On Ramon Tulfo’s Inquirer column today, he advocates more street presence of uniformed policemen as deterrent to crime. This should be the most basic way of preventing crime. A snatcher at the Aurora-EDSA intersection would think twice about snatching a lady passerby’s earrings if he is aware that a policeman is in the area. But, seeing and knowing that there is no policeman around, he does not even think anymore. At the sight of an earring, he would instinctively pluck it and run away, assured that no one would chase him.
On Ramon Tulfo’s Inquirer column today, he advocates more street presence of uniformed policemen as deterrent to crime. This should be the most basic way of preventing crime. A snatcher at the Aurora-EDSA intersection would think twice about snatching a lady passerby’s earrings if he is aware that a policeman is in the area. But, seeing and knowing that there is no policeman around, he does not even think anymore. At the sight of an earring, he would instinctively pluck it and run away, assured that no one would chase him.
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Pending enactment of the Freedom of Information Bill, access to public records may be compelled under Republic Act No. 6713 (The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards For Public Officials and Employees”, enacted in 1989, specifically Section 5(a) (Act promptly on letters and requests. – All public officials and employees shall, within fifteen (15) working days from receipt thereof, respond to letters, telegrams or other means of communications sent by the public. The reply must contain the action taken on the request.) and Section 5(e) (Make documents accessible to the public. – All public documents must be made accessible to, and readily available for inspection by the public within reasonable working hours.), non-compliance with which shall be punished, under Section 11, with a fine not exceeding the equivalent of six months salary or suspension not exceeding one year, or removal depending on the gravity of the offense.
Instead of blaming PNoy for the delayed passage of the FOI, critics should avail themselves of this law, which was approved by his mother. FUI. The reactions to PNoy’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) can be compared to PNoy being asked, after singing “My Way”, why he did not sing "The Impossible Dream," "I Believe," "Walk With Faith In Your Heart," or any other song that the Inquirer may have in mind, or being shot, for no reason at all, just like a singer in a videoke, like those who burned his effigy. Instead of commenting on his reported accomplishments, he was faulted for his failure to fulfill his promises and for a lot of other things which he should have done.
In his Inquirer column today entitled ”What a difference a year makes”, idol Conrado de Quiros noted the dip in PNoy’s popularity because of the DAP. Central to his piece (since it is literally in the middle of his essay) is the statement: “Thus the Supreme Court ruled the DAP unconstitutional”. He then faults PNoy for standing his ground and defending the DAP to astonishing lengths.
“Time for DAP critics to speak before the Senate”, an article by Marvin Sy on page 4 of today’s Philippine Star, reports about the intention of senator Nancy Binay to invite the critics of the DAP to the ongoing senate investigation, specifically mentioning former budget secretary Benjamin Diokno and former national treasurer Leonor Briones.
In Alex Magno’s Star column today entitled “Fact check”, Alex magnifies as a lie pnoy’s observation that the Supreme Court also committed the same “cross border fund transfer that it frowned upon in its ruling on DAP. Alex explains: “Not a single centavo of court funds was transferred to the DOJ, the latter not quick enough to build urgently needed courthouses. The court’s P1.8 billion in savings was realigned to the Judiciary’s capital outlay fund and was part of that was earmarked to build the Manila Hall of Justice on land titled to the SC.”
Front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer today are polled reports entitled “Senators scored for probing own crime” by Tarra Quismundo and TJ Burgonio, which by the words used insinuates a popular sentiment or opinion on the senate investigation on the DAP. This is not only an unbalanced news, but a very fearless, but face-less and fact-less, to the point of being tactless, view. Of all the persons whose opinions were cited in support of the report, it was only losing senatorial candidate Greco Belgica who was quoted as saying that “the airtime given to the cabinet officials to defend the program allowed them to justify the crime committed by the proponent, defeating the hearing’s purpose of determining the truth about the DAP”. The most that the other persons cited in the report did was to cast grime on the DAP But, Greco’s gripe is misleading because there has been no showing that any crime was committed by the DAP proponents. The most that is on record so far is that the Supreme Court ruled four aspects of the DAP (not the DAP itself) as unconstitutional.
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