The approval of the P125 wage increase bill by the Lower House is welcome news for workers, who could use even just a little relief from soaring prices of basic goods and services amid rock-bottom income. It is a gain that came at the price of trade union repression and political killings that victimized labor leaders among others.
Internet denizens can’t seem to get enough of the video showing Saddam Hussein being executed. The video is now the most searched item on the web. The first video we’re showing here is composed of clips of Saddam Hussein and his execution yesterday. It was made more interesting (and artistic) by a YouTube user named Zelch.
The next clip is a “Blair Witch Project”-type video, complete with sounds of the purported hanging. Although it does not show the actual moment that Saddam falls through the trapdoor, it does have shots of his lifeless body after the hanging. Pretty grim.
Davao City prides itself with, among other things, perhaps being the only city in the Philippines that successfully implements a ban on firecrackers and pyrotechnics during the Christmas and the New Year. Although many think of this policy as “KJ” (kill joy), many support it because it reduces the number of firecracker-related injuries and accidents.
It has been the experience of Davaoenos that during the New Year, except for a few bangs here and there, their city is probably the quietest in the world. Today is going to be no different as Mayor Rodrigo Duterte vows to continue implementing the ban.
The move by the Arroyo administration to turn over US Marine Lance Corporal Daniel Smith, who has been convicted of raping “Nicole,” to the custody of the US embassy has the makings of another Meiring, according to the human-rights group Karapatan, referring to Michael Terrence Meiring, an alleged CIA agent who blew himself up inside a Davao City hotel in May 2003. Meiring was accused of hoarding explosives in his hotel room, which were to be used, allegedly, for terrorist attacks in Mindanao. But agents from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation spirited Meiring from the hospital, prompting outcries from leftist groups and local officials, among them Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who called the move an affront to Filipino sovereignty.