Comelec uses plastic seals instead of padlocks

MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is expecting to save millions of pesos by replacing the padlocks on ballot boxes with serialized plastic seals and by forgoing the purchase of thumbmarkers used in getting the thumbmarks of voters.
Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. told reporters that they are replacing padlocks because they are heavy and bulky and do not have serial numbers. They can also be easily opened and closed again without leaving any signs of tampering, he said.
“Padlocks are expensive and heavy. We decided to use small plastics seals that have serial numbers,” Brillantes said. “If it is tampered it cannot be replaced [and] we can check it through its serial number.”
Padlocks with key would cost around P125 per unit while the plastic seals cost around P30 per unit. At least 270,600 units of padlocks are needed or 452,000 units of plastic seals.
A ballot box would require at least four padlocks or seals.
Brilantes said that the padlocks would have cost the Comelec around P32.4 million while plastic seals, based on computations, will cost around P14 million.
“That’s a big difference, more than 50 percent would be saved. The padlock is the most expensive,” Brillantes said.
“Under an automated system, the ballots do not require so much protection because there are already picture images [of the ballots],” he said.
Brillantes also said that voters will no longer have to place their thumbmarks when they vote. They will only have to put their signatures.
“When voters have their thumbmarks taken before voting, it might smudge on the ballot,” Brillantes said.
The ballots have a tendency to be rejected by the Precint Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines if there are stray marks on it.
“Technical examination on whether the person voted will depend on the signature,” Brillantes said. “Anyway biometrics of voters now have photos.”
Because they no longer need thumbmarks, the Comelec will be able to save around P12.4 million from the purchase of thumbmarkers which cost P24 each, Brillantes said.

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Most crew leaves US Navy ship stuck on coral reef in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — Most of the sailors on a U.S. Navy minesweeper that struck a coral reef in the Philippines left the ship Friday for safety reasons after initial efforts to free the vessel failed, the Navy said.
The ship ran aground Thursday while in transit through the Tubbataha National Marine Park, a coral sanctuary in the Sulu Sea, 640 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Manila. There were no injuries or oil leaks, and Philippine authorities were trying to evaluate damage to the protected coral reef, designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said 72 of the 79 crew of the USS Guardian were transferred to a military support vessel by small boat. A small team of personnel will remain aboard and attempt to free the ship with minimal environmental impact, the statement said. The remaining seven sailors, including the commanding and the executive officer, will also be transferred if conditions become unsafe.
Philippine officials said the weather was choppy Friday with strong winds and rough seas.
The World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines said that according to an initial visual inspection, the 68-meter- (74-yard-) long, 1,300-ton Guardian damaged at least 10 meters (yards) of the reef. Aerial photographs provided by the Philippine military showed the ship’s bow sitting atop corals in shallow turquoise waters. The stern was floating in the deep blue waters. The Navy said the cause of the grounding, which took place around 2 a.m. Thursday, was under investigation.
Angelique Songco, head of the government’s Protected Area Management Board, said it was unclear how much of the reef was damaged. She said the government imposes a fine of about $300 per square meter (yard) of damaged coral.
In 2005, the environmental group Greenpeace was fined almost $7,000 after its flagship struck a reef in the same area.
Songco said that park rangers were not allowed to board the ship for inspection and were told to contact the U.S. Embassy in Manila. Their radio calls to the ship were ignored, she said. The U.S. Navy statement said that “the government of the Philippines was promptly informed of the incident and is being updated regularly.”
Philippine military spokesman Maj. Oliver Banaria said the U.S. Navy did not request assistance from the Philippines.
U.S. Navy ships have stepped up visits to Philippine ports for refueling, rest and recreation, plus joint military exercises as a result of a redeployment of U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Philippines, a U.S. defense treaty ally, has been entangled in a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea.

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Philippines Imposes Gun Ban to Stop Poll Violence

