News Roundup 01 October 2022
Oct 01, 2022 • 6 min Read
Oil prices seen to go down next week | PHILSTAR.COM – Fuel prices are expected to go down next week by up to P0.60 per liter. According to a forecast by Unioil, the price of diesel is expected to go down by P0.50 to P0.60 per liter, while gasoline is expected to go down by P0.40 to P0.50 per liter. This will be the fifth consecutive week that diesel prices have gone down, following a slash of P1.25 per liter this week due to movements in the international market. The forecasted rollbacks for diesel and gasoline will peg the net increase of diesel between P30.15 to P30.05 and of gasoline between P16.10 to P16. Should the price cuts continue, the total rollback for diesel and gasoline since Sept. 6 may reach between P8.90 to P9 per liter and between P5.10 to P5.20 per liter, respectively.
DFA seeks P29 million funding for arbitral ruling info campaign | PHILSTAR.COM – The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is seeking the restoration of cuts made to its proposed budget for 2023, including P29 million intended for sustaining international and local awareness of the significance of the 2016 arbitral ruling that invalidated China’s “nine-dash line” claim in the South China Sea. The request for the restoration of at least P2.3 billion in cuts made by the Department of Budget and Management was made during the hearing on the DFA’s proposed P20.3-billion outlay for next year by the Senate finance subcommittee chaired by Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda. DFA Assistant Secretary Sulpicio Confiado said the P29 million is earmarked for various activities and programs, including putting up and maintaining a website on the country’s victory before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to “gain and solicit stronger support from members of the international community to promote the rule of law, which the Arbitral Award represents.” Among the activities and programs that need funding are the development and publication of a book on Philippine milestones on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the writing of think-pieces by academics for general publication, facilitation and promotion of the recognition of the arbitral award by the DFA and embassies, administrative support for dialogue activities, and engaging the services for personnel dedicated to manage the Marine Scientific Research application process to demonstrate that that the country is performing its duties as a coastal state under UNCLOS. Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo told senators the award “conclusively settled the status of historical rights and maritime entitlements in the South China Sea or West Philippine Sea.” “It declared as without legal effects, legal effect claims that exceed geographic kind of substantive limits of maritime entitlements on their own course. It also upheld the Philippine sovereign rights and jurisdiction and its exclusive economic zone. This milestone decision should serve as an inspiration for how disagreements should be resolved,” Manalo said. He said this also marks the 20th anniversary of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties on the South China Sea. He said he also raised “key concerns” with his counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations recent Foreign Ministers’ Meeting but did not elaborate.
DOJ blocks own witness who has cleared De Lima | INQUIRER.NET – A government witness who in April recanted his statements linking former Sen. Leila de Lima to drug trafficking appeared in court on Friday but was prevented by prosecution lawyers from affirming his retraction on the witness stand. Five months since signing his recantation and announcing it to the media, former Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) officer in charge Rafael Ragos appeared at the Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court (RTC) supposedly to affirm his April 30 affidavit. In his retraction, Ragos said he was just coerced by then Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II and his subordinates into testifying that De Lima received payoffs from convicted drug lords at New Bilibid Prison (NBP). Accompanied by his lawyer, Michael de Castro, Ragos spent only an hour in the sala of Muntinlupa RTC Branch 204 Judge Abraham Joseph Alcantara, who is hearing one of the two remaining drug cases against De Lima. Detained since 2017, the former senator, human rights commission chair and justice secretary has denied the charges, dismissing them as mere political vendetta for her criticism of then President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody antidrug campaign and his human rights record as Davao City mayor. The trial is closed to the media. Speaking to reporters after Friday’s hearing, De Castro said the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed on Thursday a motion for reconsideration (MR) on an earlier court order that would have allowed Ragos to take the stand. The court gave the defense lawyers five days to comment on the prosecution’s MR. The next two hearings on De Lima’s Criminal Case No. 17-165 were set for Oct. 28 and Nov. 4. In their six-page MR, the DOJ panel led by Provincial Prosecutor Ramoncito Bienvenido Ocampo Jr. argued that “recantations are typically viewed with suspicion and hardly given much weight.” They said Ragos’ court testimonies on June 7, 14, and 28, 2019, were consistently repeated when he appeared in Congressional hearings, like when the Senate tackled the issue of good conduct time allowance for prisoners entitled to early liberty in September 2019. “Obviously, Mr. Ragos’ alleged recantation is nothing but an afterthought. The timeliness and circumstances of the alleged recantation is clearly suspect and even amounts to perjury,” they said. Calling back Ragos to the stand would be “procedurally erroneous” and “will only make a mockery of justice under the circumstances considering that he is a perjured witness and recantations are untrustworthy and frowned upon in our jurisdiction.” The subject of the prosecution’s MR was Alcantara’s order that granted the motion of co-accused Ronnie Dayan, De Lima’s former aide, to let Ragos testify again. Like De Lima, Dayan was also cleared by Ragos in his April 30 affidavit. Other members of the DOJ panel are Alexander Suarez, Wendell Bendoval, Blas Antonio Tuliao, Laurence Taliping, Leilia Llanes, Evangeline Viudez-Canobas, Darwin Canete, Rudy Ricamora, John Quincy Carandang and Alfred Joseph Jamora. De Castro said his client’s “primary concern is his safety. He is afraid.” “We were ready to come out with the truth, but in the end, it has been delayed,” he added. Also on Friday, Ragos’ lawyer filed a motion seeking to expunge from court records three affidavits that the former BuCor official submitted—on Sept. 5 and Sept. 26, 2016, and in March 2017—to build the cases against De Lima, saying these documents were executed under duress and not in the presence of an attorney of his choice. “By filing a motion to suppress and expunge the previous affidavits, I think he (Ragos) doesn’t need to affirm this because, as per our Constitution, confessions signed without an independent and competent lawyer assisting you can be stricken off. His recantation is just like an additional detail,” De Castro told reporters. De Lima was also present in Friday’s hearing. “We just have to respect the processes of the court. We are confident that [Ragos] will be able to testify,” she told reporters while being escorted out of the court and back to detention cell at Camp Crame. Her counsel, Boni Tacardon, said they were hoping that Ragos’ affirmation of his recantation would be a big blow to the government’s case against her.
