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Hello, Rappler readers!
It’s a day of foreign government leaders having big headaches, of torture victims on own background braving a re-telling of their story in the hope of stopping the government’s idea of giving their tormentor a hero’s burial, and a supposed shift in the focus of the increasingly controversial anti-drug war.
Here are the big stories you shouldn’t miss:
“The Court is listening.” With these words, the Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court encouraged women who were tortured and raped by state agents during Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship to re-tell their stories. It was, a journalist and book author pointed out, the first time the harrowing experience of these victims had been placed in the records of the highest court. Hearing petitions to stop President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to bury Marcos at the heroes’ cemetery, the Supreme Court was trying to establish if Martial Law Victims had been compensated enough under the law.
Brazil’s Senate convicted President Dilma Rousseff of illegally manipulating the national budget, immediately removing her from office. The impeachment vote – with 61 of the 81 senators in favor – leads to the installation of her bitter rival Michel Temer, thus shifting Latin America’s biggest economy sharply to the right. Meanwhile, in the Maldives, a warrant of arrest has been issued against former President Mohamed Nasheed for failing to return to the troubled archipelago to complete a jail sentence after receiving medical care in Britain.
Amid widespread criticism that the government’s anti-drug operations have targeted only the poor and the small fry, the Philippines’ top cop announced that the authorities will, as planned, now be targeting the drug lords. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa also confirmed that a number of celebrities had been reaching out to him to clear their names, after they had been rumored as drug users or pushers. Legitimate police anti-drug operations have so far resulted in almost a thousand deaths in 2 months and the surrender of almost 700,000 suspects, although many complain that their names were randomly listed by village officials.
The Philippine health department has advised pregnant women to avoid travelling to Singapore, as the neighboring city state is facing a rising number of Zika cases, currently at 82. The virus, from a type of mosquito, causes birth defects. The health secretary said those who are planning to get pregnant should “observe safe sex precautions (condoms) to avoid infection.” Meanwhile, another Southeast Asian country, Malaysia, has confirmed its first case of Zika.
Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez has ordered all 1,516 cities and municipalities to adopt a new scheme that would ensure business permits and other licenses are issued within 2 days after clients file requests. The national government targets the local adoption of the system within a month. By the end of 2016, online processing of business permits and licenses should be in place.
Three individuals and 3 organizations received the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Awards, known as the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize. These year’s awardees, dubbed as “Asia’s heroes” for their selfless work for their countries and communities overseas, are from India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, and the Philippines. There have been 312 awardees since the awards named after the late Philippine president, were first given out in 1958.
In celebration of national language month in August, Rappler produced a series of videos featuring either poets reading their own work, or personalities reading the poems of favorite writers – all in Filipino. You can watch here the artists, led by National Artist for Literature Rio Alma.
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