MANILA, Philippines — A 150-day ban on the carrying of firearms outside residences across the Philippines began on Sunday to prevent violence that could erupt during May 13 congressional and local elections in a country awash with weapons and plagued by a history of deadly poll rivalries.
Commission on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said the ban, which ends June 12, suspends all permits to carry firearms in public areas and exempts only top officials, on-duty troops and police, and people facing threats. Violators could be jailed up to six years.
Election and police officials staged a march in metropolitan Manila and inspected security checkpoints to dramatize their call for peaceful mid-term elections—an often-futile goal in a country where rivalry for power among old and new political clans has been blamed for electoral violence and fraud in past years.
In the country’s worst elections-related violence, 58 people, including 32 media workers, were killed by more than 100 gunmen in a 2009 massacre blamed on a political rivalry between two powerful clans in southern Maguindanao Province. The existence of private militias and more than half a million unlicensed firearms have fueled fears of violence, officials said.
Army-backed police contingents began to enforce the ban on guns and armed bodyguards, especially in about 800 towns in 15 provinces, including Maguindanao, considered security hotspots because of a recent history of election violence or the presence of private armed groups, Elections Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said.
Police have identified at least 60 privately maintained militias across the country, along with 43 criminal gangs, which could be tapped by candidates in the elections, Sarmiento said, adding that a government crackdown was under way to hunt down and dismantle those groups.
In Maguindanao on Sunday, army troops and police manned checkpoints and staked out bus stations and other crowded public areas, checking people for guns.
President Benigno Aquino III said Saturday that aside from aiming for peaceful elections, a crackdown against illegal firearms and private militias was launched to reinforce law and order in communities following a number of widely publicized killings that have revived a debate over gun control.
The crackdown has so far led to the seizure of 249 firearms and the arrest of more than 100 members of privately run armed groups. Police have also made home visits to more than 25,000 gun owners with expired permits to ask them to renew the licenses or face confiscation of their firearms, Aquino told an anti-crime convention.
An anti-gun group has proposed that the elections firearms ban be made permanent, but Aquino, a known gun enthusiast, has wondered whether such a total gun ban or better law enforcement could deter criminals and gunslingers.
Around 50 million Filipinos have registered to elect more than 18,000 national and local government officials, including nearly 300 members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, on May 13. Simultaneous elections will also be held in a five-province Muslim autonomous region in the country’s south that is notorious for poll violence and fraud.
As in the 2010 presidential election, optical counting machines will be used to tally votes to speed up the notoriously slow hand-counting of ballots that fostered cheating, violence and unrest in the past, Sarmiento said.
But such automation cannot prevent vote-buying and intimidation, he said.
“There’s danger because of the armed groups,” Sarmiento said. “My other fear is there might be massive vote-buying.”

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Philippines ‘cautious’ on China’s offer to jointly explore for oil in Spratlys area

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is being cautious about Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing’s declaration of Beijing’s openness to a joint exploration in the contested West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), a statement recently reiterated by China’s Foreign Ministry in asserting its commitment to a peaceful resolution to the maritime dispute.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said on Monday that any joint development in disputed territories off the Western seaboard should abide by Philippine law and that talks should be led by the private sector.
“We take a guarded position on China’s statement on joint development,” Del Rosario told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in comments sent by text.
“Any commercial negotiations on oil exploration should be left to the concerned private sector parties to undertake.  Any exploration agreement in the West Philippine Sea must be in accordance with Philippine law,” said the Philippines’ top diplomat.
In an interview with Inquirer reporters and editors in December, Ma expressed China’s willingness to jointly explore oil and mineral riches in the West Philippine Sea, saying “it is a still very valid formula” as border disputes might not be solved “in the very short term.”
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun also said in a recent speech in Beijing that “joint development may still well be a practical approach” in resolving the maritime dispute, asserting that China has been against the use and threat of force in settling the issue.
Del Rosario declined to further comment when asked how the Chinese openness could possibly impact the sovereignty debate.
China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have conflicting claims over territories in the West Philippine Sea, believed to be rich in oil, mineral and marine resources.
The China National Offshore Oil Corp. is known to have started deep-water drilling in parts of the South China Sea.
Taiwan’s Bureau of Mines and state-run oil supplier CPC Corp. have also announced plans to start oil and exploration in waters around Ligao Island, the biggest islet in the disputed Spratlys that the Taiwanese call Taiping.
The Philippines, meanwhile, is known to have oil exploration contracts in part of the Spratlys within its exclusive economic zone.
China’s statements asserting its commitment to peacefully resolving the maritime dispute came amid actions that the Philippines have viewed as violations of international law, including Chinese sea patrols in the disputed waters, military drills and construction of new infrastructure in Sansha City.
China established the city on its southern province of Hainan in 2012 to supposedly govern the whole of Spratlys.  It is known to have some 1,000 civilians and 6,000 troops as permanent residents.
 By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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US drone crashes off Masbate Police

