Friday - March 12, 2010

 

For Governor Vi, a job that calls for Darna-like powers

1. From their perch in Tagaytay, tourists for years reveled in awe-inspiring views of Taal Lake without knowing the messy truth. Squalid checkerboards of floating fish cages were spreading pollution with excess feeds and causing fish kills that indicated a dying lake. Enter a movie-star governor who once played Darna.

 

A lesson for Comelec, UP pulls off automated polls

1. It took the University of the Philippines in Diliman more than four years to fully automate student council elections among 20,000 students. Can the Comelec do it for 50 million voters with barely a year of preparation? UP graduate student and GMANews.TV writer Jerrie Abella gives a first-hand account of electronic voting.

 

Singing about a revolution: The EDSA legacy in music

1. Twenty-four years ago, the nation was swept up in a miraculous wave of magic that toppled two decades of dictatorship without bloodshed and catapulted the Philippines to worldwide fame. For veteran and young musicians, the EDSA revolution left a legacy that continues to be reflected in their songs.

 

OFWs from the '70s to the '90s

1. Back in the 1970s, labor migration was seen by the government not as a problem but a solution to rising unemployment and inadequate foreign exchange earnings to pay for increasing foreign debts.

 

What the presidential candidates say about OFWs

1. What the presidential candidates say about OFWs

 

OFW problem poses major challenge for next president

1. They may have brought home the bacon - $17 billion in 2009 or over 10 times bigger than last year's expected foreign direct investment - but more than an economic force, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have evolved into a social phenomenon that the country"s next president needs to resolve decisively.

 

Is Metro Manila prepared for a major earthquake?

1. In the wake of the tremor that ravaged Haiti, government agencies in Manila are increasing their efforts to educate residents and building owners about earthquake risks. After all, the active Valley Fault System, better known as the Marikina Fault, traverses the nation"s capital and can move anytime, experts say. Are we ready for The Big One?

 

Another version of the story

1. Another version of the story came out in the news. Ramos was said to be on the side of management, for which he was killed by leftists.

 

The murder of Abel Ladera

1. Tarlac City Councilor Abel Ladera, who was murdered on March 3, 2005, was a former sugar mill worker who grew up in one of the barangays of Hacienda Luisita. He became an engineer, then a city councilor.

 

The SCTEx issue

1. The 94-kilometer Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) is presently the longest highway in the Philippines. It connects the Subic Bay Freeport, the Clark Freeport, and Tarlac City.

 

The January 5, 2005 shooting at the West Gate of Las Haciendas Subdivision

1. The following account of the January 5, 2005 shooting at the west gate of Las Haciendas subdivision in Hacienda Luisita is taken from testimonies delivered during the January 12, 2005 Senate hearing on the incident.

 

After Luisita massacre, more killings linked to protest

1. After the massacre of 2004, eight more people who were either leaders or supporters of the Luisita strike were murdered in Tarlac. A GMANews.TV investigation reveals that a survivor of one shooting testified in 2005 that Sen. Noynoy Aquino had appealed to him about a "superhighway", which turned out to be the now controversial SCTex.

 

ARMM population spike may presage election fraud

1. An unlikely rise in population in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao means more funds from the national government and more votes in the May elections, leading demographers to suspect fraud in the latest census. The main Ampatuan bailiwick, for example, grew by an astounding 13.6 per year.

 

Battle for the ballots: Party-lists play name game

1. What"s in a name? If it means winning a seat in the House of Representatives, it seems party-list groups will go to ridiculous lengths - think A BLESSED or A TAMBAY - just to get listed first on the alphabetical ballot. After all, almost half of the groups that won in the polls from 1998 to 2007 had names that started with the letter A.

 

Pinoys' 'mestisa' madness fuels skin-whitener boom

1. Many Pinoys will spare no expense to have whiter skin. That"s why store shelves are flooded with whitening products, with some brands now in sachets. But there is increasing evidence of health risks, with some whiteners found to contain toxins including mercury, which accumulates in the body and can lead to liver or kidney damage.

 

Who were the 7 who died in the Luisita massacre?

1. Get a glimpse into the lives of the seven people who died during the Luisita Massacre.

 

Was Luisita"s sugar mill indispensable to the national interest?

1. Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas declared an Assumption of Jurisdiction over the Luisita dispute on November 10, 2004. Sto. Tomas said quelling the strike was a matter of national interest because Luisita was one of the country"s major sugar producers. This paved the way for sending government troops to stop the strike.

 

Was it legal for the police to intervene in the strike?

1. The strike of the farm workers" union (United Luisita Workers" Union or ULWU) on November 6, 2004 at Gate 1 of the sugar mill was not covered by the assumption of jurisdiction of the Labor secretary.

