BUSINESS / B1 NEWS / A2 WORLD / A20 WORLD / A19

2006 farm output Ex-Sol Gen Frank Chavez says he Car bombs hit Democratic Party star
weaker than expected filed 10 documents at Ombudsman university in Baghdad; Barack Obama bares bid to

INQUIRER
due to typhoons to prove Perez guilty of plunder 65 students killed be 1st black US president

Mating game: How Indon exec in Asean

woman sizes up man?
PARIS—A LONELY
man desperate to find a
girlfriend might be well
advised to hire a few
women to smile at
him—and let female
copycat genes run their
course.
P H I L I P P I N E D A I L Y summit accused of graft
AN OFFICIAL, WHO ACCOMPANIED INDONE-
sian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to
the 12th Asean summit in Cebu last week, al-
legedly tried to get hotel managers to mark up
their expenses and split the profits, The Jakarta
Post reported yesterday.
B A L A N C E D N E W S , F E A R L E S S V I E W S The state secretariat staffer allegedly ap-
proached the management of the Shangri-La’s

Killing of top
British psychologists website: inquirer.net Mactan Island Resort to increase the listed price
MATING/ A6
Thursday, January 18, 2007 HH 4 sections / Vol. 22 / No. 41 P18
INDON/ A8

Abu confirmed
US help cited in Sulaiman’s death
By Dona Pazzibugan “We are very elated by this accom-
plishment. I would personally rank him
ABU SULAIMAN, A SENIOR LEADER OF THE EXTREMIST as somebody higher than [Abu Sayyaf
chieftain] Khadaffy Janjalani” in the
group Abu Sayyaf and alleged mastermind of high-profile group’s hierarchy, AFP Chief of Staff Gen.
kidnappings and deadly bomb attacks in Mindanao, has met Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said at a news
conference in Camp Aguinaldo.
DOUBLE WHAMMY RAFFY LERMA his end in a Sulu jungle, the Armed Forces announced yes- Esperon said that when Abu Sayyaf
In less than a month, Chin-Chin Gutierrez, actress, model and terday. founder Abdurajak Janjalani was killed in
environmentalist, lost her ancestral home and all her belongings in a fire on Basilan in 1999, the likes of Sulaiman and
Dec. 20. On Wednesday, at the Loyola Memorial Park, she buries her mother, Sulaiman, whose real name was They said he was the brains behind the Isnilon Hapilon took command before
Cecilia Arnaldo-Gutierrez, herself an artist, who succumbed to diabetes on Jainal Antel Sali, was killed by elite Army 2001 Dos Palmas kidnapping, the 2004 Janjalani’s younger brother Khadaffy was
Jan. 12 . (Story in Metro, Page A18) troops in Talipao, Sulu, on Tuesday but SuperFerry 14 bombing and the 2005 acknowledged as the new leader.
officials only confirmed it yesterday. Valentine’s Day bomb attacks. KILLING/ A4

SAVED BY THE BELL

TRO aborts police
assault on Iloilo capitol
By Nestor P. Burgos Jr.,
Carla P. Gomez and Felipe Celino
Inquirer Visayas
THE COURT OF APPEALS IN CEBU CITY
issued a 60-day temporary restraining
order on the enforcement of the dis-
missal order against Iloilo Gov. Niel Tu-
pas Sr.
The two-page order released by the
Court of Appeals in Cebu City at 4:30
p.m. barred the Office of the Ombuds-
man, Department of Interior and Local
Government, and other government
agencies from removing Tupas, 74, from
office during the period.
The order signed by Associate Justices
Francisco Acosta, Agustin Dizon and Isa-
ias Dicdican was issued to “preserve the
status quo” and to “defend the rights” of
the petitioners.
The much-awaited copy was received
by the office of the governor minutes af-
ter hundreds of fully armed policemen
assaulted the provincial capitol.
The assault came before the lapse of
the 48-hour deadline set by Interior Sec-
retary Renaldo Puno for dismissed and
suspended local executives to leave their
respective offices. The deadline lapses at
noon today.
The Ombudsman dismissed Tupas,
along with Mayor Wenceslao “Peewee”
Trinidad of Pasay City, Mayor Antonio
Prospero Esquivel of Jaen, Nueva Ecija,
and several other local executives, for his
alleged involvement in graft.
“Justice will always prevail,” a teary-
eyed and jubilant Tupas repeatedly
TRO/ A6

