News Roundup 17 February 2022
Feb 17, 2022 • 4 min Read
‘Oplan Baklas’: Robredo campaign mulls suits; PNP tells cops not to take down posters | PHILSTAR.COM – The campaign of Vice President Leni Robredo is considering filing a case over the Commission on Elections’ removal of campaign materials on private property and is encouraging supporters directly affected by the takedowns to also take legal action. “Kung kinakailangan, pinag-aaralan sa kasalukuyan kung posibleng mag-file ng karapat-dapat na kaso para maging mas klaro iyong rule dito sa isyung ito,” Robredo’s spokesperson, Barry Gutierrez, told a news conference on Thursday. (If necessary, we are currently studying the possibility of filing the appropriate case so that the rules on this issue are clarified further.) Gutierrez added partly in Filipino, “But definitely, the right to action currently belongs with the people directly affected. After all, it’s their private property, they are private persons, they are not connected to the campaign.” Some supporters of Robredo and her running mate, Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, reported that campaign materials of the tandem have been removed by the Comelec, even if these were displayed in private properties. But election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said these takedowns were unconstitutional as they violated supporters’ right to due process. “It was a very arbitrary act of the Comelec because said persons were never given the chance to be heard which violated their procedural right to due process when said campaign materials were removed without any hearing,” Macalintal said at the press briefing. Macalintal led Robredo’s legal team in the poll protest against her by former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. over the 2016 vice-presidential elections. He cited the 2015 case Timbol vs Comelec, where the Supreme Court ruled that the poll body’s motu proprio powers, or its power to act on matters even without a request from another party, can only be exercised if those affected have been given the chance to be heard. He added that election regulations on campaign materials, particularly in the Fair Elections Act, only cover candidates and political parties and not ordinary citizens.
‘We cannot have national unity built on national amnesia’ —Bello | INQUIRER.NET – “We cannot have national unity built on national amnesia.” This was the remark of activist and vice-presidential candidate Walden Bello Thursday on the “unity” slogan of the tandem of former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio who are running for president and vice president, respectively. “Slogans, kagaya ni Marcos and si Sara Duterte, ‘let’s unite, unite, unite,’ without looking at the fact that ang daming mga problema talaga,” Bello said during the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippine Islands forum. (Slogans, like Marcos and Sara Duterte’s “let’s unite, unite, unite,” without looking at the fact that there are a lot of problems.) “We cannot have national unity built on national amnesia because Marcos would like us to forget the horrible years of his father and Sara would like us to forget the fact that 20,000 Filipinos have been killed in the drug war,” he continued. Marcos Jr.’s namesake and father is the late dictator of the Philippines who was overthrown during the 1986 People Power Revolution.
PH records 2,196 new COVID-19 cases | INQUIRER.NET – The country recorded 2,196 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the fourth straight day that additional infections were just within the 2,000 range. The 2,196 new cases were also the second lowest so far for February following the 2,010 cases registered on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Department of Health (DOH) also reported 4,409 more recoveries and 107 deaths. The active cases stood at 66,588. Of the active cases, 93 percent are either mild or asymptomatic. A total of 1,090 are without symptoms, 60,848 are mild, 2,913 are moderate, 1,428 are severe, and 309 are critical. The country has so far confirmed 3,646,793 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Of this number, 3,524,875 are recoveries and 55,330 are fatalities. The DOH reported a positivity rate of 9.7 percent out of 29,392 individuals who got tested for coronavirus last Tuesday. According to the health agency, 31 percent of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 27 percent of isolation beds, and 23 percent of ward beds nationwide for COVID-19 patients are being occupied. In Metro Manila, 31 percent of ICU beds, 25 percent of isolation beds, and 26 percent of ward beds are in use. All testing laboratories were operational on Tuesday. Only three laboratories were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.
