Rappler Newscast | May 24, 2012

Rappler.com

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Corona's lawyers say their client wants to go back to the Senate and apologize. Prosecution spokesman Sonny Angara says Corona's walk-out may be a killer blow to his defense. Jessica Sanchez loses the title American Idol to Phillip Phillips.

HEADLINES
Today on Rappler.

  • Chief Justice Renato Corona’s lawyers say their client wants to go back to the Senate and apologize.

 

REP. SONNY ANGARA: And we realized, that’s suicidal, what he’s doing, to not undergo cross examination would be like a killer blow for this case.

  • Prosecution spokesman Sonny Angara says Corona’s walk-out may be a killer blow to his defense.


RYAN SEACREST: The winner of American Idol season 11 is Philip Phillips.

  • And, Jessica Sanchez loses the title American Idol to Phillip Phillips.


Story 1
CORONA DOCTORS: HIS CONDITION IS STABLE
Chief Justice Renato Corona’s doctors rule out a heart attack saying he’s in “stable condition.”
But the doctors from Medical City advise him against appearing at the Senate to avoid stress.
If Corona chooses to defy this advice, the doctors say they will ask him to sign a waiver.
The Chief Justice will move out of the intensive care unit Thursday.
That brings us to the question: will Corona appear in the Senate tomorrow?
Lead defense counsel Serafin Cuevas says he will – despite his doctors’ medical advice.
Cuevas says he told Corona: They might think you’re not being respectful of the court.

Story 2
CORONA: I NEED TO GO BACK, APOLOGIZE
Defense counsel Ramon Esguerra says the Chief Justice is determined to face the Senate on Friday.
He quotes Corona saying “I need to go back, to apologize, to allow questions.”
Esguerra tells Rappler, counsels unanimously decided the Chief Justice needs to be present on Friday, to the extent that his medical condition allows.
Esguerra says the consensus was reached after the backlash of Corona’s abrupt departure from the witness stand, pointing out some Senator judges may have been offended.
Counsels deny Corona’s departure was a walk out nor was staged.
Esguerra says Corona told them his ‘vision blurred in the last 5 minutes, and he started to become disoriented.’
‘He was speaking very, very softly, but very firm in what he told us’
Defense lawyers say Corona looks better and was less pale Thursday, but they claim his blood pressure was fluctuating on the monitor.
Esguerra tells Rappler, “nothing will prevent Corona from coming”.
But he adds the outcome is still unpredictable.
Presiding Officer Juan Ponce Enrile gave a Friday deadline for the defense to close its case.

Story 3
WALKOUT OR MEDICAL EMERGENCY?
Was it a walkout or a medical emergency?
Rappler’s Carmela Fonbuena caught the Tuesday chaos on her Iphone.

PRESIDING OFFICER JUAN PONCE ENRILE: Order, we have not discharged the Chief Justice. With due respect to him, I respect him as a Chief Justice but this court must be respected. Sergeant at arms, saran niyo ang…
(Video of Corona and wife walking out runs.)

The men in blue are members of the Supreme Court security. Those in white are members of the Senate security.

Ang order ni Senate President “close all doors”. Automatically pagka ganyan ang nangyayari we automatically close all doors. I went to the exit sa senate lounge when i was there chief justice corona with his bodyguards. Sabi ko sa kanya “i’m sorry”. Tapos sabi nya sa akin, are you arresting me, and he was looking me straight in the eye. “You know very well in a court of law any judge can order”…nang sumabat si Mrs Corona “Is this martial law?”
JOSE BALAJADIA JR.
SENATE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS

Story 4
SONNY ANGARA ON WALK-OUT: KILLER BLOW
Aurora Representative Sonny Angara says it would be suicidal and a killer blow to the defense if Corona refuses to be cross-examined in court.

Course it was running through our mind, what’s he up to, what’s he doing? And we realized, that’s suicidal, what he’s doing, to not undergo through CE would be like a killer blow for this case.  Because then the court coudl freely dispose with his testimony. Because a  witness testimony without a benefit of cross examination is really not worth very much. The court would be free to disregard it.
SONNY ANGARA
AURORA REPRESENTATIVE

RESSA: When you looked at him on that day, I mean, we can see some of the video now, did he look sick?
ANGARA: Uh, not very, no, no. He seemed to be in quite high-spirits and quite confident when he delivered his speech.

Angara also explains why the prosecution offered to forgo cross-examination of the Chief Justice on Friday.