(UPDATED) MANILA, Philippines - The police said a US-made unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crashed into the sea off Masbate Sunday, January 6.
The drone, a model BQM-74E Chukar III, made impact on Sunday morning near Sitio Tacdugan, San Jacinto, provincial police director Senior Supt. Heriberto Olitoquit said on Monday, January 7.
Olitoquit said that it was local fishermen who recovered the UAV and brought it to shore believing at first that it was a bomb, until local police checked the item and confirmed it was in fact a drone.
The UAV -- 3.93 m long, 71 cm high and with a wingspan of 1.75 m -- will be turned over to the Philippine Navy, the official added.
"It appears to have been floating for quite some time," Captain Rommel Galang, deputy commander of naval forces in the area, told AFP.
"We will first study this drone but initially it appears to be a UAV used largely in reconnaissance."
He added it had inscriptions and a serial number that "indicate it is an American drone."
Galang said the US embassy had been informed of the discovery and local authorities would eventually turn it over to them.
Spokespersons for the embassy and the Department of Foreign Affairs were not immediately available to comment.
US training PH military to use drones
The US has been training the Philippine military to use these drones against Muslim rebels in Mindanao, according to various US and Philippine officials.
In an interview with AFP last year, President Benigno Aquino III confirmed that the Philippines has been allowing US drones to overfly its territory for reconnaissance flights, but were not allowed to make strikes.

Rappler reported in March that US smart bombs delivered by a different model Scan Eagle UAV were used for the first time on Philippine territory in a February 2 attack on Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists.
The raid was the result of 15 months of training and technology transfer from the United States to Filipino forces under a new aid program for counterterrorism efforts approved in 2010.
About 600 US forces have been rotating in the southern Philippines since 2002 as part of the US government's global war on terror.
However the drone was found in Masbate, many hundreds of kilometres from the Muslim insurgency-racked areas where no US troops are known to operate.
Masbate is one of the areas where communists waging a decades-long rebellion have long operated. - Rappler.com, with reports from Agence France-Presse

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Boy dead, 300 hurt in New Year revelry

MANILA, Philippines -  A four-year-old boy died after being accidentally shot while playing near their home in Mandaluyong City during the New Year revelry, police reported Tuesday.
Police Officer 2 Jesus Visagre of the Mandaluyong City police said Ranjelo Nemor was accidentally shot in the back while playing in Block 26, Barangay Addition Hills. He said the firearm that hit the boy could have been a homemade shotgun locally known as "sumpak."
Chief Superintendent Generoso Servo, spokesperson of the Philippine National Police, said that aside from the boy the organization also received seven reports of stray bullet injuries during the New Year revelry.
DOH Assistant Secretary Eric Tayag, meanwhile, announced in his Twitter account that a total of 171 firecracker-related injuries were recorded from seven major hospitals in Metro Manila from 6 p.m. Monday until 6 a.m. Tuesday.
Before the 12-hour count, the DOH had recorded a total of 186 firework-related injuries, including one victim of a stray bullet. Majority of the victims from the initial count were also residents of the capital region.

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Tayag had said that majority of the casualties were children aged between 6 and 10 and they were injured by a firecracker called "Piccolo," the top cause of injuries almost each year.

The DOH said that it will issue an updated count of the firework-related injuries on Tuesday afternoon. The data would include injuries recorded nationwide.

