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Archive for January 20th, 2009
In The Press: USANA Health Sciences Opens in the Philippines
SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: USNA) today began operations in the Philippines, the 14th market where independent Associates sell USANA’s high quality nutritional supplements.
According to the Direct Selling Association of the Philippines, annual direct selling revenues in the country total about $500 million. As one of the 25 largest markets globally for direct sales, the Philippines offers USANA a significant direct selling opportunity.
“During these tough economic times, USANA is fortunate to be able to continue its international growth,” said USANA CEO Dave Wentz. “We believe the Philippines will be another strong market for our company. For many USANA Associates, entering the Philippines provides them with a great opportunity to build their business in a market where they already have strong ties.”
For more information about USANA’s products and opportunity, visit www.usana.com.
About USANA
USANA Health Sciences develops and manufactures high-quality nutritionals, personal care, and weight management products that are sold directly to Preferred Customers and Associates throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Original post blogged on Snow World @gameshogun™.ws Blognet.
“The Final Set” Eraserheads Reunion Concert Part 2
The one of the most prominent successful and significant band in the history of the Philippine Music during 90’s. Eraserheads formed by Ely Buendia, Raimund Marasigan, Buddy Zabala and Marcus Adoro credited for helping to change the sound of Pinoy Rock by their diverse music worked fusing different musical styles such as alternative, pop, rock, reggae and synthpop.
The stage is set fro the second installment of the Eraserheads reunion concert.
At the MTV-Philippines press conference this afternoon, January 19, held at Italianni’s restaurant on Bonifacio High Street, Taguig City, the band announced that the big event will be held at the SM Mall of Asia concert grounds in Pasay City on March 7.
Tentatively titled The Final Set, the concert will once again feature Ely Buendia, Raimund Marasigan, Buddy Zabala and Marcus Adoro on one stage performance.
The band’s first reunion concert last August 30, 2008 at the Bonifacio Global City open field in Taguig ended abruptly after 15 songs when lead singer Ely Buendia suffered chest pains and had to be rushed to the hospital. The legendary quarted was supposed to perform 30 of their original songs, which comprise the bulk of their entire catalog.
For more of this news visit www.pep.ph
Next-gen botnet armies fill spam void
Posted in Spam, 14th January 2009 22:55 GMT
The demise late last year of four of the world's biggest spam botnets was good news for anyone with an email inbox, as spam levels were cut in half - almost overnight. But the vacuum has created opportunities for a new breed of bots, some of which could be much tougher to bring down, several security experts are warning.
New botnets with names like Waledac and Xarvester are filling the void left by the dismantling of Storm and the impairment of Bobax, Rustock, and Srizbi, these researchers say. The new breed of botnets - massive networks of infected Windows machines that spammers use to blast out billions of junk messages - sport some new designs that may make them more immune to current take-down tactics.
Read more here.
Next-gen botnet armies fill spam void
Posted in Spam, 14th January 2009 22:55 GMT
The demise late last year of four of the world's biggest spam botnets was good news for anyone with an email inbox, as spam levels were cut in half - almost overnight. But the vacuum has created opportunities for a new breed of bots, some of which could be much tougher to bring down, several security experts are warning.
New botnets with names like Waledac and Xarvester are filling the void left by the dismantling of Storm and the impairment of Bobax, Rustock, and Srizbi, these researchers say. The new breed of botnets - massive networks of infected Windows machines that spammers use to blast out billions of junk messages - sport some new designs that may make them more immune to current take-down tactics.
Read more here.
The iPlurk App
The iPlurk app is the only Plurk app for iPod Touch and the iPhone that’s available in the App Store. I’ve already made a few tests on it. I bet the iPhone owners (because it has a camera) would love the feature Upload a photo.
Below is a screenshot of the iPlurk app interface when you post a new plurk, edit an existing plurk or respond to a plurk.
I was hoping that the app could be free. Anyway, the app costs $1.99. And oh, I haven’t found a blog post about in on the official blog Plurk.com.
A new mouse for ladies
Some women reported that their mouse ‘just didn’t feel right’ in their hands. Based on the research, a new mouse has been designed especially for women.
Various field tests have been carried out on the new design:
Julie from Hounslow said:- ‘It feels so much better. More comfortable, more like how it’s supposed to be’
Susan from Chelmsford added:- ‘I think mice were originally designed just for men, but this new type is definitely made for us women. It fits right in with my lifestyle’
Hillary from Kent said:- ‘I took to it like a duck to water, every woman should have one’!
NY Nuns Sue Pinay over TUYO
NEW YORK – It may be a cultural thing, but when you’re up against a congregation of nuns and your neighbors in an apartment building in Manhattan , a lawsuit would make an interesting anthropological study in ethnic tension.The Missionary Sisters of Sacred Heart (MSSH) in Manhattan has filed a complaint against a Filipino-American couple, Michael and Gloria Lim, over a Filipino delicacy called tuyo (dried fish), and its funky cousin, the tinapa (smoked fish).
The case is now with the Manhattan Supreme Court.
Reports say Gloria was smoking fish outside her apartment window when the smell
– noxious stench to the nuns, divine aroma to the Lims – of the salted fish wafted throughout the Gramercy apartment building.The “foul smell” was too strong the nuns suspected it was coming from a decomposing body and called in the Fire Department.
According to reports, the firemen searched every unit of the building and were able to trace the source of the smell to the Lims’ unit.
They knocked, and when no one came to the door, the NYFD came barreling in.
Gloria, a nurse, found her door knocked down and was obviously peeved.
It appears the MSSH leases the unit to the Lims and may have authorized the assault.
“I cook dried fish,” Gloria defiantly declared to the NY Post.
