Aquino tops SWS poll; Villar 2nd, Estrada 3rd, Escudero 4th

MANILA, Philippines—A majority of Filipino voters believe that opposition Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III should replace President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2010, results of a nationwide survey conducted by Social Weather Stations from Sept. 18 to 21 showed.

Sixty percent of 1,800 respondents mentioned Aquino after being asked: “Who do you think are good leaders who should succeed President Arroyo as President?” Respondents were allowed to give up to three names.

Sen. Manuel “Manny” Villar, who was in the lead in opinion polls before Aquino announced his candidacy, was second with 37 percent, up from 33 percent in June.

Former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada came in third at 18 percent (down from 25 percent), followed by Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero at 15 percent (down from 20 percent), and Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II at 12 percent (down from 20 percent).

The survey had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.3 percentage points.

In 10 previous surveys, which asked the same question, Aquino, only son of the late President Cory Aquino and assassinated Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., was not mentioned by respondents.

Aquino announced his plan to run for president on Sept. 9 amid the warm public sentiment for his mother who died on Aug. 1.

He topped a survey by the SWS in the vote-rich regions of Luzon early last month, winning the nod of an overwhelming 50 percent of respondents.

The survey, commissioned by private individuals and businessmen, was conducted on Sept. 5 and 6 among 1,200 respondents.

Huge declines for Noli, Loren

Vice President Noli de Castro and Sen. Loren Legarda both lost more than half of their supporters in the latest SWS survey, with the former getting 8 percent (down from 19 percent), and the latter receiving only 5 percent (down from 15 percent).

Support for Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. went up to 4 percent from 0.8 percent, while that for Sen. Panfilo Lacson fell from 7 percent to 2 percent.

Support for Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay also went down from 4 percent to 2 percent.

Bayani Fernando, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chair, maintained his one percent, while those rooting for Bro. Eddie Villanueva rose from 0.8 to 1 percent.

Six percent of last month’s respondents could not give an answer, while 4 percent had no one to recommend.

Grateful

Aquino felt grateful that he topped the latest SWS survey.

“It humbles me to get such amount of support,” Aquino said, telling reporters that the survey showed that he was correct in “waging the people’s campaign.”

“But at the end of the day, I think … this is the expression of the people’s desire for substantive change in our country,” he said.

Aquino said the results should spur the Liberal Party to strive more to translate that support “into actuality.”

“Our platform, our solution is commensurate to the problems our countrymen are facing,” he said, adding that it was “imperative” that he and Roxas (his running mate) should work to change the government and society as a whole.

Villar confident

Adel Tamano, spokesperson of Villar’s Nacionalista Party (NP), said that despite the changes in the rankings in the survey, the party remained confident of its chances in the May 2010 national elections.

“This is part of the dynamics of a political campaign, and we expect more changes to happen in the run-up to the May 2010 elections, Tamano said in a statement.

He noted that when Villar expressed his intention to run for president, the NP standard-bearer ranked sixth in the surveys.

Tamano said Villar was able to improve his ratings through “sipag at tiyaga” (industry and patience).

The NP spokesperson said Villar would continue to work hard so that he could help put our country back on its feet.

Encouraging trajectory

Teodoro, the standard-bearer of the administration’s Lakas-Kampi-CMD coalition, was heartened by the rise in his rating.

“That’s very encouraging trajectory and elections are still many months away. The more people get to know who Gibo (Teodoro) really is and what he can do, we are confident this will continue to rise faster,” Teodoro’s spokesperson Nelson Victorino said in a text message to the Inquirer.

The deadline for filing candidacies is Nov. 30.

Estrada running again

Estrada, ousted in a popular uprising in 2001 and later convicted of graft, Wednesday said he would run again for president in next year’s elections.

“Yes, I will run,” Estrada, 72, told Agence France Presse, when asked to confirm press reports of his decision.

The formal announcement will be made at Sto. Niño church in Tondo, Manila, on Wednesday next week, Estrada said.

