Fwd: pls get this to tedditorial and others: Someone sent, very confidential, copy of manifesto by B/W Movement, spc Leah N., soliciting signatures for CJ to resign. This means they know Senate trial hindi sigurado si Pnoy at baka maging lameduck.

ABS-CBN: Connivance continues between smugglers, Customs staff - The World Bank estimates that P200 billion is lost annually due to tax evasion and smuggling. Smuggling has existed in the country for centuries as traders attempt to bring in goods into the Philippines and skirt around existing Custom rules and regulations. Up to this day, the problem of smuggling remains unresolved in the Bureau of Customs, the government's second largest revenue agency.

Alam nyo bang may offer ang Malacanang sa bawat Opposition Senator na babaliktad para tuluyang maimpeach si CJ Corona? Sa CCT ng DSWD galing ang pera.

TRIBUNE EDITORIAL: The truth is, the impeachment charges raised against Corona are extremely weak and instead of wasting people's time and money, it would be best for the Senate to rule on the motion of Corona, and if found meritorious, it should return the complaint to the House as a flawed Articles of Impeachment along with non-existent crimes of impeachment that certainly will give rise to other impeachment complaints of the same empty sort in the future and under a new administration, as it will have become too easy to get impeachable officers impeached with the way things are being done under Noynoy and his administration.

PHILSTAR - A Good Year?
- Maceda
How can it be a good year when 52 percent of Filipinos rate themselves as poor and 57 percent say they experienced hunger? How can it be a good year when PPP program has not taken off or created jobs? How can it be a good year when you have over 100, 000 dengue cases and a big number of leptospirosis cases?  What the President probably meant was it was a good year because he put Gloria Arroyo in detention and successfully caused the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona and Ombudsman Merceditas Guitierrez. Is it good to be called autocratic or dictatorial?

PHILSTAR - A Good Year? 
- Maceda
President Aquino issued a New Year's statement saying 2011 was a "good year". How can it be a good year when the GDP growth is less that 4 percent, the lowest in the region? How can it be a good year when 5 destructive typhoons hit the country causing more than 3,000 casualties and over P5 billion in damage to crops and property? How can it be a good year when the NPAs are inflicting heavy casualties on government forces all over the country, raiding mining companies while peace talks are bogged down with the Abu Sayyaf ambushing a Special Forces platoon in Al Barka, Basilan, killing 19 and wounding 23?

anc: Ex-SC Justice Serafin Cuevas, head of CJ Corona's legal team, will be on 'ANC Presents' with Lynda Jumilla, later at 7pm.

anc: SC Spokesman Midas Marquez believes, the article on Corona's PhD could be part of efforts to discredit the Chief Justice, whose impeachment trial begins on Jan 16th. "It comes during these interesting times, so maybe it is," Marquez said. He added the SC might tackle the 4 petitions seeking to stop the Corona impeachment trial on the 16th, when the SC returns from its holiday break.

TEDITORIAL - jan 2, 2012 Noynoy acknowledged the court's right and duty when he railroaded a criminal complaint to get a warrant of arrest to frustrate the TRO. The principal problem of Philippine justice is not this judge or justice or that. The problem is big law firms bagging for presidents and acquiring the wherewithal to buy the courts. But I agree. President, lawmaker, lawyers, man in the street, you and I, all of us should freely criticize the decisions of the court as we do acts of presidents and bills from Congress. The court is not God. But to criticize is one thing, to conspire to remove and replace, is another. The first is our right, about which we have been too reticent and so failed to educate the court. But the second is sedition.

TEDITORIAL - jan 2, 2012 I quote we have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the constitution from the court and the court from itself. We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the constitution and not over it, "said Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he was pushing the progressive new deal agenda in the teeth of a conservative capitalist Supreme Court. But Noynoy has no agenda, yet he is pushing and wants to pack the Supreme Court. FDR went to congress to add liberal members to, but he never went to congress to impeach the sitting conservative court. And he never bought an impeachment. It is one thing to 'pack' the court and another when a fam-fango say it. Our SC issued a TRO against an unconstitutional restriction of the right to travel. That was the call and duty of the court. No judge may be impeached for his decision, right or wrong.

dzmm: karen  vic defending cj corona and UST. highlighted weakness of prosecution panel and noted respectable institutions supporting corona.

anc: UST denies it broke the rules to favor CJ Corona, saying Corona earned his PhD.

ABS-CBN - headstart with karen davila - Prof Ben Diokno described as an illusion the Aquino administration's claim that it generated "savings in 2011." You can't have savings and borrow at the same time. We just have a lot of unspent money, which has been authorized by Congress. That's what they call 'savings' but in truth we have HUGE deficits," Remittances from overseas Filipino workers, which was estimated to hit $20 billion in 2011, has helped prop up the Philippine economy. However, he said growth of remittances has been SLOWING in recent years.

The motive Joker Arroyo, Cory's most trusted legal adviser, a human rights lawyer who lost everything during Martial Law : wealth, contacts, first wife, suspension of a promising career when he fought Martial Law and Human Right abuses, is questioned by Conrado de Quiros in his column today entitled "OBJECTIVITY"... De Quiros favorite brother was appointed by PNOY as Pres of the RICHEST GOVT FINANCIAL INSTITUTION, the Social Security System! "Is Conrado brother NOT BEHOLDEN to PNOY "OBJECTIVITY" Column of de Quiros applies to de Quiros in his entire family.

Doronila (Inquirer): These are the images that have defined the character of the democratically elected Aquino govt:
(1) that is VINDICTIVE;
(2) IT IS INTOLERANT OF DISSENT;
(3) It is willing to drag the country into a witch hunt of demons by which it has tagged personages of the past regime it deems as "obstructing" its all-consuming campaign to hold them accountable for past wrongdoing and abuse of office; and
(4) it is UNINCLINED to RESPECT DUE PROCESS IN BRINGING CASES AGAINST ITS TARGETS.

BOBIT AVILA, jan 2/The Freeman... 2012: The end of times for our political system? ... as it is already january and Pnoy has already pushed this country into brink of another political upheaval... GOD forbid that the COMMUNIST would takeover our ill feated Republic. This is the real threat to our democracy...

DWIZ: Casiño -- "I am happy at least the ombudsman filed the case (against Arroyo) already on some trumped up charges" ..... Anong ibig sabihin yan sa inyo Ombudsman? Gumagawa lang kayo ng kahit anong charges kahit pilit at walang base dahil utos ni Pnoy? Anong say mo Ombudsman?

pnoy govt should not take credit for world bank loan assistance - it was meant for those VICTIMS who died and were displaced by govt INADEQUACIES! had you plan ahead, not dilly-dallied in partied, none of this could have happened.

P-Noy: 2011 a good year????
DORONILA: Many are now asking, is the jailing of Arroyo, the impeachment of the alleged pro-Arroyo Chief Justice and the revamp of a Supreme Court packed by Arroyo appointees enough of a claim of achievement for a results-deficit nearly two-year-old Aquino government? More and more people are asking, are the poor any less poor than before May 2010? Where are the jobs that give incomes to the poor and enable them to buy more food for their families and to send their children to school?

DORONILA - This is not the Aquino who mesmerized the people to vote for him in 2010 with promises of caring and honest government. The basis for his continuing popularity requires closer examination. The media cannot be, and should not be, party to propagating a momentary fad in the shifting sands of public opinion. To do so would be abdicate their duty as sentinels warning against the deployment of the superior powers of the state against the weak and disadvantaged - no matter how popular that regime is.