by admin | Apr 21, 2016 | Election 2016, Opinion
On bended knees I begged for help, Government and Women groups turned their back (My sister was raped and brutally Killed)
Maria, A mother of 6, a beautiful young mother, was forced to go abroad because of poverty, like other OFWs in the world now.
She went abroad for work, but went home inside a coffin, she was raped and brutally killed in the Middle East on September 29, 1993, the family was informed of three different versions of her death, the government tried to hide to the family the real cause.
The Philippine Embassy informed Maria’s family only on October 4 for reasons the family didn’t know.
Maria from North Cotabato, her family sought the help of the Secretary of the Department of Labor, the Transportation Secretary and even various women groups including, the militant Gabriela in Manila to help them, and at least- facilitate the transfer of her casket from an international airline in Manila to Davao City, but they failed. Worse they were given a run around.
Maria’s youngest sister, then a correspondent of a known national broadsheet called several women’s group in Manila to help as no one in the family was there to attend for the transfer- the family was struggling to raise funds to pay for the casket, they were told the airfare from manila to Davao is expensive that a human fare.
Endless calls made from October 4 to October 20, but the government was INUTILE and none of the so-called women’s groups either progressive, militant or moderate came to the family’s rescue.
On October 19 at exactly, 12:00 midnight, a stranger visited Maria’s sister in her house in Davao, a man who claims to be a staff of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte informed them, that the transfer and payment for the casket was underway and the family need not worry about the payment because Duterte sent a staff to Manila to help the transfer and the payment.
The same staff told the family “Ayaw na mo sige ug hilak, kay ugma sa buntag moabot na ang lawas diri sa Davao (stop crying, tomorrow morning the cadaver will arrive here in Davao).
Seconds, after the man told the sister, someone was calling him over his handheld radio and the staff told the sister, Duterte wants to talk to her.
In between sobs, she talked with Duterte over the radio, heard Duterte said ” ayaw na kagoul, tabangan ta mo, sultihi lang ko ug naay pay kulang kay aron madala imong igsoon sa iyang pamilya sa North Cotabato (don’t worry, I will help your family, just tell me if you need more help to bring the casket to her family in North Cotabato).
Unknown to the family, Duterte was monitoring the arrival of the aircraft the following morning.
When the cadaver was opened inside the funeral homes along F. Torres St. in Davao, family members were disoriented, the youngest sister horrified but a man with open arms comforted her and told her “be strong, Pray. I understand the pain.”
She did not realize, she was heavily crying in Duterte’s arms.
Inside the room, Duterte comforted the family, he cried with them as the family shouted for justice.
When everyone was settled and calm, Duterte stood up and told the family in vernacular “we have a problem here, the Philippines does not have BILATERAL LABOR AGREEMENT WITH MANY COUNTRIES and EVEN IF WE FIGHT NOW, IT WILL BE AN UPHILL FIGHT.”
Duterte even went to North Cotabato on his motorbike a day before Maria was laid to rest.
The family is coming out now, because they now deep inside their heart, BELOW THE BAD MOUTH OF DUTUERTE, LIES DUTERTE’s SOFT HEART—READY TO PROTECT ANYONE SPECIALLY THE DISADVANTAGED AND THE FAMILY OF POOR RAPE VICTIMS.
THIS IS MY STORY, it took me two days to draft this story, because I cannot continue writing-crying as I remember the tragic moment how my sister was brutally killed, and how a stranger-RODRIGO DUTERTE came to our rescue.
It pains me to hear people crucifying Duterte when they themselves have yet to try his kind of leadership, they don’t know Duterte inside out.
I am Editha Zaragosa Caduaya, youngest sister of Maria.
The girl at the right side of the picture.
Reposted with permission from this Facebook post
by admin | Apr 20, 2016 | Opinion
Political Phenomenon
By Manny Piñol
Many inexplicable and strange things are happening as the Presidential campaign comes to the homestretch.
Following the uproar generated by Presidential frontrunner Rody Duterte’s controversial narrative on the rape and killing of an Australian missionary in the infamous Pugoy hostage taking in Davao City in 1989, I actually expected the readership of this page, MannyPiñol, to plummet as it did after the Papal gaffe in November last year.
In November last year, following Duterte’s decision to run for President, the readership of this page which now has 210,000 Likes was about 4.9-million weekly owing mainly to the posts I made about the Davao City Mayor.
That dropped to about 2-million readers a few days after Duterte cursed the Pope whose visit caused a monstrous traffic in Manila.
I was expecting that to happen again following the Amoranto Stadium event where he made a controversial comment on the rape and killing of the Australian preacher.
But a strange thing happened.
