It's your weekly compendium of foolishness and corruption in the Philippine government.
A village councilor was robbed and gunned down by an unidentified man at a public market in Barangay Antipolo, Pontevedra, Negros Occidental on Monday.
Kagawad Edward Dominic Algara, 45, was standing inside his feed supply store when the gunman arrived around 11:20 a.m.
Capt. Rhojn Darell Nigos, town police chief, said Algara was with his two helpers when the robber, whose face was covered, stormed the store, declared a hold-up, and allegedly shot him.
The gunman then fled on board a motorcycle.
A barangay councilor shot dead inside his own store.
A village councilor in Murcia, Negros Occidental was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle while manning the checkpoint in Barangay Minoyan on Thursday night.
Police identified the councilor as Rex Dalmacio, a retired soldier. The victim was able to fire back, killing one of his assailants.
The shooting happened at about 11:40 p.m. while Dalmacio was enforcing the municipal curfew on the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) together with four barangay tanod or village watchmen, who were also shot and wounded by one of the gunmen.
Maj. Robert Dejucos, town police chief, said in an interview that the case is considered solved with the arrest of the second suspect, who is also wanted for murder based on a standing arrest warrant issued against him.
At least he was able to shoot back and kill one of his assassins.
Three alleged drug personalities including a dismissed police officer were killed in a shootout with anti-drug operatives in a village in Polomolok town, South Cotabato province on Wednesday night.
Lt. Col. Lino Capellan, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-12, identified the slain suspects as former Police Officer 1 Joel Labuen, Gary Montero and a certain alias “Kokoy,” all residents of Polomolok.
Capellan said the shootout ensued during a buy-bust operation launched by joint elements from the PRO-12’s drug enforcement unit, South Cotabato police drug enforcement unit, and the Polomolok municipal police station around 7:15 p.m. in front of the DARBC cemetery along Farm Road in Barangay Cannery Site.
Capellan said Labuen was found positive of using shabu in a mandatory drug testing in early 2016 and was later dismissed from service due to his “continued involvement in illegal drug activities”.
“He was a top target and included in the IDID (inter-agency drug information database) list,” he added.
Another ex-cop involved with drugs.
PNP spokesman Brig. Gen. Bernard Banac said Saturday that the PNP Regional Anti-Cybercrime Unit in Calabarzon filed charges against Noveleta Mayor Dino Reyes Chua after receiving complaints that the local government official was the alleged mastermind behind a circulating claim that Noveleta already has its first COVID-19 case.
The complaint supposedly said that Chua was behind the Facebook post of a certain Maggie Bernal, who shared photos of the alleged COVID-19 patient in Cavite Medical Center.
The PNP unit also found that Maggie Bernal is a troll account allegedly created by Chua in 2010 to attack his political opponents.
But according to the Rural Health Unit of Cavite, the photo of the patient is from Makati City. An online news portal Latigo News TV allegedly also shared the false information.
This is hilarious. The mayor created a fake Facebook in 2010 account to attack his political opponents. For 10 years he has been using this account but now the coronavirus pandemic has brought and end to his trolling.
Medical professionals who would volunteer to be frontliners at referral hospitals for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) would be compensated with P500 daily, according to the Department of Health (DOH).
Based on the website shared by the administrators of the Viber community DOH PH COVID-19, the volunteer doctors, nurses, and other medical workers would be deployed to the Lung Center of the Philippines in Quezon City, Philippine General Hospital in Manila, or Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital in Caloocan.
Each volunteer will have to render eight hours of daily work for 14 consecutive days. A mandatory on-site quarantine that would last for two weeks will follow after.
The compensation of P500 daily also covers the quarantine period.
Non-medical professionals who would volunteer to help would likewise receive the same amount.
If the bulk of the P27 billion coronavirus emergency bill had not gone to the Department of Tourism perhaps these people could be getting more than $10 a day to risk their lives fighting this virus.
A barangay kagawad (village councilman) was shot and killed inside his residence in Sorsogon City on Sunday night.
Colonel Roque Bausa, Sorsogon police director, said in a report that at around 7:30 p.m., Pantaleon Ditan, 42, was shot several times by a lone gunman in Barangay (village) Sugod, Bacon District.
Another local official shot dead!
The police has filed the charges against Lawyer Rommel Rosito and Cebu City Councilor Niña Mabatid for posting separate unverified information about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.
