SC asks Palace to submit complaints vs 'narco-judges'

MANILA – The Supreme Court (SC) has directed the Palace to submit complaints against four judges named in President Rodrigo Duterte's list of alleged "protectors" of the illegal drug trade in the Philippines.

This is because the high court has decided to treat Duterte's speech on August 7 as a complaint against the said judges.

In a press briefing, spokesperson Atty. Theodore Te said the SC is directing Palace Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to submit within seven days complaints for administrative proceedings against four out of seven judges in the president’s list, namely:

- Judge Exequil Dagala of the Metropolitan Trial Court of Dapa-Socorro, Surigao;

- Judge Adriano Savillo of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 30 of Iloilo City;

- Judge Domingo Casiple of RTC Branch 7 in Kalibo, Aklan; and,

- Judge Antonio Reyes of RTC Branch 61 in Baguio City.

The judges are to, in turn, submit their answers within seven days of getting the complaints.

The SC has named retired Associate Justice Roberto Abad to investigate the complaints. 

Abad is expected to finish his probe within 30 days, and to make his recommendation to the SC en banc afterwards.

"This is a standard investigation," said Te, downplaying the probe.

While the investigation is ongoing, Te added, the Office of the Court Administrator will most likely name people to take over the judges' posts. 

He further clarified that the SC does not have any say in a criminal suit against the judges. "If there is a basis for criminal action, a separate tribunal will handle that," he said.

On Monday, Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno said in a letter that the judges named in Duterte's list have not held drug-related cases, and could not be involved in the drug trade as members of the judiciary are often targets of threats from criminals. 

In the letter, she emphasized that it is "important to know the source and basis of any allegation" against the judges.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/

FVR 'optimistic' about ice breaking China trip

HONG KONG - Former Philippines President Fidel Ramos on Tuesday named the head of a Chinese government think-tank among the experts and officials he hoped to meet on a trip to rekindle ties with China soured by a maritime dispute in the South China Sea.

On July 12, an arbitration court in the Hague ruled that China had no historic title over the busy waterway and had breached the Philippines' sovereign rights there, infuriating China, which had dismissed the case.

"I've always been a very optimistic person, always looking for the best results," Ramos told reporters in Hong Kong. "But of course that also depends on the attitude of the Chinese officials."

Ramos gave no details of his itinerary or of those he planned to meet, except for Wu Shicun, who heads the National Institute for South China Sea Studies think-tank, based on China's southern island of Hainan.

Asked about others, such as China's former deputy minister for Foreign Affairs Fu Ying, Ramos said he did not know yet.

"They all have links with Beijing, because some of them are already retired but elevated to the parliament as chairman of this and that committee."

Ramos said he sought to improve economic and tourism links, such as by allowing "more fishing in the common fishing ground" of the Scarborough shoal in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

"The idea is to use the South China Sea as a place to save lives, but not to kill people or to destroy lives," he added.

China's 2012 seizure of the Scarborough Shoal, denying Philippine fishermen access, was among the factors that prompted Manila to seek arbitration.

But China has ignored the court's ruling that none of its reefs and holdings in the Spratly Islands entitled it to a 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims in the sea, believed to be rich in energy deposits.

Ramos, 88, who described his role as an "icebreaker", is known for an impromptu duet of Elvis Presley's 'Love Me Tender' with former Chinese president Jiang Zemin at a 1996 banquet.

His trip represents "the first concrete step" in engagement for both sides and "could open a new chapter in settling disputes", China's state news agency, Xinhua, said in a commentary.

Ramos was Philippines president from 1992 to 1998, when China occupied the submerged Mischief Reef.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/

Mga kababayan ni Marcos, nagbunyi sa paglilipat ng kanyang mga labi Kim Lorenzo, ABS-CBN News

ILOCOS NORTE - Nasagot na panalangin ang turing ng mga kababayan ng dating Pangulong Ferdinand Marcos matapos malaman na ililipat na ang kanyang mga labi sa Libingan ng mga Bayani sa Setyembre 18.

Ayon kay Crisinta Bagay, ipinagdasal niya ang pangyayaring ito.

"Matagal ko na talagang pinagdadasal at nang malaman ko sobrang nagpapasalamat ako sa diyos dahil si President Duterte lang pala ang makakagawa," sabi ni Bagay.

Samantala, may ilan namang hati ang damdamin sa paglilipat ng labi dahil hindi na nila makikita ang katawan ni Marcos sa musoleyo sa Batac.

"Masaya ako na at last malilibing na siya sa Libingan ng mga Bayani pero okey din sana kung dito lang sa Ilocos Norte siya ilibing para mabilis lang namin siya mabisita," sabi ni Ben Cagaoan, may-ari ng isang shoe repair shop.