ANGARA: But there’s a few things we would have wanted to ask them but we’re willing to forgo those in the interest of moving forward, even if those statements are allowed to be out on record, we think we’ve built a strong case.

Story 5
NLEX-SLEX ROAD LINK
The government plans to free up Metro Manila thoroughfares…
by connecting the north and south Luzon expressways in 2013.
Metro Pacific Tollways Development Corporation led by its chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan, and San Miguel-backed Citra Metro Manila Tollways headed by San Miguel President Ramon Ang present their proposals to President Aquino Wednesday.
The road projects will link Makati City to Caloocan and Balintawak.
It will decongest traffic within Metro Manila by providing an alternative route to existing roads Edsa and C-5, aiming to cut travel time from NLEX to SLEX and vice versa.

When you have to ship all of this and u have to go by boats, coming from Manila ports, you have to contend with traversing Edsa, that adds a significant amount of travel time, adds pressure to your deliveries and increases the pollution quotient with in NCR.
PRESIDENT BENIGNO AQUINO III

Story 6
THE wRap: YOUR WORLD IN ONE READ
Let’s now look at Rappler’s “wRap” for today, a list of the ten most important events around the world you shouldn’t miss.

At number 3, Amnesty International says the UN Security Council fails to match the courage of protesters around the world and is becoming- quote- unfit for its purpose. They say UN leaders should put rights over profits, noting its failure to stop the global arms trade.

At number 4, Pakistan jails doctor Shakil Afridi for helping the US Central Intelligence Agency to collect DNA samples of Osama bin Laden.
Charged with treason, he was tried in the Khyber district for running a fake vaccination program to gather information on bin Laden.
US Secretary of State is calling for his release.

At number 6, Germany and France are in fierce debates on existing austerity measures. European Union leaders meet as the Euro hits a two-year low. New French President Francois Hollande pushes his proposal for the launch of eurobonds which was rejected by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The French leader says he wants to see eurobonds in the union’s agenda for the future.

At number 7, Facebook shares plunge 18% over the first 3 trading sessions prompting investors and lawyers to sue Facebook and its underwriters.
They say institutional investors may have received privileged information driving them to dump the shares at the expense of small investors.
And at number 10, Sharon Stone’s Filipina ex-nanny sues the film star for wrongful dismissal and harassment.
Erlinda Elemen claims the actress equates being Filipino with being stupid and orders her not to speak in front of her children so they don’t adopt her accent.
She also accuses Stone of criticizing her religious habits.
Stone slams Elemen’s lawsuit as an attempt to cash in on her.

Story 7
JESSICA SANCHEZ IS NOT AMERICA’S IDOL
Jessica Sanchez loses her bid to be this season’s American Idol.
In a two-hour, star-studded finale, host Ryan Seacrest announces Phillip Phillips as the winner of the singing competition.
He is the 5th consecutive male contestant to win the show.
The finale featured performances from Rihanna, Neil Diamond, Judge J-Lo and Steven Tyler as well as performances from this year’s top finalists.
Sanchez also delivers a breathtaking performance of And I Am Telling You together with its original singer Jennifer Holliday.
The final performance night that featured Sanchez and Phillips singing in front of 7,000 fans set an idol record of 132 million votes cast by America during the 4-hour voting window.
Despite the grand finale, the once top-rating show in all of American television, drops to 14.39 million from a high of 40 million, its lowest ever.

Story 8
WHY PHILLIP WON? ‘STRONG REGIONAL POLARIZATION’
If we go by total social media sentiment, Jessica appeared to be in the lead.
So why did Phillip Phillips win Season 11 of American Idol?
An analysis of geopolitical twitter mentions of American Idol shows that while Jessica may have led in terms of total social media sentiment globally…
Phillips was generally favored in the US.
A study posted by Cornell University analyzes the fanbase of each contestant, within the US and abroad.  
It reveals that “strong regional polarizations occur” when it comes to social media chatter about the contestants.
This map shows Twitter in the US favors Phillip Phillips.
It also shows Jessica’s fan base is from the West Coast and other pockets of the US while Phillip was ahead with the rest of the country.
Of course, things would have been different if the rest of the world including Pinoys were allowed to vote.
The study says “the advantage of Phillip in the U.S. is remarkably smaller than the one of Jessica in the aggregated dataset, and the voting coming from abroad might have a crucial role in determining the outcome of the finale.”
The study also said that Jessica is the only contestant that had a strong Twitter signal originating from outside of the U.S. and in particular from the Philippines.

-Rappler.com

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