News Roundup 01 August 2021
Aug 01, 2021 • 5 min Read
Philippines starts August with 8,735 more COVID-19 cases | PHILSTAR.COM – Health authorities reported 8,735 new coronavirus cases on the first day of August, with deaths reaching 28,016. This marks the third straight day of officials tallying more than 8,000 additional infections, with the overall count now at 1,597,689. The Department of Health said two laboratories failed to submit testing results.
- Active cases: 63,646 or 4.0% of the total
- Recoveries: 5,930, bringing the number to 1,506,027
- Deaths: 127, or now 28,016 in total
‘Who will come next?’: De Lima questions death of witness Vincent Sy from cardiac arrest | PHILSTAR.COM – Opposition Sen. Leila de Lima questioned Sunday the “trend of witnesses dying” as she raised the possibility of foul play after the second straight death of a former witness against her amid the coronavirus pandemic. This comes after Vincent Sy, a convicted drug lord who once testified against De Lima, suddenly died of a heart attack on Thursday, July 29. Sy, who previously testified and said that he contributed half a million pesos to De Lima’s senatorial campaign in 2012, eventually retracted his claims and admitted he did not know De Lima according to the senator’s lawyer. “It’s not remote that any, some, if not all, of these prosecution witnesses who were either coerced, threatened, bribed or blackmailed to lie about my alleged drug links would be targeted for extermination in order to permanently silence them from exposing the truth about my cases,” the senator said in a dispatch from her cell in Camp Crame. “This beleaguering trend of witnesses dying still does not give comfort to me who is waiting for their eventual revelation on who are behind these fabricated charges filed against me. As they say, dead men tell no tales. And it appears that my persecutors are sticking to the malevolent wisdom of this saying. As if the truth can be eternally buried or is not inevitable. As if there’s no day of reckoning.” The death of Sy is only the second high-profile death linked to De Lima’s case after drug convict Jaybee Sebastian also succumbed to the coronavirus in July last year. Former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II accused him of running a funding campaign to support De Lima’s Senate run in 2016. “I believe and maintain, to this day, that it was a case of deliberate killing in order to block his then impending retraction of his affidavit falsely implicating me in the Bilibid drug trade,” she said Sunday of Sebastian’s death. De Lima was jailed in 2017 over drug charges filed by the Department of Justice. She is accused of involvement in the illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison when she was Justice secretary during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III.
As NCR goes into ECQ, DBM chief’s leave is ‘lamentable’ — Bayan Muna | INQUIRER.NET – With Metro Manila going into lockdown to stem the spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant, partylist group Bayan Muna on Sunday lamented the timing of Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado’s medical leave. Avisado’s leave was announced as the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) was ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte to source funds that will aid Metro Manila residents who will be affected by the reimposition of the most restrictive enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) from August 6 to August 20. “The timing is truly lamentable considering that we are on the verge of a surge of the Delta variant and about to enter another hard lockdown with the [ECQ] and people need ayuda (cash aid) from the government,” Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Zarate said in a statement. “Just the other day Sec. Avisado said that he was still trying to find funds for the much-needed ayuda and awaited only a clear directive from President Duterte. Was such directive already given? Was he able to find the budget to help our people before the ECQ is implemented?” he added. Zarate said ayuda funds can be sourced from the Duterte administration’s National Budget Circular 586, as well as from the 4.5 billion presidential confidential and intelligence funds, even the funds of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). According to Zarate, Congress is also still waiting for the executive’s budget proposal for 2022 from the DBM.
Best tribute for PNoy’s legacy is to ‘stand’ for PH—Robredo | Manila Bulletin – Vice President Leni Robredo believes the best tribute that Filipinos can give the late former President Benigno Aquino III is to stand up for the Philippines and fight for its democracy. She spoke after the 40th day mass for the death of Aquino, who died due to renal failure secondary to diabetes, on June 24. It also coincided with the 12th death anniversary of the former President’s mother, the late former President Corazon Aquino. “Ito na rin siguro yung pinakamagandang tribute na pwede nating ibigay kay PNoy—ang mahanap ang lakas ng loob na tumindig at pandayin ang Pilipinas na pinangarap niya para sa atin (This is, perhaps, the best tribute we can give to PNoy—to find the strength to stand for and forge the Philippines into what he dreams it to be for us),” she said. “Hindi tayo passive observer lang sa demokrasya kundi may responsibilidad na makilahok (We are not just passive observer to the democracy, but we have a responsibility to participate),” Robredo added as she addressed PNoy’s “boss,” a term he used to refer to the Filipinos.
