Duterte lifts suspension on PCSO lotto games

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte lifted the suspension of lotto operations of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), Malacañang said on Tuesday night.

“As per the advice of Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea, the suspension of Lotto operations has been ordered lifted by the President,” Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement.

However, Panelo said the rest of the gaming operations with franchises, licenses or permits granted by PCSO such as Small-Town Lottery (STL), Keno and Peryahan ng Bayan, “shall remain suspended pending the investigation of illegal activities and corrupt practices related thereto until the Office of the President evaluates the results of said probe.”

“Franchise holders and operators of lotto outlets may now resume with their operations. The lifting of the suspension of lotto operations takes effect immediately,” he added.

Asked why it was lifted, Medialdea said that “investigators found no anomalies in the conduct of its operation, its sanctity remained untainted and proper regulatory rules followed.”

Last week, Duterte ordered the closure of all gaming activities of the PCSO due to “massive corruption.”

Malacañang had claimed that there was a conspiracy among major players in the PCSO games that deprived the government of its rightful share of revenues.

More than 21,000 lotto outlets and other PCSO gaming kiosks were shut down nationwide after the President declared these as illegal.

Read more at https://www.manilatimes.net/

Stop Negros Oriental killings!

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has appealed to the government to stop the spike in brutal killings in Negros Oriental, where 17 people have been killed in the past week.

“Some of the victims had placards placed on their bodies, warning others that they may be next should they break the law. The people of Negros Oriental deserve better than to live in fear of the rampant violence and brutality just outside their doorstep,” CHR spokesman Jacqueline Ann de Guia said in a statement.

The commission urged the government to investigate and implement measures “to stop these killings and [to find] the perpetrators before more lives are needlessly lost.”

The CHR office in Negros Oriental had started its own investigation of the killings in Siaton, Ayungon, Sta. Catalina and Guihulngan City.

On Saturday, former Ayungon town mayor Edcel Enardecido, his cousin Leo Enardecido, Canlaon City Councilor Ramon Jalandoni, Panubigan village chairman Ernesto Posadas and village staff Anaciancino Rosalita were killed.

The spate of killings came after the execution of four intelligence officers of the Ayungon police force on July 18, allegedly carried out by members of the New People’s Army.

Read more at https://www.msn.com

Philippine's Most Admired

Rodrigo Duterte remains Philippine’s most admired man

Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte has again topped the list as Philippine’s most admired man, according to YouGov’s annual study of which public figures people look up to.

Other notable Filipinos on the list include professional boxer and Senator of the Philippines Manny Pacquiao in fifth place, and actor Coco Martin in seventh.

Entertainers make up a significant part of the list. Hong Kong martial arts artist Jackie Chan comes in third, and Hollywood actors Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt come in sixth and tenth respectively.

Technology billionaire entrepreneurs also fare well in the top ten. Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates is in fourth place, and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma in ninth.

The top ten list of most admired men is completed with Pope Francis in second place and former President of the United States Barack Obama in eighth.

Actress and model Angel Locsin is Philippine’s most admired woman this year. She is followed by fellow actress Anne Curtis in second place.

Most of the top ten consists of entertainers. Hollywood actresses Angelina Jolie, Gal Gadot and Emma Watson come in third, fourth and fifth respectively. Talk show hosts Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Degeneres come in seventh and ninth. American singer Taylor Swift comes in eighth and Filipino actress Marian Rivera is in tenth.

The list is completed with Queen Elizabeth II in sixth place.

 Methodology

In December YouGov gathered open-ended nominations from panellists across 41 countries, asking them simply: “Thinking about people alive in the world today, which [man or woman] do you most admire?” These nominations were then used to compile a list of the 20 men and 20 women who received the most nominations and were nominated in at least four countries. An additional 10 popular local figures were added to the lists for individual countries. 

In January we then used the lists to poll each of the 41 countries asking two questions: “who do you truly admire?”, where respondents could make multiple selections, and “who do you MOST admire?”, where they could only pick one. These two numbers were combined into a percentage share of admiration, displayed to the right of each name in the graphic above and table below, which shows the full results for every country including local celebrities and public figures:

Source: https://ph.yougov.com

‘Bikoy’ surrenders to PNP-CIDG over cyberlibel case

Peter Joemel Advincula, the man who claims to be the hooded narrator of the anti-Duterte series "And Totoong Narcolist", surrendered to police on Monday night over a warrant of arrest for cyberlibel case.

This was confirmed to GMA News Online by Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) chief Major General Amador Corpuz.

CIDG-NCR chief Colonel Arnold Thomas Ibay said Advincula surrendered to the police at around 7 p.m.

