THE UPDATES

Jinggoy questions Tuason credibility

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Jinggoy Estrada yesterday doubted the allegations of witness Ruby Tuason, saying his “Tita Ruby” has no credibility.

“As far as I am concerned, in my own opinion, I don’t think she is a credible witness to be placed under the Witness Protection Program,” Estrada said.

Estrada, along with Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, were the two principal players of the pork barrel scam, according to Tuason in her statements before the Department of Justice.

Estrada said Tuason was not telling the truth and her actions were all meant to save herself from prosecution.

“She was just corroborating what the other whistle-blowers said – that she was our agent, she was collecting money from Napoles and giving it to us. I have never ever authorized her to represent me in any transactions with regard to my PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) allocation. I have never authorized anybody. Maybe she misrepresented herself,” Estrada added, referring to
alleged pork barrel scam operator Janet Lim-Napoles.

Estrada said he suspected Tuason, who served as social secretary of his father, former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, could have dropped his name to secure commissions from Napoles.

As early as August last year, the younger Estrada said Tuason, who he calls Tita Ruby, informed him that she wanted to leave for the United States.

“I said why are you leaving? If you have nothing to hide then let’s fight this thing together. So she left,” Estrada said.

Estrada said he had been receiving information that Tuason was harboring ill feelings about him because he had not been checking up on her.

When he called Tuason up, Estrada said she asked him to send her some money because she was in a tight situation.

Estrada said he had a chat with Tuason and at the end of the conversation he was surprised that she was asking for money.

“Why would I send you money? You have a lot of money and we are all facing the same case,” Estrada told Tuason in Filipino.

“That’s the end of our conversation, after that I did not contact her,” he added.

In October, Estrada said his mother, former senator Luisa Ejercito Estrada, went to the US with his sister Jackie and they were able to meet Tuason.

Estrada described Tuason as a family friend and very close to them.

“My mom was always praying for her… then she started blurting out something to this effect that she envied Benhur Luy being the whistle-blower, he would not facing jail time,” he said.

Estrada suspected a plan had been hatched to pin him down further in the pork barrel scam.

According to Estrada, Tuason talked to some other people, including the mother of one his lawyers, who was also her friend, and told her that she was afraid of going to jail and would do anything to avoid this.

“By all means I don’t want to be jailed. I would do anything to avoid it,” Estrada quoted Tuason as saying, adding that the statement showed her determination to avoid prosecution.

After going over the affidavit prepared by Tuason, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the government now has a “slam dunk of evidence” linking Estrada and Enrile to the PDAF scam.

Estrada scoffed at De Lima and said what she has with Tuason was more of a lay-up move of a basketball player who could miss its mark.

He said the burden is on Tuason to present actual proof that she handed him and other lawmakers kickbacks from the PDAF scam.

“She (Tuason) has no evidence. It’s all talk,” Estrada said.

“I have nothing to fear. Even this thing with Tita Ruby. I am totally unfazed. My conscience is clear. I can look at you straight into your eyes, Tita Ruby. You never delivered money to me, that is for sure,” he added.

The Senate Blue Ribbon committee is set to resume its hearings on the PDAF scam this Thursday and Tuason has been invited to appear before the committee.

Estrada said he is considering attending the hearing but would have to seek legal advice.

He said his appearance in the hearing might be misinterpreted as being self-serving.

Agenda

A lawyer for the witnesses in the pork barrel scam also doubted Tuason’s motives to testify against Estrada and Enrile.

“Could this be part of the other respondents’ strategy?” Stephen Cascolan asked.

Cascolan is among the lawyers representing witnesses Baby Sula, Arlene Baltazar, and Monette Briones – who all worked for Napoles.

Sula, in particular, corroborated the statements of Luy. She also replaced Luy after he had a falling out with Napoles in attempting to copy her business scheme.

While he believed Tuason’s knowledge would be material to case, Cascolan said he is wary that she may have other agenda.

“It is clear that her testimony could help build a tighter case against the senators. But do you really believe that she decided to surface because she was bothered by her conscience?” Cascolan asked.

Cascolan suspected the senators were using Tuason “to know now the prosecution’s strategy.”

“We are not open to the idea (of Tuason cooperating with the prosecution),” he said.

He said he wanted to know if Tuason would “stay for the long haul or until the end of this trial.”

Tuason arrived home on Friday and vowed to tell all. She issued a 15-page affidavit implicating Estrada, Enrile and the latter’s chief of staff Gigi Reyes in the scam.

In return, Tuason was placed under the Witness Protection Program.

Tuason is facing two plunder charges for the pork barrel and Malampaya fund scams.

Cascolan also asked why Tuason was immediately given immunity while the request of their clients, whose affidavits were also used in the initial filing of plunder charges, has remained unanswered.

