President Aquino rejected the 3rd Class Citizens Mindanao

Visayas and Mindanao fought for recognition to be a called a real Filipino Citizen as Luzon coined themselves as "Filipino" the real and dominant Filipinos with language Filipino based in tagalong inspite of the dominance of Visayan language throughout the country.

Discrimination for Visayan and Mindanaoan people are common in Manila as they were called as 2^nd and 3^rd class citizen of the Philippines, respectively.

Development of the country are focused only in Manila and Luzon which funding are from the government coffers which taxes are collected from Luzon,  Visayas and Mindanao islands.

Only Luzon benefited progress and development for infrastructure and other development project leaving the 2 poor islands Visayas and Mindanao behind.

 The issue rises again; the 2 poor islands Visayas and Mindanao of the Philippines are rejected by their highly respected country leader President Benigno Aqguino III after Aquino ignored their suffering and prioritized his party life in Manila.

Inspite of the thousands of dead floating bodies around Iligan City and Cagayan de Oro City shores by the destructive typhoon Sendong, Aquino preferred to stay in Manila and to celebrate parties than giving his moral support to the hundreds of thousands displaced Mindanaoan.  

Mindanaoan needs strong arm to hold but rejected.

People of Mindanao are suffering; thousands of dead bodies floating in the water and some are covered by the mud but no leader show up to give a hand.

The most devastating typhoon killed thousands of poor people in Iligan City and Cgayan de Oro City calling for help from Manila government but rejected as President Aquino prioritized his personal life, partying with 1^st class citizen of the capital Manila in Luzon.

OFW's from different part of the world are busy sending aid and donation to the victims but Manila gives only a promise after Christmas.

The 3^rd class citizen Mindanaoan needs not only food, money and shelter but also a moral support from the country leader to help them stand.

Many victims commented, "Christmas is a party season, we understand the president to celebrate Christmas, but if he care for us in Mindanao, even for 1 hour that we could see him in his chopper to see us, it could turn a magic of another hope that there is a president who care for us".

Bad politics overpower in Aquino's heart

Iligan City is known to be the place of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as she studied her elementary in one of the public school in such devastated city and her grandmother Macaraeg  is an Iliganon.

Opposite from what the Pro Aquino supporter's thoughts; Iligan City rejected former Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to be a country leader.

People in Iligan City led the protests to oust the known corrupt Arroyo during her term.

Bomb explosions as sign of protest even happened at the backyard of the Macaraeg-Macapagal ancestral in Timoga, Iligan City when Arroyo visited the ancestral house. Iliganon really resist the presidency of the former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo after "hello garci scandal" but they were rejected now for the bad political imagination that they are pro Arroyo supporters.

Virgilio Garcillano , the alleged  responsible for Hello garci scandal is now residing in Bukidnon, a city next to Cagayan de oro.

Philippine leader denies partying

President Benigno Aquino III has fought off accusations that he was partying with starlets as the Philippines was mourning hundreds of people killed by a storm.

The presidential palace said today Aquino briefly stopped by the traditional Christmas party of his elite security group at their compound on Sunday to show gratitude for their services.

"The president stayed for a little over 30 minutes. But he did not go up on stage, he did not sing, he did not dance. There was no partying," the head of the presidential security group, Colonel Ramon Dizon, said in a statement.

Tropical storm Washi hit the southern island of Mindanao at the weekend, spawning swollen rivers, flash floods and landslides which left 652 dead with hundreds other missing, according to Philippine Red Cross figures.

Reports of Aquino's alleged partying spread after a local TV actress and show host, Valerie Concepcion, said in her Twitter account that she met Aquino at the party, where she performed for the troops and their families.

Concepcion said Aquino laughed at her jokes and enjoyed her performance, triggering a wave of criticism directed at both.

The 51-year-old bachelor president, who comes from one of the country's richest landowning clans, had previously been linked to female celebrities and was once criticized for buying a Porsche sports car, which he has since sold.

Unlike previous presidents, including his own mother Corazon Aquino, the current leader has chosen to live in the compound of the presidential security group rather than the state palace used by the country's Spanish and American colonial rulers.

