Category: Human Rights

Aquino missed the chance of making Human Rights Day more meaningful

Ellen Leave a comment

Missing since March 9, 2010

Malacanang’s enumeration of its human rights initiatives last Monday, International Human Rights Day, would have been more meaningful had President Aquino signed the proposed “Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012″ which had been on his table for almost three weeks.

Fernando “Butch” Fortuna, Jr: his son disappeared more than two years ago.

Families of those who just “disappeared” from the face of the earth, most of them for their political beliefs, were fervently hoping for an early Christmas gift for the President. But alas, there was no such gift from the President.

Fernando “Butch” Fortuna, a taxi driver, tearfully appealed to the President to help find his son Daryl who was forcibly taken, with an female companion , Jinky Garcia, and Ronron Landingin, one evening in Masinloc, Zambales by men suspected to be members of the 24th Infantry Batallion of the Philippine ArmyB-PA while he was in an outreach activity in connection with his thesis. At that time, Daryl was a graduating student of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

“Naghahanap pa rin kami. Hindi namin alam kung ano ang aming gagawin (We are still looking. We don’t know what to do,” Fortuna said.

Come January 8, they will again observe the birthday of Daryl, who would be 25. “Hirap na kami We are suffering).”

Sana matulungan kami ni Presidente. Sana pirmahan na ni Presidente ang (anti-Enforced Disappearances) bill para hindi na mangyayari sa iba. (I hope the President would help us. I hope he would sign the bill so that (what happened to my son) would not happen to others.”

(A human rights worker said they learned later that Landingin is now a member of the military.)

In a statement, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances,Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance, and the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, said “Enforced disappearance is considered as one of the cruelest forms of human rights violations. It violates practically all basic human rights of the disappeared including some of the civil, political and socio-economic rights of their families.”
Read More

Senate passes FOI on second reading

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

 

THE LONG-DELAYED Freedom of Information (FOI) bill breezed through the Senate floor on second reading Tuesday night, with main sponsor Senator Gregorio Honasan guaranteeing passage on third and final reading by next week.

But prospects are not as bright in the House of Representatives, as FOI advocates prepare to battle it out with the measure’s opponents in the plenary. Also on Tuesday, the House committee on public information formally approved the consolidated committee report, paving the way for debates on the House version in the plenary. The consolidated committee report had actually been approved as early as last month, but committee chairman Ben Evardone had insisted on calling another committee hearing just to formalize the approval.

In contrast, the Senate version was reported to the floor last week, after which several senators proposed amendments to the bill. Honasan said the amendments were mostly minor; Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, for example, had wanted to rename the bill to the Freedom of Information Act or FOI, after Honasan gave the measure the somewhat catchier name POGI, or the People’s Ownership of Government Information Act. POGI, of course, is a colloquial word meaning “handsome.”

In the end, Honasan said he preferred to keep the name POGI, even though advocates are more familiar with the acronym FOI.

After a brief period of amendments, Honasan moved to have the bill passed on second reading. Hearing no objections, Presiding Officer Jinggoy Estrada declared the measure passed.

Honasan said the third reading of the bill would be a mere formality in the Senate. As such, he said FOI advocates must now train their guns on the House of Representatives.

Atty. Nepomuceno Malaluan, Right to Know Right Now Coalition convenor, said the ball is now in the court of Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and President Benigno S. Aquino III.

Malaluan said that with the FOI virtually passed in the upper chamber, it would be up to the President and the House Speaker to wield their clout and make the measure move through the House.

In particular, Malaluan said FOI advocates are still hoping that President Aquino would certify the bill as urgent. Malaluan pointed out that the President had repeatedly expressed his support for the FOI when he was still a presidential candidate. The President’s interest in the bill appear to have waned though after he assumed office.

 

The bill has met some resistance in the lower chamber, with several congressmen demanding the insertion of a provision providing for a right of reply, or ROR. The ROR rider would require media organizations to give equal time, space, and prominence to officials who feel that they were the targets of negative reportage. ROR proponents in the House of Representatives insist that this provision would curb alleged excesses within the media. Media organizations however say that the ROR proviso is unconstitutional, as it virtually legislates editorial content.

 

BIR files P28-M tax evasion case vs lawyer in Ampatuan assets sale

mcmangahas Leave a comment

THE BUREAU of Internal Revenue on Thursday filed a P28-million tax evasion complaint against a lawyer of Andal Ampatuan Jr., a principal accused in the Maguindanao Massacre case.

Last week, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, in a report by Multimedia Director Ed Lingao, exposed that Atty. Arnel C. Manaloto had acquired eight big real properties of Andal Jr. in Davao City, in May 2011.

Certified true copies of the transfer certificate titles on the properties obtained by the PCIJ showed that Manaloto purchased the properties for only P20 million.

The P27.56-million tax evasion case against Manaloto — for taxes due, interest, surcharges, and value-added tax liability — for the year 2011 was apparently triggered by a two-part PCIJ investigative report on the wealth, and lingering hold on political and economic power, of the Ampatuan clan, three years after the Nov. 23, 2009 massacre.

The PCIJ’s Ed Lingao also produced a documantary, Lipat-Bahay, on the wealth of the Ampatuans, which aired last week on GMANewsTV.

The Ampatuan patriarch and scions are principal respondents in the Maguindanao Massacre case now pending before a Quezon City court. Fifty-eight people, including 32 media workers, died in the carnage, the worst case of election-related violence in Philippine history.

Three years hence, at least 72 candidates with Ampatuan for surname and middle name are running in the May 2013 elections. Among them are nine candidates under President Benigno Aquino’s Liberal Party, and 34 others under the United Nationalist Alliance of Vice Presiodent Jejomar Binay and former President Joseph Estrada.

At a press conference on Thursday, Commissioner Kim Henares of the Bureau of Internal Revenue said Manaloto failed to supply correct and accurate information in his income tax return, and failed to pay value-added tax for the year 2011.

A resident of Angeles City in Pampanga, Manaloto passed the bar only in 2005. He served briefly on the legal staff of former Pampanga Governor Ed Panlilio.

Apart from Manaloto, the BIR also charged Erwin Carreon, a certified public accountant who examined and audited the books of accounts and other accounting records of Manaloto for 2011.

Henares said the BIR’s investigation showed that in 2011, the year Manaloto bought Andal Jr.’s properties, Manaloto declared a total income of only P1.495 million.

This evident underdeclaration of income was a “deliberate ploy to avoid having to register as a VAT taxpayer,” Henares said.

The BIR’s investigation also showed that Manaloto earned P37.97 million in revenues in 2011, but was not a registered VAT taxpayer, and did not pay VAT on his revenues.