Ororama fire damages placed at P20 Million, team to determine cause of fire created

October 29, 2008

By Lizanilla J. Amarga

After grueling 25 hours, the local fire protection bureau acting head Richard Baang finally declared at around 1:00 a.m. yesterday that the fire consuming the insides of the Ororama MegaCenter to be finally doused off and that the estimated damage brought by the conflagration was placed around P20 million. Read more

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wHO pAYS tHE pRICE wHEN tHE wEDDING iS oFF?

October 29, 2008

Last time I wrote about who gets the ring when the wedding is off, this time I would like to yak about who pays the price when the wedding does not push through. Hey, I was never jilted, neither was I given a ring, although if I was, I would have pawned it and bought something more to my liking, like a case of beer with lots of pulutan, and a night out in town with friends. And if it was really an expensive ring, would have traded it for the latest cell phone or a digital camera.
In the Philippines, a mere breach of a promise to marry is not an actionable wrong. This has been decided by the Supreme Court in Hermosisima vs. Court of Appeals (L-14628, Sept. 30, 1960), as reiterated in Estopa vs. Biansay (L-14733, Sept. 30, 1960), and again in Wassmer vs. Velez, (G.R. No. L-20089 Dec. 26, 1964). The Court, in all those cases, pointed out that Congress deliberately eliminated from the draft of the new Civil Code the provisions that would have it so. Hhmmnn and we know what gender of the writers of the draft was then.
So, it has become a rule of law that a breach of promise to marry is not considered a contract which would ripen to an actionable wrong that would entitle the ditched party to go to court and file a case for redress of a grievance. Such jilting, if we can say that point blank, would only evolve into full blown adversarial case in court if actual damages have occurred.
The esteemed Court says in Wassmer case, x x x “but to formally set a wedding and go through all the preparation and publicity, only to walk out of it when the matrimony is about to be solemnized, is quite different. This is palpably and unjustifiably contrary to good customs for which defendant must be held answerable in damages in accordance with Article 21 of the new Civil Code. To those who do not know, Article 21 of the new Civil Code provides: “Any person who willfully causes loss or injury to another in a manner that is contrary to morals, good customs or public policy shall compensate the latter for the damage.” So, there.
But hey, on March 27, 2004, Republic Act 9262 took effect. This law is commonly known as Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children, Act. The law defines “Violence against women and their children” to any act or a series of acts committed by any person against a woman who is his wife, former wife, or against a woman with whom the person has or had a sexual or dating relationship, or with whom he has a common child, x x x , which result in or is likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological harm or suffering, or economic abuse x x x. “Dating relationship” under the law refers to a situation wherein the parties live as husband and wife without the benefit of marriage or are romantically involved over time and on a continuing basis during the course of the relationship. The law further provides that: “Sexual relations” refers to a single sexual act which may or may not result in the bearing of a common child.
The same law defines “Psychological violence” to acts or omissions causing or likely to cause mental or emotional suffering of the victim such as but not limited to intimidation, harassment, stalking, damage to property, public ridicule or humiliation, repeated verbal abuse and marital infidelity. x x x
Applying therefore the provisions of RA 9262, it is apparent that when a woman is dumped or discarded even before the actual wedding has been set but there was already a public knowledge of the impending nuptials, or there was a breach of a promise to marry and the couple has a common child, and that betrayal caused her mental or emotional anguish, public ridicule or humiliation, then it is safe to conclude that such action amounts to psychological violence which is punishable under Sec. 5 (i) of RA 9262 which violation carries with it the penalty of prision mayor. Sec. 6 of the same law further provides: If the acts are committed while the woman or child is pregnant x x x, the penalty to be applied shall be the maximum period of penalty prescribed in this section. In addition to imprisonment, the perpetrator shall (a) pay a fine in the amount of not less than One hundred thousand pesos (P100,000.00) but not more than Three hundred thousand pesos (P300,000.00); (b) undergo mandatory psychological counseling or psychiatric treatment and shall report compliance to the court.
Geez, don’t shoot the messenger. I am just here to present a discussion regarding the new law. I know, men all over the city would screech in chorus that the law is unfair. In fact, since it took effect almost two years ago, the law has met a lot of flack from the male sector. But hey, dura lex, sed lex, the law maybe hard, but it is the law. Besides, this is just my own exposition; it has not been put on trial, yet.
Don’t worry boys, for as long as the justice system in the Philippines is still predominantly ruled by men, actions arising from this treatise would wait an era to come into fruition. Wanna bet? Besides, if you have no proclivity to walk out on someone you profess to love, you have nothing to fear. This law is also for the fathers of daughters out there. (For comments and/or violent reactions e-mail me at coi_416@hotmail.com).

