UPannouncesvariousschoolcalendars

By Julie M. Aurelio
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines Three campuses of the University of the Philippines have released their
new academic calendars as UP prepares to shift the opening of classes from June to August.
On its Facebook page, UP Manila said classes for the first semester would begin Aug. 6, with the
same schedule applying to the School of Health Sciences in Palo, Baler, and Koronadal.
The first semester will end on Dec. 5, while the second semester will run from Jan. 26 to May
29. Classes for the short term, or what used to be referred to as summer, will be from June 17
to July 17.
For its part, the UP Visayas webpage announced that the first semester will run from Aug. 18 to
Dec. 5 at the campuses in Tacloban, Leyte, and Miag-ao, Iloilo. The second semester will from
Jan. 26 to May 22, while the short term will be from June 18 to July 24.
Meanwhile, the UP Open University said the first semester programs will begin on Aug. 23,
while the trimestral programs will start on Sept. 6.
The deadline for applications for admission has been moved to March 29 for certain graduate
programs such as PhD in Education, Master of Public Management, and Doctor of
Communication, while other programs have an April 26 deadline.
The Open University has yet to release the complete academic calendar.
The 2015 commencement exercises are set for June 26 for the Manila campus, June 30 for the
Palo campus, July 3 in Baler, and July 8 in Koronadal.
The Miag-ao campus will have it s graduation on June 26 while the Tacloban campus will hold
commencement exercises on June 29.
Graduation rites for this year will still be in April based on the 2013-2014 academic calendar,
save for the Tacloban campus, which has moved its graduation to June 27 this year.
The yearly lantern parade in Manila is scheduled on December 12.
The three campuses are among seven UP campuses covered by a Board of Regents decision
approving the shift in the academic calendar.
The Baguio, Los Baos, Mindanao, and Cebu campuses have not yet released their new
academic calendars.
The Diliman campus is not covered by the ruling since it had not yet completed consultations.

Armed man takes 3 people hostage in Zamboanga City

Inquirer

ZAMBOANGA CITY, PhilippinesAt least three people were being held hostage by a gunwielding man inside a house on Sampaguita Road in Barangay Sta. Catalina here since Saturday
noon.

Initial police report identified the hostages as siblings Langga and Jayjay Elemia, whose ages
were not immediately known; and a certain Gingging.
The hostage-taker, armed with a .45 caliber pistol, was identified as a Jung Jung Marcos.
Police said Marcos and Gingging, who are live-in partners, had a quarrel. As police responded,
Marcos suddenly dragged Gingging inside the Elemia house, where he also prevented the
siblings from leaving.

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Time to bill Janet Napoles P150,000 a month for expensesSantiago

By Norman Bordadora
Philippine Daily Inquirer
If Janet Lim-Napoles wants a specially secure jail but continues to clam up regarding everything she knows about the P10billion pork barrel scam that she allegedly engineered, it may be time to bill her for her reported P150,000-a-month detention
bungalow in Fort Sto. Domingo.
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago made the remark amid suggestions that Napoles be transferred to an ordinary jail with other
inmates if she continues to keep mum about the legislators who converted their pork barrel funds into millions of pesos in
kickbacks for themselves through Napoles fake nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and their ghost projects.
The Aquino administration has continued to allow Napoles to be detained at the police camp in Sta. Rosa City, Laguna province,
despite the huge cost to Filipino taxpayers to keep her safe, hoping that she would eventually tell all on her influential
conspirators in the government.
Refuses to cooperate
Since Napoles refuses to cooperate, it appears that there is no substantial reason for the government to pay so much money just
for one individual when it does not provide the same services for all other prisoners facing criminal charges and denied the right
to bail, Santiago said on Friday in a speech at De La Salle University.
Accordingly, I humbly propose that President Aquino save public funds by allowing detention prisoners to pay for their stay,
she added.
Santiago said the government was spending P5,000 daily and P150,000 monthly, and would be spending P1.8 million annually
for Napoles special detention accommodations.
By comparison, the government spends just P54 daily, P1,612 monthly and P20,000 annually to detain a prisoner in an ordinary
jail, she said.
Witnesses have testified to the lavish lifestyle that Napoles led while she allegedly perpetrated her scams. One story is that she
had bags of money delivered to her room and even to her bathtub, presumably because they had run out of storage space.
Philippine state interest consists in the promotion of the truth about the pork barrel scandal. If Napoles as a person of
interest refuses to cooperate by providing information that she apparently possesses about the scam, there is no acceptable reason
why the government should single her out for special treatment among the more than 70,000 detention prisoners in the country,
Santiiago said.
The discrimination in her favor constitutes a violation of the equal protection clause in the Constitution, she said.
Bill her
The PNP (Philippine National Police) should immediately bill Napoles under a cost recovery program. If she wishes to avail
[herself] of protection for her security and safety, then the obvious legal remedy is for her to apply for the Witness Protection
Program administered by the Department of Justice, Santiago said.
Applying for the Witness Protection Program means asking to turn state witness and rat on the senators, House members,
legislative staff, line agency officials and others now facing plunder and other charges in the Office of the Ombudsman in
connection with the pork scam.

The pork barrel scam robbed poor communities of livelihood programs that the lawmakers Priority Development Assistance
Fund allocations were supposed to finance and that Napoles fake NGOs were supposed to implement, testimonies have shown.
Among those charged with plunder in connection with the scam are Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon
Revilla Jr.
Within Aquinos power
Santiago said it was well within Mr. Aquinos power to implement a pay-for-stay system in Napoles case.
The first legal basis is the Presidents ordinance power, under which he could issue a memorandum order concerning a
particular office of the government. The second legal basis is the Presidents residual powers, as provided for by the
Administrative Code, she said.
The President has the power to compel a detention prisoner to make a choice between ordinary stay in jail at the governments
expense or stay in an enhanced facility at the prisoners own expense, she added.
Santiago said the system is called the pay-for-stay program in the United States. She said US courts had upheld pay-for-stay
programs in such states as Texas, California, New York, Illinois, Tennessee, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The pay-for-stay programs have been questioned in US courts but have been upheld, she said.
Tillman case
Santiago said the most famous of these US decisions was the 2000 case Tillman v. Correctional Facility, decided by the US Court
of Appeals.
She said the US appellate court upheld the system of charging inmates for enhanced room and board.
The landmark case of Tillman teaches us that there should be judicial deference to executive administrative practices. In other
words, the judiciary should grant a wide latitude in applying the Presidents constitutional power to control the executive
department, Santiago said.
In fact, the US Court of Appeals in the Tillman decision indicates that even if [appellate Michael] Tillmans constitutional rights
have been violated, the court might still find that the violation was outweighed by the states interest in sparing the taxpayers the
cost of imprisonment, she added

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/585746/time-to-bill-janet-napoles-p150000-a-month-for-expensessantiago#ixzz2w1QodETi

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