“I will not run for the presidency if I’m not sure I’ll win,” he said. Reports from Cyril L. Bonabente, Inquirer Research; Michael Lim Ubac, Christian V. Esguerra, Reuters and Agence France-Presse

Family loses P3M to robbers

MANILA, Philippines--Armed men raided a businesswoman’s house in San Juan City on Monday, tied up the members of her household and took P3 million worth of valuables, including several guns belonging to her late husband, the police said.

The daring heist, which took only 20 minutes, happened at about 6:15 a.m. when eight men forced their way into the house of Maravilla Geslani, 62, a widow, at 221 F. Benitez corner Pasadena Streets.

Chief Supt. Benjardi Mantele, director of the Eastern Police District, said Geslani’s daughter, Nathalie Lao, 31, was about to leave the house with two companions, one of whom was carrying a gun, when their path was blocked by the suspects.

The robbers divested Lao’s companion of his firearm and herded all of them back inside the house.

They then tied up the victims, including Lao’s 5-year-old son, stay-in cook Henry Villanueva and three other house helpers.

Loot included several guns

Investigators said the armed men took several pieces of jewelry, electronic gadgets like cell phones and laptop computers, as well as several handguns of different calibers that belonged to Geslani’s late husband, retired Col. Conrado Munasque.

At that time, Geslani was in church. She learned about the robbery when she came home, her brother Manny told the Inquirer.

Senior Supt. Procopio Lipana, San Juan police chief, said his men were looking into leads to find the robbers.

“We have some personalities we’re tracking down who might be connected to the crime based on what the victims told the investigators,” Mantele said.

Lipana said the multimillion heist was the first in the neighborhood and even in the city in many months.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20091013-229914/Family-loses-P3M-to-robbers

Survey says incidence of hunger down

MANILA, Philippines—The proportion of families experiencing involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months has declined by 2.8 percentage points, or the equivalent of 500,000 families, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

However, the latest overall hunger rate was still higher than the average hunger rate over the past 11 years, SWS said.

The SWS 3rd Quarter 2009 survey, conducted from Sept. 18 to 21 and released Tuesday, found that hunger in the country had declined to 17.5 percent (or about 3.2 million families), from 20.3 percent (3.7 million families) in June.

The survey was conducted before Tropical Storms “Ondoy” (international codename: Ketsana) and “Pepeng” (Parma) ravaged Luzon.

“Hunger has consistently been in double-digits for over five years, since June 2004. The latest hunger figure is 5 percentage points above the 11-year average of 12.9 percent,” SWS said.

Questions

Survey questions about household hunger were directed to the household head, using the phrase “nakaranas ng gutom at wala kayong makain” (“experienced hunger, and did not have anything to eat”).

The decline by 2 percentage points in overall hunger resulted from a 1.5-point decline in moderate hunger, and a 1.3-point decline in severe hunger.

“Moderate hunger,” or those who experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months, went down from 16 percent (2.9 million families) in June to 14.5 percent (2.7 million families) in September.

The latest figure is 5 percentage points above the 11-year average moderate hunger of 9.5 percent.

“Severe hunger,” or those who suffered hunger “often” or “always” in the last three months, went down from 4.3 percent (about 790,000 families) in June to 3 percent (550,000 families) in September. The new figure is below the 11-year average severe hunger rate of 3.4 percent.

Except Metro Manila

Overall hunger declined in all areas, except Metro Manila.

It dropped by more than 10 percentage points in Mindanao, from 30 percent (about 1.3 million families) in June to 19.7 percent (800,000 families) in September.

It declined by 2 percentage points in the Visayas, from 21 percent (about 775,000 families) to 19 percent (700,000 families), and by almost 1 percentage point in the rest of Luzon, from 14.3 percent (1.2 million families) to 13.5 percent (1.1 million families).

In Metro Manila, however, hunger increased by more than 2 percentage points, from 22.3 percent (550,000 families) to 24.7 percent (600,000 families).

Moderate hunger declined in Mindanao by almost 9 percentage points, from 25.3 percent in the previous quarter to 16.7 percent.

In the Visayas, moderate hunger fell by almost 3 percentage points from 18.7 percent to 16.1 percent.

It rose by almost 4 percentage points in Metro Manila, from 15.3 percent to 19.0 percent, and by a point in the rest of Luzon, from 10.2 percent to 11.3 percent.