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For Peace’s Sake

October 29, 2008

ust over a month ago, prospects for peace in Mindanao looked brighter in a long time, when Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain had been drawn up, extending the land area to be administered by autonomous Muslim leaders. Mediators had helped maintain a ceasefire; a compromise definition of the eternally sticky concept of Ancestral Domain appeared possible.

Now, the MoA is dead, and no matter what kind of modern machinery will be used to resuscitate it can never be revived at least for several decades from now; the negotiating panel abolished, which someday will come back from the dead; the ceasefire abandoned, as it always was the case; and hopes for peace dashed, which has always happened since the time I was born or maybe even before that.

I remember it was in 1996 that then President (Fidel) Ramos reached a peace deal with the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front), which gave way to the creation of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM); Misuari got his wish, led badly, and lost following. Then the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) came into being and wanted to have more than what the MNLF has negotiated in ’96; it started targeting civilians (Muslims and Non-Muslims alike) to push their cause, thus peace negotiations resumed under President (Gloria) Arroyo in 2001.

The MNLF and the MILF have been fighting for greater autonomy in Mindanao for four or more decades now. If we look back at history, there’s no escaping the fact that before the Spaniards came, Mindanao was predominantly Muslim. Then came a time when the Manila government sent thousands, even millions, of people from the North, the Tagalogs, the Ilocanos, the Cebuanos, the Warays, the Ilonggos, to come to Mindanao, and start new lives here; the government giving them the lands they want. And so these settlers from the North got the lands. So, when Juan de la Cruz claimed his 100 or so hectares, do you think there was nobody there? There were Muslims and Lumads, of course. Some got their lands legally, some not, maybe more of the latter. As the stories go, some paid 10 hectares with a pack of cigarettes, or 3 bottles of wine.

Legal or not, the facts can speak for themselves — Mindanao is now predominantly Christian, or you may want to call them settlers. It is but right for the people to claim back their lands. But a long time ago the Muslims and the Lumads gave in to the “settlers” or probably “squatters”. When several years have passed and they realized it was a mistake, now want to take it back in a primitive way – war. The “settlers” and the “squatters” don’t want to give in too for they have lived in this place for a long time. Many generations passed and they have developed the land. So, what do we get? A disagreement of colossal proportion.

The Lumads, the original inhabitants in Mindanao, has also the same cause as the Muslims in Mindanao. But we can compare both of them paradoxically; the Lumads struggle to put their cause in peaceful manner; through legal means, assimilation and co-existence. They respect the law, they embrace their ethnicity, and their struggle is coated with peace at the end of the day. No civilian casualties there.

We can also look at the Cordillera administrative region (CAR) in Northern Luzon which is predominantly comprised of closely-related indigenous peoples. The Cordillera peoples face the same problems as that of the Muslims in Mindanao. Their inherent right to self-determination is continually violated; ethnocide and national oppression are directed against their people which are manifested in non-recognition of their rights to priority use and manage over their ancestral lands and resources, militarization, political misrepresentation, commercialization of their indigenous culture, institutionalized discrimination, violation and non-recognition of our indigenous socio-political systems and processes, government neglect of basic social services to indigenous peoples, just to name a few of their problems. But their way of combating such national oppression is to assert their right to self-determination; their right to freely choose and develop their own path as indigenous peoples, by advancing a genuine regional autonomy within the framework of a united, independent, and democratic nation while remaining part of the broader Filipino nation. They are doing this peacefully, and without too much violence and victimization of non-combatants.

It’s a fact that Muslims make up about 5% of the mainly Catholic Philippines and have long felt marginalized. But it is also a fact that women (both Muslims and non-Muslims) comprised almost 50% of the country’s population and they feel and treated marginalized. But do they result to violence to gain recognition and respect? Filipino women have struggled long and hard to have a piece in the pie we call governance; they have given up lives to fight for survival, to be given their own autonomy to subsist apart from the institutionalized concept of having to exist only on the pleasure of the men in their lives; may it be their father, husband, brother, boss or the partner that they choose. But the women, through patience and dogged resolve slowly are getting to where they want to be-becoming equal partners to ensure that development of the country is attained with their active participation. They do these things peacefully, lobbying for the enactment of laws that protect them and their children, and their right to live. Or die trying without a single shot.