The average American may find it puzzling how one can derive pleasure of the palate from dried fish. Foodie Andrew Zimmern, who has been to the Philippines and braved balut (fertilized duck egg with an embryo) and Soup No. 5 (bull’s rectum and testicles soup, believed to be a powerful aphrodisiac) , might be able to share the gustatory experience.
Gloria was referring to the tuyo, a Philippine staple usually eaten with steaming hot rice and fresh tomatoes. Some eat theirs dipped in vinegar and crushed garlic paired with fried rice and sunny side up egg.
Dried fish is not a Philippine exclusive. It is an essential in the traditional Chinese and Malaysian fried rice along with chopped spring onions, garlic and chili. Sometimes, it is pulled and sprinkled on chocolate porridge or champorado.
Food with a strong salty taste like tuyo or tinapa might be too intense for the morning stomach, but many Filipinos would never leave for work in the morning without having it for breakfast.
In the lawsuit filed by the nuns, Gloria was even more adamant. She was quoted as saying that “she is causing the smell by cooking and/or smoking fish, and she is going to continue to do it.”
The complaint appears to divide the apartment tenants, some finding themselves squarely on the side of the sisters who find the smell “potentially dangerous to life and health,” and some defending the FilAm family’s right to eat their own ethnic food in the privacy of their home.
“This is plain racist,” comes a shout-out from a supportive blogger.
The complaint says some tenants closer to the Lims’ unit have moved out, and that the Lims have been warned repeatedly about the smell emanating from their 16th floor apartment unit. Gloria, a 30-year resident of the US , denies this.
Which side to take, undecided tenants turn to what’s stated in the housing rules: Cooking smelly food is not allowed.
The nuns are seeking $75,000 in damages. They made it clear that they have nothing against Filipinos as a people.
Before the Written Word
Penman for Monday, January 19, 2009I'VE BEEN swamped with messages responding to my past two columns on "irritating Pinoy expressions," with readers from theater director Freddie Santos and lawyer Ted Te to retiree Crisistomo Arcilla and old friend and colleague Minnie Yonzon (who wants me to do a similar piece on annoying expressions in Filipino) contributing their take on the subject, for which I thank them all. Poet and editor Pete Lacaba (the real language maven among us) sent me a flurry of messages late one night to prove his case (which he did, convincingly) that “in fairness”, all by itself, is indeed used in standard prose elsewhere, though not quite the way we Pinoys deploy it as a virtual shield, from behind which we can feel free to say even saucier things.
Another reader gently chided me for carrying on what he called “a colonial discourse” in talking, I suppose, about imposing standards of usage in a foreign language, thereby trying to be more English than the English. I’ve heard that argument before, and that would be true if we were settling what was “good and bad” or “acceptable or not” based on just British or American usage.
But I was saying that we should negotiate these things among ourselves—to sort out what was clear, meaningful, pleasing to the ear, and so on, to us as Filipinos. I submit that it would be even more colonial-minded if we left the teaching or studying of English to the English, or if we didn’t think we had a right to discuss standards and usage on our own. (Of course, the extent to which English may be said to have become “ours” is another subject for debate.)
Any discussion of language and standards of language sooner or later turns vexatious, because it’s inevitably political. When you talk about English in the Philippines, people tend to divide themselves into the “Inglisero” snobs and the “Pinoy sa puso’t diwa” flagwavers. It’s very hard to stake out a middle ground, which is what I’ve been trying to do all along, and I hope our readers see that. The one thing I strongly object to is the imposition of a language on others—and the snobbery that comes with it—without knowing why or understanding how language works, which is often more complicated and more interesting than the grammarians, teachers, editors, and certainly the politicians see it.
I have a feeling that if I wrote a book on the subject I'd be a rich man, but I'm going to take a short break from wordplay this week to report on an interesting foray into—perhaps appropriately enough—our pre-literate history, a time before the written word.
I FOUND myself in Angono, Rizal last week with fellow members of our college's Executive Board, headed by our dean, the National Artist Virgilio Almario. The dean had decided to take up a standing invitation by one of our faculty members, the writer and scholar Ligaya "Gaying" Rubin, to hold our monthly meeting over lunch at her house in Angono, her hometown.
It was a short drive from Diliman on a breezy January day, and the sumptuous lunch—for which the perfunctory meeting had clearly been an excuse—was even more pleasant, capped by take-home bags of fried itik, Angono's specialty, that the dean had sent his driver out to buy. But an unexpected treat was yet to come. "Would you like to see the petroglyphs?" Gaying asked us. "It's only 15 minutes from here." Why, yes of course, I wanted to say, but first I had to ask, "Will we need to walk very far?" I heard the magic word. "No," said Gaying, "they've built an access road so we can drive right up to it."
I'd heard of these petroglyphs or rock carvings before, from accounts of their discovery and the research conducted on them by the National Museum, which still oversees the site. Dr. Jesus Peralta, among others, has written about them, noting that a National Museum team first studied the site in 1965, concluding that “The archaeological aspect of the research into the petroglyphs gave no positive results. The presence of cobble, flake tools and polished stone adzes, and fragments of pottery in the immediate vicinity of the shelter is no indication of a relationship between the makers of the stone tools, and the petroglyph maker, although the probability exists.”
It seemed appropriate that they were located in Angono (or just outside it; the site seems also to be claimed by Binangonan) which today continues to be known as a cradle of folk art, breeding such luminaries as Carlos "Botong" Francisco, Jose Blanco and his family of painters, Nemiranda, and Perdigon Vocalan, the artist whose ethnic Balaw-Balaw restaurant attracts visitors from afar.
There's been some skepticism over the authenticity of the petroglyphs, which are really little more than figures drawn and cut into the rock face; you can easily discern figures that look like animals and humans on the volcanic tuff. I know someone (I won't tell who) who believes in UFOs and reincarnation, but who's convinced that the wall figures are, uhm, less than ancient. It's easy to see where the skepticism comes from, because, before the National Museum put railings up to protect the site, thoughtless vandals had scrawled their names right beside the turtles and the lizards of a bygone age.
