Editorial: Stop bullying

BE MORE sensitive to affected but silent students.

That’s a message reinforced by the suicide last March of Kristel Tejada, the University of the Philippines Manila freshman who was prevented from re-enrolling for failing to repay on time a tuition loan.

Wenceslao: Worries about Camotes’s growth

THE Ramon “Nito” Durano III faction of the Durano clan seems to have made the correct move in aligning itself with the Liberal Party (LP) of President Noynoy Aquino. Nito’s son, Rep. Ramon “Red” Durano IV, recently announced the approval by the Senate of its version of the young Durano’s bill seeking reclassification of much of the land in the Camotes group of islands from timberland to alienable and disposable. The House version of the bill was passed months ago.

Nalzaro: Defective units?

MR. JANES “Jay” Zozobrado, a junior executive of Ayala Group, bought a new Ford Focus Titanium from Ford Motors Cebu at Nivel Hills last April 12 with his hard-earned money. The unit cost P1.228 million.

Ford Focus is one of the top of the line units manufactured by Ford Motors. It is designed to meet the high demand of buyers of small cars. It’s fun, attractive, well-equipped but also affordable. It’s in demand in China.

Seares: Graduating senators: when they leave with no goodbye

“I DO not say goodbye. I believe it’s one of the bu..sh..iest words ever invented.

It’s not like you’re given the choice to say bad-bye, or awful-bye, or couldn’t-care-less-about-you-bye. Every time you leave, it’s supposed to be a good one.”

Mongaya: Why settle for trickles?

FOR poor Filipinos, the much-talked about economic growth has not translated into additional food on the dinner table–though many still gather around the food laid down on the floor.

The government’s pangtawid money is just that, pangtawid. It is just additional money to be able to survive until the next payday. And the pay for those with regular jobs–more don’t have regular jobs if they have jobs at all–has not increased much.

Sun.star essay: Time culture

THE last time Cebuana Fil-Am playwright Linda Faigao Hall came back for a short visit to her home city, as much as in the previous times, she couldn’t help but feel the changes of Cebu seen in the eyes of a Filipino immigrant in New York—growing population (and what happened to the trees along Osmeña Blvd.?), lack of breathing space free from carbon dioxide emissions, and the same old sense of time in a people always late.

Mercado: Unpayable ‘IOUs’

(A twin book launch Saturday night honored an outstanding Cebuano editor and his daughter-author. “Canto Voice” compresses, into one volume, columns written by the late Cornelio Faigao for two Cebu dailies, before they were suppressed. “FeMale Heart” is a book by his daughter Linda-Faigao Hall. Here are excerpts from our paper–JLM)

This IOU has been outstanding for over half a century.

Cabaero: Typhoon season

THE heavy downpours the past days make us wonder: After the campaign talk about disaster preparedness last elections, are we better equipped for the rainy season?

Lim: Not funny

RAPE is not a laughing matter and it should never be used as material for humor. I add my voice to the many who have condemned the joke of entertainer, Vice Ganda, about GMA executive and broadcaster Jessica Soho, getting gang-raped.

It was bad enough that Vice Ganda zeroed in on Soho’s size and weight as material for his supposed humorous spiel. It became worse when Vice included rape in the equation.

Malilong: Mayor and the city council

LAST week, this corner called on the city government to install closed circuit television cameras in major thoroughfares and public places to monitor illegal, if not criminal, activities in these areas and make easier the identification of the perpetrators.

Major cities all over the world have long done this, I argued, and with positive results such as when the police used footages from CCTV cameras to identify and apprehend one and kill the other of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing earlier this year.

Tabada: Life and death at the MRT

LAST Sunday, when I went back to this city, another man jumped to his death at the Metro Rail Transit (MRT).

My husband told me operations shut down for five hours.

Editorial: Law enforcement question

IT'S easy to worry about a possible deterioration in the peace and order situation in Metro Cebu when stories about crime grab the headlines on successive days.

Libre: Amazing story

IT WAS supposed to be a quick stop, but a playful child stretched it for nearly an hour.

On Sunday (2 June 2013), my wife Debbie and I brought two visitors to the home of Shirley where they’d stay for the next six weeks. They were simply going to put their luggage in their rooms, then leave for another urgent appointment.

Wenceslao: Ducayag and ‘Kaliwats’

THE National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) finally filed a case the other day against the suspects in the killing of Mario Alfie Ducayag, the man erroneously accused of shoplifting inside Gaisano Metro Colon. It took almost an eternity for NBI 7 to complete its investigation and assess the evidence, but as they say, better late than never.

