500 Million Pesos for RPA-ABB

Presidential adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Deles allowed the release of several millions to the members of the RPP-ABB, or the Revolutionary Proletarian Party-Alex Boncayao Brigade, a splinter group of the Communist Party of the Philippines. 


The RPA-ABB has been waiting for the conclusion of their peace talks with the Government for more than ten years. One of the things they want is the release of about 500 million pesos to them to fund their livelihood projects.


Former president Joseph Estrada initiated talks with the group during his time, but cut the flow of funds to the rebels when, as Estrada said, the group started kidnapping operations in Bacolod.


Now, with Deles on board and members of the AKBAYAN, which is being led by Ronald Llamas inside the palace, the government allowed the release of the expected funds.


More than 30 million pesos were given to the rebel group as initial goodwill money to be followed by another tranche of funds.


These funds are allotted for the reintegration into society of these rebels, who, for several years already, have fought government forces in several towns.

Dacer-Corbito case will not be closed without Tan Testimony

Dante Tan

The Dacer-Corbito case will never be totally closed without the testimony and arrest of Dante Tan. Tan, who was involved in the very controversial BW Shares scandal, left for Canada shortly after the EDSA dos revolution. NBI sources say he's either in Canada or New Zealand. The question is---why is he not being pursued?


Tan was a client of the late publicist. Tan was a very close buddy of former president Joseph Estrada. At the height of the BW scandal, Tan, according to several sources, gave several incriminating documents to Dacer.

Dacer consulted former president Fidel Valdez Ramos and wanted to come clean on the issue. It was then the impeachment trial and the BW shares were being discussed in public. 


Based on several accounts submitted by those involved in the case, Tan reportedly got angry. Several days later, Dacer went missing. The publicist vehicle was recovered.


Angles were put forward:


1. Dacer was executed due to his knowledge of the BW SHARES scandal. Who executed him? Several theories:


1.1. A unit within PAOCTF reportedly headed by Cesar Mancao. According to several PAOCTF members, only Mancao got the order from alleged conspiracist Dante Tan. Michael Ray Aquino and Ping Lacson do not know about it. There is a current practice in the police force of "special projects". These "projects" constitute assassination. Mancao reportedly got the job order from Tan directly.


This explains why Mancao is so ashamed to reveal this aspect of the case. They operated on Dacer mainly upon the orders of Tan. Tan, being very close to Erap, has a direct communications with the PAOCTF team.


That explains why Michael Ray Aquino's public pronouncement yesterday involves exonerating both Lacson and Estrada. They have nothing to do with the death of Bubby Dacer . 


Dante Tan must surface immediately to clear his name on this one. There are also several talks of reviving the investigation on the BELLE CORPORATION/BW SHARES SCANDAL.

Vizconde Case is not yet over

Former senator Freddie Webb says the recent decision of the Supreme Court to junk the appeal of Lauro Vizconde has "closed the Vizconde massacre case". Not quite.


Webb must remember that President Aquino himself ordered a re-investigation into the case, and the Department of Justice is leading the charge. Fact is, Justice secretary Leila de Lima even dared his son, Hubert, to go and have a lie detector test.


Lauro, for his part, is fully determined to heighten the campaign against the real killers of his family. He believes that Webb's son and his friends perpetuated the crime, the most brutal and the most gruesome back in 1991.


There are still many groups out there which believe in the guilt of the people exonerated by the Supreme Court and the possibility of having a direct collision exists. This Vizconde case is getting bigger by the day.


Gruesome crimes are rising and this is a symptom of a worsening economic and social condition. Many poor people are getting desperate, and are resorting to crimes against property and life. The landscape is beginning to be very harsh, and police is helpless in stemming the crime wave. This is the flipside of food riots, the overt signs of a rising undercurrent of dissent affecting the country.


Ordinary Filipinos are not as brazen as other nationalities. Other people will militate and use the streets to express their desperation. 


In our country, people express their outrage and their desperation by breaking every law there is. Hungry people knows no law, says former President Joseph Estrada. This explains what is happening in the Philippines today.


Force is never used to placate the rumblings of the gut. It is thru an effective economic policy of the State that these things are solved. 


When you ask a General, what is happening to our country, that General would just point upwards and say, Mr. President, what is happening to our country?


Desperate people commit desperate crimes. In these desperate times, ordinary people suffer from the inner outrage of other people who lost opportunities in a fast-changing landscape. 


No one is safe. No one.