Gaying told us that she saw those figures there (as Botong did, before her) when they hiked up the mountain in the '60s. That sounds ancient enough to me.
AND NOW for a truly pleasant surprise. I was typing this up on Thursday, the 15th of January, and just as I was working on the column, I heard a “ping” in my inbox—a message from Antonio Andre Calizo, who had written me months earlier about a common ancestor of ours, a Marianito Dalisay Calizo of Aklan. He sent me a link which led to this discovery about “Sayaw,” a yearly moro-moro presentation held during the Sto. Niño fiesta in Ibajay, Aklan:
“This moro-moro was originally written by Marianito Dalisay Calizo of Ibajay, Aklan, intimately and popularly known to his townmates as Maestro Nito, sometime during the middle part of the 18th century.
“The sayaw, without which the celebration of the Feast of the Sto. Niño every January in Ibajay, Aklan, would seem incomplete, has for participants… blood relations of the venerable Maestro Nito, who have formed a cohesive group (barangay-style) known as the Calizo clan. “This group, led by its elders, recruits, trains, finances, and preserve the weapons and uniforms of wars of the Muslims and Christians and imparts to the participants from generation to generation the intricacies of warfare (estokada) used in the play.”
How about that—a fellow playwright for an ancestor? But the real surprise, at least for me, was not only that I was receiving the message on the day of the fiesta and the presentation itself—January 15—but that it also happened to be my 55th birthday.
(I’m announcing that fact not in expectation of some belated gifts—but if you really must, then give me your old pens, and don’t be shy!)
her sweet and loving smile from melbourne, australia…
Si Obama sa buhay ng mga Pilipino
Excited ngayon ang mga Amerikano para sa inauguration ni Barack Obama bilang 44th na presidente ng United States of America.
Live mamayang hatinggabi o baka abutin na ng ala-una ng umaga ang Obama inauguration.Makasaysayan ang pagka-presidente ni Obama. Siya ang unang itim na presidente ng America kung saan maraming dekada ang nakaraan, hindi makaboto ang mga itim. Hindi nga sila makakain sa restaurant na kinakainan ng mga puti. Kahit sa pag-ihi, hindi sila maaring gumamit ng palikuran na gamit rin ng mga puti.
Kung isipin mo ang sitwasyon ng mga itim noong unang panahon, talagang hindi kapani-paniwala na ang manunumpa ngayon ay isang batang itim na presidente. Talagang makasaysayan ang araw na ito para sa Amerika.
Ang pagka-panalo ni Obama bilang presidente ay nagpapakita kung gaano kahanga-hanga ang Amerika bilang bansa. Ito rin ay nagpapakita na buhay na buhay ang demokrasya sa kanila.
Hindi lamang mga milyun-milyung Amerikano ang natutuk sa kanilang TV para manood sa panunumpa ni Obama. Bilyun-bilyun na taon sa buong mundo.
Inaabangan ng lahat nag pag-upo ni Obama dahil sa krisis pang-ekonomiya na dinaranas ngayon ng Amerika na kumalat na rin sa ibang parte ng mundo. Sinasabi na ni Obama na malaking trabaho ang nahaharap sa kanila at hinahamon niya ang mamamayang Amerikano na samahan siya sa paghanap ng lunas ng kanilang problema.
‘Yan ang maganda ngayon sa kanila. May lider sila na kanilang pinagkakatiwalaan at nakaka-inspire o nakabigay-buhay.
Malaking bagay ang pagka-panalo ni Obama ang maraming kapalpakan sa administrasyon ni George W. Bush. Ang paglusob sa Iraq gamit ang kasinungalingan na weapons of mass destruction daw. Wala naman silang nakita. Natanggal nga niya si Saddam Hussein, hanggang ngayon naman giyera pa rin sa Iraq.
Malaking bagay ang ehemplo na mapakita ni Obama. Kung mataas ang moralidad ng isang lider ng mundo, makaka-inspire siya sa ibang bansa.
Sa administrasyo ni Obama , inaasahan ng marami na papahalagahan ang katotohanan at magkakaroon ng respeto sa bawat banasa, hindi katulad ng kayabangan na pina-iral ni Bush.
Hindi lang nakaka-inspire. Pwede niyang gamitin ang mataas nilang standard sa moralidad para sa pakikipag-ibigan sa ibang bansa.
Sa relasyon ng Pilipinas at Amerika, hindi tayo umaasa na mayroong malaking pagkaka-iba. Siyempre gagawin ng Amerika ang nakakabuti sa kanila.
Kaya tayong Pilipino, dapat ipa-alam natin sa administrasyon ni Obama na hindi nakakabuti para sa Amerika na ang Pilipinas ay nasa ilalim ng peke na presidente.
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Lab Letter Para Kay KOSA
Mahal kong KOSA,
Maayos ang daloy ng kuneksyon ngayon, hmn medyo. Noong una ang tagal bago ko maakses ang mismong sayt ng manilenya. Una, isinisisi ko ito sa kuneksyon ng kapitbahay, sabi ko bakit masyado silang madamot. Pangalawa, halos pagmumurahin ko yung hosting ko pero bumabalik sa kin yung mga mura. Ano ang magagawa ko, masyadong maliit ang badyet ko para sa websayt na to.
Ito na yung ipinangako kong lab letter ko para sayo, swerte mo, sa totoo lang hindi ako mahilig gumawa ng lab letter. Una’t huling ginawan ko ng lab letter e yung tropa na dayo sa eskinita sa amin sa tundo. Araw-araw na ginawa ng diyos, nandoon sila, mga grupo ng mga kabataang kalalakihan, nililigawan yung mga tropa kong kababaihan.
