Willie apologizes anew, MTRCB eyes sanctions

abs-cbnnews.com

MANILA - "I am asking forgiveness to those who were offended. I hope you understand I had no intention to offend. If there are people who were offended, I apologize. For myself, my intention there was to give respect and make the occasion a solemn one."

This, in a nutshell, was TV host Willie Revillame's response to mounting criticism being leveled against him for ordering the removal of the video of President Corazon Aquino’s cortege, which was being beamed live simultaneously with his noontime show "Wowowee" last Monday.

Willie said most reports coming out in Internet sites took his comments out of context since the funeral cortege was shown at least twice during the airing of "Wowowee." 

He said he called up ABS-CBN management immediately during a break to request that the video be removed since he felt that the show's jovial mood was inappropriate for the cortege's somber mood. He said he could no longer contain his emotions after seeing the seond update of the cortege. 

"My intention there was not to disrespect the former president but to give respect. Sana lang po ay habang nagluluksa tayo ay hindi kami nakikitang nagsasaya, parang hindi kami nakikidalamhati," he said in an ABS-CBN interview. 

"Kung ako'y hindi nila wine-welcome at sa tingin ko ho na ako'y hindi na welcome sa bawa't Pilipino, sa araw-araw na gusto nila makasama, ako po'y aalis na sa programa," he said. 

Outrage overflows vs Willie

Revillame's action last Monday drew instant criticism from various quarters particularly in various online forums.

An online petition, which has gathered 9,709 signatures as of 3 p.m. Friday, urged ABS-CBN management to sanction Revillame for his arrogance and for showing a bad example to the youth. It also urged advertisers to stop supporting "Wowowee" until Revillame is removed as host.

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?badwilly

Lourdes Dee Dee Siytangco, spokesperson of the Aquino family, also issued a strongly worded rebuke against Revillame. The statement read: "It is regrettable and a crass attempt to desecrate the memory of the beloved Tita Cory."

The Alyansa ng Filipinong Mamamahayag (Afima) also issued a statement condemning Revillame's action as a "blasphemy of democracy" and urged the Movie and Televisions Review and Classification Board to sanction the TV host.

"He may have the right to demand it, but he never waited until the next commercial break to quietly do it. He expressed his angst against Corazon Aquino funeral being shown side by side his “Wowowee” right before the dumbstruck millions of Filipino viewers around the globe," Afima said.

MTRCB: Willie violated KBP code

The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, meanwhile, said it is eyeing possible sanctions against Revillame. It said Revillame's comments falls under MTRCB's jurisdiction and violates Presidential Decree 1986 Section 3c which states that the MTRCB may sanction portions of programs deemed "indecent, contrary to law and or good customs and injurious to the prestige of the Republic of the Philippines or its people."

"It's really a violation of PD 1986 and the [Kapisanan ng Brodkaster ng Pilipinas] Code. He should have had respect. He should gone off air," MTRCB Chairwoman Consoliza Laguardia said. 

She said the MTRCB will send a letter to ABS-CBN management next week about its decision on Revillame's case. 

Revillame, meanwhile, said he will respect the decision of the government censors. He added, however, that what is important is that he has already explained himself to the Aquino family. 

"Kung may pagkakasala ako at kailangan niyo akong ipakulong, e di magpapakulong ako," he said.

"Ang importante ay nakausap ko na ang Aquino family. Natanggap nila na wala akong intensyon na mambastos sa kanila."
 
as of 08/07/2009 11:29 PM

British ex-child star claims he fathered Jackson's daughter

abs-cbnnews.com

LONDON - Former child acting star Mark Lester said in a British newspaper Sunday that he donated sperm to Michael Jackson and believes he could be the biological father of the late singer's daughter Paris.

Lester, who played Oliver Twist in the 1968 film musical "Oliver!", told the News of the World: "I gave Michael my sperm so that he could have kids -- and I believe Paris is my daughter."

He said he was willing to take a paternity test to establish whether or not he is 11-year-old Paris' father.

The 51-year-old Briton became friends with Jackson and is godfather to Paris, and Jackson's two other children, Prince Michael, 12, and seven-year-old Prince Michael II, known as Blanket.

"It's a been a secret for so long," Lester told the newspaper.

"In 1996 Michael asked me if I would give him my sperm and I said yes. It was a gift to him, no money was paid, it was something I was honoured to do. He wanted children so badly."

