Recent post at Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism - Blog

• No Corruption = No Poverty?
  Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:00:01 +0000
  Exactly 70 days ago, President Benigno Simeon ?Noynoy? C. Aquino III became the Philippines? 15th president, triggering a contagion of hopefulness among Filipinos with his battle cry, ?Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.? But while his first two months in office marked vigorous efforts to address the first part ? filing suit against alleged tax evaders nearly [...]
  
  
• Rx for health for P-Noy
  Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:00:03 +0000
  In his message that accompanies the proposed budget for 2011, President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III notes that the allocation for health is 13.6 percent higher than 2010?s P29.3 billion ? which is enrolled in the 2010 General Appropriations Act to be only P28.7 billion. Yet if one were to compare health?s share of the budget [...]
  
  
• P-Noy?s Poverty Challenge
  Mon, 06 Sep 2010 05:37:54 +0000
  In the next fortnight, President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III will fly to the United States ? his first trip out of the country as chief executive ? in part to attend the United Nations General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs. But he may have little reason to celebrate in New York where [...]
  
  
• Ampatuans delaying trial - FFFJ lawyer
  Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:01:13 +0000
  relatives of massacre victims light candles for justice LAWYERS defending Andal Ampatuan Jr. and 195 other co-accused in the Maguindanao Massacre will use every trick in the book to delay the trial and wear down prosecutors and their witnesses, according to a private prosecutor representing several journalists who died in the massacre. True enough, the long-awaited trial set [...]
  
  
• Male reporters & the gender lens
  Sun, 15 Aug 2010 01:12:21 +0000
  IT came as a bit of a surprise when I received my latest assignment from my editors: I was to cover the launch of the 3rd edition of the Gender and Development Glossary of the international newswire Inter Press Service (IPS). The book, I was told, is supposed to be a tool to help reporters [...]
  
  



• Candidates, parties lie, cheat, bluff against election laws
  Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:00:03 +0000
  The last part of our three-part series on the audit of the election expense reports of the candidates looks at how candidates have run circles around campaign finance laws. The Commission on Elections is first to admit that it has no idea how to carry out a competent audit on campaign contributions and expenses, despite [...]
  
  
• Top bets, party-list groups skirt ad caps together
  Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:00:17 +0000
  Part 2 of our three-part report on the audit of the election expense reports of the candidates looks at how top bets for president and vice president conspired with party-list groups to get around caps on election spending. Presumably the defenders of the powerless and the voiceless, these groups seem to have allowed the themselves [...]
  
  
• Auditing the 2010 elections
  Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:00:43 +0000
  Our latest offering is a three-part report on our audit of the Statement of Electoral Contribution and Expenditure (SECE) that the top candidates for president  and vice president in May 2010 elections had filed with the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Over the last two months, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) had worked on this, [...]
  
  
• The 15th Congress: Clans keep tight grip on power
  Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:12:52 +0000
  MOSTLY the same old names but new faces, first-timers and benchwarmers, veterans and returnees. This is the composition of both the Senate and the House of Representatives of the 15th Congress. Of the 12 senators elected to a six-year term last May 10, only two are first-time senators (Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Teofisto Guingona III) while [...]
  
  
• Civil servants on SONA: We?re in wrong agency
  Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:07:11 +0000
  PRESIDENT Aquino?s revelations of alleged anomalies committed by the Arroyo administration did not strike some civil servants as a ?shock and awe? State of the Nation Address. His exposes, however, left them feeling a bit shortchanged. Like the rest of the nation, employees of a government agency yesterday watched and listened in to Aquino?s debut SONA. [...]