It's your weekly compendium of foolishness and corruption in the Philippine government. Everything is shut down due to the nationwide quarantine but that does not mean corruption and foolishness has been put on hold.
A barangay (village) chairman in Marikina City will face charges for disseminating false information on the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) which caused panic among his constituents.
Marikina Mayor Marcy Teodoro said Barangay Tumana Chairman Ziffred Ancheta will be facing charges for Unlawful Means of Publication and Unlawful Utterances pursuant to Article 154 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to Republic 10951 or the Anti-Cybercrime Law.
Ancheta, in a Facebook live video at around 1 p.m. Thursday, announced that a resident in the village has contracted Covid-19.
The City Health Office and the Marikina Rescue 161, however, immediately refuted such information.
Dr. Alberto Herrera, City Health Officer, said the subject PUI (Person Under Investigation), who was working as a security guard in Greenhills, is not a Covid-19 positive or confirmed case, contrary to what Ancheta said in his Facebook live.
Whoops! But was this really criminal or accidental?
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| https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/295925/village-chief-in-dumanjug-arrested-for-organizing-cockfight-on-his-birthday |
A barangay captain in Dumanjug town celebrated his birthday in jail after he and another individual were arrested for organizing a cockfight on Friday, March 20, 2020.
Police arrested Kabatbatan Barangay Captain Ruel Dinglasa Cuevas, 39, and a certain Jerry Ligonas Torres, 40.
“We learned later on that the barangay captain usually holds cockfights for his birthday celebration and that some of the residents in the area knew about this,” Cabagnot said.
During their investigation, Cabagnot said that Cuevas admitted that he was aware that elected officials are prohibited from engaging in illegal gambling activities.
He broke the law willingly and knowingly!
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| https://www.philstar.com/business/2020/03/19/2002126/manufacturers-one-month-inventory-urged-stop-operations |
The trade department has urged food and medical supply manufacturers whose stocks are good for one month to temporarily stop their operations to minimize the number of people going out of their homes while Luzon is under enhanced community quarantine.
While food and medical supplies producers are exempted from the home quarantine, those who have finished goods that are good for one or two months can implement a manufacturing "holiday" so their workers can remain in their homes.
"While you are allowed to operate, we are making an appeal to those with huge inventories...To reduce the number of people plying roads and employees reporting for work, actually we will encourage you to stop operations and let your present inventory supply the requirements of supermarkets," Lopez said at a press briefing in Malacañang Wednesday night.
"You can contribute a lot to the reduction of population going out of their homes. Ideally, stay at home. For those with one month, two months inventory of finished goods, I suggest you go on holiday," he added.
As some of the comments on this article say this is not good advice at all.
Police Corporal Marlon Belleres of the Mobile Patrol Group (MPG) of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) has just left his home in Barangay Dumlog when he was shot dead by a still unidentified gunman.
They are yet to determine the motive of the policeman’s killing.
Belleres, who sustained bullets wounds on his neck and other parts of his body, is already the second policeman to be killed in Cebu in less than a week.Another policeman assassinated in what appears to be a pattern. Is someone targeting cops? The police don't think so and are questioning his former girlfriends to see if there was a love angle or personal grudge.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1246253/pnp-disowns-travel-ban-graphics-used-to-arrest-quarantine-violators |
The Philippine National Police (PNP) has disowned a travel ban graphics used by its officers on the ground as a basis to arrest people violating the home quarantine imposed by the government.
“The IATF does not have guidelines that are very specific. That [the graphics] is unauthorized,” Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said, speaking partly in Filipino.
Undersecretary Markk Perete, spokesman of the Department of Justice, said it was the PNP who issued the clarification about the graphics.
“They said they will relay this to the local units to prevent further reliance on this for arrest,” Perete told reporters.
However, no one can confirm who initiated or where the travel ban graphics came from
PNP using unauthorized guidelines to arrest people and no one knows who issued these guidelines.