Lester added: "I do feel a definite bonding with Paris and I think there's a definite possibility that she's part of me.

"I want to have contact with her, Prince and Blanket regardless of whether any or all of them are mine. I think it's cruel that I've now been excluded from them."

He said that since Jackson's mother Katherine had been granted custody of the children following the singer's death, all his phone calls and emails had gone unanswered.

Lester, who has four children himself, said there was a strong resemblance between his 15-year-old daughter Harriet and Paris.

"Paris is very pale, with blue eyes. All my daughters, apart from my eldest, are fair with blue eyes. So many people have commented on how alike Harriet and Paris look."

He told the News of the World that Jackson first confided in him in 1996 that he was desperate to be a father.

Both were then aged 37 and Lester already had three children.

"He realised having kids was a natural thing but that he just couldn't do it," Lester said.

"I mentioned the fact there are alternative ways of going about it.

"I think he'd already tried using his own sperm but it hadn't worked for him, so I made an off-the-cuff comment saying, 'Try mine'"

Jackson agreed and the donation was arranged through a clinic in Harley Street, London, in February 1996.

Eight months later Jackson announced he had married nurse Debbie Rowe and three months later the couple revealed the birth of their first child, Prince.

Paris was born just over a year later, in April 1998.

Lester said he felt compelled to speak out because he feared being excluded from the lives of Jackson's children.

"This isn't what Michael would have wanted," he said. I feel I have to come forward, as my only way of saying, 'Please don't shut me out!'."
as of 08/09/2009 11:57 AM

TAYOMISMO? ano bang naging sukli natin sa kabutihan ni PRES. CORY AQUINO?

AKOMISMO?

on my part ,,bilang return sa kabutihan nya sa ating mga pilipino,maghapong nakatutok sa TV,,my time na medyo naiiyak especially pag pinapakita c kris,,di maiwasang madala ka ng kanyang emosyon,,un ngang TV nmin starts ng 6am pinatay is 9pm na halos,,dere-deretso tlga,,since my cable kmi kaya even on CNN i watched it.

naisip kaya ni RAMOS even ni PGMA ? "kapag cla namatay ganito din kaya gagawin ng sambayanang pilipino sa kanila?

4 honor guards stand on truck for 9 hours

By Jocelyn Uy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:24:00 08/06/2009

MANILA, Philippines—The four honor guards who stood motionless and braved the rains for almost nine hours atop the flat-bed truck that carried the late President Corazon Aquino from Manila Cathedral to Manila Memorial Park were trained to do just that.

They were handpicked from the elite honor guard units of the Philippine Navy, Army, Air Force and National Police, Navy spokesperson Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo told the Inquirer last night.

He identified them as

Pfc. Antonio Cadiente, Airman 2nd Class Gener Laguindam, Petty Officer 3 Edgardo Rodriguez and Police Officer 1 Danilo Maalab.

“They’re specially trained to undertake such ceremonial duties, specially to bear such difficult task to be immobile,” Arevalo said. He added they were trained even to resist “the call of nature.”

Rigorous field training and routine formation were among the secrets to their remarkable strength, he added.

If nature called, they would have to do it where they were standing, he said. But since the four men were among the fittest in the pack, it was expected that they would stand still up to the final moments of their task for the day, he said.

The four honor guards boarded the truck at past 11 a.m. when police generals, acting as pallbearers, carried Aquino’s wooden casket out of the cathedral after the more than two-hour Requiem Mass.

They got off the truck past 8 p.m. when they reached Manila Memorial Park where the revered People Power heroine was laid to rest next to her martyred husband, former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.

“Apart from discipline inherent in security forces, the prestige of the various services of the AFP and PNP is at stake here,” he said.

He added that he was inclined to believe that aside from skills acquired from training, it was the privilege and the honor to stand guard on the remains of Aquino, “the epitome of sacrifice, selflessness and strength,” that made them last long, said Arevalo.

“That was their own tribute to the former President,” he added.

East Timor head attends Aquino funeral

By Cynthia Balana, Marlon Ramos
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:17:00 08/06/2009

East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta broke protocol when he came to Manila to bid farewell to his friend of many years. Diplomats said the gesture was a no-no for heads of state given the fact that it was not a state funeral.

Ramos-Horta braved a downpour and arrived on Wednesday morning in time for the funeral Mass at Manila Cathedral.

However, he had to proceed to Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City ahead of the mourners because he could not sit for long hours due to the wound he sustained from an attempt on his life in East Timor in 2008.

