For the militants in Davao City, if there is one thing to learn from the botched coup at the Manila Peninsula Hotel led by Lt. Senior grade Antonio Trillanes IV and Brigadier General Danilo Lim, it should be this: “Banking on spontaneity is not enough.”
Reporters Without Borders condemned the arrests of several dozen journalists covering a failed coup attempt at a Manila hotel where…
At the height of the stand-off at the Manila Peninsula Hotel, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said President Arroyo called him. “She asked me how we are doing here and if she still has my support,� Duterte saida. �I said, �Yes, ma’am.�”
For more coverage of the Makati standoff, visit PinoyPress.
Luisito Bustamante, 22, admitted during a court hearing that he was a member of the Communist New People�s Army (NPA). He told the court that not even his fingertips was touched when he was in military captivity, belying any possibility of torture. But an hour after the hearing, Luisito told a different story. He showed his mother and friends the burn marks on his neck and back, the scars on his ankles that had been, days before, tied with wires.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte suspected the 12-year-old Mariannet Amper could have been raped, based on the findings bared by the medico legal officer who conducted the autopsy. The mayor, who ordered the girl�s body exhumed five days after burial, said it was possible that rape could have driven the girl to kill herself. He also said that it�s also possible that someone could have killed her.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte vowed to help the Davao broadcaster jailed for libel now that a full blown war has erupted between him and close administration ally Congressman Prospero Nograles over what people perceive as the first salvo of their fight for the 2010 elections.
Representative Luzviminda Ilagan survived the blast that rocked the House of Representatives shortly after the session adjourned Tuesday night. Ilagan was reportedly bleeding due to shrapnel injuries when brought to Malvar hospital. She was declared in stable condition a few hours later. Ilagan was hurt in her right thigh and legs; and part of her hair also got burned.
The youth earlier reported missing after he was held in a checkpoint of Task Force Davao in barangay Malabog surfaced when the Regional Trial Court (RTC) served the writ of amparo to militiamen on Tuesday. But Bebelita Bustamante, the mother, said she still feels uneasy because the militiamen holding his son still refused to release him.
“Roel Sembrano never took my side to [sic] the allegations that he want only broadcasted [sic] over the radio. His pronouncements on radio were all brazen lies and intrigues. People in Compostela valley and in Compostela municipality in particular are aware that Sembrano is not a broadcaster that [sic] reports objective truths, issues and events, but a media practtiioner who is under the wings, [sic] caprices and influences of some local politicians, immoral and corrupt, who are all out to destroy my refutation [sic] as a civil servant and critique [sic] of excesses of other politicians.” — Neri Barte, board member, Compostela Valley Province
The journalists trooped to the office of the Mindanao Ombudsman as Sembrano filed a criminal case of grave coercion, grave threats, physical injury, and an administrative case of grave abuse of authority against against the Compostela Valley provincial board member Neri Barte, who allegedly attacked him inside the announcer’s booth at around 6:15 a.m. of October 23.