Napraning ako kasi, tatlo sila, ni isa man walang nakaisip na pasaringan ako kahit man lang “labas tayo, nood tayo ng sine” o kaya nama’y “gusto mong magjollibee?”
Ginawa ko, bumili ako ng may amoy strawberry na stationary sa kanto, tapos pinitik ko yung bolpeng may tintang mabango ng kapatid ko saka ako nagsulat ng ng lab letter, gamit ang wikang ingles.
Ang sabi ko, nag-aaral ako sa isang private school na malapit sa simbahan, noong mga panahon na iyon, sikat ka kapag sa private school ka nag-aaaral kesehodang boba ka pa. Sabi ko pa, matagal ko na siyang nakikita sa eskinita sa tuwing dumadaan ako, at noong una pa ma’y laglag na ang panty ko sa kanya. Ooopppsss! panga pala. Gusto ko siyang makilala, makakwentuhan minsan isang araw, pero sa ngayon hindi pa ko handang magpakilala sa kanya, dagdag ko pa. Balang araw magkakaroon kami ng time para magkakilalanlan, susulat ako ulit. yngatcapalague.
Aliw na aliw ako sa dalawang rason. Aliw na aliw ako kasi, pakiramdam ko ang galing galing ko dahil nakagawa ako ng lab letter sa wikang Ingles at aliw na aliw ako kasi hangang-hanga yung lalaki sa lab letter na tinanggap niya habang kinukwento niya sa harapan ko yung nakasulat sa stationary, maya-maya inabot niya sa tropa ko yung lab letter tapos pinagpasa-pasahan namin siya. Hindi yung lalaki, kundi yung lab letter.
Tatagal ka pa ba KOSA?
Alam mo bang naaliw din ako sa iyo, sukat ba namang tawagin mo kong idol;
13 Jan 09, 18:23
kosa: pasyal pasya… bagony ruta ng bayan.. nakikidaan.. palitan nman tyo ng links mani.. nakakatuwa nman tong blog mo.. idol na kita.. hehehe.
Matagal ko ng hindi narinig ang salitang iyan. Idol.
14 Jan 09, 19:55
kosa: pasyal pasyal at napadaan dito sa ruta ng bayan.. kitakits
15 Jan 09, 14:21
kosa: pasyal pasyal.. di pa pala kita naaadd sa blogroll ko.. add kita ngayun din.. hahaha kitakits idol
Tinadtad mo ako ng idol kosa, hindi ko na alam kung ano ang nararamdaman ko. Sumasabay ang tuwa sa pagpulandit ng kirot na nanggagaling sa mga sugat ko mula sa operasyon. Hindi ko alam kung tatawa ako o ngingiwi, sa bandang huli, isang magiliw na ngiti ang pinakawalan ko. Lalo na ng nakita ko ito;
Comment by kosa (Who am I?) |Edit This
hayyyyyyyyy.. isa ka sa may pinaka magaling na sistemang magsulat sa pinoy blogosperyo.. walang duda..
sana naman hindi mo baguhin yung estilo mo ng pagsusulat..
Kung alam mo lang kosa. May mga panahong naging baliw ang blag na ito dahil sa pagpapalit palit ng isip ng ng nagbablag. Hindi lang minsanan na inisip kong iwan na ang manilenya. Lamukusin at iflush sa inidoro, kung papel lang ito.
Burnt-out daw ang tawag doon ang sabi ng katatapos ko lang basahin na libro. Epekto ng pagbabago sa buhay blogging. Pagkabagot sa panahon na walang trabaho at pagiisip kung hanggang saan ba ang tibay ko bilang isang babae na sinipa ng nanay niya papuntang Singapore at tumalsik dito sa bansa ng maple leaf.
Mula sa kakayahang makapagblog ng 23 post sa loob ng isang buwan, heto ako para bang naghihingalong tubig sa poso na kung hindi pa bombahin hindi bubulwakan kahit man lang apat na post sa isang buwan.
Mangilan-ngilan na rin lang ang mga bisita ng blag na ito, salamat sa pinay scandal seo project, kung hindi dahil sa kanila magmimistulang sinehan sa recto ito na dahil sa nilalangaw na ang takilya ay ipapasara na lang.
Ngayon nagpapasalamat ako sa mangilan-ngilang mga bagong blagger na katulad mo na muling nagbalik ng sigla sa pinoy blogosphere. Mga bagong blagger na nagpapa-alala sa akin ng mga panahong nag-uumpisa pa lang akong lumikha ng sarili kong mundo bilang bobang pinay na nangarap na ang mga letrang tinitipa ng mga kamay ko ay magkakabuhay at lilikha ng mga kwentong….sapin-sapin.
Mahaba na ito KOSA, alam kong mapapagod ka na sa pagbabasa…siguro susulat ako ulit….baka, yngatcapalague.
Hanggang sa muli,
Manilenya
(ninenok ang litrato kay littlenar)
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The Marine who said “No”
By VERA Files
The soldier who stirred a hornet’s nest by accusing Department of Justice officials of bribery in the so-called “Alabang Boys” case could have been a millionaire by now.
Marine Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino, chief of the Special Enforcement Service of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, has experienced being bribed by smugglers, politicians and drug dealers in his 14-year career as a military officer.
But Marcelino, who belongs to the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1994, said he has made it a point to give back the thick envelopes stuffed with cash, and was not even curious enough to count the money and see how much he is worth.
The 11th of 13 children of a poor family in Bulacan, Marcelino made it through school only through scholarships, and by working as a campus journalist and a reporter for the tabloid Headline Manila in the late 1980s. He entered the PMA because that was the only way he could get a free college education.
