Category: Journalist Killings

Clash of clans? Ampatuans, Ecleos,Sinsuats, Midtimbangs unopposed

mcmangahas

By Vino Lucero

AMONG THE 802 unopposed candidates for the 2016 elections, a few stood out not just because their surnames sounded familiar, but also because of the frequency in which these kept popping up.

Four surnames – Ampatuan, Ecleo, Midtimbang, and Sinsuat – came up five or more times on the Commission on Elections’ list of unopposed candidates in their respective bailiwicks.

This means these clans already have at least five sure seats in their localities that they will occupy for the next three years.

They could have more, of course, partly because all four of these families have other members standing for various local posts, albeit with competitors.

Three of the surnames showed up on the list of unopposed candidates in Maguindanao: Midtimbang nine times; Sinsuat six; and Ampatuan five. Ecleo came up five times on Dinagat Islands’ unchallenged roster.

The Midtimbangs are running unopposed in the mayor, vice mayor, and councilor races of the towns of Datu Anggal Midtimbang and Talayan in Maguindanao. In all, nine Midtimbangs are running sans rivals under the banner of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).

The clan, however, also has other members running in the provincial level, as well as in the localities of Talitay and Guindulungan.

A total of 19 Midtimbangs are running for office in Maguindanao this year, which, if they are all lucky, could result in as much as 19 local seats for the family.

PCIJ. Midtimbang. May 2016

Five members of the Ampatuan clan, meanwhile, are running unopposed in the towns of Datu Hoffer Ampatuan and Datu Odin Sinsuat.

Other members of the Ampatuan clan are also gunning for seats – but with challengers — in the Sangguniang Panlalawigan or provincial council, as well as in the towns of Datu Abdullah Sangki, Datu Unsay, Mamasapano, Parang, Rajah Buayan, Shariff Aguak, and Shariff Saydona.

In fact, four Ampatuans are fighting for the mayoralty seat of Shariff Aguak, and three for the office of vice mayor. In this race, candidates of the opposition UNA are pitted against the official bets of the administration, the Liberal Party (LP) headed by President Benigno S. Aquino III.

Sajid Islam Ampatuan (UNA) is in a face-off against Maroph Ampatuan of the LP, Oping Ampatuan (Independent), and Zahara Ampatuan of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) in the mayoralty race.

Anhara Ampatuan (UNA) is up against Akmad Ampatuan (LP) and Datu Puti Ampatuan (Independent) over the vice-mayoralty post.

LP’s candidate for vice mayor, Akmad Ampatuan Sr., is a close relative of the late Andal Ampatuan Sr., the principal accused together with his son Zaldy in the “Maguindanao Massacre” of Nov. 23, 2009 where 58 persons, including 32 media workers, were killed.

A brother-in-law of the Ampatuans, Akmad is one of the accused in the massacre. In March 2015, however, he was admitted into the government’s Witness Protection Program.

PCIJ. Ampatuan May 2016

Akmad, Andal Sr., Andal Jr., and Zaldy were all elective officials in Maguindanao when they were arrested for the massacre in 2009. But then Justice Secretary Leila de Lima cited Akmad as “one of the major witnesses” in the second wave of complaints against 50 new suspects in the massacre, “including 14 Ampatuans, four of them incumbent mayors in Maguindanao.”

UNA’s Bai Anhara Ampatuan, meanwhile, is a re-electionist and daughter of Anwar and Zahara Ampatuan.

Unlike Akmad, UNA’s candidate for Shariff Aguak town mayor, Sajid Ampatuan, remains a principal accused in the multiple murder case that government prosecutors filed over six years ago, on account of the massacre. A former vice governor, Sajid is out on bail. His wife Zandria Sinsuat-Ampatuan is running for a third term as mayor of Shariff Saydona town.

Sajid’s rival bets are close relatives: his cousin, incumbent mayor Maroph; his nephew Oping; and sister-in-law Zahara, a former mayor and the wife of his elder brother Anwar.

In total, 40 Ampatuans are running for the 2016 elections in Maguindanao, and the family can get as much as 33 local seats there.

The Ampatuans are also relatives, either by blood or affinity, of the Sinsuat, Midtimbang, Sema, and Datumanong clans.

Generations of the Ampatuans and the Mangudadatus, meanwhile, had been close political allies until Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu ran and won as Maguindanao governor against the Ampatuans’s wishes, in the May 2010 elections.

PCIJ. Sinsuat. May 2016

The royal clan of Sinsuat itself has six unopposed bets in Datu Blah T. Sinsuat and Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao. All the unchallenged Sinsuats are running under the LP.