To be able to protect themselves against possible transmission of COVID-19, the medical staff at a hospital in Laguna resorted to “para-paraan” or the Filipino resourcefulness and ingenuity by using plastic bags as their personal protective suit while waiting for assistance from the Department of Health (DOH).
In a Facebook post, Tes Depano, medical record officer of St. Jude Family Hospital, appealed for assistance from the Department of Health and other agencies to supply their frontliners with medical equipment.
(We are calling the attention of the Department of Health or any agency that would help supply personal protective equipment.)
Depano shared photos of medical staff clad in black garbage bags as an alternative for the laboratory gown and a yellow plastic mask for their respirator.
This is sad. And to think the government allotted P14 Billion to the tourist administration to fight the COVID-19.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/03/24/2002986/barangay-captain-nabbed-selling-quarantine-passes |
Police have arrested a barangay captain caught selling quarantine passes in Marantao, Lanao del Sur, in what turned out to be just one of the hundreds of violations of rules governing the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine enforced by the government to contain the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
The arrest of Barangay Mantapoli chairman Cassar Abinal on Sunday came after Secretary Eduardo Año of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) warned that selling barangay quarantine clearances is illegal.
They said these passes were prone to abuse and that has proven to be true.
The Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) will investigate the incident — caught on camera and uploaded online — where a barangay captain allegedly resisted arrest and apparently got away with it on Sunday evening, March 22, 2020.
The barangay captain was caught drinking with friends in another barangay — outside the home of his girlfriend in Barangay Kamputhaw that night.
The barangay captain, as seen on the video, was speaking on the phone to a certain “major.”
He was explaining the situation to the “major” about his being apprehended for drinking with friends outside the house of his girlfriend in Barangay Kamputhaw.
He also told the “major” about his request to the arresting policemen to just let the incident pass.
It seemed that he succeeded in getting himself out of the situation since the barangay captain was apparently not arrested.
Grijaldo said they would also be tracing where the barangay captain and his group were able to buy the alcoholic beverages as there was a total ban on the selling of these products as ordered by Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella.
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| https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/296937/ccpo-chief-orders-probe-on-cops-involved-in-monares-incident |
Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) Director, Police Colonel Hector Grijaldo Jr., has ordered policemen assigned in Station 2 to be investigated for their failure to blotter an incident on Sunday night involving a barangay captain and his friends who were caught violating the city’s curfew and liquor ban ordinances.
In a phone interview with CDN Digital, Grijaldo said that the concerned officers will be asked to explain why there was at first no record of the incident involving Kalunasan barangay captain Nunilon Monares and his friends.
Monares and his group were caught in a video having a drinking spree. The video went viral online and received negative comments from netizens.
A barangay captain and his buddies were caught violating the curfew and liquor ban but the police let him go. Now they cops are under investigation for the incident.
“It’s not the virus that will kill us, it’s the red tape and the lack of sense of urgency.”
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian pointed this out on Wednesday as he lamented what he said was the slow accreditation of testing centers and the importation of test kits in the country.
“Sorry to say this, but it’s not the virus that will kill us. It’s red tape & the lack of sense of urgency that will kill us,” the senator said over Twitter.
Gatchalian cited as an example, a testing center set up by the Marikina City government, which was set to start its own testing this week until the Department of Health (DOH) said it needs to undergo evaluation first.
““[The] DOH should not treat Marikina as a client applying for a license to operate a laboratory like this, but it should be a partnership,” Marikina Mayor Marcelino Teodoro said after meeting with DOH officials on Monday.
“This is a whole-of-government approach where local and national agencies need to help one another,” he added.
Gatchalian said the government needs “to move around the clock.”