Nalzaro: Tomas’s minions in the city council

IT HAS been almost a month after the May 13 elections. At the Cebu City Council, I thought everything has gone back to normal and that councilors belonging to the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) have already focused on their legislative work in the remaining days of their term, which will end on June 30. I was wrong. BOPK councilors are still politicking and sabotaging the rule of reelected Mayor Mike Rama.

Barrita: Costly slippers

NATIONAL Bureau of Investigation (NBI) probers have concluded that Mario Alfie Ducayag, 23, a housekeeping student, was not a shoplifter.

Metro Gaisano Colon security personnel allegedly mauled Ducayag to death on suspicion he stole a pair of sandals worth P395.

Seares: When news sources slam or even curse the press

INDIANA Pacers center Roy Hibbert was asked why he finished only 10th in the NBA awards’ Defensive Player of the Year category. “Why do you think that’s possible,” a sportswriter asked, “when you alter so many shots?”

Hibbert fumed, “You know what, because y’all motherf.....s don’t watch us play throughout the year, to tell you the truth. That’s fine. I’m going to say it anyway.

Carvajal: Two priorities

GOVERMENT has put a lot of stock lately on the current high economic growth rate. Yet the trickle effect on the poor is nowhere to be seen. The question has also been left largely unanswered on how high, how fast and how sustained does the growth rate have to be before the trickle effect starts to be felt at the bottom of the pile.

Editorial: Obstructionism and ineptitude

THAT did not go through the process. The steps were not followed. That’s not right. That is irregular…”

Roperos: Saudi diplomacy

THERE are about one million Filipinos living in Saudi Arabia who are serving Saudi Arabians. And so their lives have to be closely attuned with that of the country they are in. Reports have it that the corona virus has hit that country, and the Philippines, it is said, is not allowed to send any medical attaches there.

Wenceslao: Election protest in Tudela

ALLEGATIONS of cheating in the elections in this, the age of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines, are always easy to dismiss. I am one of those who are still holding on to the belief, which is actually mixed with hope, that, yes, our version of automated polls is working. Which partly means that cheating in the votes count has already been shunted to an era gone past.

Malilong: Enriles fall

Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile lived up to his reputation as the consummate political tactician when he resigned as Senate President Wednesday night.

Enrile knows that the Senate presidency is his only for as long as he has the consent of a majority of his colleagues. He also knows that when the 16th Congress opens next month, the numbers no longer favor him. The loose coalition of colleagues that installed him as primus inter pares is disintegrating, if it hasn’t disintegrated yet, as a result of last May’s senatorial elections.

Seares: Pe opened hatch for avoiding term limit

HAD Cebu City Councilor Jun Pe won the election, he could've contested before the Supreme Court (SC) the issue of lack of residence for which he was disqualified by Comelec. And with that, the more troubling issue of term limit.

Pe tried to crash the legal barrier after three consecutive terms as councilor: he transferred residence to the south and ran for reelection there even as he continued to serve as north councilor.

Libre: Principals

COUNCIL: Plan before buying.

Let’s hope the members buy the idea.

Editorial: A sorry cycle

IN 2008, eight armed men pulled a daring noontime heist on two adjacent jewelry stores on Magallanes St. in Barangay Ermita, carting away more than P13 million worth of jewelry. Two people were injured when an off-duty cop who was in the vicinity traded shots with the robbers.

Roperos: Presidential veto

THERE was the item in yesterday’s issue of this daily about how the President vetoed 71 bills that Congress endorsed to his office for passage into law.

All these years, since our country accepted a democratic form of government, we learned to do and use its form, procedure and ways of governance.

Malilong: Installing security cameras

MAYOR Mike Rama was right in saying that a crime is an insult to the police that has jurisdiction over the area where it is committed but only partly. The crime is also an insult to the mayor.

Seares: Ending Gwen’s term

WHETHER Gov. Gwen Garcia should finish her third three-year term shouldn't even be asked. Of course, she should. It's her duty to the law and her electors.

Espinoza: What happened to the seized rice?

I RECEIVED an email the other day from Atty. Maning Satorre, one of Cebu’s media leaders who now lives in California, USA with his family. He asked me if Cebu media people are afraid to pursue the rice smuggling story.

Editorial: Classrooms to collect

HERE is one election campaign promise that bears watching: by the end of this year, the shortage of classrooms in public schools should be met.

President Benigno Aquino III made that promise during a campaign visit last April in Bogo City. In the same speech, he also said his administration had inherited a backlog of 66,800 classrooms as of 2010.