Ten other Sinsuat family members are aiming for seats in the provincial level, as well as for a variety of posts in Cotabato City, Datu Blah T. Sinsuat, Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Kabuntalan, Shariff Saydona, and Upi.

In the Dinagat Islands, also in Mindanao, the Ecleos are running without rivals for governor, as well as for mayor in three towns, and vice mayor in one municipality.

PCIJ. Ecleo May 2016

A total of 13 Ecleo clan members are running this year under UNA, save for one, Romeo Ecleo, who chose to be an independent candidate for councilor in the town of Libjo (Albor). – PCIJ, May 2016

____________________________
For more details, check out PCIJ’s Money Politics Online

Break the corruption chain!

mcmangahas Leave a comment

“The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, our plan to end poverty and ensure lives of dignity for all, recognizes the need to fight corruption in all its aspects and calls for significant reductions in illicit financial flows as well as for the recovery of stolen assets.”

This message, from United Nations Secretary Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon?, offers a strong narrative for the global observance tomorrow, December 9, of International Anti-Corruption Day

Break the Corruption Chain— that is the theme that run though the global campaign led by the United Nations and its partner civil society organizations around the world.

This year’s event focuses on how corruption “undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to human rights violations, distorts markets, erodes quality of life and allows organized crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish.”

The campaign #breakthechain also highlights that corruption is a cross-cutting crime, impacting many areas. It shows that acting against corruption is imperative to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all.

Corruption, the UN notes, “is a complex social, political and economic phenomenon that affects all countries. Corruption undermines democratic institutions, slows economic development and contributes to governmental instability.”

Corruption “attacks the foundation of democratic institutions by distorting electoral processes, perverting the rule of law and creating bureaucratic quagmires whose only reason for existing is the soliciting of bribes.”

Even more tragic, “economic development is stunted because foreign direct investment is discouraged and small businesses within the country often find it impossible to overcome the “start-up costs” required because of corruption”

On 31 October 2003, the UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention against Corruption and requested that the Secretary-General designate the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as secretariat for the Convention’s Conference of States Parties (Resolution 58/4).

The Assembly also designated 9 December as International Anti-Corruption Day, to raise awareness of corruption and of the role of the Convention in combating and preventing it. The Convention entered into force in December 2005.

Governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, the media and citizens around the world are joining forces to fight this crime. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are at the forefront of these efforts.

The government of the Philippines is a state party signatory to UNCAC.

Message of Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General, on International Anti-Corruption Day

Global attitudes towards corruption have changed dramatically. Where once bribery, corruption and illicit financial flows were often considered part of the cost of doing business, today corruption is widely — and rightly — understood as criminal and corrosive.

The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, our plan to end poverty and ensure lives of dignity for all, recognizes the need to fight corruption in all its aspects and calls for significant reductions in illicit financial flows as well as for the recovery of stolen assets.

Corruption has disastrous impacts on development when funds that should be devoted to schools, health clinics and other vital public services are instead diverted into the hands of criminals or dishonest officials.

Corruption exacerbates violence and insecurity. It can lead to dissatisfaction with public institutions, disillusion with government in general, and spirals of anger and unrest.

The United Nations Convention against Corruption provides a comprehensive platform for governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society, and individual citizens. Through prevention, criminalization, international cooperation and assets recovery, the Convention advances global progress toward ending corruption.

On International Anti-Corruption Day, I call for united efforts to deliver a clear message around the world that firmly rejects corruption and embraces instead the principles of transparency, accountability and good governance. This will benefit communities and countries, helping to usher in a better future for all.

Philippine Data Summit marks Int’l Anti-Corruption Day on Dec. 9

mcmangahas Leave a comment

THE UNITED NATIONS will lead the global observance of International Anti-Corruption Day on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015. Its theme highlights a global clamor — Break the Corruption Chain!

In the Philippines, the Office of the Ombudsman, in partnership with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, will mark the day with the conduct of an inaugural “Philippine Data Summit.”
Its theme, a clamor of all Filipinos, — Open Data We Want, Open Data We Need, Open Up Government.

The forum will be held from 8 am to 5 pm at the Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria Hotel in Quezon City.

Organized by the Office of the Ombudsman and the PCIJ, the event is being supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.

The Summit celebrates the shared, firm resolve of state agencies, civil society organizations, civil servants, professionals, academe, and private sector to take the first steps in building a meaningful open data infrastructure that could serve as a pillar of good governance, transparency, and accountability in the Philippines.