My point is, and I do have one is that, it is on the intensity of logic that conflict must be resolved, not the voice of hysteria and anger, hatred or animosity. We should resolve disagreements without disrespect of one’s culture, or religious belief or social inclinations or affiliations and without harming one’s flesh and slaughtering a life. So, for peace’s sake, let’s sit down and talk about our differences, let’s find a way of attaining peace without wasting a life. (For comments and violent reactions e-mail me at coi_416@hotmail.com)

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Emano fears Global Crisis to affect Hanjin Shipyard construction in Misamis Oriental

October 29, 2008

By Lizanilla J. Amarga

Cagayan de Oro City former city mayor now vice-mayor Vicente Emano is worried that the fall of huge banks in the United States and around the world may just spell doom to all hopes of seeing Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Corp. (Hanjin) complete its planned $2 billion shipyard in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental. Read more

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NTC-10 issues investigation report on SCANTEL, submits it to legal dept

October 29, 2008

By Lizanilla J. Amarga

The regional office of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC-10) has now come out with an official report on the numerous violations committed by the project proponent of the P49 million Telepono sa Barangay project, Supplier Contractor and Networking Telecommunications (SCANTEL). Read more

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150 Northern Mindanao sectoral leaders launch Binay for President Movement

October 29, 2008

By Lizanilla J. Amarga

Some 150 multi-sectoral leaders here in Northern Mindanao yesterday joined their counterparts in other parts of the country in initiating a nationwide movement to urge Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay to run as presidential candidate for the opposition in the National Elections this coming 2010. Read more

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Fire guts Ororama MegaCenter leaving many jobless, millions in capital loss

October 29, 2008

By Lizanilla J. Amarga

A fire gutted down the largest of all Ororama chain stores in Cagayan de Oro yesterday affecting hundreds of workers jobless and the loss of not just the Ororama department store and supermarket, but also, over 35 tenant stores that it housed. Read more

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Gandarosa to fight for seat as BIR-16, order has no effectivity date

October 29, 2008

By Lizanilla J. Amarga

Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) collection district 16 regional director Mustapha Gandarosa vowed that he will hold on to his seat and will not be pressured from stepping out of his current office despite the issuance of an order from his superiors relieving him of his present duties and reassigning him to be chief of staff of the Special Concerns Division of their head office. Read more

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I am not a corrupt official – Gandarosa

October 28, 2008

By Lizanilla J. Amarga
Embattled local Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) director Mustapha Gandarosa yesterday debunked charges that he is a corrupt official who is taking advantage of his position as a high-ranking local revenue collector to fatten up his own personal pockets by harassing local traders. Read more

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Is McCain Senile?

October 27, 2008

Probably not. But many American commentators are genuinely puzzled at his choice of vice-presidential running mate for the November presidential elections.

In the American system, vice-presidential nominees are not chosen by primaries or on the convention floor. He or she is the personal choice of the presidential nominee.

Thus Barack Obama, the winner in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, exercised his prerogative after due diligence and came up with Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. By most accounts, it was an inspired choice.

Sen. Biden has long been prominent in Washington politics, with an established reputation as being knowledgeable in foreign affairs. He is perceived to fill a gap in Sen. Obama’s political curriculum vitae, that in foreign policy. Thus the pair is seen as logically complementing each other..

The same cannot be said of Sen. John McCain and his choice of vice-presidential running mate. It is safe to assume that before Aug. 30, 99.5 percent of the population of the United States, outside of the state of Alaska, had never heard of Sarah Palin, incumbent governor since 2006 of, well, Alaska.

It did not help reassure puzzled pundits and voters that before she became governor of Alaska, Ms.Palin had been mayor of the town of Wasilla (pop. 8,741). Or that during high school days, she had played center guard in basketball and was known as Sarah Barracuda. Or that Sen. McCain had apparently met her only once (last February) in his entire life, though he had talked to her, by telephone, one other time since.

