FRENCH LIVING IN THE PHILIPPINES

In her youth, graft-buster COA Commissioner Heidi Mendoza, knew the essence of "equity". Their daily "baon" to school for all her siblings were left inside a can of coins on the table every morning for each to get their share. Even then, Heidi made sure she did not take one centavo more because, consequently, one of them will be unfairly deprived. Such is the state of corruption. It is a zero sum game. Whenever one steals, someone else will suffer. When one steals, it is always one classroom, one desk less. When one steals, it is always one kilometer of road or a few inches of asphalt less. When one steals, it is always one box of antibiotic less, one less nurse to hire in the countryside. The cost of corruption is always personal to the Filipino people. Former president Gloria M. Arroyo has been arrested for an election sabotage case; she is facing four other plunder cases and one more (2004) election sabotage case. The odds are stacked against her. One plu...

ARROYO  ...  DERRIERE LES BARREAUX  ? Former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who tried to leave the country on medical grounds while the government scrambled to file charges against her, is well enough to leave the hospital where she was arrested last week, she and her doctors agree. Arroyo lawyer Jose Flaminiano told a court Friday he was withdrawing his motion for a hospital arrest in favor of house arrest. Earlier, he had resisted efforts to have doctors testify about Arroyo's condition. Arroyo is "fit to be released as outpatient," her physician Dr. Mario Ver testified Friday. Arroyo has had three surgeries on her cervical spine, and she argued before her arrest that she needed to travel abroad for an urgent bone treatment that she claimed was unavailable in the Philippines. The government refused to let her go this month, even after the Supreme Court ruled in her favor. She wore a head and neck brace as she was turned away from the Manila airpor...

Nov 20. 2011, Joseph Estrada prie très fort pour la prompte guérison de l'ancienne Présidente Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, il lui souhaite de tout cœur de se remettre rapidement ... de façon à pouvoir être, très vite, jetée en prison. Apparemment il n'a toujours pas digéré le coup d'état de 2001. On November 19 Erap said of former President Gloria that he wished her a speedy recovery so she can serve her sentence for the non-bailable crime of electoral sabotage. “I feel vindicated,” Estrada said, adding, ”Let’s hope and pray for her continued recovery so that she can serve fully her sentence.” “Now that the case is filed it’s about time that justice should be served,” Estrada pointed out. It was Arroyo who sent Estrada to jail after she ousted him from office in January 2001. Estrada was charged with plunder, also a non-bailable crime, before the Sandiganbayan. Estrada was in Singapore where The STAR reached him for comment about the imminent arrest of Arroyo afte...

TOUT ...  EST CALME Comme vous le savez très certainement l'ancienne Présidente de la République des Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a été arrétée au motif de sabotage des élections sénatoriales de 2007. Mais la rue reste calme, pas de manifestation ''pro-Gloria''. C'est tout juste si une vingtaine de personnes, appartenant à un mouvement activiste, ont défilé devant l'hôpital où elle se trouve confinée. Ces manifestants étaient porteurs de pancartes sur lesquelles on pouvait lire ''Gloria en prison''. It's business as usual in the Philippines, with no army unrest or fears of massive street protests despite the dramatic arrest of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and a looming legal battle by her lawyers to seek her release, officials said Sunday. Backers of the ailing Arroyo, who was arrested at a Manila hospital Friday for alleged election tampering, have accused President Benigno Aquino III's administration of ...

Des couteaux papillons, fabriqués dans la province de Batangas, au sud de Manille. BUTTERFLY KNIVES The blade that defines the Batangueno if there is a landmark worth erecting in Batangas province in northern Philippines, it would be the sculpture of the balisong (fan knife) that  has defined the unique art, craft, and culture of Batanguenos for centuries. Though Barangay Balisong in Taal town, also known as the balisong capital of the Philippines, is now suffering from the dwindling supply of knife experts, Diosdado Ona, owner of the Ona Blades store, sees a chance of reviving the dying industry. "I think if the government would support the balisong industry, and promote it by putting up the fan knife landmarks in all the entrances to the province such as Laguna, Cavite, and Quezon, people will know and appreciate the industry," Ona said. In front of Ona's store along the highway of Barangay Balisong is a six-foot balisong. He said the fan kni...

Alors que la 7ème flotte se promène de plus en plus dans le secteur de la Mer de Chine du Sud,  que des navires US visitent ou font des exercices dans les eaux territoriales philippines, les Etats-Unis déclarent officiellement vouloir ''renforcer'' la Navy philippines, dont les unités datent pour la plupart, de la seconde guerre mondiale. The United States is helping the Philippines reinforce its weak navy as its longtime Asian ally wrangles with China in increasingly tense territorial disputes, officials said. The long-simmering disputes over the potentially oil-rich South China Sea islands are xpected to top U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's agenda in meetings Wednesday with President Benigno Aquino III and other top officials in Manila. Clinton's two-day visit, which began Tuesday, will be capped by a highly symbolic ceremony aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald in Manila Bay to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the a...

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PHILIPPINES LE PASSÉ ! Ce qui manque aux Philippines, c'est l'histoire, l'histoire pré-coloniale, le passé qui reste à découvrire et à écrire ... dans le futur ! Une nouvelle page va-elle-s'écrire avec Boljoon ? After five grueling hours of non-stop land travel from Cebu City, our team finally reached our target destination: a third-class, quiet municipality of Cebu called Boljoon. Situated at the southern part of Cebu, Boljoon rendered me speechless. I was immediately smitten by the spectacular view from where I stood: the open sea glistening like diamonds as far as the eyes could see, the towering, majestic mountainside to my left; and the imposing, century-old and battle-scarred Boljoon Church, which also served as shelter for the people of Boljoon against Moro raids during the Spanish era. The people of Boljoon must truly feel blessed for their charming town, I thought. Little did I know that far greater treasure was just waiting to be discovered benea...

La Marche d'Agusan, une région pour l'Ecotourisme ? The Agusan Marsh, where Lolong the giant crocodile was captured, has tremendous potential for ecotourism but it must be studied well to avoid fatal crocodile-human encounters. The capture of the 6.4 meter-long brackish-water crocodile Lolong has focused global attention on the Agusan Marsh, located for the most part in Agusan del Sur. The Marsh is separated from its Butuan Bay outlet by a horizontal distance of more than 130 km, but its vertical elevation is only 16 meters above sea level. In earlier times when sea levels were higher, it is not difficult to imagine the free ingress of brackishwater crocodiles into the Marsh. More recently, humans have hunted the reptiles for leather and meat, from the 1960s until 1994 when the Marsh came under the National Integrated Protected Area System. NIPAS inclusion effectively stopped most crocodile hunting in the Marsh (already declared a national and intern...