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2013: New dawn, new hope

The year 2013 may shape up to become a year of better tidings for the Philippines following its mixed fortunes last year, when the economy soared but Mindanao was struck by a typhoon that killed over a thousand people, affected millions more, sent hundreds of others missing and caused billions of pesos in damage to agriculture, infrastructure and property.
Indeed, analysts are predicting a record year for the economy in 2013—particularly for the equities and currency markets—as more investors bet on the stock market and support the peso in anticipation of the Philippines’ debt receiving an investment-grade rating.
An investment grade rating means Philippine debt is safe and carries little risk, hence attracting more investors and, at the same time, reducing the interest rate that the country must pay for the money it borrows abroad.
Adult Filipinos are also hopeful for this year as indicated by the results of a Social Weather Stations survey for the fourth quarter last year, when 92 percent of them said so.
And the political front is expected to heat up as a result of the mid-term elections in May and the continuing dispute between the ruling Liberal Party and the United Nationalist Alliance, which are at loggerheads as a result of Malacañang’s suspension of Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia for alleged abuse of authority.
Garcia has defied her six-month suspension and lived inside her office at the Provincial Capitol since the order suspending her was released on Dec. 19 and her replacement was announced. She has asked the Court of Appeals to step in and stop Malacañang.
Both the peso and the stocks rose on Friday last week, ending trading this year on a positive note.
The peso gained 0.2 percent to close at 41.05 against the dollar last week and 6.4 percent since the start of the year to become Asia’s best performing currency after South Korea’s won.
The PSEi, the 30-company benchmark index of the Philippine Stock Exchange, also climbed, and by 17 points or 0.3 percent to close at 5,812.73 near a record level. The index had jumped by 1,440.77 points or 33 percent since the start of the year.
The PSEi’s 33-percent gain was the second best in Asia, next to Thailand Stock Exchange’s 36.3-percent increase, according to First Metro Investments Corp.
Economists and analysts see the peso and the stocks sustaining their gains in 2013, when the country is expected to receive an investment-grade credit rating.  Overseas funds invested in emerging markets with robust economic performance such as the Philippines led to the appreciation of the peso and the stocks.
“The strong surges in inflows have resulted in considerable appreciation pressures on the peso,” Bangko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. had said.
“In order to help manage volatilities in the exchange rate movements, the Bangko Sentral maintained its presence in the foreign exchange market and built up its reserves to a record $84 billion as of November 2012.”
Bangko Sentral Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said the strength of the peso reflected the Philippines’ strong macroeconomic fundamentals, including its external payments surplus and the capital inflows attached to the country’s positive outlook.
“As we expect sustained BoP surplus next year, the peso will remain firm,” Guinigundo said.
“The challenge to some economic sectors is to improve their efficiency and productivity so they can compete in the external markets. After all, a firm peso helps reduce production cost.”
\BDO analyst Jonas Ravelas predicted that the peso will fluctuate from 39 to 43.50 to the dollar in 2013 before settling at 42.10 by the end of that year.
\Philippine Stock Exchange president Hans Sicat said he was confident about the stock market’s continuing strong performance as he expected capital-raising activities in 2013 to match, if not exceed, the more than P200 billion raised through that market in 2012.
Justino Calaycay, a stockbroker from Accord Capital Equities Inc., said the PSEi was expected to rise to a range of 6,800 to 7,000 points, with a fighting target of 7,500.
“The momentum of 2012 may be expected to carry over to 2013, with additional impetus from the mid-term polls scheduled in May,” Calaycay said. “The market will keep tabs on the country’s ratings, pregnant with anticipation of reaching investment grade, or at the very least hints of getting there.”
DA Market Securities sees the PSEi hitting 6,750 on the positive economic outlook.
“Optimistically, end 2013, there is a possible target of 6,750 and support at 6,280 to 6,300 level,” the company said.
BDO analyst Jonas Raveles said inflation would continue to be manageable and interest rates low as the central bank would continue to protect the market from the volatility caused by the global economic slowdown.
President Benigno Aquino III said this year would be much better than last year, and that it would be a critical stage in his administration’s crusade for continuing progress and good governance.
House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. vowed there would be a more responsive Congress this year.
“We intend to maximize our chamber’s efforts for the rest of our term and hope to leave a mark as most responsive Congrees—one that has heeded the effectively represented the voice of our people from all sectors of our constituencies,” he said.
“May 2013 be a new beginning for each of us and for our nation.”
Senator Teofisto Guingona III said the 2012 Framework Agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front would pave the way for greater progress especially in Mindanao.
“That agreement will stabilize our relationships and our activities,” he said.
“As we support the process towards peace, we must remain vigilant that the products of the process will truly bring peace.”
Senator Loren Legarda welcomed a recent Pulse Asia survey that showed the Filipinos’ growing awareness of the importance of protecting the environment and increasing approval of the government’s environmental programs.
But she said that although meaningful strides had been made to protect the environment, there was still a need to fully implement the environmental laws and to improve disaster risk management.
Environment Secretary Ramon Paje urged the Filipinos to learn from the past in order to avoid a repeat of the destruction triggered by natural calamities including that inflicted by Typhoon “Pablo” in Mindanao.
“We’re hoping for a hazard-free, disaster-free 2013,” Paje said.
“We are calling on everybody to be more prepared for stronger typhoons that induce flash floods and landslides so we can avoid a repeat of Pablo and other destructive typhoons.”
Pablo, the most powerful typhoon to hit the country in 2012, slammed into Mindanao on Dec. 4, killing 1,050 people, injuring over 2,000 and sending 800 missing.
Pablo affected a total of 6.2 million people. Of the 168,227 homes that Pablo damaged, over 65,500 were totally destroyed and the estimated value of the property damage was $839 million.
Close to 12,000 people are still in 43 evacuation centers.
“The devastation was total,” Disaster Council head Benito Ramos said. With Jenniffer B. Austria, Maricel V. Cruz, Macon Ramos-Araneta and Othel V. Campos

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