GMA regime: Joblessness, Family Incomes Worst In Last 7 Years

Heads of state labor leaders and academics will hear Gloria Arroyo’s voodoo economics at Davos World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. The OFW $ 13 B annual remittances have nothing to do with GMA economic plan. About 1 million workers leave the country yearly for jobs abroad.

President Gloria Arroyo’s seven years in office has brought record levels of joblessness as well as falling family incomes, according to independent think-tank IBON Foundation. According to IBON research head Sonny Africa, historical levels of joblessness were registered under the Arroyo administration since 2001. In 2007, there were 4.1 million jobless Filipinos and an annual average unemployment rate of 10.8 percent. Although 2007 figures were a slight improvement from 2006, the average annual unemployment rate of 11.3% over the 2001-2007 period remains the worst such period recorded in the country’s history, Africa said.
IBON Media

Chess Whiz Bobby Fischer 1944-2008

R.I.P. The chess world will miss you Bobby.

Maguindanao poll anomalies found in SET

The Supreme Court’s senate electoral tribunal panel has opened can of worms in the alleged election fraud committed by elections officials in Maguindanao and Shariff Kabunsuan. Sooner or later fugitive Lintang Bedol and his conspirators will reveal the real score what transpired during the fraudulent 2004 presidential election and 2007 midterm elections.

Pimentel set to unseat Zubiri with fraud proved in Maguindanao, Shariff Kabunsuan ballot boxes

Zubiri poll anomalies found in SET

By Charlie V. Manalo
01/12/2008
It may be just a matter of time before Genuine Opposition senatorial candidate Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III unseats Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, who is likely to lose his place in the Senate, and perhaps even in shame, with the discovery of the electoral tribunal panel of too many cases of blatant election anomalies.
And it won’t be long either for those involved in the massive election cheating committed against Pimentel, successfully depriving him of a Senate seat, to be brought to the halls of justice and eventually behind bars, by Pimentel himself.
The Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) has uncovered election irregularities in four municipalities of Maguindanao and a municipality in Shariff Kabunsuan, with the the number of votes involved reportedly enough for Pimentel to overtake Zubiri’s lead over him for 12th place in the 2007 senatorial elections.
In his protest, Pimentel contests the results of 2,658 precincts where votes had been manipulated to enable administration candidate Zubiri to dislodge him for the last Senate seat.
In an interview yesterday with Pimentel’s lawyer, Leila de Lima, she pointed out that she and her client are satisfied with the early results of the revision being conducted by the SET as the five municipalities alone are enough for Pimentel to unseat Zubiri.
“In the four municipalities of Maguindanao, namely the Ampatuan, Buluan, Paglap and Gindulungan, the number of votes involved is 25,000 which Mr. Zubiri got,” said De Lima. “However, upon opening of the ballot boxes, the SET found out that all election
except the ballots, were all missing.”
She added that upon review of the ballots, most of thesewere found to have been faked and manufactured as they did not bear any of the security features.
De Lima stressed that “the revisionists found out that everything written on the original ballots was done by only one person as can be attested by the same penmanship all throughout.”
It will be recalled that on election day, or a few days after the polls closed, reports were out that teachers who were tapped as election officers, were said to have been abducted and brought to an unnamed island, where they were told by armed men, said to belong to the military, to fill up the empty ballots, all in the name of administration senatorial candidates.
The teacher-whistleblowers came to Manila to face the Commission on Elections commissioners and testify to the fraud being perpetrated. The Comelec commissioners, however, refused to hear them out.
De Lima said what she found more interesting “is the Municipality of Sulatan Kudarat in the Province of Shariff Kabunsuan where Mr. Zubiri established a lead of 31,000 votes over Koko Pimentel. None of the ballot boxes opened by the SET yielded anything. They were totally empty.”
Pimentel’s lawyer explained: “while we may not be able to get a 100 percent nullification of the Zubiri votes in the four municipalities of Maguindanao as they would be subjected to strenuous investigation and revision, we can be assured of a 100 percent nullification of Zubiri’s 31,000 vote lead over Koko in Sultan Kudarat and that would be enough to overtake Zubiri’s lead of roughly 18,000 votes,” De Lima pointed out. Daily Tribune

Sen. Obama Wins Iowa

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama tops Iowa caucus.