From a weekly average readership of about 1.2-million since I have not been posting articles as often as I used to, the readership suddenly climbed to over 3-million.
As of this writing the readership average was at 4-million and I expect it to rise even further.
That was when I realised that people were willing to forgive Duterte for the gaffes and misstatements he made because their anger against this government and the system is real.
That was when I found out that the attacks and criticisms against Duterte did not shake or change people’s decision to elect him as the next President.
Broadcaster Pia Hontiveros also noticed the same trend in Twitter.
But the more dramatic manifestations that people were not affected by the assault on Duterte, including his so-called psychological condition, were the crowds which gathered in Bacolod City and in Iloilo City, areas which were believed to be territories of the administration party.
Why are the people so angry at this government and the system to the point that the President would get a Zero approval rating in Metro Manila.
Today, I saw four photos posted in the freedom wall by a Facebook user which showed Presidential sister and actress Kris Aquino landing in Dalaguete, Cebu to join a Liberal Party campaign using not one, but five government helicopters.
Immediately, my blood boiled because two weeks earlier, a forest fire broke out in Mt. Apo destroying virgin forests with centuries-old red cedar trees.
The government sent one helicopter to drop water on the firezone to no avail.
But in Dalaguete, Cebu yesterday, Kris Aquino was allowed to use five helicopters to join an LP campaign sortie.
Earlier, an elderly couple en route to the United States so the wife could get a much needed medical treatment was prevented from boarding their plane after they became the newest victims of the Laglag Bala syndicate at the International Airport.
Earlier than that, four policemen, including a lieutenant, were arrested after they confessed involvement in the killing of a businessman whose body was found inside a drum floating in a river in Metro Manila.
Still earlier than that, administration candidate Manuel Roxas’ wife, Korina Sanchez, was seen joining a Department of Agriculture equipment distribution activity in North Cotabato where she was heard asking farmers: “Gusto nyo bang yumaman? Gusto ni Mar yumaman kayo.”
Still earlier than that, victims of Typhoon Yolanda have been asking government why after two years, many of them were still homeless when the Philippine government received almost $2-B in donations from international organisations and foreign governments.
The anger has been building up and it has come to the point that people would rather cast their lot on a Presidential candidate who promises change, never mind if he spews out invectives and profanities.
This explains the unstoppable surge of Duterte in the surveys.
This explains why in spite of the relentless attacks waged by the mainstream media against Duterte and even the negative comments from the ambassadors of Australia and the United States of America, Duterte’s numbers are rising.
The outrage has reached boiling point and it will not cool down until after they have elected Duterte, the man who has promised change.
Unless the administration addresses the source of the anger of the people, there is no way the rise of Duterte could be stopped.
This political phenomenon is now the biggest headache for the other Presidential contenders.
(Photos of the government helicopters and Kris Aquino were sent by an anonymous Facebook user to the Facebook Page of Even Demata and were later posted on the Freedom Wall.)
Source (Manny Piñol)
by admin | Apr 19, 2016 | Opinion
Many still do not know the character and personality of presidential candidate and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.
Behind his strong and sometimes intransigent persona seen in public is a compassionate, sincere and principled man.
I have known Mayor Duterte as a public official probably the most than anyone, having served him as chief of staff while he was still an appointed vice mayor in 1986 – a good 30 years ago. Add another year or 2 when he was a prosecutor trying to lock me behind bars of the martial law regime because I joined the anti-Marcos dictatorship mass movement.
I have seen him take the risk and the road less traveled in the course of his dedicated public service.
I can swear to God – the way I took my priestly vows – that he has not taken advantage of his position to enrich his self or any member of his family.
Every single centavo of the money of the people of Davao City were well spent, every resources well allocated, distributed and disbursed and used.
One thing he is intolerant of are the recidivist and incorrigible deviants – felons and criminals.
He hates them.
He most especially hates persons who discriminate, take advantage and assault vulnerable sectors of our society – the lumads, the minority, the disabled, the people with different gender preference and most especially women.
For all his much talked about womanizing ways, he has a very soft heart towards women who are assaulted, raped and killed.
I can count to you how many rape cases he personally attended to and take with extreme unction.
His ‘little town’ reputation, unguarded and unrehearsed manners may offend those who are taught how our national leaders should act, behave and speak. They may find him uncouth, abrasive, and even repulsive. Because that is how the elitists are trying to impose their myopic rules on all our people. Duterte is not in this elitist circle and he is definitely out-of-the-box.
But by God, he is the most sincere, simplest but dedicated leader I have ever worked with.
He inspires people who knows him very well.
For that, I will not exchange him for anyone else in the country.
I urge his believers and supporters to remain steadfast amid the new challenges he and us are facing.
Have faith in the man who already proved that he will place the interest of the people ahead of his. Even putting his own life on the line.