Ayon kay Attorney Manuel Aurelio, nararapat na ilibing si Marcos sa Libingan ng mga Bayani hindi dahil siya ay naging pangulo, kundi dahil siya ay naging sundalo.

"If they believe he was not a good president, was he not a good soldier? He was wounded during the war and nearly died for his love on his country, (Kung sa kanila ay hindi siya naging mabuting Presidente, hindi ba siya naging mabuting sundalo? Nasugatan siya sa digmaan at halos mamatay para sa pagmamahal niya sa kanyang bansa)," ani Aurelio.

Umapela rin si Aurelio na respetuhin ang paglibing sa isang dating makapangyarihang tao.

"Now, if they are really against Macoy why don't they dig the history of each and every person that was buried there, I'am very sure they are not all saints. (Ngayon, kung talagang sila ay laban kay Macoy bakit hindi nila hukayin ang nakaraan ng bawat tao na nilibing dito, sigurado ako na hindi silang lahat ay santo)," dagdag pa niya.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/

Dictator tag irrelevant in Duterte's Marcos burial policy- Palace

MANILA – The reputation of the late President Ferdinand Marcos as a dictator and human rights violator did not carry weight in President Duterte's go-signal for a hero's burial set next month, a Palace spokesperson said.

President Rodrigo Duterte has been defiant in the face of mounting criticisms over his decision to allow a burial for the late strongman at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig City. 

Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said Marcos is qualified for a hero's burial, and his reputation as dictator is a different matter.

''According to the regulations that have been referred to, there are at least two reasons for him to be able to be buried accordingly and that is he was an ex-president and he was a war veteran,'' Abella told reporters.

''There is no reference as to whether he was a dictator or not. According to regulations, he seems to be qualified."

Human rights groups and even allies of the president are calling on the tough-talking chief executive to reconsider his decision, even as the Marcos family has started preparations for the transfer of the family patriarch's remains from his hometown in Ilocos Norte. 

Echoing Duterte's statement, Abella said people opposed to the burial are free to mount a protest.

''The president is aware that there are protests. He allows people to make their own comments and stand,'' Abella said. 

''However, from his (Duterte) point of view, it is necessary to move on."

Critics say allowing a hero's burial for the late dictator would send a wrong message, especially since the Marcos family up to this day refuses to acknowledge and apologize for the abuses and corruption under the dictator's regime, who was ousted from power through a military-backed popular revolt in 1986.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/

US asks Philippines to 'clarify' Duterte remarks vs Goldberg

MANILA - The United States State Department said Monday it asked the Philippine envoy in Washington to “clarify” President Rodrigo Duterte’s “inappropriate” comments about its outgoing ambassador to Manila.

Duterte said over the weekend that he was irritated with Ambassador Philip Goldberg and called him “bakla (gay)” for criticizing him during the campaign.

State Department Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudaeu said a Filipino diplomat was summoned "to clarify those remarks." She did not name the diplomat.

"The first, specifically on the remarks, we’ve seen those inappropriate comments made about Ambassador Goldberg. He’s a multi-time ambassador, one of our most senior US diplomats," Trudeau said.

Goldberg criticized Duterte during the campaign for joking about the rape of an Australian missionary in Davao City in 1989 and the candidate responded by threatening to cut ties with the US, the Philippines' most important ally.

During the same briefing in Washington on Monday (Tuesday in Manila), Trudeau also expressed concern over the hundreds killed as Duterte wages a relentless campaign against illegal drugs.

On Tuesday, Philippine Foreign Affairs spokesperson Charles Jose confirmed that the Charge d'Affaires of the country's embassy in Washington DC was invited to the US State Department to discuss "the entire breadth of Philippines-US relations."

While he could not discuss the conversation, he reassured the public that the Philippines' relations with the US remain strong. He also emphasized that Duterte values relations with the US.

"[President Duterte] used effusive language to describe the very productive bilateral partnership," Jose said.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/

He means business: Duterte anti-drug campaign gets archbishop's nod

President Rodrigo Duterte's all-out campaign against the drug menace has found a supporter in Lingayen-Dagupan archbishop emeritus Oscar Cruz. 

Speaking to Radyo Veritas, Cruz said Duterte is serious about eliminating the drug menace especially after he named more than 150 public officials, law enforcers and magistrates who allegedly have links to narcotics syndicates. 

"It seems that there's substance. I am slowly being impressed by his leadership because he means business," Cruz was quoted as saying in a Radyo Veritas report. 

"I still have doubts because of the killings, but he also said that he will fix it. He also said he is not afraid to die and is even willing to put his friends in jail," he added. 