Lesson learned

Ramos-Horta said one lesson he learned from the Aquino presidency was being compassionate and humble.

“I’m always impressed by leaders who showed compassion and humility. To me, there is no greater quality in a leader than being compassionate and being humble because only through compassion and humility that one can bridge the divide, build bridges of dialogue between communities and between warring sections,” he said.

He said compassion and humility were the best traits of a leader. “Because being compassionate means being humble, and humility means being compassionate.

“No amount of intellect or academic record can replace compassion and humility that was Cory Aquino,” Ramos-Horta said at Manila Memorial Park.

Inspired by Aquino

“I could not fail to come here to the Philippines because I was always inspired by her courage in the ’80s in shouldering the legacy of Ninoy Aquino and when she left the presidency with humility, with compassion, with dignity,” Ramos-Horta said in an interview over ANC.

Ramos-Horta said he considered Aquino “one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century.”

“Cory Aquino, through her compassion and humility, inspired me. That’s the lesson I learned from her, the lesson I learned from Mahatma Gandhi, from Nelson Mandela. So I put Cory Aquino on the same status as probably one of the greatest people of this century,” he said on the cable channel.

At Manila Memorial Park, he said he first met Cory and Ninoy when the latter gave a lecture at Columbia University in New York City shortly before Ninoy’s fateful trip back home in 1983.

Ramos-Horta said he was then a member of an activist group seeking audience with the United Nations.

Humbled

On ANC, he said he last met an ailing Cory Aquino during his state visit to the Philippines last year.

He said he was “humbled” when Aquino, who was then undergoing chemotherapy treatment for her colon cancer, called him at his hotel and said she was coming over to visit him.

Ramos-Horta said he insisted that he be the one to visit the ailing Aquino. She declined.

“I wanted to visit her because I did not feel it was appropriate that she should come to my hotel because I’m a smaller person and I knew her as a greater leader,” he said.

Modest, frail

“I wanted to go and pay tribute to her in her home but she was so humble, so modest. She insisted that she was the one to come to my hotel. I looked at her, she was so frail when she walked. She was lucid, attentive and even expressed concern about my own health which showed what a very loving, caring personality she was. She cared more about others than herself. When she declined for me to go to her place and insisted that she come to my place, I felt very humbled by that,” he said.

At that meeting, he and Aquino reminisced about the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution and the legacy of her husband.

On the ANC, he said he believed the ideals that Aquino and her husband had stood for would be etched in the hearts of Filipinos and the world.

He called on Filipinos to renew efforts to resolve their differences, particularly the problems in Mindanao and elsewhere.

“Life is so precious. One life lost, one life wasted creates deeper anger among the communities,” he said.

Enemies surrender

Ramos-Horta said that like Aquino in the early years of her presidency, he, too, struggled between life and death in 2008 when he was assaulted by his enemies but he went on to live knowing that God wanted him to bring lasting peace to his country.

Today, rebel soldiers in East Timor have one by one surrendered peacefully while the gangs that used to fight each other have suddenly become silent, he said.

“For the last two years now, we have experienced the most peaceful period in our history. So, I hope that this experience of the Philippines, the passing away of Cory Aquino, the many years of her struggles, will lead the Philippines to make a greater effort to unite as one Filipino family,” he said.

Tolerant society

Ramos-Horta said that one great thing about Filipinos, which was lacking in other Asian countries, was their being “a more tolerant society.”

“Despite problems of poverty, the Philippines is a more embracing, more inclusive society in Asia. Filipinos are always optimistic. Like Brazilians, Filipinos enjoy life and have a pleasure for life,” he added.

'The queen we never had'

By Evelyn Macairan (The Philippine Star) Updated August 06, 2009 12:00 AM

People march alongside a truck carrying the casket of former President Corazon Aquino as the funeral motorcade passes Rizal Park in Manila yesterday. Edd Gumban

MANILA, Philippines – Massive crowds lined the streets, often in the rain, the whole day yesterday, strewing confetti and chanting, “Cory, Cory!” as they bade goodbye to former President Corazon Aquino.

She was the queen the country never had, Fr. Catalino Arevalo said in his homily during the requiem Mass attended by thousands of people who gathered to express their sympathy and gratitude to the Aquino family for sharing their mother with the nation.

