by Roel Landingin
THE GOVERNMENT is giving bidders only five working days to initiate a challenge to the unsolicited proposal of San Miguel Corporation – the food-beverage giant controlled by Marcos crony Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. – to build the P52-billion Laiban dam in Rizal province, potentially one of the biggest infrastructure projects to be launched by the Arroyo administration.
Video
by Ed Lingao
Barbados-registered Smartmatic International and local counterpart Total Information Management Corporation (TIM) have yet to tie down many loose ends in their winning bid to automate the 2010 elections. Chief among the concerns are security issues now being raised by computer experts, nongovernmental groups, and even members of the Commission on Elections Advisory Council (CAC) that […]
by Ed Lingao
THEIR PLANNED joint venture now hangs by a thin thread, but squabbling partners Barbados-registered Smartmatic International and local counterpart Total Information Management Corporation (TIM) have also yet to tie down many loose ends in their winning bid to automate the 2010 elections.
Chief among the concerns are security issues now being raised by computer experts, nongovernmental groups, and even members of the Commission on Elections Advisory Council (CAC) that oversaw the protracted, if transparent, bidding process. These unresolved security issues have raised the specter of an automated exercise where the cheating will not just be as fast as the counting, but harder to detect as well.
Sidebar
by Jaemark Tordecilla
FOR THE younger generation steeped in the real-time world of text messaging and Twitter, the idea of having to wait several weeks for election results is downright silly. Yet even the youth may have a hard time taking in the P7.2-billion price tag of the Commission on Elections’ new poll automation system.
Some may argue that it’s still a small price to pay in exchange for a long-awaited break from a tradition of election-related controversy. A perennially cash-strapped country, however, will never go wrong in scrutinizing every bill a supplier hands over to it.
Good-bye automated elections?
by Malou Mangahas and Ed Lingao
THE COURT and not the boardroom looks like the next destination of the two proponents of the yet unborn joint venture project that was supposed to give the Philippines its first national automated elections in May 2010.
The parties call their differences “irreconcilable,” and by the letter of the existing Joint Venture Agreement (JVA), the conflict may be resolved only through tedious and costly arbitration in Singapore, under the commercial arbitration rules of the Singapore Chamber of Commerce.
INVESTIGATIVE reports on governance and corruption won major prizes in the 20th Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism (JVOAEJ) held today at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati.
PCIJ fellow Roel Landingin’s three-part series on official development assistance (ODA) published on February 11-14, 2008 in the The Philippine Star, Malaya, Manila Times and Sun.Star Cebu, was named best in investigative and explanatory reporting.
Survey of reporters:
by Ed Lingao and Rowena Carranza-Paraan
WHEN U.S. federal authorities caught the family of Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia smuggling thick wads of dollar bills into the United States in 2003, reporters covering the defense beat scrambled for documents to check out the lifestyle of top officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
So in early 2004, defense reporters filed a request for the Statements of Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) of Garcia and other officers with the AFP Public Information Office and the AFP’s Office of Ethical Standards and Public Accountability (OESPA).
by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
THE PUBLIC’S right to information is enshrined in the Philippine Constitution, but the absence of an enabling law has apparently enabled various government agencies and officials – including Supreme Court justices – to violate this.
Some agencies do know and observe the Constitution’s guarantee of transparency, which is a prior condition to good governance. Far too many others, however, seem stuck in confidentiality mode and require prodding and coaxing to release documents. The most hostile, in fact, simply flatly deny or altogether ignore requests for public documents.
by Karol Ilagan
PART CRAGGY mountains and part deep valleys, Apayao in the Philippine north is probably not a place for those seeking an easy life. Yet up until six years ago, the ruggedly beautiful province had a relatively respectable poverty incidence rate of 16.8 percent, which meant more than 80 percent of the families there were consistently meeting their basic needs without much problem.
By 2006, however, majority of Apayao families were struggling, with the province posting a poverty incidence rate of 57.5 percent. As a result, Apayao had also become the newest entry in the Philippines’ list of 10 poorest provinces, and even earned the dubious honor of clinching rank No. 4.
Burma before and after Nargis
by Tita C. Valderama
IT IS Southeast Asia’s largest country in terms of land area, yet there is reason why Burma is unfamiliar to many people, even within the region.
For one, it has been isolated for the last few decades as a result of both Burmese and international actions. For another, press freedom is unknown in Burma, which means accurate and up-to-date information is hard to find — and report — even within the country itself.