Ibay said the warrant of arrest against Advincula was issued by the Legazpi City Regional Trial Court Branch 5.

PNP chief Police General Oscar Albayalde said Advincula is being booked at the CIDG-NCR office as of posting time. —NB, GMA News

Party-list representative briefly detained at airport for cracking bomb joke

Making bomb jokes at the airport is never funny. In fact, it’s illegal.

A party-list congressman was briefly held at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 in Pasay City yesterday after he allegedly made a bomb joke while checking in for a flight to Cagayan de Oro.

The erring lawmaker who dropped the joke was neophyte Representative Sergio Dagooc of the party-list group Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives, according to a statement Philippine Airlines (PAL) sent to ABS-CBN News.

Dagooc arrived at around 2:30pm at NAIA’s PAL counter where his carry-on bag was weighed by agent Pearl May Lansang, reported Rappler. Lansang told Dagooc that his bag was over the weight limit by 4 kilograms and suggested that the lawmaker check-in his baggage instead. The airline employee asked Dagooc what was inside his bag and he joked that it contained a bomb.

Maj. Querico Tomotorgo of the Philippine National Police Aviation Station 2 told radio station DZBB that upon hearing the joke, Lansang reported Dagooc to her supervisor and the terminal’s security commander.

Making bomb jokes at the airport is prohibited by Presidential Decree No. 1727. Those found guilty will be imprisoned for not more than five years or fined with not more than PHP40,000 (US$783.20).

Dagooc’s lawyer later appeared at the police station and told authorities that based on Section 11, Article VI of the 1987 Constitution, a lawmaker is privileged from all arrests when Congress is in session if the crime is punishable by less than 6 years imprisonment. The authorities let Dagooc leave because his alleged crime was punishable for only a maximum of five years imprisonment and because the 18th Congress had started on Monday.

Tomotorgo told Rappler, however, that PAL still plans to file a case against Dagooc.

The airline company told all passengers to refrain from making such jokes.

“PAL, the Aviation Security Group and our civil aviation authorities do not take such utterances lightly,” it warned in its statement.

Dagooc’s case follows an incident involving another misbehaving lawmaker, Alfred de los Santos of the party-list Ang Probinsyano. De los Santos became viral earlier this month when he was caught on camera assaulting a waiter at a popular restaurant in Legazpi City, Albay.

Source: https://coconuts.co

Supreme Court affirms Raffy Tulfo libel conviction

The Supreme Court has affirmed the libel conviction of broadcast journalist  Raffy Tulfo in connection with a column he wrote in 2003.

In an April 10 decision seen Thursday, the Third Division also ordered Tulfo and representatives of Abante Tonite's publisher to pay businessman Michael Guy P500,000 in moral damages, P1 million in exemplary damages, and P211,200 in attorney's fees.

The amount reflected an increase from the P500,000 in moral damages and P211,200 in attorney's fees that the Court of Appeals (CA) ordered the accused to pay Guy in 2014.

"Here, respondents published the libelous article without verifying the truth of the allegations against petitioner," the Court held in an 18-page decision.

The Makati City Regional Trial Court convicted Tulfo and the other respondents of libel in 2010.

The CA affirmed the judgment with a modification on the amount of damages in 2013 and 2014.

Guy then elevated his case to the High Court to seek P5 million in moral damages. However, agreeing with the appeals court, the Third Division found that Guy "failed to substantiate the loss he had allegedly sustained."

"His allegation of possibly earning P50,000,000.00 in 10 years is a mere assumption without any foundation. This bare allegation is insufficient to prove that he has indeed lost P5,000,000.00 as earnings," the Court ruled.

The decision was penned by Associate Justice Marvic Leonen with concurrences from Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Andres Reyes, Jr., Ramon Paul Hernando, and Rosmari Carandang.

The ruling came with a reminder for journalists that "crafting inaccurate and misleading news is a blatant violation of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics."

"As such, journalists should observe high standards expected from their profession. They must take responsibility for the accuracy of their work, careful never to deliberately distort facts or context by verifying information before releasing it for public consumption," the Court said. —NB, GMA News

HONG KONG PROTEST | 'We saved ourselves': Hong Kong train attack victims describe 30-minute ordeal

Victims of an attack by masked men in a Hong Kong train station on Sunday have accused police of not responding to their calls for help, saying: “We saved ourselves … because nobody else was there.”

Their faces obscured by masks, they gave emotional testimony at a press briefing on Wednesday alongside the Democratic party lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting, who was also injured in the attacks.

