Note: Updates on Mayor Cesar Rafael’s murder here and the Abra explosion here.
*** From Philippine Star: The mayor of Paracelis town in Mountain Province was killed in an ambush yesterday, while an explosion rocked the home of a congresswoman in Bangued, Abra.
According to Senior Superintendent Joseph Adnol, Mountain Province police director, Mayor Cesar Rafael was driving in remote Sitio Sinigpit, Talitud, Paracelis town when five unidentified men fired at his vehicle.
“No President has shown so much concern for the province [than Ms Arroyo].” — Mt. Province Governor Maximo Dalog
Read the Inquirer story here. Even though I really dislike Gloria Arroyo (here and here), I must admit that Governor Dalog is correct on this one. To her credit, Gloria must have visited Mt. Province more times than all the Presidents combined. For a province which has been ignored by past national administrations, such visits are a great deal. And one cannot make that many visits without getting a glimpse of and expressing concern for the problems confronted by the province and its people.
So she’s not all bad. But let’s not also forget that she cheated her way to the presidency, that her administration is corrupt, and that her human rights record is beyond terrible.
The earlier post on land grabbing in Baguio reminded me of Woody Guthrie’s song, This Land is Your Land. You can read more about the song at Rex Pe’s blog. You can also read more info on Woody Guthrie, one of my favorite singers, at woodyguthrie.org.
“We have to ensure that deserving students from the province could be accorded a descent (emphasis supplied) education so that they could be able to uplift the economic standing of their respective families in the future. The full scholarship program must be spared from the political maneuvering of disgruntled sectors who could not admit that we were able to initiate the realization of the program.” — Mt. Province Congressman Victor Dominguez.
*** Apparently, our second favorite Cordiyera Congressman is restoring “his” scholarship program. Read the full story at Northern Philippine Times. Our take: Yeah we do need descent education. With his help, the students will descend to the level of beggars that Mt. Province people have become famous for. Apparently, that was the purpose of the Congressman when he originally asked students to write him letters to request that they be included in “his” scholarship program.