Meanwhile, Police Colonel Hector Grijaldo, chief of Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), said they, too, have filed the charges against Mabatid, who also posted on her Facebook account information about patients who allegedly died due to Covid-19 which was still not verified by the DOH.
Grijaldo said they filed the charges last Friday, March 27, and was already received by the prosecutor’s office.
Mabatid already aired her side about the issue and said she did not mean to cause panic to the people upon posting the information she has received that three deaths have been recorded of suspected Covid-19 cases. She also said she is ready to face the charges.
“My Facebook is an avenue of my freedom of expression. I am a public official and vice chairwoman on the committee on health and I cannot help but react to the first-hand information I have received of the 3 deaths. But take note it’s suspected because they were not tested. Why? Because our testing kits just arrived and they are not enough to test the PUIS and PUMS here in Cebu City,” said Mabatid.
This is the second or third LGU to be charged for distributing unverified news about the coronavirus situation. It seems like people will have to be much more careful in what they post on Facebook.
“If you play politics and I find out that’s what you did, I will suspend you. And for those who are really absconding with the money, I will detain you. Maybe I will release you after COVID ends,” Duterte said.
“Kung local official ka, immediately, suspended ka. After that, meron pang demanda. Hindi sila makakalusot kay Presidente (If you’re a local official, you will be suspended. After that, you will face charges. You can’t get away with it. The President will never let that happen),” he said in an interview with state-run Radyo Pilipinas.
In his address to the nation on Monday night, Duterte announced that his administration has allotted PHP200-billion relief assistance to some 18 million poor families affected by the implementation of enhanced community quarantine in Luzon.
Duterte also vowed to run after local officials who will embezzle, hoard or divert money, food, and other supplies intended for aid to rightful beneficiaries.
Sad that these admonitions have to be made.
(There are doctors, nurses, attendants who died. They were the ones who died helping others. They are so lucky. They died for the country. That should be the reason why we die.)
“It would be an honor to die for your country, I assure you,” he added.
The country’s top medical association warned that health workers were not getting enough protection and that hundreds of medical staff were in quarantine after exposure to coronavirus patients.
The President’s remark quickly drew backlash online, with many users pointing out doctor’s deaths could have been avoided if the government prepared earlier for the outbreak.
Duterte says it is an honor for these doctors and nurse to dies for their country. Others say the deaths were preventable had the government been adequately prepared.
Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas has expressed frustration over how national government agencies are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in his city.
“We really have to fend for ourselves if the national government will not be able to help us,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday (April 1).
“All local government units should stand up on our own. We should partner with the private sector and help ourselves because it is hard to wait for the (help) of the national government agencies,” he said.
He said national government agencies should not insist on requirements and other bureaucratic processes as local government units and private donors are already giving support to help address the pandemic.
He also lashed out at the DSWD for requiring local government units to submit by April 3 a list of target beneficiaries of the national government’s social amelioration program for those worst hit economically by the pandemic.
Calling the April 3 deadline “stupid,” Treñas said LGUs were being required to come up with a list that would include informal settlers, drivers, construction workers, sari-sari store owners and those who lost their work and livelihood due to travel restrictions.
“How can we come up with (that) list on or before April 3? That’s impossible,” he said.
The mayor also called on the DOH to conduct aggressive COVID-19 testing especially on PUM and PUI.
“If there is no aggressive testing, how do we know who is positive People who are asymptomatic will continue going out of their houses,” he said.
He said that this was what’s being done in South Korea, Taiwan and Sweden.
Sounds like there is not a lot of coordination between Manila and LGUs. A lot of confusion.
A village official here was killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen amid the stringent security measures due to the enhanced community quarantine amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) crisis.
Capt. Edwin Duco, Zamboanga City Police Office (ZCPO) information officer, identified the slain government official as Noel Alan Calapardo, a councilor of Barangay Victoria here.
Duco said Calapardo was fatally shot around 8:15 a.m. Wednesday along the Maria Clara Lobregat Highway in Barangay Boalan, this city.
Duco said investigation showed that Calapardo was driving his motorcycle towards Barangay Victoria when repeatedly shot by one of two men riding in tandem in a motorcycle that tailed the victim.
Another LGU killed by a motorcycle assassin.
