NEWS AT A GLANCE
RP lawyers get
international support
The Committee for the
Defense of Lawyers (Codal), a local group of lawyers and legal
practitioners in the Philippines, announced last May 27 that Jitendra
Sharma, president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL),
promised to tackle the issue of the attacks against lawyers and judges in
the Philippines at their 16th congress in Paris, France from
June 7 to 11.
The Netherlands-based
International Association of People's Lawyers (IAPL) earlier stated that
the Philippines has become a dangerous place for lawyers, judges and
members of the legal profession.
Codal records show
that three lawyers and a law student were killed this year. Seven were
killed last year.
Codal spokesperson
Rachel Pastores said that unlike the Philippine president, the
international legal community is not silent on this issue.
* * *
Scientists group
denounce bill to tax texters
Dr. Giovanni Tapang,
chairperson of the scientists group Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at
Teknolohiya para sa Sambayanan (Agham), described Pangasinan Rep. Mark
Cojuanco’s Special Infrastructure Modernization Fund in House Bill 3977 as
a “thoughtless and laughable attempt to increase the coffers available for
corruption and a lame attempt to pass on infrastructure costs to texters.”
Despite the bill’s prohibition to pass on the 50-centavo ($0.01,
based on an exchange rate of P54.40 per US dollar) specific tax on every
mobile phone text message, telecommunication companies can always find
ways to pass on these increases to consumers by simply reducing further
free text messages of a call card or increase the cost of every text
message sent.
“They have already
passed the VAT (value-added tax) which increases (the cost of goods and
services), now they want to put the burden of building roads on us,” he
said.
According to Agham ─ a member and convenor of TxtPower, a group against
telecom monopoly that is pushing for cheap and accessible communications
for all ─ there are about 36 million Filipino texters who will shoulder
the cost of the tax if approved.
* * *
New health chief
liable for OFW fund transfer
Migrante Sectoral
Party (MSP) criticized last May 26 the Department of Health’s newly
appointed secretary Dr. Francisco Duque III after reports quoted him
saying “the President had prepared me for this job and that as then Vice
President, had a hand in making him a permanent member of Philhealth's
(Philippine Health Insurance Corporation) board of directors in 1999.”
MSP chairperson
Connie Bragas-Regalado said Duque’s statement “reveals the corrupt
thinking of high officialdom in the bureaucracy and the obscene system of
political patronage being worsened by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.”
Bragas-Regalado also
said that Duque, former Philhealth president, was behind the distribution
of the free Philhealth cards with the President’s photos to four million
poor Filipinos during the 2004 election campaign. She also said that he
also “doggedly pursued” the illegal transfer of more than P530 million
($9.74 million) from OFW health care trust fund money from the Overseas
Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).
The group called on the Commission on Appointments (COA) to
block Duque’s appointment “to protect the Department of Health that is
already beleaguered with a low budget for services to the poor.”
Bulatlat
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