

Jimenez also said that since the results of the polling would be posted online, there was no need to require media outfits to request permission to conduct their own quick count.

Asked whether media entities could still resort to trending or extrapolation, he said that this was not expected to be prevalent now because the results from all precincts were expected to be transmitted at roughly the same time.

But he also said that if media entities would want to conduct their own count of the votes, they should clearly state where the votes that they had tallied had come from.
Under automated elections, the votes would be recorded and tallied by counting machines in each polling precinct, and the results would be electronically sent to the canvassing boards.
There would be no need to manually tally the votes, eliminating the long wait for the results.

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In Pampanga, Erap keeps up pitch to make ‘jueteng’ legal

Right in Pampanga, which was once described by Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. as the “Vatican of jueteng,” former President Joseph Estrada on Wednesday reached out to students to explain why he supported the legalization of jueteng as early as his term as senator.




In a forum at the Holy Angel University here, Estrada, the standard-bearer of the Puwersa ng Masang Pilipino, told about 1,500 students that jueteng generates jobs for the poor so he supported its legalization.



Estrada was convicted of plunder but pardoned very early by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.



Bribes



Among the charges hurled against him was accepting bribe from jueteng lords.



In January 2001, Estrada was ousted by a citizen revolt that installed then Vice President Arroyo to the presidency.



Estrada said one of his first privilege speeches during his term as senator supported moves to legalize jueteng because he came face to face with the numbers game as mayor of San Juan in Metro Manila.



Estrada said jueteng workers asked for jobs, even as garbage collectors, but there was none available.



“That’s the social problem, a hungry stomach knows no law,” he said. “Stop jueteng, where will they turn to? They will steal and engage in kidnapping.”



Erap numbers

Citing a study that he said was conducted by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, Estrada said there were 163,000 jueteng bet collectors (kubrador) and managers (cabo) in the five regions of Luzon in 2004.



To get an accurate picture of the extent of how the illegal numbers game provide livelihood to poor people, he said this number should be multiplied by four to represent the jueteng employees’ family members.

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Villar slams ‘rich, landed’ rivals with no track record

Nacionalista Party standard bearer and Senator Manuel Villar warned voters here against candidates for president who came from rich families and have had no track record of leadership.
Villar did not name names but obviously referred to his closest rival, LP standard bearer and Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, and the latter's running mate, Sen. Manuel Roxas II, whom he referred to as “hacienderos” in his brief speech on Saturday.
“Ang kalaban ko ngayon, dalawa pong haciendero, [may]malalaking hacienda. Pero sabi ko, hindi nyo naranasan kasi ang kahirapan kaya ganyan magsalita, kung ano-ano ang inyong sinasabi (My rivals are two landowners, they have vast estates. But I say to them, ‘You never experienced hardship and that’s why it’s easy for you to say things against me’,” Villar said at a jam-packed gym after presiding over the oath-taking of members of a local women's organization here in Villasin.
“Humaharap kayo sa tao na wala kayo karanasan, na wala naman kayong pinakitang kakayahang mamahala, wala naman pa kayong pinapakitang liderato. Humaharap kayo sa bansa na para lamang kayong naglalaro. Sinasabi ko na seryoso ang pagkapangulo (You are presenting yourselves to the people, without any experience, without proven capabilities in leadership. You are facing the nation as if you’re just playing. I say to you that the presidency is a serious business),” Villar said, referring to his rivals.
“Hindi yan puede na sino na lamang ang magsasabi na 'Gusto ko maging pangulo o ako ay dapat maging pangulo dahil ang nanay ko ay pangulo (Nobody can just say, ‘I want to be president or I should be president because my mother was president),’” Villar added, referring to Aquino, the only son of the late former president Corazon Aquino.
"Sapagkat pag nagkamali po tayo ng pili, tuloy tuloy na naman po ang kahirapan, (If we make the wrong choice, poverty will continue," Villar said, this time directly addressing the crowd.
Villar has been capitalizing on his own rags-to-riches tale in the presidential campaign, always identifying himself with the poor by injecting in his speeches sob stories of his growing up years in Tondo.
Earlier in the day, Villar, his running mate Sen. Loren Legarda and a handful of the NP senatorial candidates met with the residents of the tent city in Barangay (Village) San Pedro in Rosales town.
Some 350 families had been living in tents and makeshift homes for the last four months after their houses were washed away by floods brought by typhoon “Pepeng” in late 2009.
On a rundown stage, Villar's staff gathered some 40 children and urged them to sing the presidential candidate's hugely popular “Naging Mahirap” (I was once poor) campaign jingle.
Villar, Legarda and the senatorial bets distributed “taho” and “ice candy” to the children.