Their statements came as Beijing blamed the unrest in Hong Kong on “black hands” from the US, advising America to remember that “Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong”.

One man, who gave his surname as Leung, was on his way to meet friends when he stopped at Yuen Long and saw the men attacking commuters on the platform and in train carriages.

“The carriage was full of the smell of blood,” he said. He tried to help a man who was on the ground and was beaten over the head. “During the whole thing I didn’t see a single policeman or MTR [transport] staff,” he said, adding that the attack lasted 30 minutes. “I kept looking for the police but they never came.”

A woman who gave her surname as Hui said she witnessed the attacks from inside her train carriage whose doors did not open when her train reached the station. She said she watched helplessly, calling the emergency services but no one answered. “We saved ourselves … because nobody else was there”, she said.

The Guardian view on violence in Hong Kong: an attack on the idea of democracy

 Read more

Others stressed that those attacked were not just protesters. A 58-year-old man recounted in English how he arrived at the station with his son to find women screaming and asking for help and more than 100 men in white “attacking kids”. He described the 20 minutes he experienced there as “life and death”. “We are innocent citizens, passengers on the way home,” he said. “I am asking for global help for Hong Kong people. We don’t trust our government.”

On Sunday, dozens of men in white T-shirts attacked commuters, some of whom were returning from a mass anti-government march that day. The attack and delayed response by police has led to accusations of government collusion with organised crime groups active in those areas.

The attacks have added new momentum to protests, which began over a controversial extradition bill and have now taken on new demands, including an investigation into police behaviour.

On Wednesday protesters temporarily blocked morning commuters at a major transit station in Admiralty, in central Hong Kong, as they demanded answers from the transportation authority. Several other rallies are planned for the week and weekend.

Read more at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/24/hong-kong-protests-china-blames-black-hands-of-us-for-unrest

‘Duterte thinks 60% of mayors are womanizers’

MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte thinks that about 60 percent of mayors in the country are womanizers, an official of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said yesterday.

DILG Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III said the President made the remark during his dialogue with Local Chief Executives (LCEs) at the Manila Hotel on Tuesday night.

President Duterte met with around 1,500 LCEs which included governors and city and municipal mayors from all over the country, in a gathering a day after he delivered his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) where he reiterated his commitment to the fight against corruption and illegal drugs.

“The President was serious. He said 60 percent of mayors are womanizers,” Densing said, speaking in Filipino in an interview over dzMM.

Densing, who was present at the gathering, said Duterte believes this is one of the reasons why corruption in government remains rampant. “If a lot of them are womanizing, it seems they are now even more required to have money in their pockets,” he said.

San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora confirmed that Duterte made the statement but said the Chief Executive was only joking. “It was most likely a joke,” he said in a phone interview.

Densing said Duterte expressed his frustration over the rampant corruption in government despite his aggressive campaign. “He wants to resign because he can’t seem to keep up with the never-ending corruption,” he said in Filipino.

During the meeting, the President congratulated the LCEs who were given new mandates by their constituents, but also warned them not to get involved in the illegal drug trade or there would be grave consequences.

Island Garden City of Samal Mayor David Uy told The STAR that the President admonished them not to get involved in the illegal drug trade. “He really pointed to us that he will never tolerate any of us getting into illegal drugs,” he said.

Zamboanga City Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar said she strongly supports the President’s campaign in ridding the country of illegal drugs amidst criticisms from some international countries concerned over human rights abuses.

Duterte also repeated the directives from his SONA for local officials to speed up government transactions and reclaim roads used for private purposes to ease traffic congestion.

Zamora said they have been implementing measures to comply with Duterte’s directives. This includes clearing roads of obstructions to ease traffic especially in Greenhills, San Juan’s commercial district. – With Edith Regalado, Roel Pareño, Christina Mendez

Source: https://www.philstar.com/

Neil Armstrong’s Death, and a Stormy, Secret $6 Million Settlement

When Neil Armstrong died in a Cincinnati hospital two weeks after undergoing heart surgery in 2012, his family released a touching tribute addressing the astronaut’s millions of admirers around the globe. 

“Honour his example of service, accomplishment and modesty,” they wrote, telling fans of the first man to walk on the moon that “the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”

But in private, the family’s reaction to his death at 82 was far stormier. His two sons contended that incompetent post-surgical care at Mercy Health – Fairfield Hospital had cost Mr Armstrong his life, and even one expert retained by the hospital would find serious problems with his treatment.

The hospital defended the care, but paid the family $6 million to settle the matter privately and avoid devastating publicity, documents show. The hospital insisted on keeping the complaints and the settlement secret.

