Home at last. Senate President Manuel Villar meets eight Filipinas,
one of them with a child, who suffered abuses in Jordan on arrival at the Manila International Airport
yesterday. Villar worked for the repatriation and shouldered
the fare of the workers whom he met when he visited Amman last October.
***
Baseline bill frozen
on Palace pressure
Executive opposes inclusion of disputed isles
BY WENDELL VIGILIA
THE House yesterday postponed passage
of House Bill 3216 declaring the country’s archipelagic
baseline, in deference to a Malacañang proposal to treat
the Kalayaan Group of Islands (KIG) and the Scarborough
Shoal as mere "regime of islands."
After an executive meeting of the
House committee on foreign affairs chaired by Rep.
Antonio Cuenco (Lakas, Cebu), Speaker Prospero Nograles
convinced congressmen to give him at least three weeks
to talk the Executive and the Senate into supporting HB
3216 and including it in the agenda of the Legislative
Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac).
"Mabuti kumuha muna tayo ng
consensus, tingnan natin kung ano ang version of the
Senate bago natin i-approve on third reading," he said.
SENATE majority leader Francis
Pangilinan yesterday abandoned his plan to seek the
inhibition of three Supreme Court justices after failing
to get majority support from his colleagues.
"I take that to mean that the majority
in the Senate would prefer that we take a different
route," Pangilinan said yesterday at the resumption of
sessions after a month-long break.
He admitted the petition still lacked
the signatures of 12 senators. The Senate legal team has
given Pangilinan until April 18 to produce 13 signatures
before it files the motion for inhibition before the high
court.
CARITAS Manila yesterday called on local
government officials to perform in earnest their task of
retailing government-subsidized rice to the poor community.
"Be sincere in distributing NFA rice to urban
poor beneficiaries, whether of the same political affiliate or
otherwise. Prioritize ultra poor and have rice available to as
many poor constituents as possible," said Fr. Anton Pascual,
executive director of Caritas Manila, the social action arm of
the Archdiocese of Manila.
On Sunday, Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza
Cabral warned poor families against local officials who she said
might politicize the system by favoring their relatives and
allies.