“The latest moderate hunger rates are higher than their 11-year averages for all areas,” SWS said.

Severe hunger

Severe hunger declined by 2 percentage points in the rest of Luzon, from 4.2 percent in June to 2.2 percent in September, also by 2 percentage points in Mindanao, from 4.7 percent to 3.0 percent, and by more than a percentage point in Metro Manila, from 7.0 percent to 5.7 percent.

It rose by almost a percentage point in the Visayas, from 2.3 percent in the previous quarter to 2.9 percent.

“The new severe hunger rates are now lower than their 11-year averages for all areas except in Metro Manila, where the latest score of 5.7 percent is higher than its 11-year average of 3.4 percent,” SWS said.

The latest SWS survey was conducted using to face-to-face interviews of 1,800 adults divided into random samples of 300 each in Metro Manila and Mindanao, and 600 each in the rest of Luzon and the Visayas.

It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points for national percentages, plus or minus 6 percentage points for Metro Manila and Mindanao, and plus or minus 4 percentage points for the rest of Luzon and the Visayas. Eliza Victoria, Inquirer Research

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20091014-229946/Survey-says-incidence-of-hunger-down

Calamity diplomas? No way, says DepEd chief

Filed Under: Education, Pepeng, Ondoy, Disasters (general), Weather

MANILA, Philippines—“Ondoy” and “Pepeng” notwithstanding, no way are public school children getting “calamity diplomas.”

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus Tuesday turned down Sen. Francis Escudero’s suggestion that students in areas devastated by the recent storms be given passing marks for this grading period or semester.

Lapus said the Department of Education (DepEd) was not sold on the idea of issuing passing marks across the board because doing so might further hobble a public education system reeling from storm-damaged or -destroyed property worth P930.75 million.

“Maybe [Escudero] was misconstrued? [If we follow his suggestion], we compound our losses of lives and property further with a costly penalty to the education of our children,” said Lapus, who, like the senator, is a member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition.

“The students might pray for supertyphoons every year, and we might end up with calamity diplomas,” he added.

Education Undersecretary Vilma Labrador echoed Lapus’ position, saying: “We sympathize with the victims of the recent typhoons, including our students and teachers. The country has lost lives and resources. We can’t afford to lose further by giving up the needed learning of our youth.”

Labrador said school and local officials would resume all regular classes as soon as possible and were “looking for ways to make up for the missed class days.”

“The required minimum number of class days can be met,” she said.

Walk the extra mile

On the other hand, the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) is leaving it to tertiary schools to decide on the matter.

DepEd-National Capital Region Director Teresita Domalanta said teachers were willing to “walk the extra mile” and even “bend policies” just so the students in devastated areas would make the grade.

After all, under normal circumstances, “at most only one or two students” fail in an average class of 50 students in public schools, Domalanta said, adding:

“That’s because our teachers always try their best to give those students in danger of failure [every chance to pass], like remedial classes and other enrichment studies. Our teachers even visit them at home.

“So now, although many of our teachers are also victims of the [storms], they will do what they can to help students pass. We’ve already thought about this. Our teachers will walk the extra mile to visit them.”

Domalanta admitted that when classes resumed last week, student attendance was noticeably low in the devastated areas of Marikina, Pasig, Taguig, Navotas, Valenzuela and Muntinlupa.

“But this week, we’ve noticed that the numbers are improving,” she said.

According to Domalanta, the children seeking shelter in schools that are serving as evacuation centers may temporarily attend classes there.

“We’ll have separate records for that, and they can return to their original schools later,” she said.

Case-by-case basis

CHEd Executive Director Julito Vitriolo said the issue could be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

He said school officials could assess their students’ standing.

“If the grades of these students show that they have a chance of passing even if they fail their final exams, then maybe they can be exempted from their finals,” Vitriolo said.

“But if their grades show that there is no hope of passing even if they get a perfect grade in their finals, then that’s a different matter,” he said.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20091014-229945/Calamity-diplomas-No-way-says-DepEd-chief

Kidnapped priest seen thrice; military holds fire

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‘Pepeng’ death toll now 311, says NDCC

MANILA, Philippines—The death toll from “Pepeng” (international codename: Parma)—which entered the country as a typhoon and left it after 10 days as a tropical depression—has risen to 311, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said Tuesday.

