Public Eye
by Malou Mangahas
UNLIQUIDATED CASH advances, “loans” without records, donations diverted to uses not prescribed by donors, understated expenses, and overstated accounts, in the hundreds of millions of pesos, all sourced from taxpayers’ money.
These irregular transactions in clear breach of government accounting and auditing rules mark financial transactions in the Office of the President (OP) under Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2007, according to Commission on Audit (COA) report, a copy of which was obtained by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).
by Malou Mangahas
IN 2007, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s presidency spent a total of P249.5 million to pay the salaries and wages of its regular employees; and P10.7 million to pay casual and contractual employees.
Combined, that means P260.2 million to pay the rank and file of the Office of the President, and 58 other executive offices, agencies, commissions, and committees under Arroyo.
by Alecks P. Pabico
NAGA CITY’S successes in its poverty alleviation efforts no doubt allowed it to focus its resources on improving access to basic services like education. But all its education reform efforts could not have been possible without its reinvention of the local school board.
The transformation began in 2001, when the MDGs were largely unheard of and a national government directive for the goals to be localized and included in development planning processes was yet forthcoming. But Naga’s decision then to revamp the school board’s orientation and organizational structure later put the city in a better position to address the gaps in achieving the MDG targets in education.
by Alecks P. Pabico
NAGA CITY, CAMARINES SUR — If one were to put local governments in a classroom setting, the executive body of this thriving city southwest of Metro Manila would be the overachieving nerd, the one guaranteed to garner the most medals at the end of each term.
So when Naga City received a failing grade in one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — achieving universal primary education — local officials characteristically lost no time in dreaming up a program aimed at improving its score. It’s a situation made even more challenging by the city’s demographics: one out of every three Nagueño is of school age. But as Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo put it, “We need to address the continuing inability of our school system to ensure that no child is left behind.”
by Edwin General
KAHIKUKUK, BANGUIGUI, SULU — Asaali Muhalli is no ancient mariner, but there was a time when his lament was practically an echo of that of the protagonist in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem: “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.”
by Jaileen F. Jimeno
LAWYER FRANCES Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi talks to distraught “dead” teachers all the time, but she makes it a point to crack jokes when they call her on her cell phone at night.
“I appeal to them, please don’t call me at night,” she says. “I’m afraid of you, you’re already dead.”
Guiani-Sayadi is the Solicitor General of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). She has been given the horrendous task of putting order to the chaotic records of teaching personnel in the ARMM.
by Karol Anne M. Ilagan
Second of three partsLAS PIÑAS CITY — When the latest results of the National Achievement Test (NAT) for Grade 6 students came out in June 2007, this southern Metro Manila city got the fourth highest score in the National Capital Region (NCR), adding yet another item in Las Piñas’s growing list of achievements. Three-part PCIJ […]
Millennium Development Goals
by Jaileen F. Jimeno
A TOWN IN MAGUINDANAO — Ten-year-old Dino and two younger boys were harassing a hapless chicken under a neighbor’s nipa house. Covered with dust, the boys obviously hadn’t had a bath just yet that day, and had chosen to go after the chicken while other children in this village trooped to a nearby river to soak and to play.
It looked like a typical village scene — only that it was the middle of a school day and Dino (not his real name) and many of the children should have been in class. But the classrooms in Dino’s school were shuttered because its four teachers were attending a meeting in the capital.
No cure for costly medicines?
by Alecks P. Pabico
IT WON’T be over even after the lady signs. And even after she signs it, the fight for popular access to affordable medicines won’t be over.
All that the cheaper medicines bill needs to be enacted into law is the signature of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. But some legal experts lament that as enrolled, the bill passed by Congress bears “imperfections” that effectively affirm the patent rights of big pharmaceutical companies over public health, a major hurdle to bringing down drug prices.
First person
by Tita C. Valderama
YANGON, MYANMAR — How long should the Burmese people suffer?
Cyclone Nagris that hit this former capital of Myanmar and its neighboring areas last weekend has made the already impoverished people in far worse situation in the months, and maybe years, ahead.
The death toll, initially reported by cable news networks at four on Saturday evening, quickly multiplied to at least 10,000 by Monday night. The military government gave an exact number of 243 deaths late Saturday, and then 351 deaths, hours later.