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2 dead, 1 hurt in C5 road accident—report

2 people were killed and one was injured when their car

smashed into an electric post along the C5 Ortigas flyover early Saturday, according to a radio report.

Quoting police, radio dzMM identified the fatalities as Ramon Garcia, 28, and the driver of the Audi with plate number PM222; and John Paul Uy, who was at the passenger’s seat.

John Michael Ong, who was seated at the back of the vehicle, survived and was taken to Medical City. All were residing at Valle Verde in Barangay (village) Ugong in Pasig City, the report said.

The report said the accident occurred at 5:20 a.m. Quoting witnesses, the report said the car overtook another vehicle before slamming into the post.

Photos taken by the dzMM reporter on the scene showed Uy’s grief-stricken parents who was said to have rushed to the accident site after having been informed of their son’s death. The bodies of Uy and Garcia were taken to the Quiogue Funeral Homes, the report said.

Police were quoted as saying that the impact was so strong that the engine flew out of the vehicle and landed on a passing taxi. Other parts of the car also littered the highway as shown by the other photos taken by the dzMM reporter.

The accident caused a traffic jam along C5 as police closed the Ortigas flyover to allow authorities to clean up the debris.

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Yellow ballot boxes out; black plastic in.

Say goodbye to the iconic yellow ballot boxes.
The steel ballot boxes, which witnessed much of the Philippines’ bloody election history, will be decommissioned when Filipinos vote for their new batch of leaders on May 10.
The Commission on Elections on Tuesday unveiled the ballot boxes that will be used in the automated national elections in May, saying it will be harder to steal than the yellow metal boxes used in the past.
Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said the new ballot box measures 36 inches in length and 20 inches in width.
The box, made of hard plastic, is 34 inches high to better accommodate the long ballots and the large number of voters. (The size of the old ballot box is 12 x 12 x 12 inches.)
“This will fit a thousand ballots, the main reason for the composition of the ballot box,” Larrazabal said.
On top of the plastic box is a cavity for the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine, which can be locked in place. The box has three hooks for padlocks on the lid.
The ballot box has “unbreakable” translucent windows on the sides so that “the voter can see the paper dropping inside the box,” Larrazabal said.
He also noted that the plastic box could withstand the elements and the rigors of Election Day activities.
Because of the boxes’ size, poll cheaters and local warlords out to manipulate the results will not be able to just grab it from the precinct centers, Larrazabal said.
In past elections, teachers used to guard the yellow boxes with their own lives from election operatives.
In May 2007, a school in Batangas was burned down when teachers manning the voting place refused to give up the ballot boxes. Three people were killed in the fire, which was allegedly ordered by a local politician.
The Comelec initially wanted to use a transparent election box. The poll body ruled it out because light could affect the ultraviolent ink marks on the ballots.
“When you have the markings exposed to sunlight for an extended period of time, they might fade,” Larrazabal said.
“If a recount has to be carried out, then suddenly your ballots may not have UV marks. So, what were original ballots in the beginning might suddenly look like fake ballots,” he added.
Although the Comelec will not be using the yellow metal boxes for this elections, it will not yet throw away the equipment, which was designed for manual polls.
The poll body said the yellow ballot boxes would still be used for barangay elections and referendums.

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