It assumes greater urgency and relevance in light of the synchronized national, legislative, and local elections on May 9, 2016 that will usher in a new political administration.

Commissioner Heidi Mendoza of the Commission on Audit (recently appointed Undersecretary-General for Oversight Services of the United Nations) will deliver the keynote address. Commissioner Mendoza is the original proponent of the conduct of this multi-stakeholder national data summit.

A panel of resource persons will discuss thematic issues in the data supply-demand chain. They include:

* Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Gerard Mosquera, who is also lead prosecutor in the pork-related corruption/plunder cases pending with the Sandiganbayan;

* Budget Undersecretary Richard Bon Moya of the Open Data Task Force of the Philippines;

* Atty. Nepomuceno Malaluan, lead convenor of the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition; and

* Mr. Mario Demarillas of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners-Philippines.

The Summit and subsequent activities it is designed to enable will seek to achieve the following objectives:

* Harness the supply-demand chain of data on public policy and governance from the perspective of data producers and data users.

* Enhance the skills, capacity, and practice o all stakeholders in appreciating, accessing, sorting, analyzing, and popularizing data with governance metrics to inform public policy discourse, advocacy, and state-citizen engagement.

* Promote the cross-training, data-sharing, and institutionalization of data teams of content producers and tech teams in public agencies and civil society.

* Foster media and citizen awareness, use, analysis, and demand for data, in both quantity and quality, as these are relevant to public policy discourse, graft investigation and prosecution, delivery of basic services, and citizen engagement and participation for transparency, accountability, and good governance. — PCIJ, December 2015

Ombudsman on PDAF cases: Long, rough road to justice

mcmangahas Leave a comment

TAKING ON corruption is never easy. After two years of investigation by nearly three dozen lawyers of the Office of the Ombudsman reviewing thousands of documents, the corruption cases involving the use of pork-barrel funds against an incredible tally of legislators are far from being concluded. Many of the cases have not even reached trial stage.

The government’s efforts to clean up the pork-barrel mess have thus far produced plunder, graft, and bribery charges against eight legislators—three senators and five members of the House of Representatives—filed before the Sandiganbayan.

The eight are among over 100 legislators who purportedly participated in the misuse and abuse of the pork barrel, otherwise known as Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

Read: Part 8 of PCIJ’s series on “Pork a la Gloria, Pork a la PNoy”
* Ombudsman on PDAF cases: Long, rough road to justice

A third complaint that the Department of Justice filed only last August 4 against two senators and seven former and current House members is still undergoing review by the Ombudsman.

“We consider these PDAF cases as [among] the most important cases that we are prosecuting,” Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Gerard A. Mosquera tells PCIJ.

“In fact,” he adds, “a substantial number of prosecutors are involved [in these cases]. And our most senior prosecutors are directly supervising [them].”

After more than a year in court hearings, however, the Ombudsman has yet to get a conviction on the first eight cases that are now pending at the Sandiganbayan. Comments Mosquera: “Some cases proceed quickly, while others are not as quick.”

The investigation began on March 22, 2013 when the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) “rescued” Benhur Luy, from a Taguig City condominium owned by his cousin and boss, businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles. Luy would later become a whistleblower exposing massive pork-barrel fraud, pointing to Napoles as the head of a network of bogus nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that siphoned off pork-barrel funds in collusion with legislators.

Mosquera says the Ombudsman currently has 35 prosecutors exclusively focusing on the eight ongoing cases filed before the anti-graft court and five new PDAF cases. These prosecutors are apart from the scores of lawyers of the Ombudsman’s Field Investigation Office who continue to gather documentary and testimonial evidence against more potential respondents. Mosquera is serving as lead prosecutor in the cases. Mosquera heads the Ombudsman’s prosecution team.

For each of the eight cases, the Ombudsman is presenting some 5,000 documentary exhibits. The number shoots up to about 8,000 when the exhibits’ sub-markings are included. The number of witnesses who testify ranges from 30 to 50 per case.

“There is only one prosecution team for all the cases,” he says. “But on the other side, ang sa defense naman, iba-iba ang mga abugado ng mga akusado. So natural na iba-iba ang pagpapalakad nila ng depensa (But on the other side, the defense has a variety of lawyers representing the accused. Naturally, the way they carry out their defense would be different from each other).”

He can only be thankful that while the “fairly complicated” pork cases have required more than extraordinary attention on the part of the Ombudsman, these have also served as a landmark in how the regulatory and integrity agencies of government could work together to build cases against corruption.