Marcelino has taken part in the most dangerous assignments—making sure elections take place in the farthest and deadliest towns of Sulu, rescuing kidnap victim Jeffrey Schilling and the Dos Palmas hostages, pursuing the Abu Sayyaff, peacekeeping in East Timor, running after illegal loggers in Palawan—and even experienced being held captive by the Moro National Liberation Front in Sulu.
But he said he has never thought of taking money that could have compensated for the risks he has taken.
As a young lieutenant assigned in Pangutaran, Sulu in 1996, he experienced being given money representing the “share of the Marines” for them to turn a blind eye to the smuggling of goods, including noodles, from Malaysia rampant on the island. The envelope containing the money was first handed to him by the police chief and later by a town councilor. He turned down the bribe.
In 1998, Marcelino and his fellow soldiers were assigned to Panamao town in Sulu to make sure elections took place. That meant he had to go up against the mayor who wanted elections confined to his strongholds in the town center, and offered him money and cattle not to deliver ballot boxes in the outlying barangay.
He refused both cattle and money, angering the mayor who not only got his private army fire mortars at Marcelino’s detachment, but offered P800,000 and an M-14 rifle to anyone who would kill the young Marine officer. A child was killed instantly and 11 others were injured when the nearby health center was hit by mortar fire.
Whenever confronted with bribe offers, Marcelino said he always remembers his father’s advice, “Kung ano ang pinakain mo sa anak mo, ganoon din ang kalalakihan niya (You are what you eat).”
He also keeps in mind the PMA honor code that a cadet “does not lie, cheat and steal and tolerate those who do.”
The “Alabang Boys” controversy has thrust Marcelino in the limelight after he disclosed that state prosecutors were offered a P50 million bribe to drop the charges against Richard Brodett, Jorge Joseph and Joseph Tecson who were caught last September by PDEA operatives with a spread of Ecstasy and other drugs. He also reported that he was offered a P3 million bribe, which later went up to P20 million, to settle the case.
At work, Marcelino said he is oblivious to the overwhelming public support for him in the conflict with the DOJ. But he has felt that his “world has become smaller.”
He related an incident in a San Juan restaurant a week ago when an old man he did not know seated at another table paid for their bill. When he thanked him for it, the old man said, “This is just my way of thanking you for what you are doing for the country.”
“Kinilabutan ako (It gave me goose bumps),” he said.
While Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez mulls how to teach the young military officer who dared talk back to him in a televised congressional hearing a lesson, Marcelino said he will continue doing what he believes is right guided by the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”—Ellen Tordesillas
(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look into current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)
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Interagency feud weakens anti-drug campaign
By VERA Files
(Conclusion)
Last Jan. 13, President Arroyo proclaimed herself the country’s anti-drug czar, stepping into the feud between the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Department of Justice over the “Alabang Boys,” the three young men arrested and detained for illegal drug pushing and who allegedly tried to bribe their way to freedom.
Except for ordering DOJ officials and prosecutors to go on leave, Arroyo has kept mum on the charges of bribery, inefficiency and conflicts of interest that were exchanged between prosecutors and antinarcotics officials and agents. Her move has resulted in an uneasy peace between warring agencies that are supposed to work closely together in the anti-drug effort.
“The anti-drug campaign requires a united front, a harmonious relationship with other agencies,” a senior police official said. But he lamented that the attacks on both the PDEA and DOJ have “destroyed institution(s), including those who are innocent.”
Law enforcers say there has been a long running feud, with antinarcotics agents frustrated at the frequency with which prosecutors drop charges against suspects, and prosecutors complaining that law enforcers fail to build cases strong enough to stand up in court. Judges have also been accused of acquitting known drug lords.
Aside from this, there is the problem of credit-grabbing among the different agencies involved in the anti-drug campaign, and interference of politicians in drug cases. Also, the post of PDEA director general, held at present by former Armed Forces chief of staff Dionisio Santiago, is reportedly being eyed by politicians.
Under Republic Act 9165, PDEA became the lead government agency in the government’s anti-drug campaign. It works with other law enforcement agencies, including the Philippine National Police’s Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operation Task Force (AIDSOTF), National Bureau of Investigation Anti-illegal Task Force and the Customs Task Group/Force in Dangerous Drugs and Controlled Chemicals (CTGFDDCC). Street-level operations are handled by the police districts, while the cases are filed and prosecuted by the DOJ. The 17-member Dangerous Drugs Board draws up policies and programs on drug prevention and control.
All the agencies are under Arroyo, either directly like PDEA and DDB or indirectly like the DOJ and the PNP. “Structurally, she doesn’t have to do anything more. She has always been the anti-drug czar,” a PDEA official said.
In Metro Manila, the police districts undertake the bulk of the anti-drug operations. The PDEA accounts for 3 to 5 percent, mostly high-level cases.
Indeed, bribery takes place at all levels, but not everyone is on the take, the official said.
In high-level cases, PDEA arresting teams have been offered P5 to P6 million for the release of the leader of the drug syndicate and P1 million for each apprehended member.
Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino, head of PDEA’s Special Enforcement Services, has disclosed he was bribed twice, an initial P3 million that later went up to P20 million, and that prosecutors were offered P50 million to secure the release of the “Alabang Boys.”
In the case of judges, high-level suspects are known to offer from P20 million to P50 million, depending on the stage the case is in. The nearer it is to promulgation day, the larger the bribe, according to anti-drug officials.
Counternarcotics agencies also cited “persistent reports from independent sources” of involvement of local officials, including mayors and governors, in the drug trade.
PDEA officers have long complained of how prosecutors and the DOJ would drop charges against drug suspects without basis. “Hinuhulog talaga ang mga kaso (They really drop cases),” said a PDEA official. “You have to always be on guard and question what they do.”
