Rappler Newscast | October 21, 2013

Story 1: NAPOLES SUMMONED TO NOV 7 SENATE HEARING
The Senate summons alleged pork barrel queen Janet Lim Napoles to testify before the chamber’s blue ribbon committee on November 7.
Senate President Frank Drilon and Blue Ribbon Committee chair TG Guingona sign the subpoena Monday.
If Napoles attends the hearing, she will face the whistleblowers who named her in the corruption scandal.
As early as September 23, the Senate blue ribbon committee wanted to summon Napoles.
But the Senate President’s signature is needed before a committee can issue a subpoena.
Drilon did not sign the subpoena and wrote Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales twice to ask for her opinion on the matter.
Colleagues slammed his move, saying the Senate is not bound by the Ombudsman’s advice.
Napoles is currently detained at Fort Sto Domingo in Laguna for an illegal detention case involving whistleblower Benhur Luy.

Story 2: RIVAL NGOs BEAT NAPOLES IN HOUSE ‘PORK BARREL’
A ledger prepared by former Napoles aide Benhur Luy shows how entrenched Janet Lim Napoles was in the House of Representatives.
Napoles allegedly used dubious non-governmental organizations as fronts to receive pork barrel funds from lawmakers, who in turn received kickbacks.
Based on Luy’s ledger, between 2004 and 2008, Napoles had as many as 36 House members on her payroll.
This means at one point, she controlled about 15% of the House of Representatives.
Napoles also allegedly maintained a core group of 12 congressmen in her scheme.
But she wasn’t the only one dipping into the pork barrel of the House.
Mapping the findings of the special audit report, a team from the University of the Philippines’ National Institute of Physics found that out of the 63 NGOs, 7 major NGO networks operated in the House.
The biggest player was a network of 8 NGOs led by the Kabuhayan at Kalusugan Alay sa Masa Foundation Inc.
A check with the COA report shows this network got P973.497 million of pork barrel from 2007-2009.
It also had its own share of loyal House members, with at least 27 lawmakers funneling P10 to 65 million of their pork barrel.

Story 3: AFTER BOHOL QUAKE: RECOVERY
A week after a magnitude 7.2 quake hit Central Visayas, residents are starting to rebuild their lives.
In Tagbilaran City in Bohol, department stores and commercial complexes are open and transportation is back to normal.
Some families are still in evacuation centers, but most are now back home, the telltale cracks on the walls of their houses.
But in the hardest-hit areas, people are still camped outside, afraid of aftershocks.
As the province struggles to recover, health issues become a concern in many municipalities.
With community centers and hospitals damaged, doctors set up makeshift wards outside the hospital itself.
But in the town of Loon, where the centuries-old Church of Our Lady of Light lies in ruins, residents find a ray of hope.
On Sunday, rescue teams recover Church relics.
Locals were teary-eyed as the statue of Our Lady of Light and the church crucifix are recovered from the rubble.
The figures, which suffered minimal damage, were cleaned while Sunday mass was held on the street.

Story 4: BOHOL ENTERING EARLY RECOVERY PHASE
Residents of Tagbilaran City in Bohol are struggling to move forward in what officials call the ‘recovery phase.’
Voltaire Tupaz files this video blog.

A week after the magnitude 7.2 quake struck Central Visayas, the government of Bohol, line agencies, and humanitarian aid groups say they are entering the early recovery phase.
Food, water and more decent energy shelters are top priorities.
More than 34,000 houses have been destroyed, displacing at least 73,000 families.They are staying in evacuation centers, outside their homes, and even in rice fields.

LONITA GALLADO, SAGBAYAN RESIDENT: Mahirap. Marami kasi. Wala kami sa bahay kasi malapit nang ano, nasira na ang bahay namin. Sana may ganyan, balong-balong. (It’s really hard. We can’t get relief goods because there are a lot of people. We are not at home because our house has been destroyed.)

Families have started to return to their homes. Though some families came back because of the 5.3 earthquake that struck Bohol early Monday morning.
They live in constant fear but they find comfort in helicopters that fly in and out of the stadium to deliver relief goods.
The sound of the helicopter reassures them that help is on the way.
Voltaire Tupaz, Rappler. Tagbilaran.

Story 5: QUAKE INFRA DAMAGE NOW AT P867M; DEATH TOLL AT 186
The death toll from the Central Visayas earthquake rises to at least 186.
Bohol suffers the highest number of casualties, with 173 people killed in the province.
12 died in Cebu, while one person died in Siquijor.
Eleven people are still missing, all of them from Bohol.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council says damage to bridges, flood control infrastructure, roads, and buildings are now at P867 million.
Aftershocks continue to rattle the region.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology or Phivolcs says 2,193 aftershocks are recorded.
Phivolcs also warns against misinformation as false messages circulate about an “impending” magnitude 8.0 quake.
To counter this, Phivolcs experts visit evacuation sites to debunk it and answer questions.