According to Cascolan, their request was submitted to the DOJ and the Office of the Ombudsman back in November. – With Aie Balagtas See

 

Noy celebrates 54th birthday quietly

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino celebrated his 54th birthday quietly in his official residence at the Bahay Pangarap yesterday.

“He’s just here,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said over radio dzRB when asked about the President’s whereabouts. He added the President has no plans to go to Tarlac, his home province.

Aquino earlier said he would celebrate with his family and close friends. He also avoided questions on whether he would have a date on his birthday and on Valentine’s Day.

In her Instagram account, the President’s youngest sister Kris posted a picture of him with her and her two sons. She greeted her “favorite brother,” thanked him for his “unconditional love,” for “being there for us, all the time” and “for always reminding us that at the end of the day, we’ll always have a happy family.”

The President told reporters on Friday that he would give thanks to God for a meaningful life. “Thank you for the 54 years and also for all the things that we are aspiring for, especially better communities – more resilient to disasters because there are so many calamities visiting our shores,” he said.

On Valentine’s Day, he said he would just make sure that everyone would have a peaceful celebration.

Since he became President, Aquino has spent his birthdays working, even presiding over a Cabinet meeting last year.

On the eve of his birthday, he attended the 50th anniversary of the Elsie Gaches Village, the largest government facility for persons with development and learning disabilities.

He also had a full schedule during the week leading up to his birthday as he witnessed the ceremonial turnover of classrooms that would remove the backlog and presided over the change of command ceremony at the Philippine Army, among other activities.

“In between his meetings and attendance at official events, the President took some time to discuss a number of issues relevant to our country with Keith Bradsher, the Hong Kong bureau chief of The New York Times. As a result, the world has taken notice of the President’s appeal to the world to support a multilateral approach, founded on the determination to uphold the rule of law, in resolving conflicting claims in regional waters,” Lacierda added.

BI to purchase P70-M border control equipment

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Immigration (BI) will spend P70 million for the purchase of various border control equipment.

In a statement, Immigration Commissioner Siegfred Mison said the amount, which would be taken from the budget of the Department of Justice, the BI’s mother unit, would be used for the acquisition of state-of-the art devices.

“We will upgrade and modernize our border control system to make sure that our immigration officers are always efficient and proficient in their job as gatekeepers of the country,” he said.

He said they would purchase 220 units of passport readers, 200 units of workstations, 440 fingerprint scanners, 350 high definition Web cameras and 10 document readers, which would be distributed in all airports and seaports nationwide.

Mison earlier announced that the BI would install at the country’s premiere airports 100 biometric machines that would take photographs and signatures of passengers and check the information written on their passports.

The new computers and information technology equipment would replace the “80s technologies” or obsolete computers, including typewriters, being used by BI personnel in processing the entry and departure of foreigners.

Based on the findings of the Commission on Audit, Mison said passport readers at the airports, which were bought in 2008, have to be replaced because they only have a life span of four years.

“A more sophisticated computer system would allow for faster data exchanges between the Philippines and the home country of arriving foreign nationals,” he said, adding that this will result in faster processing and identification of foreign nationals with criminal records abroad.

Olympic rings burst into flames – only on TV

SOCHI, Russia – Smoke and mirrors? Russian state television aired footage Friday of five floating snowflakes turning into the Olympic rings and bursting into pyrotechnics at the Sochi Games opening ceremony. Problem is, that didn’t happen.

The opening ceremony at the Winter Games hit a bump when only four of the five rings materialized in a wintry opening scene. The five were supposed to join together and erupt in fireworks. But one snowflake never expanded, and the pyrotechnics never went off.

But everything worked fine for viewers of the Rossiya 1, the Russian host broadcaster.

As the fifth ring got stuck, Rossiya cut away to rehearsal footage. All five rings came together, and the fireworks exploded on cue.

“It didn’t show on television, thank God,” Jean-Claude Killy, the French ski great who heads the IOC coordination commission for the Sochi Games, told The Associated Press.

Producers confirmed the switch, saying it was important to preserve the imagery of the Olympic symbols.

The unveiling of the rings is always one of the most iconic moments of an opening ceremony, and President Vladimir Putin has been determined to use the ceremony as an introduction of the new Russia to the world.

Konstantin Ernst, executive creative director of the opening ceremony, told reporters at a news conference that he called down to master control to tell them to go to the practice footage when he realized what happened.

“This is an open secret,” he said, referring to the use of the prerecorded footage. The show’s artistic director George Tsypin said the malfunction was caused by a bad command from a stage manager.

Ernst defended his decision, saying that the most important part was preserving the images and the Olympic tradition: “This is certainly bad, but it does not humiliate us.”

NBC was to air the ceremony in the US on tape delay later Friday, and said in a statement: “We will show things as they happened tonight.”

Glitches are not uncommon at Olympic opening ceremonies.