In 3 weeks, we will decide if Mayor Duterte’s selfless dedication deserves to be reciprocated.
I urge you to rally behind, vote for him and protect those precious votes. A vote for him is a vote for tomorrow and the future of your children our next generation.
by admin | Apr 8, 2016 | Opinion, Tech Talk
By: Jerome Auza
I openly support Rodrigo Duterte to be the next president of the country. Together with my wife, our family, our friends and colleagues, we have come to agree that Duterte is the right leader at this time, to steer the country for the next six years.
We’ve spent quite a sum of time and money campaigning, buying t-shirts and giving them away to people, printing hundreds of stickers and distributing them to the public and frequently promoting Duterte to our friends on Facebook. I may have overdone the Facebook part already and I might be already a “Dutertard” to some of my friends. Who knows some might have already unfollowed, or worse, unfriended me.
As we did our part as volunteers in the past few weeks, I had that feeling of familiarity to what we were doing. Contributions from thousands, if not millions, of volunteers towards a common cause seemed to be something very familiar to me as if I had been doing it for a long time.
And one day, it dawned on me. Duterte’s campaign is like open source software: made of contributions from so many people in different areas of expertise towards a common goal. The best example of a very successful open source software project is the Linux operating system.
Conceived in the early 1990s, Linux made its way into server systems, had difficult time penetrating the PC market but lately, it has become ubiquitous after Google built the Android operating system for mobile devices based on Linux.
Linux and other open source software are released to the public including its source code. Any developer can scrutinize the code, learn from it, improve it and possibly get his improvements accepted into future versions. By making the source code public, more eyes can review and study the code and discover defects or bugs.
Linux and FreeBSD (another open source operating system) have started to dominate the market with Android and Chromebook based on Linux and the MacOS based on FreeBSD. They have become so successful that Microsoft, the company that was the “opposite” of the open source software, has started to embrace open source software and have themselves, released some of their development platforms on Linux and open source.
The one thing, among others, that the open source software licenses guarantee, especially if the software uses the GNU Public License, is the freedom to use the software as you like. But you can’t claim to own it. Violate the license and you will get vilified by the open source community.
Contribute to the open source project and thousands and maybe millions of other users will benefit from your contribution.
Duterte’s volunteers are like the horde of seasoned software developers volunteering their time and expertise for a common good: free software. Free to acquire and give, free to use, free to be scrutinized and free to learn from. Some developers create new features, others fix bugs, others improve existing features and others organize the whole flow of development work from around the world. Other contributors write the documentation, create graphics, promote the software, help other people learn to use the software and many more.
However, instead of free software, the common goal of Duterte’s supporters is to give back to the Filipinos many freedoms it has lost in the past decades. Artists come up with designs for campaign materials. Musicians come up with songs, dancers choreograph dance moves, writers come up with blogs, owners of printing shops allowing the use of their equipment for free, photographers and videographers covering his rallies and many more. All done to help convince the Filipino voters to choose Duterte to be the 16th president of the country.
The Filipinos have lost or about to lose their freedom to walk the streets unharmed, their freedom to to scrutinize public information to help ensure effective use of national resources, their freedom to raise the youth free from drugs and other forms of addiction, their freedom from poor government service due to incompetent and corrupt public servants, their freedom to live in a peaceful environment and many other freedoms the normal Filipino citizen has been gradually losing in the past decades. Heck, we do not even have the freedom to enjoy fast and reliable Internet at a price comparable to western countries.
The Duterte supporters will put in the leader who they believe has the will and capability to give back to the Filipinos the many freedoms it has lost or about to lose. They have seen through the facade of traditional politicians who are backed by oligarchs. They will not be fooled again.
However, Duterte is not the long term solution. He will be running the affairs of the country for just six years. The Dutertards like me, and the rest of the Filipino people, will still be responsible for the long term success of the Filipino nation.
A Duterte presidency will just be like a new Linux version. It will be the 16th version of the Philippines. Hopefully, this time, the bugs of this country will get fixed or at least mitigated significantly. Corruption, incompetence of public servants, too much red tape, loopholes in the law, rising drug trade and crime. They are like persistent software bugs that bother you everyday and prevent you from being productive, from living life in freedom. People who keep creating bugs will get their butts kicked until they behave or leave or die if they violently resist arrest.
Just like the open source software community continuously contributing to Linux, the Filipinos need to continue contributing to the progress of the country, doing their part, disciplining themselves, following the law, paying taxes and staying vigilant in case any public servant tries to enrich himself. Some of us will be scrutinizing our systems looking for bugs and inefficiencies.
