The Sandiganbayan today
found former President Joseph Estrada guilty of the crime of plunder. He was sentenced to reclusion perpetua or up to 40 years in prison. He was, however, acquitted in his perjury case. His co-accused in the plunder case, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada and Atty. Edward Serapio, were also acquitted.
Click here to read the Sandiganbayan Decision on the Estrada Plunder Case.
Below is a Technorati Where’s the Fire? (WTF) on Malu Fernandez. Technorati defines WTFs as “short blurbs that explain the buzz around people, things, or events—why the hot topics are so hot—and you can vote the best ones to the top.”
Society columnist Malu Fernandez of the Philippines, in her now-controversial People Asia article “From Boracay to Greece,†insulted overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) that she encountered in a plane trip to Greece.
Fernandez wrote that she “wanted to slash [her] wrist at the thought of being trapped in a plane with all of them,†referring to the OFWs at a duty-free shop in Dubai, UAE. She also wrote that the OFWs were noisy and that her “Jo Malone [perfume] evaporated into thin air” while they smelled of cheap perfume brands.
Ellen Tordesillas’ blog reposted a report on the launch of “Trillanes, Paglingkurin!” movement, which included former Vice President Guingona and former UP President Francisco Nemenzo.
The group will do a nationwide campaign to exert pressure on the Arroyo government “to allow detained senator Antonio Trillanes IV to perform his duties as a lawmaker.” Trillanes, Paglingkurin! movement’s unity statement is reposted on Tinig.com, and the group could be contacted at trillanespaglingkurin@gmail.com.
Congratulations to the winners of Digital Filipino‘s Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs [in the Philippines] for 2007:
There is an on-going discussion at Yuga’s blog on why American columnist Michelle Malkin is not included in the list of Filipino bloggers. Yuga says Malkin is clearly “of Filipino descent.”
But there is of course a difference between being of Filipino descent and being Filipino. In her Piercing Pens entry “Defining the Filipino”, Oriah wrote:
But who is and what makes a Filipino? For many of us, being born a Filipino citizen is the key. For some, just tracing your roots to one Filipino makes you one. As for me, citizenship is earned, not laid out on a silver platter. We work to earn the title of being true blue Pinoys.
Defining the Filipino is still a challenge for most of us but one thing I am certain, it’s not just ancestry or bloodline or eating adobo that defines us.
Antonio Trillanes IV, who rose to national prominence as the spokesman of the young rebel soldiers who staged the so-called Oakwood mutiny on July 27, 2003, is now a senator of the Republic. He was proclaimed at the Commission on Elections earlier today.
Trillanes’ inclusion in the list of winners in the senatorial race came as a surprise for many reasons: one, he consistently ranked outside the magic 12 in the pre-election surveys of SWS, Pulse Asia, and other polling firms; two, he was in detention and was not able to campaign; and of course, the Magdalo’s method was regarded by many as too radical.
We’re starting a “Pierce the Candidates” series to help our readers get to know our senatorial candidates better. Each posting will be updated as we gather new information about a particular candidate. For our first piercing, we’d like to start with administration bet Prospero “Butch” A. Pichay, Jr.
Pichay was born on June 20, 1950 in Cantilan, Surigao del Sur. He has a son named Carlo, who is proud of his father.
Pichay, a Commerce graduate of De la Salle University, has been the representative of the first district of Surigao del Sur since 1998. Before entering the Congress he was a businessman. He was the owner of Carlo Commercial Printing and Carlo Publishing, which reportedly published the tabloid Remate.
