FIRST, what people are talking about:
'LOOMING' ARREST OF MARIA RESSA. Rappler's chief executive officer Maria Ressa herself said Sunday (December 2) an arrest warrant has been issued against her due to multiple tax evasion cases. The arrest won't keep her long in detention; the charges are bailable. Malacanang has denied it is persecution against Rappler, the digital news site, but much of the country and the world won't believe the denial.
COMELEC ON SOCIAL MEDIA. The poll body will regulate and monitor candidates' use of social media but "only to determine cost" or the money they spend on the propaganda platform. How would that be and would they succeed when even on traditional platforms Comelec has failed?
Ex-senator on police control
Senate would-be returnee Sergio Osmeña III thinks his brother Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña was wrong in freeing three butane canister vendors from police custody last August 24 was not right. "Mali (a mistake)," he said, "(President) Duterte was right there."
Serge, who is running for a Senate seat in 2019, did not say though if the President was right in publicly shaming his brother at least three times. Duterte in each occasion threatened he would slap the mayor if they would meet.
Serge told Eric S. Manait on dyCM radio Friday (November 30) that mayors have no control over the police. Local government leaders are supposed to have supervision over the police but that has not been clearly defined and often they operate without direction from mayors or the governor. In Cebu City, particularly, the police and the mayor are at odds with each other. LGUs, Serge said, help the police by providing gas and allowances but, he indicated, they don't submit to control.
Serge also did not say in the Manait interview that even if the police had control over the police, the power would not include release suspects of a crime from police detention.
Tomas's formal defense
Did Serge know that his brother the mayor last November 1, in his formal answer to the police charges against him, said the arrest was illegal, the reason he meddled and ordered the release of the three butane canister vendors.
An unlike Serge, the brother Tomas believes the mayor has control and supervision over the police and can order the arrest or release of a suspect "if justified."
Anyway, Serge's published belief cannot affect Tomas's ombudsman case. The former senator is not a lawyer but an economist. But it shows that even Tomas's sibling thinks what the mayor did was wrong. "Mali."
His pitch: I'm an economist
How much has Serge been campaigning, compared with the likes of Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos or former presidential "go-for" Bong Go?
Serge was asked if he started visiting Cebu. "Wa pa," he said. But then even in his 2013 bid, which he lost, he had not been seen in his native province, maybe relying on his brod Tomas to deliver the votes.
How is he messaging the young voters, the "millennials"? By Facebook.
Even his pitch is not aggressive. He said he is an economist and "if you think the Senate needs an economist, then maybe you will vote for me."
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