After about a week after the deadline, the Philippine National Police’s Board of Inquiry finally submitted on Thursday its findings on the January 25 anti-terror operation in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, where the primary target was killed but resulted in the death of 65 persons, including 44 police commandos. Among the primary findings were that the suspended PNP chief, Alan Purisima, did not have the authority to run the operations, and that 6 Americans provided “real-time information” from the tactical command post during Oplan Exodus. Another finding was that during the final briefing before the operation, President Benigno Aquino III was informed that the police didn’t trust the military, so they kept them out of the loop.

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Sixteen senators led by Vicente Sotto III asked the Philippine anti-graft court to show “judicial compassion” and place Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile under house arrest instead of detaining him at the police hospital “on account of his health and his being 91 years old already.” Five senators, 4 of them known as Enrile’s enemies, didn’t endorsed Sotto’s letter. Enrile is facing plunder charges for allegedly pocketing millions of pesos from the discretionary development fund of his office.

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The number of employed Filipinos increased by 1.04 million to 37.5 million in January 2015, the government’s Labor Force Survey showed. The additional Filipinos employed from January 2014 to January 2015 represented almost 4 times the 281,000 jobs generated in the previous year. “The labor market was boosted by a stronger growth in all sectors, mainly driven by services which grew by 3.9%,” Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said. Except Region VIII of Eastern Visayas, which suffered from Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), all regions showed a decline in unemployment.

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Trial will begin on October 19 for a class-action suit against Facebook for allowing children to spend their parents’ money on the social media site without permission. US District Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose, California, said the hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs may press their claim that Facebook should change how it handles online transactions by minors. The April 2012 lawsuit said Facebook let children use their parents’ credit and debit cards to buy the virtual currency Facebook Credits, and violated California law by refusing refunds under its “all sales are final” policy when the parents complained. Facebook said it will defend itself vigorously.

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Prosecutors called for a 12-year jail sentence for a Canadian and an Indonesian accused of sexually assaulting children at the prestigious Jakarta International School, which has been at the center of a wide-ranging abuse scandal. Neil Bantleman and Ferdinand Tjiong are accused of abusing 3 young children. They have denied committing abuse, and have received strong support from the school and parents of children there over their claims of innocence. Their legal team suggests the case could be motivated by money.

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Tommy Schaefer confessed in an Indonesian court to killing the mother of his pregnant girlfriend, in a grisly case in which the victim’s battered body was found in an abandoned suitcase on the resort island of Bali. He and girlfriend Heather Mack, both from Chicago, are being tried separately for premeditated murder in the death of Shiela von Wiese-Mack. The man said he acted in self defense after the mother attacked him in anger because she objected to the couple’s relationship. Mack told the court her mother also threatened to kill their unborn baby.

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The United States government asked an appeals court to suspend an injunction that has prevented President Barack Obama’s immigration reforms from going forward. Obama had issued executive order to bypass a hostile Congress and drive through measures to protect about 4 million undocumented foreigners from deportation in November. But just before the measures were to go into effect in February, a Texas judge issued an emergency injunction until a trial on their legality could be held. The reforms seek, among other things, to establish guidelines in deferring the deportation of aliens who have longstanding and close family ties to the US and who pose no threats to public or national security.

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Multi-awarded international actress Lea Salonga will be back on Broadway in November, joining George Takei in the premiere of the musical Allegiance, which is based on Takei’s experiences during uncertain times in the United States in World War II. The actresses is encouraging Asian-Americans to audition for roles.

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Starting March 16, at least 12 cities in the Philippine capital region will be sending hourly updates on their air pollution levels to a website the public can access. Anyone may access the data by visiting the air quality monitoring portal of the Environmental Management Bureau. “LGUs will see, this is how high their air pollution is. This is already an appreciation and recognition of the problem. By means of informing the public, they will be clamoring for action. This is pressure for the LGUs to act,” said EMB Director Jonas Leones.

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All the elements of a high school graduation were there: graduates in white, proud relatives in the audience, the education secretary as guest speaker – except the graduates are grownup men. They were the more than 500 inmates in the Maximum Security Compound of the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City who completed secondary education under the government’s Alternative Learning System, a module-based, non-formal way to learn designed for learners who cannot afford to go through formal schooling.Education Secretary Armin Luistro apologized to the graduates on behalf of Filipinos, including the government, who had let them down. He said the graduates are in jail not only because of their own mistakes, but also because of society’s shortcomings.

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