Mr Armstrong had undergone bypass surgery in early August 2012, and his wife told The Associated Press afterward that he was “amazingly resilient” and was walking in the corridor. But when nurses removed the wires for a temporary pacemaker, he began to bleed into the membrane surrounding the heart, leading to a cascade of problems that resulted in his death on Aug. 25.

In a scorching July 2014 email to the hospital’s lawyers, Wendy R. Armstrong, a lawyer and the wife of Mr Armstrong’s son Mark, noted that Mark and his brother, Rick, would soon be travelling to Florida to speak at a ceremony marking the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing.

Read more at MSN.com

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Ford Ranger falls off Ortigas hotel; driver injured

The driver of a gray 4x4 Ford Ranger was injured before noon Friday after the vehicle fell from the second floor of a building in Ortigas Center, Pasig City.

Victim Rocky Pagaragan Yabut, 30, was rushed to the Rizal Medical Center for treatment due to fractures in his left arm and leg, according to the Eastern Police District.

Source: msn.com

She says she married a pirate’s ghost — and she wants you to stop calling her crazy

Amanda Large Teague was meditating the first time she says she met the ghost of a 300-year-old Haitian pirate. She thought he was rude to interrupt her solitude, so she told him to leave. Then he showed up again.

The third time he visited, Teague, of Belfast, said she decided to talk with him.

After she communicated with the ghost for several months, Teague said, she became convinced that he was Jack Teague, who she later claimed had inspired the character of Captain Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies. (Experts challenge these assertions.)

Teague’s beliefs, which fall under the umbrella of New Age spirituality, test the boundaries of what types of faith people in Western cultures are willing to accept. Though experts say Teague’s story is an outlier and not representative of most New Age spirituality, the range of beliefs — which includes reincarnation and astrology — is more common among Americans than it may seem. 

Heavy rains ahead from Falcon

MANILA, Philippines — Tropical Depression Falcon is expected to bring rains in many parts of the country in the next three days but may not be able to raise Angat dam’s water supply to normal level.

Esperanza Cayanan, chief of the weather division of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), said Falcon may bring 50 to 100 millimeters (mm) of rain over Bulacan, where the reservoir is located, today and tomorrow.

“This is a general forecast. (Today) we expect 50 to 100 mm and hopefully the rains will fall over Angat. (Tomorrow), 25 to 50 mm. We hope the monsoon rains in the area will be accompanied by thunderstorms,” she said.

PAGASA hydrologist Richard Orendain said as of 6 a.m. yesterday the water level at Angat was at 158.75 meters, still below the 160-meter critical level.

Report: Clippers to sign Kawhi, acquire George from OKC

Superstar free agent Kawhi Leonard will sign with the Los Angeles Clippers, Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reports, citing sources.

The Clippers are also acquiring Paul George in a blockbuster trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

In exchange for George, the Clippers are sending the Thunder a massive haul that includes Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari, four unprotected first-round picks, an additional protected first-rounder, and two pick swaps, Wojnarowski adds.

More to come.  ▶▶ www.thescore.com/

Blue Bell Is Looking for a Woman Filmed Licking Ice Cream and Putting It Back in a Store Freezer

Blue Bell Ice Cream is looking for a woman seen in a viral video opening a container of the brand’s Tin Roof flavored ice cream, licking the top and putting it back in a store freezer. In the footage, the woman is seen quickly licking the top of a tub of open ice cream while, off-camera, someone encourages her before saying, “Put it back.” The woman laughs throughout the short video.

The owner of the Twitter account responsible for sharing the viral video, which goes by the name Optimus Primal, tells TIME he found the video through Instagram as part of a story shared by the actress Alexis Fields-Jackson and reposted it. He says did not know the identities of the people in the video.

Pinay call center agent jailed in HK after joining ‘free tour’

A Filipina call center agent had to spend six months in a jail facility in Hong Kong after being lured to join a free trip to the foreign country.

According to a report by Emil Sumangil on GMA's 24 Oras on Tuesday, the 23-year-old Maureen Guttierez said she was offered a 5-day all-expenses paid tour in Hong Kong last year. It was her sister's godmother who made the offer which also comes with pocket money worth P15,000.

The victim said she was forced to sign an employment contract and open a bank account when they arrived in Hong Kong.

"Paglapag po namin sa Hong Kong, nag-antay lang kami sandali tapos mayroong dumating na parang Chinese na boss nila then sila nagbigay sa amin ng instructions. Pinagpahinga kami, pinakain, tapos bandang hapon pinag-open na kami ng bank account," Guttierez said.