Piercing Pens

(If you agree and want to sign the statement, kindly email your complete name, place of origin, and contact details to kai.pastores@yahoo.com.)

We, democracy and freedom-loving Filipinos, fully stand by Isabela Governor Grace Padaca who we believe is the legitimate winner of the 2007 gubernatorial elections in the said province amid an unfair ruling by the Commission on Elections Second Division composed of Commissioners Nicodemo Ferrer, Lucenito Tagle and Elias Yusoph.

As fellow Filipinos, we believe that this resolution to unseat Governor Padaca in favor of former Governor Benjamin Dy is highly questionable and the evidence raised forth against Padaca raises significant doubt as to the validity of Dy’s claims of electoral fraud resulting to his loss.

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composite triple beat

Priest-turned-governor Among Ed Panlilio of Pampanga is now considering running for president in 2010 with Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca as his running mate, says an Inquirer report.

Both Panlilio and Padaca are non-trapos who defeated powerful politicians in their respective provinces.

Panlilio and Padaca, with other reform-oriented public servants, have been practicing and preaching good governance.

Are they the change that the Philippines needs?

Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz recently said that public sinners should not be given the Holy communion. News reports said he was referring to Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo — the Philippines’ de facto president who is accused of election fraud and corruption. But the maverick archbishop denied he called Arroyo a public sinner who should not be given communion.

He told CBCPNews that all he stated was, according to the teachings of the Church, a public sinner should not be given communion.

He had earlier wrote on his blog:

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Among our mainstream political parties, Liberal Party is the one that is a bit different from the others. Despite having members whose loyalty seems to be with Lakas, LP has a clearer ideology than the personality-oriented parties.

That is why it is disappointing to hear its possible standard bearer in 2010, Mar Roxas, say that they are “open to talking with everyone” when asked about former president and convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada’s multi-party opposition nomination process.

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ABS-CBN News Channel and GMANews.tv report that Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and Brigadier Gen. Danilo Lim walked out of a court hearing in Makati and marched to the Peninsula Hotel where Vice President Teofisto Guingona joined them.

As of this writing, Trillanes Lim is reading a statement calling for the people’s solidarity in their call for Arroyo’s removal from the presidency.

7:20 pm update: Ellen Tordesillas on media arrests after the mutiny

Read additional info from the rebel soldiers at Sundalo Tagapagtanggol ng Pilipino.

Let’s hope the state security agents will not attempt to harm them. We don’t need dead heroes like Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, and Ninoy Aquino. We need living leaders like them.

SunStar reported that DENR Sec. Lito Atienza will not attend today’s Liberal Party elections at the Club Filipino. He reportedly said he was not invited, contrary to the supposed media announcements that members of his faction are welcome to the event.

The media announcements must be bola lang. Why should Lakas Pala members be invited to a Liberal Party meeting? They should just join Lakas and Kampi and form a new party called “Lakas Pala Kampi Kay Gloria”.

When I heard the news about the killing of Atty. Alioden D. Dalaig of the Commission on Elections last Saturday, my first reaction was revulsion at how killers in the Philippines continue to be so brazen.

More than 800 activists and journalists have been killed since the start of the Arroyo administration in 2001. The killers have also targeted lawyers and judges–and now, even civil servants like Dalaig. As long as the culture of impunity remains, this series of violence will most likely not be broken.

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