There was a minor controversy over trickery involving the fireworks at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, after it was revealed that some of the display featured prerecorded footage.

Fireworks bursting into the shape of gigantic footprints were shown trudging above the Beijing skyline to the National Stadium near the start of the ceremony. Officials confirmed that some of the footage shown to TV viewers around the world and on giant screens inside the stadium featured a computer-generated, three-dimensional image. – AP               

Comelec to hold trade fair on automated elections system

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday said it will hold a trade fair to explore its possible options on the automated election system (AES).

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said the holding of the trade fair for AES suppliers was recommended by the inter-agency Comelec Advisory Council (CAC), which is evaluating the condition of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.

“Maybe anytime within the next two months, there will be a trade fair. We asked the CAC for their recommendation but they said they want a trade fair conducted first,” he said.

Under the poll automation law, the CAC is mandated to recommend to the Comelec “the most appropriate, secure, applicable and cost-effective technology to be applied in the AES.”

At present, the council is checking on some 82,000 PCOS machines to determine if they could still be used in the 2016 polls.

The council is composed of the Comelec, Department of Education, information technology professionals, non-governmental election reform groups and the Department of Science and Technology’s Information and Communication Technology Office, which is its de facto chair.

Lawmaker hopeful Noy will consider Charter amendments

MANILA, Philippines - A senior administration lawmaker said yesterday he believes President Aquino has not shut the door on the growing clamor to ease restrictions on the economic provisions of the Constitution that proponents emphasize would attract more job-generating investments.

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, one of the proponents of what he called “economic Charter reforms” in the House of Representatives, said he is preparing an economic paper that he will submit to Aquino in the coming days.

Aquino on Friday told reporters that the country could be “distracted” by efforts to amend the Constitution and its proponents have yet to show him the need for such a move.

“The President is sincere in his plans and dreams for our country, so this is the best time to implement more fundamental reforms, and he has the vision and the will to implement these,” Rodriguez said.

He said the Philippines needs to strengthen itself in the coming integration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) next year that would pose both threats and opportunities for Filipinos.

Bus firm in mishap suspended for 30 days

MANILA, Philippines - The Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) yesterday imposed a 30-day suspension on G.V. Florida Transport Inc. following an accident in Bontoc, Mt. Province involving one of its buses that killed at least 14 people, including comedian Arvin “Tado” Jimenez.

LTFRB chairman Winston Ginez said the suspension covers 228 buses of G.V. Florida Transport and 10 buses registered to Norberto Cue Sr. of Mt. Province Cable Tours.

Virgilio Florida Jr., president of G.V. Florida Transport, and Cue have yet to issue statements regarding the incident.

The LTFRB gave the operators three days to show cause why their franchises should not be suspended, cancelled or revoked due to the accident that also injured at least 31 individuals. A hearing is set on Feb. 19.

Initial investigation showed the bus that fell into a 150-meter deep ravine used the license plate TXT-872 of a bus actually registered to Cue.

The 10-page order also noted that the engine and chassis numbers of the ill-fated bus differ from those indicated in the franchise given to Mt. Province Cable Tours.

It also noted that G. V. Florida Transport Inc. has no authority to operate Cue’s Mt. Province Cable Tours as there was no application for approval of sale and transfer filed by Cue in favor of Florida.

“If Florida bought the company and its franchise, they are only authorized to ply the line with the same bus units obtained. If they used their own buses to ply the Cordillera route, the unit involved in the accident is out of line,” Cagayan Valley LTFRB director Rodolfo Jaucian told The STAR.

Phl thanks world for Yolanda aid

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines took to social media and bought ad space in the world’s most prominent strips yesterday to thank the global community for its help three months after a devastating typhoon that killed more than 6,000 people and left 2,000 still missing.

Electronic billboards lit up simultaneously at New York’s Times Square, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing and London’s Piccadilly Circus early yesterday, at the exact time Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) struck Eastern Visayas on Nov. 8 last year.

“The number of lives lost and affected is unprecedented. But ever since then, the world has been one with the Philippines in helping rebuild the nation,” the Department of Tourism behind the ad campaign said on its website.

“This Feb. 8... exactly three months after the typhoon, we want to be one in expressing our gratitude,” the DOT said on its Twitter account, where it also posted pictures of the billboards.

Yolanda, one of the strongest typhoons ever to hit land, smashed across 171 towns and cities in the central islands with a combined land area the size of Portugal, wrecking the homes of more than four million people.

The government is still collecting corpses and looking for nearly 2,000 missing people after the deaths of 6,201 victims were confirmed, many of them swept away by giant, tsunami-like waves unleashed by Yolanda on coastal communities.

What is Banana?

-a long curved fruit that grows in clusters and has soft pulpy flesh and yellow skin when ripe.

-the tropical and subtropical treelike plant that bears this fruit. It has very large leaves and resembles a palm, but lacks a woody trunk.