In the interview, Cruz said he is saddened by the spate of drug-related slays in the country. Data gathered by ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group showed at least 557 drug-related slays during police operations, 276 killed by unidentified assailants and 82 bodies found away from the crime scene from May 10-August 9 of this year. 

The archbishop, however, said the release of the alleged drug list could bring much needed change. 

"I don't know if there is any effect if there is killing here, killing there. Now that he has named names, maybe this is the change that will be different from the weeks of killing," he said.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/

Philippine crime war packs decaying jails

MANILA - Mario Dimaculangan shares a toilet with 130 other inmates in one of the Philippines' most overcrowded jails, and conditions are getting worse as police wage an unprecedented war on crime.

Security forces have killed hundreds of people and detained thousands more in just one month as they have followed the orders of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has said the top priority at the start of his six-year term is to eliminate drugs in society.

Those detained appear doomed for lengthy stints in an underfunded and overwhelmed penal system, like in the Quezon City Jail where Dimaculangan has wallowed for 14 years while his trial over murder and robbery charges have dragged on.

"Many go crazy. They cannot think straight. It's so crowded. Just the slightest of movements and you bump into something or someone," Dimaculangan told AFP in one of the jail's packed hallways that reeked of sweat.

There are 3,800 inmates at the jail, which was built six decades ago to house 800, and they engage in a relentless contest for space.

Men take turns to sleep on the cracked cement floor of an open-air basketball court, the steps of staircases, underneath beds and hammocks made out of old blankets. Even then, bodies are packed like sardines in a can, with inmates unable to fully stretch out.

When it rains, the conditions are even worse as inmates cannot sleep on the basketball court, which is surrounded by the cells in decaying concrete buildings up to four storeys high.

The cash-strapped national government has a daily budget of just 50 pesos ($1.10) for food and five pesos (11 cents) for medicine per inmate, although with the bulk buying of supplies, Quezon City Jail detainees have a sustainable diet of soup, vegetables and meat.

Buckets of water are used to flush the scarce toilets, with the stench compounded by the rotting garbage in a nearby canal.

The jail's management does what it can to make life bearable, such as running dance competitions and other rehabilitation activities.

Inmates also say there have been improvements in recent years, particularly with the food and more rehabilitation programs.

But Raymund Narag, a criminal justice scholar at the Southern Illinois University in the United States, said such conditions were unthinkable in Western nations.

"If this happened in America, there would be a riot every day. Courts would declare these jails unfit for human habitation," Narag told AFP.

The Philippine penal system is the third most congested in the world, according to the University of London's Institute for Criminal Policy Research.

Jails nationwide have nearly five times more inmates than they were built for, according to government data.

And the situation is set to get much worse, very quickly.

Under Duterte's crime war, police have reported arresting more than 4,300 people for drug-related crimes since he took office on June 30.

Duterte has repeatedly urged his law enforcers to do more, calling on them to triple their efforts to eradicate the drug menace that he says is threatening to turn the Philippines into a narco-state.

The population of Quezon City Jail, which houses inmates in a northern district of the Philippine capital who are on trial but not yet convicted, has grown by 300 since Duterte won May elections.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre told AFP government was preparing locations for new prisons while courts have been ordered to prioritize the expected deluge of drug cases.

But Duterte has said little about far-reaching reforms needed to fix the systemic problem of overcrowding.

"If there are no new jails, no budget increases, no additional courts and prosecutors, the system will explode. That will be a humanitarian crisis," said Narag, the scholar who speaks from harrowing personal experience.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/

Palace: Duterte not interfering with the judiciary

'It's the president's duty to warn people if there is a fire in the house' 

MANILA – Malacañang on Tuesday said President Rodrigo Duterte was not interfering with the judiciary, dismissing observations that the tough-talking leader risks starting a constitutional crisis when he supposedly encroached on the executive's co-equal branch's administrative power over judges.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno told Duterte in a letter that the judiciary was ''caught unprepared'' by his move to name 7 judges with alleged links to the illegal drug trade.

Sereno stressed that the judiciary has administrative supervision over all courts, and that by being linked to the drug trade, the 7 judges were put in a vulnerable position.

Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella told reporters that Duterte merely exercised his role as ''father of the nation'' when he named the seven judges, one of whom turned out to be already dead.

''He is actually exercising his position as father to the nation, calling attention to what is an extraordinary situation facing the society,'' Abella said.

''In other words, it is something equivalent to shouting fire. There is a fire in the house. It is his moral duty to be able to warn people that there is fire in the house."

Abella said Duterte did not interfere with the judicial process when he named and shamed the judges.