In its 5 a.m. report, the NDCC said 238 of the deaths occurred in the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR) and were largely caused by landslides.

The rest of the fatalities were reported as victims of drowning, with 64 in the Ilocos region, four in Central Luzon, one in Calabarzon and four in the Bicol region.

The number of those injured totaled 185—131 in CAR, 47 in the Ilocos, and seven in Cagayan Valley.

The number of missing persons stands at 48, the NDCC said.

The destruction wrought by Pepeng was estimated at P7.1 billion, with damage to agriculture rising to P6.02 billion (from Monday’s P4 billion) and damage to infrastructure at P1.1 billion.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered all government agencies involved in disaster relief to sustain their operations, according to Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres, the NDCC spokesperson.

Torres said that at 10 a.m. Tuesday, a C-130 cargo plane left for Tuguegarao, Cagayan, carrying 500 sacks of rice, 5,000 food packs, 10,000 packs of used clothing, 5,000 blankets, 3,000 plastic mats, 3,000 water jugs, 2,000 towels, and 200 boxes of noodles to be distributed to the devastated areas in the region.

Headless but no longer nameless

LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET—If not for his fingerprints, Santiago Polsito would just be one of the unidentified and unclaimed bodies recovered from landslide-hit Little Kibungan in Barangay Puguis.

His body was one of the first recovered from the rubble on Oct. 9. But it was found headless, causing initial doubts among his kin as to its identity.

No one could remember the clothes he last wore, and there was neither wallet nor identification card on the corpse.

Polsito, 42, had a mole on the neck—the only distinguishing mark on his body, according to his family. But it could not be found because he was decapitated.

Members of the town’s health office posted at Puguis Elementary School, where the recovered bodies were first taken for recording purposes, expressed the belief that a wife would be in the best position to identify any peculiar marks on her husband.

They asked for Polsito’s wife to identify the body. But Polsito, a cab driver, was a bachelor.

It was the fingerprints that allowed a police team to establish that the corpse was indeed Polsito’s.

Second thoughts

At least 73 people died in the massive landslide that all but wiped out the mountainside community of Little Kibungan.

Relatives grieved over Polsito when what was thought to be his body was recovered along with those of his siblings Viola and Gen Clyde.

But according to his sister Divina, she began to have second thoughts when others claimed the body although they were also unsure of its identity.

Divina’s doubts were fueled by the fact that two of her other brothers, Darwin and Colado, were among the six missing persons that rescuers had been trying to find.

Polsito’s body was thus tagged as unidentified, and it lay unclaimed for three days.

Staff members of the La Trinidad health office, led by nurse Claire Pierce, went to the Puguis barangay hall and found that Polsito was a registered voter.

On Sunday, Pierce asked lawyer Bernoulli Binay-an, the town’s election officer, to open the Commission on Elections office at the town hall so they could check Polsito’s voter registration record.

The document showed that Polsito had a mole on the neck. It carried his fingerprints as well.

Print match

Because the mole could not be found, Pierce sought police assistance to identify the body.

Police Officer 2 Voltaire Aoay, a fingerprint examiner, took a sample of the corpse’s fingerprints, compared these with the ones on Polsito’s voter registration record—and found a match.

But Polsito’s kin were not fully convinced, Pierce recalled.

Divina suggested a DNA examination. Pierce told her it was a costly procedure and that the family would have to shell out P20,000.

“We told them that a fee would have to be paid because it would be conducted as a private case. Had a crime been involved, it would be different,” Pierce told the Inquirer.

On Sunday, the Polsitos met with police investigators.

Aoay took pains to explain to the family that fingerprint analysis was one of the most reliable and scientifically approved means of establishing a person’s identity.

“No two persons would have the same fingerprints,” he said, finally convincing the Polsitos.

Prayers from Arroyo

On a visit Tuesday to Puguis Elementary School, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo prayed for Polsito.

She condoled with the grieving families and then entered the classroom where Polsito’s body was lying.

No one told the President that the body in the closed coffin was headless.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20091014-229937/Headless-but-no-longer-nameless