A 38-year-old male volunteer manning a quarantine checkpoint in Quezon City was shot to death by four men on board two motorcycles on Wednesday.
Lt. Col. Romulus Gadaoni, Batasan Police Station Commander, identified the victim as Ronald Cumayas, who was allegedly under drug’s watchlist. He sustained multiple gunshot wounds.
A report reaching the Quezon City Police District Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (QCPD-CIDU) stated that the incident happened along Eagle St. in Sitio Veterans in Barangay Bagong Silangan at around 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Police said Cumayas was serving as a barangay volunteer to man the street amid the curfew hours when he and a fellow volunteer, identified as 20-year-old Aldredo Batino, saw four masked men on board two motorcycles approaching them.
A barangay volunteer manning a checkpoint who was on the drug list. Did anyone in the barangay office know?
The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) is asking the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to investigate Vice President Leni Robredo for actions that they say "compete with" or are "calculated to undermine" the national government's efforts amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) scare.
According to PACC Commissioner Manuelito Luna, the Office of the Vice President’s initiatives such as its free shuttle service, its dorm for health workers and its donation of personal protective equipment for health workers on the frontlines "compete" with the Departments of Health and Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), along with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
It is not clear which initiatives Luna believes compete with the government agencies.
Robredo is a part of the national government so how can she even compete with them? Nobody in the Duterte administration wants her around anyway. Now when she has found solutions that work the administration wants to tear her down. The PACC issued a statement that this all comes not from them as a group but only from one of their members.
Commissioner Greco Belgica, in a statement, moreover said that fellow PACC Commissioner Manuelito Luna’s previous statement was merely his “personal opinion” and request, and does not reflect the sentiments of the anti-corruption body as a whole.
“PACC is not asking anyone to investigate VP Leni Robredo,” Belgica stated.
“It was a personal opinion and request made by one of the commissioners of PACC that does not reflect the sentiments of the commission,” he added.
Earlier, Luna said that the NBI should probe Robredo for “illegal solicitations” aside from her efforts to fight the viral disease.
Perhaps the PACC should prevent individual members from issuing opinions which do not reflect them as a whole.
This is the warning of Garcia after receiving reports of politicking in the distribution of quarantine passes and the listing of beneficiaries for the relief assistance during the ECQ.
(This time, this is not about being a voter or not. This is about the needs. If a constituent has not been able to earn a living and has no means to buy rice, help him.)
Garcia said she received reports that some barangays in the local government units (LGUs) under the province even asked for voter’s ID or certification before they are given quarantine passes or listed for the relief assistance.
Sad that such a warning has to be issued.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday night warned leftist groups and violators of the “enhanced community quarantine” in Luzon not to “challenge” the government during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, saying that he would not hesitate to have them shot.
“Don’t do anything foolish and go on a riot because I will order you detained and I will let you go after this COVID-19,” Duterte, speaking partly in Filipino, said in a taped speech.
“Don’t test the Filipino. Do not try to test it. You know, we are ready for you. Violence or shooting or killing, I will not hesitate to order my soldiers to shoot you. I will not hesitate to order the police to arrest and detain you,” he added.
And if they would create trouble and put uniformed personnel in danger, the President said he would give the police the right to “shoot them dead.”
“My order to the police and the military, as well as the barangay officials, is that, when you create a disorder and there would be an occasion that you fight back and their [the authorities’] lives are put in danger, shoot them dead.”
Duterte issued the warning after 20 protesters demanding food and other assistance were arrested in Quezon City for staging a rally without a permit amid the month-long Luzon lockdown.
According to reports, around 100 people from the urban poor community in Barangay Pag-asa flocked to one side of Edsa on Wednesday morning.
If people start starving and begin to do desperate acts would he really have them shot down? Why does he speak as if they are not Filipinos?
A staff member of Sen. Koko Pimentel said the lawmaker seeks respect to his right to privacy following a report that he was rushed to the hospital as he battles COVID-19.
News5 quoted Ron Munsayac, a staff member of Pimentel’s office, as saying that the lawmaker is “requesting his right to privacy and his right to get well.”
An ABS-CBN report quoting an unnamed source said Pimentel was rushed to hospital in Metro Manila because he “was not feeling good.”
It's funny because Sen. Koko Pimentel publicly violated quarantine protocols and now he is asking for privacy.
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