Lastly, many of us will keep an eye on Duterte and make sure he performs as mandated. Rest assured, we the Dutertards, will also be the ones to make sure that he delivers. Collectively, we have spent millions, if not billions campaigning for him. We will not let Duterte get away with lackluster performance. We will be a demanding horde of contributors.
All these going towards a much improved next version of the Philippines six years from now.
by admin | Apr 3, 2016 | Opinion, Tech Talk
By: Jerome Auza
The 2016 national elections is developing into an unprecedented event in the country with social media harnessed heavily for campaigns aside from traditional media. In the 2010 and 2013 elections, social media was also used but this year, the difference is that we have one presidential candidate who has limited funds for ads but is doing very well in the surveys.
Currently 2nd in a formal survey but almost always 1st in various mock elections and informal surveys nationwide, presidential candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has appealed to supporters to help him with the campaign as he will not be accepting donations from big businessmen. The response is an overwhelming support and a real grassroots initiated campaign for Duterte. In social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, there are hundreds of comments, photos, stories and expression of support for Duterte every day. These help his name recall.
Of course, Duterte also has some TV ads but the exposure time pales in comparison to that of most other candidates. Duterte’s campaign has been aided by volunteers who believe in his platform and leadership capability to lead the nation. These volunteers post updates, comments and pictures and graphics to help promote Duterte on their social media accounts. The volume of such posts overwhelm the paid ads and show of support for the other candidates.
Outside the digital domain, the volunteer support is also evident. Free T-shirt printing is being provided by supporters. A friend of mine who prints stickers for his business would utilize the waste cutouts of the stickers and print Duterte stickers. Brochures, banners and tarps are printed and paid for by the volunteers and are distributed around. Many of these are coordinated on Facebook.
Will Duterte’s non-traditional approach to the campaign prove to be the winning move in his bid for the presidency? Would the incumbent advantage of the LP party enough to propel Roxas to victory? Can Poe’s name recall from her adopted father’s fame in the movies do the trick of getting the most votes? Will Binay’s Makati convince the voters to let him run the country? Can Santiago’s brilliance get her on top?
It still remains to be seen.
The campaign strategy of the other candidates seem to be dictated from the top down to the front liners. Duterte’s campaign is simply coordinated by his campaign manager, Maribojoc Mayor Leoncio Evasco, Jr. The volunteers have a loose structure and there is no formal organization imposed on them.
While the public is bombarded with the political ads of the other candidates on TV, the grassroots support and volunteerism is being concocted on social media.
Is this the new form of People Power? 30 years ago, the warm bodies that showed up in EDSA booted out a dictator. Back then there was no social media.
At present, there’s no need to go to EDSA to change the leadership. The click of the send button after tapping words using two thumbs on a mobile device might be enough to start a peaceful revolution that brings positive change to the way things are run in the status quo.
by admin | Mar 5, 2016 | Opinion, Tech Talk
By Zion Campo
So, curious about what Startup Weekend is? Want to know what happens during the three days of grueling days and nights. Here’s a little glimpse of what goes down during these three days from a participant himself:
In school, we typically run into situations where we are forced to finish a school project in a short span of time. To beat the deadline, you are thrown into a weekend overnight gathering with your projectmates trying desperately to finish your project before Monday.
There is coffee, there are midnight shenanigans, good memories with friends and a whole lot of stuff that goes down over the weekend.
But Startup Weekend is a lot more than that.
You’re given 54 hours over the weekend to create something. From ideation to creation, Startup Weekend will up the stakes of your typical school weekend project overnight with a taste of startup drama!
You will get to feel how your idea gets turned down because you’re awesome world changing idea wasn’t given any stars at all. You will get to experience being high in Cloud 9 because a lot of people love your idea and has been chosen as one of the ideas that get to pitch at the final pitching showdown!
Then magically, over the weekend, you meet your team, yes, your A TEAM! Finally! You start working on the startup and then you get into problems. Your idea may not be viable after you try to validate the idea.
You have a couple of choices, pivot your idea, overhaul your whole idea, or push it.
After thinking over what is your team’s next move, you and your team reach a consensus. We’ll make a couple of changes to the idea!
Then pitch day comes and you are ball full of nerves, you stand up on stage and you either fail at pitching what your idea is to the judges and audience or you will flawlessly and eloquently present your idea and well, might get a shot at winning the Startup Weekend Bohol 2nd Edition winner!
And after accepting the reality that entrepreneurship is no mean feat – that there is a whole lot to starting a startup than just an idea and technical skills, you understand why a lot of people say that starting a business is risky but a risk worth taking
After all the drama you go through Startup Weekend, you look back and realize how much you have grown over a short span of time and how much you enjoyed getting out there and doing stuff and not just talking over and over and over your idea like a broken record.