Continue reading

Kim Jong Il, N. Korean dictator, dies at 69

The Philippines and the Korean Peninsula

Philippines' General Carlos Romulo, who was the president of the UN General Assembly when the Korean War broke out in 1950, staunchly advocated the international defense of South Korea. "The application of military sanctions in Korea is in itself an act of the greatest significance," he said before the Assembly on 25 September 1950, reflecting on the decision of the Security Council to take military action in the peninsula and on the need to strengthen collective action against acts of aggression.

"The Philippine Government, for its part, has given concrete proof of its support of the principle of collective security by sending troops to help the UN forces in Korea," he added, referring to the first of five battalion combat teams from the Philippine Expeditionary Force to Korea (PEFTOK), which rushed to Busan only six days earlier on 19 September 1950.

The relations between the Philippines and South Korea have always been characterized by such mutual trust and support. Bilateral relations between the two countries started on 3 March 1949 when the Philippines became the fifth country to recognize South Korea.

The Philippines sent 7,420 soldiers to South Korea over a five-year period, among them former President Fidel Ramos and two former ambassadors to South Korea. After the Korean War, the Philippines is still one of the richest and most powerful in Asia next to Japan helped to rebuild South Korea by constructing infrastructure project

The Philippines advocate democracy together with America.

During the most corrupt Marcos dictatorship, the Philippines becomes a sick-man in Asia and become poor economically with rich of untapped resources as corruption become a culture.

The death of North Korean Leader is now the issue as question would rise, what would be the next role of the Philippines in reuniting Korea as the Philippines is rising again its power and economy in Asia in the Aquino III administration?

The Death of Kim Jong IL – the toughest North Korean Communist Leader

North Korea will move into a shadowy period of effective control by its army generals and would-be dynastic regents after the death of its dictator Kim Jong-il, possibly making it less adventurous.

His nominated heir is 27-year-old younger son Kim Jong-un, who has had barely two years to prepare for the succession.

By contrast, the ''Dear Leader'' Kim Jong-il - who died on Saturday aged 69 - had a lifetime of preparation for leadership in the Stalinist system created by his father, the ''Great Leader'' Kim Il-sung, and a decade as nominated successor before the father died in 1994.

An array of grim-faced, medal-bedecked Korean People's Army generals may look more to Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law Jang Song-taek, who in 2010 was appointed vice-chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission, the effective No. 2 post in North Korea.

This occurred about the same time as Kim Jong-un was declared the ''Bright Leader'' to succeed, after Kim Jong-il suffered a devastating stroke that left him greatly weakened and shrunken in stature, and pointed Jang out as the effective political regent in the ruling dynasty. Kim Jong-il was an even bolder gambler than his father, who launched a strike across the 38th Parallel in 1950, thereby starting the Korean War, when the United States seemed to be losing interest in the southern half of the peninsula.

The junior Kim assumed charge of North Korea's clandestine activities, which included the kidnapping of Japanese citizens to help train its agents, bombings and sabotage of South Korean targets, and the shadowy Room 39 of the Korean Workers Party (the communist party), which raised hard currency from counterfeiting US currency and from trafficking of amphetamine.

Kim Jong-il was also a driver of the secret nuclear weapons program, which continued with secret help from Pakistan's A.Q. Khan Network after a 1994 agreement with the Clinton administration supposedly froze all developments.

Mass starvation among the North Korean population, after the collapse of the Soviet Union ended critical external aid and floods ruined successive crops, did not divert Kim from his cultivation of the Korean People's Army, under his ''Songun'' (army first) doctrine.

Kim's role as chairman of the National Defense Commission, commanding the army, became more important than the general-secretary role in the Worker's Party. Frequent on-the-spot ''guidance sessions'' and sharing of meals with frontline soldiers were aimed at reinforcing personal loyalty among the soldiers.

The sybaritic personal lifestyle of his younger days — which included  importing Italian and Japanese chefs and the foodstuffs they needed, French wine and brandy, Scandinavian models for company, and a massive library of the foreign films denied his people — was pushed firmly into the background.

A vast Gulag of labor and punishment camps, picked out by Western satellite images, limited internal communications and isolation of the favored elite in Pyongyang kept the starving population under control until mobile phones and visits from China began to penetrate in recent years.

The drive for nuclear weapons and testing of the Taepodong ballistic missile stepped up after the election of President George W. Bush, who listed North Korea as part of an ''axis of evil'' with other ''rogue'' regimes and declared his ''visceral hatred'' of Kim.