“The children never had their father and mother. They have always shared them with the people, but because the blood of Cory and Ninoy (former senator Benigno Aquino Jr.) flows in them, they have their grace. To the family, thank you. The people would forever be in your debt,” Arevalo said.

Mrs. Aquino, who died at the age of 76 at the weekend after a long battle with colon cancer, was buried 10 hours later at the family mausoleum at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque after a long funeral procession witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people who lined the route of the funeral cortege.

“She always made the Filipino people proud. The late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin said that ‘what a great gift God gave to the people, when she gave Cory to us,’” he said.

Arevalo said Mrs. Aquino’s three daughters – Ballsy, Pinky and Viel – highlighted their mother’s selflessness in loving the country over her family, her faith in God, courage and abiding loyalty.

He said the two other children, Kris Aquino-Yap and Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, could always speak for themselves, being celebrities in their own right.

“Oftentimes, it has been said that Mrs. Aquino said that she could not complain on how her life turned out,” he said.

“She was a housewife who became president, a woman who defeated a long-time dictator by leading the people through a peaceful revolt,” Arevalo said.

Bataan Bishop Socrates Villegas made the final commendation to the former president during the two-hour requiem Mass.

“Tita Cory, I know you can hear me. You have to go now. God has called you back home. We who are still here on earth are not ready to say goodbye. We will never meet a woman as great as you for a very long time. We will miss you. We accept it. You are not ours. You are God’s. It is the truth but it hurts us deeply,” he said.

Villegas said Mrs. Aquino is now free of the burden of taking care of the country after restoring democracy.

“The battle is over, the victory is won. You are now truly free! You are now fully happy! Move on to heaven and be with your beloved Ninoy, forever. Heaven is where the two of you will die no longer. Harvest the rich fruits of your toil on earth,” he said.

Villegas said Mrs. Aquino “died three times” for the country.

She died when she had to give up her private life for the sake of her husband, Villegas said.

“She died when she was forced to become the opposition candidate in the 1986 snap elections. She died again when she became president from 1986 to 1992,” he said.

Villegas said Mrs. Aquino dies every time that the people call on her to leave her retirement whenever there were threats against democracy. “We promise to love this country as you loved us. There is darkness in our land but you have shared with us your fire,” Villegas said.

Villegas described Mrs. Aquino as a woman who was “born to wealth and plenty but you lived in simplicity and humbly carried our painful misery.”

Former Philippine President Corazon Aquino dead at 76

CNNNEWS.COM

(CNN) -- Former Philippine President Corazon Aquino, whose "People Power" movement pushed out longtime strongman Ferdinand Marcos less than three years after her husband's assassination, has died at age 76, her family announced Saturday.

Aquino, the first woman to lead the Philippines, had been battling colon cancer since March 2008 and died of cardio-respiratory arrest at 3:18 a.m. Saturday (3:18 p.m. Friday ET), said Mai Mislang, a spokeswoman for her son, Philippine Sen. Benigno Aquino III.

Funeral arrangements were being set up, Mislang said. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has also announced a 10-day mourning period for the former president, said Ray Donato, the country's consul-general in Atlanta.

"She was the agent of change in Philippine democracy, and almost all the Filipinos I know revered her during her presidency," Donato said.

Aquino had been born into a wealthy family and was educated in the United States. She had not been involved in politics before her husband, opposition leader Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., was gunned down at Manila's airport in August 1983 as he returned from exile.

The political novice took over the leadership of her husband's movement after his death and challenged Marcos in a 1986 election, making a yellow dress her trademark and bolstered by the support of the country's Roman Catholic churches.

Marcos had been backed by the United States, the former colonial power in the Philippines, for two decades as a stalwart anti-communist. He and his wife Imelda were friends of then-President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy. But widespread allegations of electoral fraud and a mutiny by the country's military led the Reagan administration to withdraw its support, and Marcos went into exile in Hawaii.

Aquino took office in a country with a $28 billion debt, widespread poverty and a persistent Marxist insurgency. She put in place a U.S.-style constitution that limited presidents to a single six-year term and survived seven coup attempts -- including one that was supressed with American help.
She also oversaw the closure of the major U.S. military bases in the country before leaving office in 1992. The bases had been a bulwark of American power in the Pacific since the early 1900s and employed nearly 80,000 Filipinos, but Aquino's opponents argued the country was too dependent on the United States. Aquino announced in 1990 that it was time to begin negotiating the "orderly withdrawal" of U.S. forces.