 

How a workers' strike became the Luisita Massacre

1. As Sen. Noynoy Aquino campaigns for the presidency, new attention has been focused on events of five years ago when labor strife on his family's sugar estate left seven dead. This is the third of a series that examines the tortured history of Hacienda Luisita, an issue that would face another Aquino administration.

 

How the Cojuangcos got majority control of Hacienda Luisita

1. When the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was implemented in Hacienda Luisita in 1989, the farm workers" ownership of the hacienda was pegged at 33%, while 67% was retained by the Cojuangcos.

 

The Garchitorena land scam

1. The implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) during the term of President Cory Aquino was rocked by a number of scandals. One of the most notorious was the Garchitorena land scam.

 

Cory"s land reform legacy to test Noynoy"s political will

1. There is a haunting resemblance between Senator Aquino"s "Hindi Ka Nag-Iisa" music video and a real-life torchlit march of Hacienda Luisita"s workers days before the November 16, 2004 massacre. What could be worth all the blood that has been spilled? The answer lies in a contentious 30-year stock distribution scheme, a legacy from former President Aquino.

 

The angry music of Jsin Aguilar, aka Jason Ivler

1. On the music-sharing site Soundclick.com, hip-hop rapper Jsin Aguilar posted songs peppered with expletives about a car accident that killed a government official and his cat-and-mouse game with Philippine authorities. The page is registered to Jason Aguilar Ivler, who was captured after a shootout on Monday for the road-rage killing of a Malacañang official's son.

 

Hacienda Luisita's past haunts Noynoy's future

1. The issues surrounding Hacienda Luisita are being seen as the first real test of character of presidential hopeful Noynoy Cojuangco Aquino, whose family has owned the land since 1958. Our research shows that the problem began when government lenders obliged the Cojuangcos to distribute the land to small farmers by 1967, a deadline that came and went.

 

Unknown Adonis challenges the gods of Pampanga

1. He may be named after a Greek deity, but Adonis Simpao will have to rally all the celestial forces behind him to win the congressional seat for the second district of Pampanga. In the province, the Arroyos are the gods, with the president herself showering her cabalen with P459-million worth of projects in 2009 alone.

 

Getting to know Governor "Ina" of Maguindanao

1. Muslim leaders from Mindanao recently had a chance to interact with Nariman "Ina" Ambolodto, acting Governor of Maguindanao province. With the massacre in Ampatuan town still fresh in the minds of many, the newly appointed leader is aware of the huge task before her. Journalist Samira Gutoc gives a first-hand account of the meeting.

 

Online sensations of 2009

1. Lynn Lopez gives us the lowdown on what issues sent ripples and sometimes barreling waves across the Filipino cyberspace community in 2009. You could fave them or flame them, but one thing's for sure: if you're Pinoy, you couldn't escape them.

 

Olympic gold and other sports dreams for the new decade

1. Our quest for the country"s first-ever Olympic gold in the 2012 London Games and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games will be as intense as our search for the next Pacquiao. Of course, the hunt for another Pacquiao might be just as fruitless as a search for the next Robert Jaworski. Some phenomena are simply once-in-a-lifetime events.

 

Cory Aquino's amazing grace

1. One of 2009's biggest stories was the death of former president Corazon Aquino. She changed the course of Philippine history, but she also touched the lives of many individuals. GMANews.TV editor-in-chief Howie Severino recalls campaigning for her, serving her government, and as a journalist, reporting on her presidency.

 

Tragic, brutal and historic: 2009's top 10 news stories

1. 2009 was the year of the unfamiliar, the unprecedented, the historic. The Philippines" icon of democracy passed away, a novel virus swept the world into a health-conscious frenzy, and a brutal massacre enraged Filipinos so much that many did not seem to mind the declaration of martial law in Maguindanao.

 

Leila de Lima: GMANews.TV's Public Servant of the Year

1. For her courage in speaking out even against colleagues in government and for helping keep human rights on the public agenda with timely and forceful words, Commission on Human Rights chair Leila de Lima is GMANews.TV"s Public Servant of the Year for 2009. This is the first time we are giving this honor.

 

In memoriam: 2009 was a year of great loss in RP

1. As we welcome the second decade of the 21st century, we remember the people whose deaths in the Philippines marked 2009 as a year of great loss for the arts, environment, religion, media, politics, and humanity.

 

Captured through YouScoop and StormWatch, the year 2009 in pictures

1. As a new year is ushered in, GMANews.TV compiled the most powerful photographs submitted to GMANews.TV's StormWatch and YouScoop as a way of recapping the exciting and tumultuous year that was.

 

 

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