Singapore Airline’s brand-new $300 million A380, carrying 446 passengers, rolled off the airport apron and into the grass, in the process damaging four wheels.

Flight SQ221 was being towed from the gate in Singapore’s Changi before takeoff for Sydney. The hydraulics of Singapore Airline’s truck failed and disconnected. The 560-ton super jumbo’s engines weren’t running at the time of the incident.

None of the 446 passengers aboard the twin-deck, 471-seater was injured, but the flight was cancelled as a precaution.

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Jose Torres Jr., National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) chairperson tells us that the Department of Justice will hold media criminally liable for disobeying government officers’ orders, adding that this warning to media is an attempt to criminalize press freedom.

NUJP) calls on all journalists and media organizations to defy such clear case of prior restraint, a violation of the Philippine Constitution. No journalist or media organization should accept such restraint on news gathering, press freedom, and the people’s right to know.

That the DOJ would recommend such an unconstitutional idea can only indicate how the administration belittles media and the people’s rights and freedoms.

DOJ should be upholding our laws. Meanwhile, authorities continue to turn a blind eye to the many unsolved media assaults and murders.

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The Overseas Welfare Workers Administration (OWWA) should give back the excess fees it got from each departing Filipino worker. OWWA got this fee through the wrongful use of an artificial exchange rate of $1:P51.

"OWWA ought to determine who were overcharged, and then give back to the workers the portion of the fees that they overpaid for their membership fees." – Rep. Joseph Santiago.

Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. earlier filed a resolution urging the appropriate Senate committees to inquire into the use of a fixed rate of $1:P51 to peg at P1,275 the peso equivalent of the $25 membership fee that the OWWA has been collecting from every Filipino who leaves for overseas employment.

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Did the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) leadership really have a junket on a 5-star cruise ship? Did PCSO really spend millions of people’s money to sponsor a show onboard the luxury cruise ship?

PCSO does not sell lottery tickets overseas so there’s nothing to promote overseas. Did PCSO officials simply want an excuse for a pleasurable excursion at public expense?

Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago raised these questions after learning that the PCSO sometime back had subsidized staging of American singer David Pomeranz’s concert on board the 76,800-ton SuperStar Virgo, a five-star luxury cruise ship that provides five-day escapades across Southeast Asia.