When Bush emissary James Kelly confronted the North Koreans in late 2002, Kim responded by withdrawing his country from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The past decade has seen Pyongyang engage in on-off negotiations about disarmament at the Beijing Six-Party Talks while advancing weapon and missile tests.

North Korea will now go into a paroxysm of grief that may continue until the 100th anniversary of of Kim Il-sung's birth in April.

Everyone will be watching sideways to see who might emerge as North Korea's Khrushchev or Gorbachev.

The People's Army will have its work cut out watching both the Demilitarized Zone and trying to stop a mass breakout into China.

Continue reading

United Nations hails Philippines’ protection of migrant workers

Philippines—While the sob stories usually make the headlines, the country's efforts to help thousands of overseas Filipinos, especially those caught in wars and calamities, have not gone unnoticed in the United Nations.

A UN executive speaking at a recent conference in Geneva has commended the Philippines for its exemplary efforts to protect its nationals caught in international crisis situations, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

Peter Sutherland, the special representative of the UN secretary general for international migration and development, "specifically mentioned the Philippines as rising to the challenge by setting up a system to protect and engage its migrants," the DFA said.

Sutherland made the remarks at the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) held in the Swiss city earlier this month, where he said the forum participants "could learn from the Philippines' initiatives and good practices," the foreign office added.

The Philippines drew praise for its repatriation efforts in troubled countries like Libya, Yemen and Syria, among others, DFA spokesperson Raul Hernandez told the Inquirer on Saturday.

"He (Sutherland) probably saw that we're proactive in protecting our people by taking them out of harm's way," Hernandez said.

In the forum, the UN official also drew attention to the plight of domestic workers, particularly the so-called "kafala" or sponsorship system which he said "constituted a modern form of slavery," the DFA said.

More fleeing Syria

Hernandez said another batch of at least 51 Filipinos from Syria will be repatriated in the next few days. The last group that arrived in Manila over a week ago totaled 55, bringing the current number of Filipino repatriates to 240 since political violence escalated in the Arab state earlier this year.

"Our embassy in Damascus continues to negotiate for the release of the workers from their employers or agencies," Hernandez said, adding that securing airline seats for the next batch had been difficult of late because of the peak Christmas season.

The year 2011 has been one of the busiest for the DFA in terms of evacuating Filipinos from strife-torn regions, starting with those fleeing Egypt in February, at the height of street protests against the regime of then President Hosni Mubarak.

From that same month to March, the repatriation efforts shifted to Libya, with no less than Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario personally leading one of the missions across the Sahara desert to fetch compatriots fleeing the fighting between rebels and government forces under dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

The turmoil in Yemen also prompted Del Rosario to go there in March to assess the situation and offer voluntary repatriation to the less than 1,500 registered migrant Filipinos working in that country.

Review of 'unsafe' countries

Apart from the repatriation efforts, the DFA is currently conducting a review of the 41 countries earlier considered unsafe for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and could be covered by a labor deployment ban.

"At present, we have asked a review of the present status of each of the 41 countries to determine if they have already acceded or enacted laws that would protect our migrant workers," Hernandez said in an earlier interview.

The DFA proceeded with the review after asking the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to defer the ban for three months.

"We will use the deferment period to revisit the 41 countries with the view of moving forward toward compliance with the amended Migrant Workers Act (Republic Act No. 10022)," which forbids the deployment of OFWs to countries certified as not protective of migrant workers, Hernandez said.

"We will submit new certifications after 90 days, taking into account results of DFA's dialogue with countries concerned and new developments in those countries with respect to the protection of migrant workers," Hernandez said.

9M in 200 countries

More than 1.4 million Filipino workers were deployed overseas last year, according to the POEA. Of this number, 1.1 million were land-based, while around 350,000 were sea-based workers.

For land-based OFWs, the top destinations were Saudi Arabia (293,049), United Arab Emirates (201,214), Hong Kong (101,340), Qatar (87,813) and Singapore (70,251).

Among the newly hired overseas Filipino workers deployed last year, the top occupational categories included household service workers (96,583), cleaners and related workers (12,133), nurses (12,082), caregivers and caretakers (9,293), and waiters, bartenders and related workers (8,789).

According to the latest estimates by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, some 9 million Filipinos are in more than 200 countries around the world as of December 2009. With a report from Inquirer Research

Sources: Commission on Filipinos Overseas, POEA

Continue reading