After the “Alabang Boys” scandal broke out, Senior Superintendent Adzhar Albani, PDEA regional director, said DOJ Secretary Raul Gonzalez ordered Lucky Ong, one of the two Chinese nationals arrested in Zamboanga during a raid on a shabu laboratory last year, removed from the charge sheet.
“The anti-drug campaign per se is difficult. But some people are even making it even harder for us,” Santiago said.
Prosecutors and the PNP, in turn, have complained that PDEA cases are weak because field personnel lack the training on law enforcement, including proper procedures on arrest and detention, crime scene investigation, and the collection, marking and inventory of evidence. “Intelligence is different from investigation,” the PNP officer said.
Credit-grabbing, meanwhile, has been a common complaint raised against PDEA by police districts. Anti-drug agents in the PNP said they have done work against the biggest drug dealers, some of whom were not even in PDEA’s list of top ten. They did intelligence operations and engaged in buy-bust operations, only to have the PDEA claim credit for their work.
Police districts also said PDEA should provide more financial support to operations of cash-strapped police stations. PDEA had a P750 million budget last year.
They said the operating expenses of police stations are often not enough to cover costs for buy-bust operations, especially with the spike in shabu prices. A test buy alone, to collect samples for lab testing before the police launch an operation, would entail P500. During the drug bust, a police station needs to allot from P8,000 to P16,000 to buy one to two grams of shabu.
As Arroyo named herself drug czar, she also kept mum on the fate of three key figures in that controversy: Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, who had met with the suspects’ lawyer on Dec. 23; Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor, who had pressed PDEA to release the suspects on Dec. 19; and PDEA’s Santiago whose men arrested the suspects in September and exposed the alleged bribery of DOJ officials in the first place.
The President’s silence came as no surprise to officials in the anti-drug agencies who said Arroyo was merely playing safe and was keeping the peace with three people who were instrumental in her rise to power and continued stay in office.
Sources in the defense establishment said Arroyo owes a debt of gratitude to Santiago for having helped put her in power during EDSA 2 in 2001 and ensured her shaky stay in the months that followed.
Then chief of the Special Operations Command and a seasoned combat officer, Santiago was said to be instrumental in convincing then Armed Forces chief of staff Angelo Reyes to withdraw the military’s support from Estrada. Arroyo has recalled in her speeches how Santiago “was in fact the earliest of the commanders to put his career on the line and cast his lot with the people.”
On May 1 that year, Santiago led the troops that defended Malacanang from angry Estrada followers who tried to unseat Arroyo. He was then overall commander of Joint Task Force Libra which the military created to protect Arroyo.
In 2002, Arroyo named Santiago, whom she fondly calls “the Chuck Norris of the Delta Force of the country,” Armed Forces chief of staff.
Gonzalez was named DOJ secretary in June 2004, shortly after Arroyo was proclaimed winner in the presidential elections. He was named to the post just weeks after he took part in the presidential canvass of votes as congressman from Iloilo, overruling opposition protestations of massive cheating in the 2004 elections. He is remembered for answering opposition complaints with the word “Noted.”
Now on leave, Blancaflor was first recruited to the Arroyo government by then National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales but never held office at the National Security Council.
Instead, he was posted at Malacanang, manning the “war room” along with former military intelligence officer Col. Victor Corpus and then Presidential Management Staff chief (now Ambassador to Greece) Rigoberto Tiglao that closely monitored political developments, including Arroyo’s opponents.
Blancafor has told friends that he mustered support for Arroyo in 2005 amid allegations of her hand in electoral fraud, documented in wiretapped phone conversations known as the “Hello, Garci” tapes. As members of the Cabinet were defecting, Blancaflor “shepherded” reporters to the Alabang residence of Fidel V. Ramos for the press conference during which the former president declared he was standing behind Arroyo.
Blancaflor was later appointed undersecretary at the Department of National Defense and the DOJ, but without portfolio.
Blancaflor and lawyer Felisberto Verano Jr., counsel for “Alabang Boys” Richard Brodett and Joseph Tecson, are contemporaries at the Ateneo de Manila Law School and brods at the fraternity Utopia. State Prosecutor John Resado, who dismissed the charges against the “Alabang Boys,” is Verano’s former law student at the Far Eastern University.—Yvonne Chua, Ibarra Mateo, Luz Rimban and Ellen Tordesillas
(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look into current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)
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As “shabu” price rises, Ecstasy use up
By VERA Files
(First of two parts)
The trade in crystal methamphetamine hydrochloride or “shabu” in the Philippines has grown into a P1 billion-a-day industry, but the drug has now become more expensive, making it “the poor man’s cocaine no more,” antinarcotics officials and international drug reports said.
The price of shabu has doubled to between P8,000 and P10,000 per gram since law enforcers dismantled several “mega-laboratories” in 2006 and 2007.
But government successes in curbing shabu production have been offset by another problem: Users are now turning to the amphetamine-type stimulant Ecstasy, which sells for P750 to P800 per tablet, and cocaine, which sells for P2,500 per gram, the kinds of drugs that were seized from “Alabang Boys” Richard Brodett, Jorge Joseph and Joseph Ramirez Tecson by agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in a drug-bust operation last September.
The 2008 World Drug Report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the Philippines “continues to have the world’s highest estimated annual methamphetamine prevalence rate” at 6 percent of the population. Officials from PDEA and the Philippine National Police said in separate interviews that nearly 200 kilos of shabu are sold every day at a wholesale price of P5 million a kilo or P1 billion a day.
The UNODC report said that methamphetamine use in the Philippines has actually declined. “Accomplished ang mission namin. Walang gumagalaw. May psychological warfare—active and passive (We have accomplished our mission. The syndicates are immobile. There is an ongoing psychological warfare, both active and passive),” PDEA Director General Dionisio Santiago said of the shabu syndicates.
But with the antinarcotics crackdown over the past years making shabu more scarce and its price steeper, users are now turning to cheaper alternatives and producers shifting to other modes of production.
