Friday - July 30, 2010

 

The President's tool chest of powers and resources

1. Pres. Aquino raised a problem in his SONA: The national coffers are nearing depletion. But government is not on the verge of collapse, partly because of the President's vast powers and access to funds, including his own pork barrel. GMANews.TV provides this inventory of the resources and agencies under the Office of the President.

 

What's in a speech? Visualizing PNoy's 1st SONA

1. How does President Noynoy Aquino's first State of the Nation Address (SONA) stack up against GMA's? One way to find out is by using a treemap application to visualize how they used certain words and how often. GMANews.TV breaks down both SONAs and categorizes each sentence for visual analysis. One can easily discern what they emphasized.

 

From Cory to Gloria: 'First SONAs' of past presidents

1. As President Benigno Aquino III delivers his first State of the Nation Address (SONA), GMANews.TV looks back at the first speeches to Congress delivered by his predecessors since the time of his mother, the late President Corazon Aquino. Full of promises and hope, and the occasional gimmick, the first SONAs all raised expectations nearly impossible to meet.

 

2010 elections reinforce Cojuangco control of Tarlac

1. Some have argued that like his mother, Noynoy Aquino is an accidental president. But he is also the scion of the rich and powerful Cojuangco clan, one of the nation's most prolific producers of political leaders. In that sense, there was nothing accidental about his election. Last in a 3-part series on political clans and the May elections.

 

CBCP: Sex ed will cause 'developmental harm'

1. Sex education is being implemented in public schools, but only as a pilot test in some schools. Among their objections, the bishops oppose showing students drawings of the human body. GMANews.TV obtained the sex-ed teaching modules to see the controversial content for ourselves.

 

How dynasties fared in the May 2010 elections

1. Dynasties can be defeated. But in the May elections they lost mostly to other clans with several generations of politicians, giving credence to the metaphor that our democracy is a merry-go-round of the same families taking turns in controlling the levers of power. Part 2 of a 3-part series on the biggest winners and losers in the last elections.

 

Ampatuan clan the biggest winner in May 2010 polls

1. The family now commonly associated with massacre still won the most posts in the last elections, using a wily strategy that involved fielding multiple family members for the same position to ensure victory. Part one of a 3-part series based on a GMA News Research study of political families in the May 2010 elections.

 

VIDEO STORY : Padyak boy dreams of football

1. Football's World Cup entranced millions around the globe, including twelve-year-old Chrisval de Castro from Tondo, Manila, a padyak boy who loves to do something else with his feet. An unusual passion in the urban poor community where he lives, football offers him a chance for a better life.

 

PNoy's business interests are all in the family

1. How rich is President Noynoy Aquino? Based on public records, Aquino is a multimillionaire. But what is a million pesos worth these days? A scion of the nation's leading political clan, he is not nearly as wealthy as other, less well-connected politicians. Most of his business interests have, in fact, been losing money.

 

SLIDESHOW: The hazards of counting every Filipino

1. Every ten years, the government tries to determine the national population by deploying thousands of enumerators to go door to door counting people. Most households are accommodating, but some suspect it's just another ploy by an akyat-bahay gang. We shadow one enumerator for a day as she walks the streets performing a vital job.

 

As commander-in-chief, can Aquino reform the AFP?

1. In time, President Noynoy Aquino has to evolve as the commander-in-chief, setting directions for a defense reform program that must see the light of modernization and a counter-insurgency strategy that seeks fresh and innovative ideas in nation building. By then he will know that he is a leader among the men in uniform.

 

Media struggles to spell Noynoy's folksy new name

1. President Aquino has said he prefers being called PNoy-P.Noy-P-Noy, which is "a little less formal and might bring me closer to the people." But he didn't offer any opinion about the spelling. As media gets to know the new President, it's experimenting with what to call him in headlines. A jologs nickname has not made the task easier.

 

That lump in the throat

1. But for the great challenge he now faces, Noynoy seems to be the regular fellow who never strives to be the life of the party. Why, he could be the ordinary Pinoy, the friend whom we trust to do right by us. And now he says we are his boss. Krip Yuson on the man we call President.

 

PNoy's anti-wangwang crusade is a gotcha trap

1. The President's low-key personal style does not include siren abuse. But security may require his convoy to one day wangwang its way through risky places, sure to be caught by cell phone paparazzi. That first presidential siren aired on the news will be interpreted as a return to business as usual. But there is a way out of the quandary.

 

In the afterglow of victory, Noynoy comes into his own

1. After nine years, Filipinos had wondered if this day was going to happen, if Arroyo would be willing to step down peacefully. The new leader of the country - a man who had long carried the burden of history bequeathed by his parents -- never dreamed this day would happen either, the start of his 'kalbaryo' to live out the Aquino legacy.

 

Quotable quotes from inaugurals past

1. Next to the oath-taking, the inaugural speech of every new Philippine president is the most awaited portion of every presidential inauguration. Here's a rundown of presidential inaugurations in years past, and what the presidents promised the Filipino people at the start of their terms.