Even Republican apologists and strategists were at a loss to cite anything significant to give a positive spin to the Great Puzzlement that this nomination has spawned. The GOP line is that Gov. Palin had fought against corruption in Alaska, had refused to support a Bridge to Nowhere, and something or other that she did or did not do. Someone in Fox News, the cable channel of the neo-cons, is said to have remarked that Gov. Palin has some experience in foreign relations because Alaska is right next to Russia. Amazing!

My reading is that Sen. McCain made this choice based on his personality flaws. He is known to have a short temper and does not get along easily with other people. During the early part of the primary season, he had candidly admitted that he knew absolutely nothing about economics, which one of his rivals, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, used to hit him on the head with. So he scratched Romney off his short VP list.

Perhaps for a similar, personality-based reason, he scratched New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani off the list, who has something of a star status from 9/11 and could outshine him on the campaign trail, aside from being too liberal by Republican standards.

McCain’s constant beef against Obama has been that Obama was only a celebrity and did not have the executive experience to qualify for the presidency, a bias that was uncannily reinforced when Obama chose Biden as his running mate Two articulate and verbose lawyers, both without any executive experience in managing a state or a federal agency..

But what does McCain do? He scratched out Romney, and Giuliani and former Pennsylvania Governor and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Rich from his VP short list - each one with more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined, each one with more executive experience than McCain himself - and chose instead an unknown woman whose executive experience has been limited to being mayor of a small town in Alaska for six years , then being governor of that state for less than two, whom McCain has met only once in his entire life.

Does this make any sense to anyone other than a die-hard Republican?

It makes some sense to social conservatives, whether Republican or independent. Ms. Palin is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and is against gun control. She is also against same-sex marriage, birth control and abortion. Her youngest child was diagnosed with Down’s syndrome – a chromosomal deficiency – four months into her pregnancy, but she chose not to abort the foetus. She also rejects Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and wants to have the Creationism of Christian Evangelicals taught in public schools.

The idea that McCain is trying to win Hillary Clinton’s women supporters, who were disappointed when Obama did not choose her as his VP, is nonsense. Most of Hillary’s women supporters would never support Palin’s conservative agenda.

Here seems to be the key element in McCain’s choice of Ms. Palin, and there is reason to believe that the Christian Evangelicals, who constitute 30 to 35 percent of the American electorate and continue to be the biggest single political bloc that still supports the disgraced George W. Bush, will rally around the McCain-Palin team.

With Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson gone to their heavenly rewards, the leading Christian Evangelical preacher now is John Hagee, head of a mega-church in Texas. As early as more than a year ago – and I mentioned it in a column of mine then - the Rev. Hagee anointed McCain as the successor to George W, in a lavish ceremony in Texas attended by McCain, to which George W. sent a congratulatory message. This was long before Hagee’s endorsement of McCain last April, which was criticized as being anti-Catholic and from which McCain has distanced himself…

Hagee is also national chairman of a Christian-Zionist organization called Christians United for Israel. Christian Evangelicals believe that war in the Middle East is biblically foretold and divinely ordained. They support Israel because they believe that, though Israel will be destroyed,144,000 Israeli Jews will be spared and they will convert to Christianity. And this will be the signal for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

In this light, Barack Obama’s 16-month withdrawal plan for US troops from Iraq has been pre-empted. The Bush government has been negotiating with the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Noor al-Maliki for a timetable under which US troops will withdraw from all Iraqi cities by June 2009, and withdraw from all of Iraq by end of 2011, “depending on the situation on the ground.”

This is obviously meant to take the wind out of Obama’s 16-month withdrawal sail. Depending on the situation on the ground means full withdrawal from Iraq can be rescinded or reinterpreted after the November 2008 elections. McCain’s 100 years in Iraq (and Afghanistan) – or how ever long it will take for the biblical prophecies to be fulfilled – is therefore more likely to become the conventional American wisdom.

It is significant that on Aug. 20, as I mentioned in a column last week, Obama was ahead of McCain by only one point in the CNN poll of that date. As I write this, the CNN poll of Sept 01 puts Obama still ahead by only one point, despite all the hoopla and hoohah at the Democratic convention in Denver last week. That means there was not much of a bounce for Obama and Biden, as had been expected from that coronation.

The Republican convention, scheduled for this week in St. Paul, Minnesota, has been scaled down considerably in deference to the deaths and devastation that Hurricane Gustav is expected to visit on New Orleans and neighboring towns and cities.

McCain is not senile. God is on his side. Ask the Rev. Hagee. *****

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