Antinarcotics officials from PDEA and the PNP reported an increase in the use of Ecstasy or methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), a drug favored by the rich now trickling down to the middle class. The 2008 World Drug Report has also noted a rising level of cocaine consumption in the Philippines.
Locally grown marijuana, however, remains the “alternative drug of choice” for shabu users whenever prices of synthetic drugs escalate, according to PDEA. It is also known as the “starter drug” for teenagers.
Demographic data from drug rehabilitation centers nationwide in 2007 indicate poly-drug use among patients, almost one-third of whom were high school students.
The PDEA reported confiscating a veritable spread of drugs from the “Alabang Boys”: shabu, cocaine, Ecstasy, marijuana as well as diazepam or Valium.
In 2006 and 2007, law enforcement agencies raided and dismantled a dozen clandestine “mega-laboratories” that produced shabu in industrial quantities of 1,000 kilos or more in one cycle.
Law enforcers also arrested several big-time lab operators, among them Chinese nationals who did not speak a word of English or Filipino and who turned out to be the shabu chemists. The chemists took care of “cooking” the shabu and were “embedded” in these labs.
These days, shabu is produced in “large-scale laboratories” that churn out just one-tenth or 100 kilos per production cycle, as well as smaller ones that are easier to dismantle. These labs have also moved to rural and “remote rural areas” in Luzon and Visayas to escape detection. All six major raids on shabu labs last year were outside Metro Manila. They were in La Union, Pampanga, Masbate and Bicol.
The chemists, meanwhile, no longer stay in the labs but just come to the Philippines as tourists, staying only for a week to “cook” the shabu and leaving as soon as production ends and the syndicate has gotten its share—usually one-fourth of the output—in cash, a PNP official said.
Law enforcers said the chemists are essential to the operation since the Chinese refuse to “transfer” this skill to Filipinos. The Philippine labs also acquire the hydrogenator, cylindrical equipment used in shabu manufacturing, from the Chinese.
What China leaves to its Philippine counterpart nowadays is the importation of the precursor materials, particularly ephedrine, a basic component in cold tablets that is sourced from India and China. India is said to produce better-quality ephedrine. A hundred kilos of ephedrine can yield 70 kilos of shabu.
The new arrangement makes it more difficult for antinarcotics operatives to detect the labs. “You have to recruit a member of the syndicate to know the location of the lab and the production date,” the PNP official said. “You need a deep penetration agent.”
The drop in local shabu production has also caused a rise in shabu importation from China, PDEA and PNP officials said. From Yunnan province in China, the shabu travels to the Guangxi, Guangdong and Fujian provinces and Hong Kong before ending up in the Philippines.
Shabu arrives at different ports around the country, packed in a variety of containers less likely to be checked, including large giant ornamental jars sold in furniture and ornamental shops in malls, or even inside expensive imported cars.
One source said the new strategy of syndicates is to shun the “traditional ports” in Cavite, Navotas, and Dinggalan in Aurora, preferring instead the less prying eyes in private ports in Zamboanga and Jolo. Using speed boats, illegal drugs are distributed to various destinations or abroad.
Part of the shabu shipped to and produced in the Philippines makes its way to South Korea, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. (including Guam) and Canada, according to the 2008 UN World Drug Report.
Since the late 1980s, Ecstasy has been popular among showbiz denizens, the rich, and young expatriates in the Philippines. The UN report said Ecstasy users make up 0.2 percent of the population aged 15 to 64.
Antinarcotics agents have said that drugs like Ecstasy are distributed to users at local high-end bars and restaurants, and during concerts. “We are watching (the) international concerts. Illegal drugs are present in these events,” a source said. The source said they have identified these international performers who “carry Ecstasy from Europe.”
Ecstasy is imported, chiefly from the U.S and the Netherlands, said the operatives. But they cited intelligence reports that the drug is now being locally produced in minute quantities on an experimental basis, but of poor quality.
Ecstasy from the Netherlands, on the other hand, is sourced from contacts in Thailand and Malaysia, said PDEA and PNP officials.
One law enforcer said some Ecstasy pills that come from the United States are stuffed into DVD and VCD shipments, the cases lined with carbon paper to prevent detection by X-ray machines. These parcels are then mailed to the Philippines, with “many of them” successfully reaching their local destinations, he said.
Ecstasy is also known by the following street names or slang: Adam, E, Roll, X, XTC, Dolphin, Cream Honda, Clover, Twin heart, Red hook, Pink dolphin, Blue mushroom, Playboy, Mickey mouse, Pink arrow.
Ecstasy has been called the “hug drug” because users like being touched. Medical researchers have observed that users said they “experience feelings of closeness with others and a desire to touch others.”
“Recently, we found out that different brands have different effects. Some brands heighten sexual desire while some have the effect of giving one a ‘high’ for days,” one source said.
Pharmacologically considered as a stimulant, Ecstasy and its variants enhance mood and increase energy level, “producing intensely pleasurable effects” even allowing users to dance for hours. Once its effects wane, users descend into depression and anxiety, and have sleep disorders.
Others effects include uncontrollable teeth clenching, disappearance of inhibitions, blurred vision, increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and either chills or sweating. Seizures are a possibility.
“The stimulant effects of the drug enable users to dance for extended periods, which when combined with the hot crowded conditions usually found at raves, can lead to severe dehydration and hyperthermia or dramatic increases in body temperature. This can lead to muscle breakdown and kidney, liver and cardiovascular failure. Cardiovascular failure has been reported in some of the Ecstasy-related fatalities,” one medical pamphlet said.
The veterinary anesthetic ketamine has also emerged as a “party drug” among some bar habitués. A horse tranquilizer, it is popularly known as “kets” or “ketabu” and induces psychedelic or hallucinogenic states. A number of Ecstasy pushers also deal in ketamine, said anti-drugs officials.