 

A brief history of presidential inaugurations

1. Why do many presidents take their oath of office at the Quirino Grandstand in Luneta? How many presidents took their oath of office twice or three times? Where can you find the text of the presidential oath? Find out the answers to these questions, and other interesting facts about previous inaugurations, in this story.

 

All the president's men (and women)

1. President-elect Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino promised a Cabinet filled with "the best and the brightest" composed of the young and the experienced, the expert and the idealist. A closer look at Aquino's official family, however, shows that most of them have had extensive government experience.

 

Is sex turning into children's pastime?

1. While government and church officials are clashing over the propriety of sex education, teenage kids, and increasingly even pre-teen children, discover sex on their own, exploring it like a new game, often rushing headlong into the dark, unmindful of the end results.

 

The Arroyo Years: January 2001 - June 2010

1. After nine and a half years as Philippine president, what legacy is Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo leaving the country? From the day the Supreme Court installed her to power to the day she leaves office, our multimedia timeline chronicles the highs and lows of the Arroyo presidency.

 

Who's who in Noynoy's rise to the presidency

1. A ragtag army of volunteers delivered the presidency to Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III with their tireless campaigning. Now within days of the inauguration, the action around the president-elect has become the game of the generals. Our report comes with an infographic showing the influential personalities around PNoy.

 

Minus Ampatuans, Maguindanao celebrates peaceful polls

1. In Maguindanao, there was reason to celebrate when worst-case scenarios about election day did not happen. Soldiers and police doing routine work a day after the May 10 polls were finding refuge from the summer swelter under the trees in the capitol grounds, just like any ordinary day.

 

Poll official's son abducted by men seeking to nullify votes

1. (Update 4 - 6:53 p.m.) Nuraldin Yusoph, son of Comelec Commissioner Elias Yusoph, was kidnapped by unidentified men who reportedly sought to have votes in Lanao del Sur nullified, the police said on Monday. The NBI has begun interviewing witnesses while a crisis committee whose members include Lanao del Sur Governor Mamintal Adiong has already been formed.

 

Fear prompts Toto to hold office in hometown

1. SHARIFF AGUAK, Maguindanao - Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu will take his oath of office as the new governor of Maguindanao on June 30 in Buluan, his hometown 40 kilometers from the provincial capitol here, the bailiwick of the Ampatuans who are standing trial for the Nov. 23 massacre that left his wife Genalyn and 56 other civilians dead.

 

Old Manila photos show what the war destroyed

1. Next week's presidential inauguration will herald a fresh start, but it will also occasion the remembrance of things past. Coinciding with the event set in the history-laden Quirino Grandstand is an exhibit of recently discovered photos of post-war Manila, shown online here for the first time with interactive maps of the city old and now.

 

Higher education as a service industry

1. In today's world, higher education has become a huge service industry. Nowhere is this more evident than in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which has lumped education together with banking, tourism, and accountancy, observes history professor Maria Serena I. Diokno from the University of the Philippines.

 

BESRA for beginners

1. If the incoming Aquino administration is serious in overhauling the education sector, it doesn't have to look far or reinvent the wheel. In 2005, the DepEd conceptualized the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA), which includes the proposal to add two more years to the elementary and secondary school cycle.

 

The mythology of People Power is alive and well

1. If Noynoy Aquino wants to live up to his mandate as a People Power president, he must hold himself accountable to society's margins. There lies the greatest legacy of the Edsa Revolution -- the sense of popular empowerment that it instilled within our people. An essay by historian Lisandro Claudio.

 

Book chronicles Pinoy passion for tall-man's game

1. Rafe Bartholomew came to the Philippines as an American Fulbright scholar to research the nation's unlikely love for basketball. But he immersed himself so much into everything Filipino that his book serves as a smart guide into a culture that does not lend itself to easy definition. For where else can he cover a game pitting dwarves against trannies?

 

Bangkang Papel boys a rarity in Arroyo report card

1. In Congress nine years ago, the boys were asked to acknowledge the audience's applause, creating a heart-warming tableau at the height of Pres. Arroyo's popularity. But an examination of the government's performance since then showed that many education sector goals went unmet. Drop-out rates for primary grades were still too high.

 

Corruption in DepEd is a major challenge for Aquino

1. When the agency that has the main responsibility for educating the youth is notorious for setting a bad example, what's an incoming president to do? Whoever President-elect Noynoy Aquino appoints as DepEd secretary will have to bear a heavy load, as the UN's goal of primary schooling for all by 2015 falls under his watch.

 

How Noynoy can gain the moral high ground

1. Political scientist James Putzel writes that the longer Hacienda Luisita remains exempt from land redistribution under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, the less credible the new president's government will be. Convincing his family to abandon efforts to hold onto Hacienda Luisita would demonstrate that he truly represents generational change.

 

Independence Day 2010: 112 years, 112 views

1. Is independence the "right to access Facebook without limitations?" That was one reply when GMANews.TV -- to mark June 12 -- asked Facebook and Twitter users what independence meant to them. Both serious and flippant answers when you click on any point on the flag.

 

 

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