News Roundup 15 December 2020
Dec 15, 2020 • 4 min Read
Senate bill sponsored by Marcos would see return to ‘fraud-prone’ polls — election lawyer | PHILSTAR.COM – An election lawyer on Monday warned against a bill at the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Imee Marcos, proposing a “hybrid” election system which would involve manual vote counting at the precinct level. “If we were to regress to the fraud-prone manual system this 2022, anyone who will run in opposition to the government will never have the fighting chance,” election lawyer Emil Marañon III said on Twitter, further criticizing Marcos for openly pushing “the return to manual counting.” Marañon, through a series of tweets on November 29, was the first to publicize a “dangerous” insertion in the 2021 budget that would have waived election procurement safeguards for the upcoming national polls. While he did not identify his sources or the lawmaker responsible, the Inquirer on Sunday reported that three sources from the House of Representatives and the Senate confirmed that it was Marcos who inserted the clandestine provision which Marañon said disregarded automated election law. Before the report surfaced, Marcos herself said the provision would set a “very, very dangerous precedent” during an interview with CNN Philippines on November 30. Her brother, former Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is in the middle of a long-running poll protest before the Supreme Court against Vice President Leni Robredo who beat him in the 2016 elections.
Leachon shrugs off Duterte’s curses, wants explanation on China vaccine’s efficacy, safety | INQUIRER.NET – If it is true that President Rodrigo Duterte had cursed him several times, former adviser of the National Task Force against COVID-19 Dr. Anthony Leachon on Tuesday said he accepts it but maintains that an explanation is needed as to why the country prefers the vaccine from China with questions still hanging on its efficacy. “If ever those statements by Secretary Harry Roque is true, then we just have to accept it, because I think the questions basically would really beg some explanations in terms of the efficacy as well as the safety data considering that the Chinese vaccine has not received any emergency use authorization, not even FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval to warrant the ordering of that particular volume of stock that will start in March,” he said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel. Leachon was reacting to the statement of Roque, who is the presidential spokesperson, that Duterte was not fond of the criticism from Leachon on the government’s response to the pandemic. Roque also said that the doctor had been repeatedly cursed by the President in his speeches but was only edited out in aired videos. Roque made the statement when asked about Leachon’s comment on the government’s plan to purchase 25 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from China’s Sinovac even if it is yet to show its safety and efficacy after human trials. But according to Leachon, a Cabinet official whom he did not name told him that Roque’s statement was only made up.
COVID-19 tally increases to 451,839 — DOH | Manila Bulletin – The tally of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the Philippines increased to 451,839, the Department of Health (DOH) announced on Tuesday. The DOH reported the 1,135 new individuals who tested positive for COVID-19, raising the number of active cases to 24,160—which is 5.3 percent of the total number of confirmed cases. Recovered COVID-19 patients jumped to 418,867 with 173 more survivors. However, 56 new fatalities were confirmed, raising the death count to 8,812.
Lacson on P28B DPWH extra fund: ‘Personal interest first, public service next’ | Malaya Business Insight – Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson’s ranting against the recently ratified P4.5-trillion national budget for 2021 is not yet over. Yesterday, Lacson scored the additional P28 billion budget that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) got in the final version of the money measure, which he said was approved in the bicameral conference committee level because of the “haggling” for pet projects of lawmakers. Lacson said the extra funding was apparently meant to accommodate select lawmakers’ requests for inclusion of their “pet projects” in the list of government infrastructure projects. In an interview with CNN Philippines, the senator said a scrutiny of the bicameral budget report would show that lawmakers initially added P83.87 billion in the DPWH proposed budget but “they (solons) could only extract P55.21 billion from within the department (so) they had to get the P28 billion differential from other agencies.” “That’s the reason why there’s a net increase of P28-B in the budget of the DPWH. So, from the original P666.4 billion [in the National Expenditure Program], it is now P694-B,” Lacson said. Lacson lamented that his colleagues in the Senate approved the bicameral report despite an increase in the DPWH budget.