A U.S. State Department report said ketamine is being converted from its legal liquid form to the illicit crystal form in the Philippines and exported to other countries in the region.
Cocaine, produced from the coca leaf grown in South America, has not gained much following in the Philippines. More so with heroin, which is produced chiefly in Afghanistan and Myanmar.
But law enforcers said the country has become a transshipment point for heroin and cocaine as a growing number of Filipinas in their twenties and thirties have been turned into “drug mules” by international syndicates. Also last year, counternarcotics agencies were alerted to cocaine smuggling through a port in northern Luzon.
Cocaine and heroin trafficking in Southeast Asia is handled chiefly by West Africans based in Thailand and Malaysia, in particular Nigerians, they said. Legitimate recruitment agencies hire Filipinas for “jobs” in these neighboring countries, with some ending up as girlfriends of the traffickers.
The powder-form drugs are concealed in false bottoms of carry-on luggage, packs of feminine sanitary towels or candy boxes that get past airport X-ray machines. They are flown into the Philippines and turned over to another Filipina. The latter then flies to another country, including China, usually on a Philippine airline, and hands the shipment over to a member of the syndicate.
About one to 1.5 kilos of cocaine or heroin is transported per voyage, for which the “drug mule” is paid $1,500 to $3,000.
Filipino “drug mules” have been arrested in China and Hawaii airports for heroin possession.
A PDEA official said the canine squad has limitations in detecting illegal drugs at the country’s ports. “A dog that is used to sniffing two grams of drugs may get confused when exposed to a kilo or a ton,” he said.
The dog also becomes ineffective when it is tired, he said.
Mechanics manning X-ray machines at the country’s port fare no better than the dogs. Most are untrained in drug detection and have admitted that they cannot tell an illegal drug even if they come across one, the official said.
The country’s ports also have a different priority. “They are more concerned with explosives than drugs,” he said.—Yvonne Chua, Ibarra Mateo, Luz Rimban and Ellen Tordesillas
(To be continued)
(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look into current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)
NBI clears prosecutors, says Marcelino obstructed probe
by Evangeline de Vera
Malaya
The National Bureau of Investigation has submitted its report to the Department of Justice clearing state prosecutors implicated in the bribery scandal involving the so-called “Alabang Boys.”
But the NBI, which is under the justice department, found basis to charge Marines Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino with obstruction of justice for refusing to appear before its investigators.
Marcelino, head of the Special Enforcement Services of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, led buy-bust operations in September last year, which resulted in the arrest of Richard Brodett, Joseph Tecson and Jorge Joseph.
Marcelino made public an attempt to bribe him in exchange for dropping of the charges filed by PDEA against the three drug suspects before the justice department.
He made the revelation following the dismissal of the charges by the state prosecutors, who belong to the justice department’s anti-narcotics task force, on the ground of legal lapses committed by the PDEA in arresting the suspects.
Some of the task force members have been placed by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez on indefinite leave on orders of President Arroyo.
After getting wind of impending dismissal of the charges, PDEA chief Dionisio Santiago floated a P50 million bribery attempt on the prosecutors.
PDEA is opposing the dismissal.
It declined to comment on the NBI report. “We will abide by the President’s order to put an end to the word war,” said Derrick Carreon, chief of PDEA public information office.
Gonzalez said the NBI report will be submitted to President Arroyo. The President is also expected to rule whether the prosecutors who were forced to take an indefinite leave will be allowed to return to work.
Gonzalez and the prosecutors led by Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño, who is head of the task force, said they felt vindicated by the NBI report
“There is no sufficient evidence (bribery on the prosecutors) because there really is none. The PDEA chief admitted (his move to float the P50-million bribe allegation was) just to psych-war the DOJ officials so they will not dismiss the charges,” Gonzalez said.
The 33-page report signed by NBI Special Task Force investigator Dulce Ricafort said: “The bare and hearsay assertions of the P50 million bribery can’t overturn the presumption of regularity in the performance of the duties of members of the anti-narcotics task force of the DOJ in issuing the Joint Inquest Resolution dated December 2, 2008.”
On Marcelino’s refusal to appear before the NBI and preference for a separate probe body, the report said: “Marcelino’s referral to a separate body is unjustifiable knowing that the nation’s security and integrity of the justice system is being threatened by their ‘unverified’ and ‘raw’ information which would eventually lead to mass hysteria and prejudice.”
Santiago said Marcelino would appear only before an “independent body.”
He also said the NBI report is not yet final as it would be forwarded to the independent body being formed by Gonzalez.
Gonzalez confirmed this but said the composition of the independent panel has yet to be completed. He said no retired Supreme Court justice or bishop would agree to join the panel of investigators.
“The NBI, no matter how impeccable their report may be, will still be questioned because the NBI is under me. That’s why I’d prefer an independent body,” he said.
Gonzalez said with the NBI report, he has revoked the designation of Senior Assistant Chief State Prosecutor Severino Gana as acting chief state prosecutor.
Zuño asked the President to recall the leave order imposed on him, three state prosecutors, and Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor so they can “move on.”
Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera said she has formed a task force that would look into pending and dismissed drug cases. Among these are some 200 “big and sensational cases” and 12 involving big international syndicates “which were dismissed for various reasons.”
The task force is composed of 16 senior and junior lawyers and Devanadera said the creation of the body is part of a united front with the PDEA and other agencies in the campaign against illegal drugs.
Review of the 12 cases will be completed in two weeks and the 200, in a month, she said.
PDEA records show that since 1995, at least 99,700 cases have been filed in court, with some 78,000 still pending. Of those filed, 6,862 cases led to convictions and 6,667 cases ended in acquittal. – With Ashzel Hachero and Raymond Africa
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