Story 6: GETTING AROUND TRO? DRILON FILES RESO REALIGNING PDAF
Senate President Frank Drilon files a resolution to realign the senators’ remaining Priority Development Assistance Fund or PDAF to the executive’s calamity fund in 2013.
The High Court issued a temporary restraining order on the remaining PDAF while it is deciding the constitutionality of the allocations.
Drilon wants to consider the unreleased pork barrel as “savings” so they can be used to help calamity victims.
Each of the 24 senators is allotted P200 million in PDAF each year.
If divided into quarterly releases, the fund would still have at least P1.2 billion in the last 4 months of the year.
Asked if the Senate is preempting the Court’s resolution on the constitutionality of the PDAF, Drilon says, “They can still resolve it…We can make our own decision.”

Story 7: SULU SULTAN JAMALUL KIRAM III DIES
Jamalul Kiram III, self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu, died on October 20 of organ failure at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City.
He was 75.
In February, at least 100 of his followers trooped to Lahad Datu, Sabah to revive the Sultanate’s claim to the Eastern Malaysian state.
The move ended in a standoff between Malaysian security troops and Kiram’s “Royal Security Force.”
His spokesman, Abraham Idjirani, says Kiram asked his family to continue to fight to reclaim Sabah.

Story 8: MYANMAR TAKES LEAD ROLE IN ASEAN
Former military state Myanmar takes the helm of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this month.
The international community applauds its steps to greater democracy, but the changes are incomplete and the challenges great.
Ayee Macaraig reports.

It’s a new dawn for Myanmar.
The former pariah state is opening up to the world.
The country also known as Burma steps into the global stage as it symbolically accepts chairmanship of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations for 2014.
The honor is part of international recognition of political and economic reforms after 50 years of brutal military rule.
Besides the release of political prisoners like democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, one of the major changes is in media.
Private newspapers abound in the former capital, Yangon, a sight unseen for decades until censorship was abolished last year.
Journalists like Kyaw Zwa Moe are finally back home.
A former political prisoner, he was in exile in Thailand for 13 years.
He says while the changes in his country are laudable, they are premature.

KYAW ZWA MOE, JOURNALIST, FORMER POLITICAL PRISONER: We haven’t got any government of the people. The government is not for the people, not of the people. So this government is just comprised of former military generals. They just changed their costumes. That is their reality.

Journalists say the former generals are still stuck in their old mindset.  
Media groups rally against a flurry of bills regulating print and broadcast outlets.
The bills require news organizations to apply for licenses, and impose heavy penalties for violating vague rules.

KYAW MIN SWE, CHIEF EDITOR, THE VOICE: They have worry if the media, they give the total freedom of expression, they will write everything… so they are worried like that. So that’s why they try to indirectly control to make the several laws like spider. So if one leg can’t catch, another leg will catch.

Journalists say their industry reflects the uncertainty in the transition process.
Myanmar’s leadership of ASEAN comes at a time ethnic violence worsens and as politicians gear up for the 2015 presidential polls.
The country also struggles to fix poor infrastructure, power outages, and its broken education system.
The challenges are great but journalists see they have a role to play.

KYAW ZWA MOE, JOURNALIST, FORMER POLITICAL PRISONER: You have to be more critical. We have been seeing a lot of mismanagement not only in government but also in the other governments, organizations, associations and we have to be more critical of our own people, their behavior, mentality as well.

The future is unclear but Kyaw Zwa Moe and his fellow journalists are committed to ensure their country will no longer return to its dark past.

AYEE MACARAIG, REPORTING: The international community hails the media gold rush here in the golden land. But with legal and political uncertainty, journalists and observers say there’s still a long way to go before they achieve a truly free press. They say the transition to democracy is a work too fragile to be left to generals-turned-politicians. Ayee Macaraig, Rappler, Yangon, Myanmar.

Story 9: THE wRap: YOUR WORLD IN ONE READ
At number 2, privacy and control of the Internet is a key point of discussion in an annual forum on policy issues related to the Internet.
The 8th United Nations’ Internet Governance Forum in Bali, Indonesia brings together 1,500 delegates to discuss the future of the Internet.
It takes place at a time when whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks fuel attempts to shift control of the Internet’s infrastructure away from the US.

At number 5, firefighters race to contain an enormous blaze in southeastern Australia, with officials warning it could create a “mega-fire”.
Last week, firemen battle fires that flared in high winds and searing heat across New South Wales.
More than 200 homes are destroyed.
A huge fire near the town of Lithgow west of Sydney already burned nearly 40,000 hectares.

And at number 10, the violin played by the bandmaster of the Titanic to calm passengers as the ship sank sold for 900,000 pounds or $1.45 million.
The instrument was found on the body of Wallace Hartley after he drowned on board the supposedly unsinkable ship in 1912.
The violin was sold to a British collector, but was believed lost for decades.
The violin was found in the attic of a house in northwest England in 2006.