''This is not the judicial process yet. He is simply calling attention,'' he said.

''I believe PRRD (Duterte) has already made reference to that and told them to go to the SC and clear their names there. If their (judges) names are cleared, then they are cleared."

In a press briefing on Monday evening, Duterte said he will respond to Sereno's letter. He said he will tell Sereno that he was just doing his job.

"Out of respect to the Supreme Court, I will also answer. Sabihin ko ma'am ganito yan. My words are, it is not accusatorial. It is not a criminal information. It is my word against the others because I have a duty to tell the public para malaman nila ang danger sa ating bayan, para malaman natin kung sino ang nagpalaki ng industriya," he said.

Bu the SC has taken seriously Duterte's exposé, directing the Palace on Tuesday to submit complaints against four judges named in the list of alleged "protectors" of the illegal drug trade.

The high court has decided to treat Duterte's speech on August 7 as basis for complaints against these judges.

SC spokesperson Theodore Te said the SC is directing Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to submit within seven days complaints for administrative proceedings against four out of seven judges in the president’s list.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/

PH to overhaul 'inhumane', overcrowded jails

MANILA - Philippine officials said on Tuesday the government would build new jails to address severe congestion made worse by President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, describing conditions as ''inhumane'' and ''unacceptable''.

AFP photographs of Quezon City Jail, where thousands of inmates take turns to sleep on an open-air basketball court and a staircase, were an "eye-opener" for authorities to hasten the construction of a new facility, according to vice mayor Joy Belmonte.

Quezon City officials Monday signed an agreement to donate land to the national government for a new prison. The facility in the northern district of Manila would replace the jail built six decades ago for 800 inmates but now houses almost 4,000.

"The photos are really unacceptable. Seeing inmates sleep on top of each other because of the lack of space, I feel it's a violation of human rights, an urgent matter that must be addressed," Belmonte told AFP.

"It's good that this is exposed before the international reading public as an eye-opener," added the vice mayor, who said she had heard reports of overcrowding before but visited the facility for the first time in July with an AFP photographer.

Human Rights Watch criticized the conditions last week, saying it was "straight out of Dante's 'Purgatory'", referring to the 13th century Italian writer's description of the realm where souls await judgment.

Interior Secretary Ismael Sueno told AFP the government would allocate funds to build new jails, with 80 percent of new detainees accused of drug-related crimes resulting from Duterte's crackdown.

Duterte, who took office on June 30, ordered a bloody war on crime that has left 889 people dead since the May elections, according to the country's largest broadcaster ABS-CBN.

Police have reported arresting more than 5,000 people for drugs offenses as part of the campaign.

Sueno said his department was also planning the construction of more rehabilitation centers.

"(President Duterte) is really concerned not just about arrests but also the rehabilitation of drug addicts," the minister said.

Even before Duterte's presidency, the Philippine penal system was ranked as the third most congested in the world, according to the University of London's Institute for Criminal Policy Research.

In Quezon City, the government is working with the International Committee of the Red Cross to finalize the design for a new facility that can house 6,000 inmates by 2019.

"It's a modern facility and we want it to be on par with other jails in Southeast Asia," Xavier Solda of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology told AFP.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/

Nation faces clear and present danger: Palace

MANILA – A Palace spokesperson on Tuesday said it is the responsibility of personalities linked by President Rodrigo Duterte to the illegal drug trade to have their names cleared if they have nothing to hide.

Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said those who believe they were wrongly named by the president must speak up about the allegations. 

''If there are mistakes, the onus now is upon the individuals to express and clarify [their] actual situation,'' Abella told reporters.

Duterte last Sunday named over 150 people, composed of judges, former and incumbent local executives, and law enforcers supposedly involved in the illegal drug trade in the Philippines.

However, doubts have been cast over the accuracy and credibility of the list after some of the persons mentioned were found to be dead.

Some of the people named by Duterte have denied involvement in the illegal drug trade, saying the the president's list must be revalidated.

Asked if this meant that the administration is no longer acknowledging the legal principle of ''presumption of innocence,'' Abella said the situation the nation now faces is ''extraordinary,'' requiring bold moves from the president.

''The situation is that there is a clear and present danger facing the nation. And intelligence reports are of such magnitude, of such breadth and depth that are extraordinary, and that is why he (Duterte) is calling for a public outcry,'' Abella said.

''The naming is part of the process of the warning, that there is such and such a situation. He is asking for the cooperation of these people to come up and clear their names."

Pressed for comment on calls for the administration to first come up with evidence and file actual charges before naming individuals, Abella said: "The length and breadth is of such magnitude, it needs extraordinary measures."

The president said more individuals will be named.

Source : http://news.abs-cbn.com/