News Roundup 07 June 2022
Jun 07, 2022 • 4 min Read
LTO: Driver in Mandaluyong hit-and-run incident a no show at hearing | INQUIRER.NET – The driver who rammed a security guard on traffic management duty did not attend the hearing set by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) on Tuesday. LTO chief Edgar Galvante told INQUIRER.net in a text message that the registered driver of the involved vehicle was a no show despite an order asking the individual to appear before the agency’s Intelligence and Investigation Division at 1 p.m., June 7. Because of this, Galvante said: “Today, we issued the second and final notice directing the registered owner to appear, submit [a] comment/explanation on 10 June 2022, 1:00 p.m. as he did not appear at 1 p.m. today.” Galvante added that if the driver fails to appear again on June 10, the driver “waives his right to be heard” and the LTO will proceed with the administrative hearing in his/her absence. The LTO issued the show-cause order after a video of a hit-and-run incident involving a compact SUV and a security guard, identified as 31-year-old Christian Floralde who was managing traffic flow at an intersection of the Ortigas business district in Mandaluyong City, went viral on social media last weekend. In the video, Floralde was on traffic management duty at the intersection of J. Vargas Avenue and Saint Francis Street in Barangay Wack-Wack when a white Toyota RAV4 (NCO 3781) hit him, causing him to fall to the ground. Instead of stopping, the vehicle proceeded to run over Floralde and fled.
3.1 million Filipino families experienced hunger in Q1 — SWS | PHILSTAR.COM – Some 12.2% of Filipino families, or an estimated 3.1 million, experienced involuntary hunger, defined as being hungry and not having anything to eat, at least once in the past three months, new survey results suggest. The April 2022 hunger rate in the latest Social Weather Stations survey is 0.4 points above the 11.8% or an estimated 3 million families in December 2021, and 2.2 points above the 10% (2.5 million families) in September 2021, though the 12.2% is still 0.9 points below the 13.1% annual average for 2021.
Hunger rising in Balance Luzon and Mindanao: According to the survey results published late Monday night, the experience of hunger is highest in Metro Manila at 18.6% of families, followed by Mindanao at 13.1%, Balance Luzon at 11.7%, and the Visayas at 7.8%. Historically, SWS said, hunger has been highest in Metro Manila after topping 23 out of 97 surveys since July 1998. The survey results also include a distinction between moderate hunger, or families who experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months. On the other hand, “severe hunger refers” to those who experienced it “often” or “always” in the last three months. SWS said that the overall 12.2% hunger rate for April “is the sum of 9.3 percent (est. 2.4 million families) who experienced Moderate Hunger and 2.9% (est. 744,000 families) who experienced Severe Hunger.”
What were respondents asked?:
- In the last three months, did it happen even once that your family experienced hunger and not have anything to eat?
- Did it happen only once, a few times, often, or always?
The survey was held from April 19 to 27. The survey was conducted using face-to-face interviews of 1,440 adults around the country. The sampling error margin is at ±2.6% for national percentages and ±5.2% for Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao, SWS said.
QC Court on San Roque 21: No crime in being hungry and pleading for food | PHILSTAR.COM – Arrested and jailed for leaving their homes to ask the government for food, the residents of Sitio San Roque in Quezon City who were nabbed during the stringent lockdown in April 2020 have finally been cleared, with a Quezon City court ruling that food is essential and to ask for it is within their right. Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 38 has granted their Demurrer to Evidence and acquitted the 21 San Roque residents of charges filed against them by police. The decision ended two years of anxiety over the possibility of imprisonment. A demurrer challenges the sufficiency of the prosecution evidence and paves the way for the dismissal of the case while still in trial. “Wherefore, premises considered, the Demurrer to Evidence is granted. Accused… are acquitted in Criminal Case Nos. 02888, 02889 and 028890,” the ruling pended by Presiding Judge John Boomsri Sy Rodolfo read. “The accused were acting within their rights when they went outside of their respective residences to plead for food,” the court said in a ruling dated June 6. The court also ordered the return of the P15,000 that each of them accused paid as bail bond.
