Headlines:
Minority Board Member Gerry Ortega has threatened
to file a “declaratory relief” case and
culpable violation of the constitution against President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo if the administration will
refuse to fully recognize Palawan’s share from
the Malampaya natural gas project.
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City Mayor V Dennis Socrates is facing a recall
election threat from the majority of the City’s
66 barangays. Discontent apparently grows for his
management style. The City’s Liga ng mga Barangay
is threatening to file the motion on grounds of
“loss of confidence”. Socrates has been
in office for seven months.
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Poverty condition in the province will increase
by 30 percent contrary to the administration’s
vow of reducing poverty incidence by the same rate,
Board member Gerardo Ortega predicted recently.
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Environmental advocates have expressed concern
that the cases filed against suspected Chinese poachers
in Tubbataha might fail in the same manner that
similar cases in the past had suffered because of
pressure and political intervention from the national
government.
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HELPLESS CORRIDORS. That the “waters around,
between and connecting the islands of our archipelago
are internal waters of the Philippines is embodied
in our three constitutions and in Republic Act 3046”,
our baseline law. When we signed UNCLOS in 1982
and again when we ratified it in 1984, we made this
doubly clear in documented declarations. Yet in
compliance with UNCLOS, or perhaps in pursuit of
a hidden agenda, House Bill 2031 will radically
reduce the vast expanse of internal waters over
which the Philippines has full territorial sovereignty
to small pockets of water enclosed by straight lines
drawn across bays, mouth of rivers, harbors and
lagoons inside our reefs.
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THE Provincial Committee on Illegal Entrants (PCIE)
and the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development
(PCSD) are filing charges of violation of the Wildlife
Act of the Philippines, poaching and illegal entry
against 95 Chinese nationals and nine Filipinos
who were caught fishing inside the Tubbataha Reef
National Marine Park (TRNMP) off the island town
of Cagayancillo.
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