News Roundup 26 May 2021
May 26, 2021 • 4 min Read
Philippines sees 5,310 more coronavirus infections | PHILSTAR.COM – Local health authorities on Wednesday reported 5,310 more COVID-19 infections, bringing the national caseload to 1,193,976.
- Active cases: 46,037 or 3.9% of the total
- Recoveries: 7,408, pushing total to 1,127,770
- Deaths: 150, bringing total to 20,169
Lumad students ‘rescued’ in Cebu raid had parents’ consent, House panel told | PHILSTAR.COM – Lumad students whom police said they rescued in a raid on a Cebu City university in February had consent from their parents to be there, a teacher and a student from the Lumad Bakwit school told a House panel. “Lumad” is a term used by some indigenous peoples’ communities in Mindanao to refer to themselves while “Bakwit” is from “evacuee” and means people displaced from their homes by conflict or by calamities. Teacher Jurain Ngujo told the House Committee on Human Rights on Wednesday that while not all students were accompanied by their parents to Cebu, the children had been given permission to join the Lumad Bakwit school. They had been staying in Cebu City since March 2020, when pandemic restrictions prevented them from traveling. “The parents knew of the students’ travel but the parents’ consent (forms) were taken in the raid. The police inventory should show that,” Ngujo said in Filipino. The House panel is conducting an inquiry into the “rescue operation” that police mounted to get children whom they said were being recruited into the communist rebellion. Ngujo said he taught Araling Panlipunan and Science, but said he was not at the University of San Carlos campus when police raided the retreat house there. He had gone with some of the students to get swab tests from the Philippine Red Cross in preparation for their return to their home provinces. He said they learned of the raid when a student, Mikay Haictin, broadcast the police operation on Facebook. The video, which showed children screaming while police rounded people up, went viral in February. Haictin, a 16-year-old Bakwit student, also told the panel that they did not need any rescuing. She told lawmakers that they knew that some parents of their fellow students would be coming to USC but did not know that they were with police officers and members of the media.
PNP’s move to open records of 61 drug ops ‘a step towards right direction’ — CHR | INQUIRER.NET – The Philippine National Police (PNP) decision to open for review its records of 61 drug war operations where suspects died is a step in the right direction, according to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). CHR spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia said on Wednesday that they hope this is the beginning of heightened cooperation and transparency between PNP and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to clarify doubts and allegations that police operations do not adhere to human rights standards. “[CHR] acknowledges the decision of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to open 61 cases of police operations for review, particularly those allegedly resulted in the deaths of drug suspects. PNP’s willingness in opening these cases for scrutiny is a step towards the right direction,” De Guia said in a statement. “CHR, even from the start, has repeatedly urged the government to be transparent and open in cooperating in the investigations of the said cases involving alleged extrajudicial killing related to the government’s drug campaign. We hope that 61 cases is just a beginning and we look forward to more cases being investigated,” she added. On Tuesday, it was reported that newly installed PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar has allowed the DOJ to check the records of 61 police operations centering on the controversial drug war.
Robredo hopes for shift of vaccination drive to provinces due to COVID-19 surge | Manila Bulletin – Vice President Leni Robredo wants the government to start shifting its vaccination drive to the provinces by sending more COVID-19 vaccine doses there because of the rising cases outside the National Capital Region Plus (NCR Plus) bubble. “Sana mas nagpapadala na rin sa mga probinsiya, kasi for a time kinoncentrate talaga sa Manila, ‘di ba. With reason, kasi mataas iyong cases dito, pero maraming mga probinsiya pataas na rin iyong cases ngayon (I hope we can send more to the provinces, because for a time we concentrated in Manila, right. With reason, because the cases are higher here, but many provinces have a high number of cases as well),” she said over dzXL. The health workers, senior citizens, and barangay health workers in the provinces, at least, should already be vaccinated, the vice president stressed. In her home province of Camarines Sur, Robredo noted that a lot of Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams (BHERTs) have not been vaccinated yet although they do the brunt of work in helping COVID-19 positive cases in their barangays.