“It’s very encouraging to share and to note,” Mosequera tells PCIJ, “for probably the first time in our history as a country, talagang nagtulong-tulong ang Office of the Ombudsman, Commission on Audit, National Bureau of Investigation, Anti-Money Laundering Council, Securities and Exchange Commission, and even the Civil Service Commission.” – PCIJ, August 2015

SB’s boast: ‘Hang me if FOI does not pass!’ Lip service?

mcmangahas Leave a comment

“ANG IPINANGAKO ko talaga is, during the 16th Congress. Bitayin ninyo ako kung matapos ito at hindi pa nakakapasa.”

[What I have promised was, during the 16th Congress (it will pass). When it ends and this does no pass, you can hang me."]

Thus spoke Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr.in March 2014, in response to reporters’ queries about when the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill will pass in the House of Representatives. That early, the FOI bill had already hurdled third and final reading in the Senate.

Belmonte, leader of the House, had practically offered his head to proclaim what was supposedly his firm commitment to get the FOI bill passed in the lower chamber.

Was he just lying or bragging or both?

Words are apparently cheap to Belmonte. His verbal affirmation has not been followed by affirmative action for the FOI bill in the last 14 months.

In the view of the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition of 160 civil society organizations pushing for the FOI bill’s passage, Belmonte has merely paid lip service to a reform legislation that has been pending in Congress over the last 14 years.

Belmonte’s House, the Coalition said, seems to be no different from that led in the 14th Congress by Speaker Prospero Nograles Jr., an ally of then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

At the time, the FOI bill was in its final stage of ratification by the House but Nograles and Arroyo’s allies, feigning a lack of quorum, postponed plenary vote until the 14th Congress adjourned sine die.

The Right to Know Coalition, in a statement issued on the eve of the sixth and last state of the nation address of President Benigno S. Aquino III, called out Belmonte and his “chief enforcer,” Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, for their failure to lead the FOI to passage.

The 16th Congress opens its third and last regular session tomorrow, July 27. It will adjourn sine die before the May 2016 elections.

A number of factors bode ill for the FOI bill. It seems headed, once again, to a tragic end in the 16th Congress.

These include the long recess intervals (i.e. Christmas break, Holy Week break); the frequent lack of a quorum because of absentee lawmakers; the election campaign that will see many politicians running for re-election; a long list of similarly urgent legislation (i.e. 2016 national budget, Bangsamoro Basic Law); and tepid support from Aquino, Belmonte, and Gonzales.

Belmonte, who was also Speaker of the 15th Congress (2010-13) when the Aquino-led Liberal Party Coalition gained control of the House, has hardly done anything to accelerate the House’s work on the FOI bill in the last six years.

Aquino, meanwhile, has largely been ambivalent and inchoate about his true position on the FOI bill, even as he had promised as a candidate for President in 2010 that he will support its passage. –PCIJ, July 2015

The statement of the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition follows:

Speaker’s support for FOI mere lip service

AT AROUND the time that the Senate approved the FOI bill on Third Reading in March 2014, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. boldly proclaimed: “Ang ipinangako ko talaga is during the 16th Congress. Bitayin ninyo ako kung matapos ito at hindi pa nakakapasa.”

Yet on the ground, the Speaker has not lifted a finger to give FOI a positive push. The bill has advanced at the committee level through the efforts of the committee chair, House champions and FOI advocates, at times even with counter-signals from the House leadership.

One clear evidence of the Speaker’s lack of actual commitment to advancing the FOI bill was his failure to put the FOI on the agenda, even for just its sponsorship in plenary, before Congress went to recess last June. This, despite the Committee chair and authors expressing readiness for the bill’s sponsorship and defense, and a letter of appeal from advocates.

The Speaker, under the rules, is the political and administrative head of the House of Representatives. He is responsible for the overall management of the proceedings of the House. He is primarily responsible for preparing the legislative agenda for every regular session, with the view of ensuring the full deliberation and swift approval especially of priority measures.

With the Speaker only paying lip service to FOI, the FOI Tracker rating goes down to 25. It will just be a matter of time for his chief enforcer, Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, to drive the final nail in the coffin of the FOI bill in the 16th Congress.

When all excuses are said and done, we see the House of Belmonte no different from the House of Prospero Nograles Jr. on FOI.”

Related links:

2015 will be a reckoning of promises on FOI

BT: Freedom of Information bill, nakabinbin pa rin sa Kongreso