Can't reply argue with that. The Philippine government remains largely inefficient. Two politicians have even placed others in danger of contracting the virus.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1248570/congressman-infected-he-was-in-malacanang-last-weekend |
The chair of the House appropriations committee who went to Malacañang for a top-level meeting over the weekend and attended Monday’s special session of Congress announced on Wednesday night that he had contracted the new coronavirus.ACT-CIS Rep. Eric Yap apologized to those he might have passed the coronavirus to, admitting he had acted as if it were “business as usual” in the 10 days since he had himself tested for the illness on March 15.
“I ask for the forgiveness and understanding from the people I interacted with. I was paranoid because I was feeling a slight cough, but I felt it was normal for me,” he said in Filipino.
He admitted he did not isolate himself despite experiencing a “slight cough,” a symptom of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1248553/senator-under-fire-for-quarantine-breach |
Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III’s excitement over the anticipated arrival of his first child and daughter with his new wife, Kathryna, on Wednesday was doused with scalding criticism from the hospital where she was to give birth and where he said he received confirmation from health authorities that he was positive for the new coronavirus.
In a statement, MMC medical director Saturnino Javier denounced Pimentel for breaking the protocol of his self-imposed quarantine while awaiting test results from the RITM when he accompanied his wife to the hospital on Tuesday night and for possibly contaminating some of its critical sections.
One of the quarantine regulations was to not go out in public during a 14-day period of isolation.
As a consequence of Pimentel’s presence at the hospital, several nurses and doctors may be put on quarantine themselves, resulting in a depletion of much-needed manpower, Javier said.
But the hospital issued a strongly worded statement against Pimentel.
“We denounce the irresponsible and reckless action of the senator,” Javier said on Wednesday afternoon after word spread on social media about Pimentel allegedly contaminating the hospital.
“He added to the burden of a hospital trying to respond in its most competent and aggressive manner to cope with the daunting challenges of this COVID-19 outbreak. More than anyone else, Mr. Pimentel should have realized the ardent desire of every well-meaning Filipino and every dedicated health-care institution to contain the spread of the infection,” the statement said.
“His admonition for everyone to observe social distancing, enhanced community quarantine measures, washing of hands and personal hygiene are empty rhetoric because he himself violated all those,” it said. “By his actions he contributed no solution. In fact he created another problem for Makati Medical Center, the very institution which embraced his wife for obstetric care.”
As PUI's awaiting test results both Sen Pimentel and Rep. Yap violated their quarantines putting more people at risk. Pimentel's presence in a hospital exposed healthcare workers who are desperately need to possible infection of COVID-19. Will there be any consequences for these men? The Ombudsman is already mulling about whether or not to investigate Pimentel and a private citizen is already preparing a criminal complaint.
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1097724 |
Police and military personnel on Tuesday arrested a village chairman in the Maguindanao town of Sultan Kudarat town for selling home quarantine passes to his constituents.
Sultan Kudarat town Mayor Shameem Mastura said he directed a team of police and military personnel to arrest Nasser Esmail, chairman of Barangay Mulaug, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao for the alleged misuse of the free quarantine passes.
Mastura said he received complaints from residents of Barangay Malaug against Esmail for selling quarantine passes to his constituents at PHP50 each.P50 for a quarantine pass. Very enterprising but not very original. Quite petty actually.
The chief of police in the town of Buenavista in Agusan del Norte was arrested by the operatives of Philippine National Police (PNP) Integrity Monitoring Enforcement Group (IMEG) in an entrapment on Tuesday for robbery-extortion.
Police Regional Office-13 director, Brig. Gen. Joselito Esquivel Jr. said the entrapment operation against Capt. Junil Gultiano was carried out following complaints received from several businessmen in the area.
“The operation stemmed from the complaints of local businessmen that he was extorting an amount of PHP500 every week from each member of Buenavista Furniture Association (BFA) and PHP5 per board feet of every lumber sold. During the entrapment, he received the PHP1,000 marked money,” Esquivel said.
Esquivel said Gultiano, 44, allegedly threatened the members of the local furniture association of arrest if they fail to heed his demand.
Just your regular run of the mill extortion scheme.