Gringo not among Erap’s

ARNOLD ALMACEN/INQUIRER VISAYAS

nine ‘sure’ Senate bets

By TJ Burgonio
IT’S OFFICIAL. FORMER SEN. GREGO-
rio “Gringo” Honasan is out of the sena-
torial slate of the United Opposition-led
coalition.
The camp of the UNO leader, former
President Joseph Estrada, yesterday re-
leased a partial list of nine “sure” candi-
dates, including opposition stalwarts,
and three other possible candidates, but
without Honasan’s name on it.
The coalition’s ad hoc executive com-
mittee, composed of Estrada and leaders
of the other parties, dropped Honasan
from the slate after weighing the pros
and cons of his candidacy.
Those in the top five of the list drawn
up by UNO, Nacionalista Party and the
Liberal Party wing of Sen. Franklin ARMED WITH M16 Armalites, members of the Regional Mobile Group VI aim at the son of Iloilo Gov. Niel Tupas, Junjun, and other
Drilon, were Senate President Manuel supporters who barricaded the provincial capitol. The Tupas camp is no match for the high-powered long arms of the dispersal team.
Villar Jr. and Sen. Panfilo Lacson; former
Senators Loren Legarda, Vicente Sotto III
‘CESSION’ OR ‘RENT’?
Malaysia pays Sulu Sultan’s heirs yearly
and John Osmeña.
Rounding out the list of nine “sure”
candidates were Representatives Francis
Escudero and Alan Peter Cayetano,
lawyer Aquilino Pimentel III and San
Juan Mayor JV Ejercito, who were By Tina Arceo-Dumlao Malaysian Embassy in Makati City hands To the Malaysian government, the
picked for their “youth and progressive a Standard Chartered Bank check in the check represents the “cession” payment
views.” Ejercito is Estrada’s son by ac- THE PAYMENT WAS MADE IN the same amount of 5,300 Malaysian ringgit (or a for the disputed state of Sabah (formerly
tress Guia Gomez. way it had been made for the past 43 little over P74,000) to the legal counsel known as North Borneo) in Malaysia.
Honasan, 58, a cashiered colonel, has years. of the descendants of Sultan Jamalul But Sultan Ahlam’s descendants, in-
GRINGO/ A6 Every November or December, the Ahlam of the Kingdom of Sulu. MALAYSIA/ A4

SPECIAL PEOPLE
Volunteers found Sharp rise noted in Special
‘Waiting list for diagnosis is one year’

boy Denver tied to
post in a shanty
By Edson C. Tandoc Jr.
THEY FIRST SAW THE BOY THEY CALL
Denver inside a shanty on Barangka
Drive in Mandaluyong City. His legs
were tied to a wooden post.
Denver is suffering from autism.
His mother told volunteers of the
Katipunan ng mga Magulang ng mga
Batang May Kapansanan that Denver
had jumped off the upper floor of the
VOLUNTEERS/ A8
By Tarra Quismundo
(Second of a series)
IN THIS PUBLIC HOSPITAL TEEMing
with indigent patients every day, ex-
perts stretch themselves while working
against time to rewire the brain of a
child with autism.
The patient’s list may be more than
what they can handle, but develop-
mental and behavioral pediatricians
at the University of the Philippines-
Philippine General Hospital (UP-
i
-TEAM Report
Fernando del Mundo
Chief
PGH) are making do with what they
have to attend to charity cases of
autism spectrum disorders (ASDs)
who walk into the facility day by day.
“Our waiting list for diagnosis is
one year. We have that many patients.
There are that many patients who
have special needs,” says Dr. Stella
Manalo, the hospital’s child protec-
tion specialist. She says doctors see
around six to 10 patients per day and
clinic is four times a week. “So you
can put that at 25 patients a week at
an average,” Manalo says.
Explaining the process of diagnosis
and treatment for autism patients,
Manalo says walk-in patients with the
chief complaint of speech delay, a
symptom of ASD onset, first goes
WAITING/ A8
Education students at UP
By Nikko Dizon
THE PAST YEARS HAVE SEEN AN EXPONEN-
tial increase in the number of enrollees in the
Special Education (SpEd) course, both in the
graduate and undergraduate programs, at the
state-run University of the Philippines (UP).
So much so that the university is consider-
ing imposing a quota on the number of stu-
dents applying in the decade-old SpEd mas-
ter’s degree program, says Dr. Erlinda Cama-
ra, UP SpEd area coordinator.
“We have seen an influx of enrollees. We not
SHARP/ A8