Thank you, Supreme Court. 🙂

This is actually, somewhat, a good news. ^ The SC technically "saved" the graft case kasi Jinggoy wants it dismissed because acquitted na raw siya sa plunder.

Nagalit lang ako sa palaging denial (which is expected, of course), na parang walang katapusan. 😠

Ah yeah, unlimited options for those in power :)

At unlimited opportunities for corruption.

Hello, @Eriberto T. I will post it this week :)

Jairo, I will be eagerly waiting for such a post. "Rappler - ang Ilaw ng Bayan!" 🕯️

Susan Yap Sulit remains Tarlac City mayor while SC reviews her petition

Susan Yap Sulit will remain as Tarlac City mayor while the Supreme Court hears her pending petition that stemmed from a Comelec decision that ordered her disqualification.

The SC issued a status quo ante order to preserve the status quo and prevent the Comelec order disqualifying Sulit from being implemented.

Comelec’s 2nd Division originally dismissed the disqualification filed against Sulit.

However, the Comelec en banc later reversed this, disqualifying the mayor.

Sulit then filed a petition with the Supreme Court to challenge the en banc’s decision.

Filipino version:

Susan Yap Sulit, mananatiling Tarlac City mayor — for now.

Mayor pa rin ng Tarlcac City si Susan Yap Sulit habang dinirinig ng Korte Supreme ang petisyon niyang kumukuwestyon sa Comelec order na nag-disqualify sa kanya.

Naglabas ang SC ng status quo ante order para manatili muna ang estado ng mga bagay, at hindi muna i-implement ang disqualify order ng Comelec laban kay Sulit.

Isinampa ang disqualification case laban sa alkalde dahil hindi naman daw residente ng Tarlac City si Sulit nang kahit 1 taon man lang bago ang eleksyon.

Ibinasura ng Comelec 2nd division ang disqualification. Pero ang Comelec en banc, binaliktad ang desisyon at inutos ang diskwalipikasyon.

Heto ngayon ang nagtulak kay Sulit para magsampa ng petition for certiorari sa SC na dinirinig ngayon ng Korte. Nilalayon ng petisyon na baliktarin at kuwestyunin ang en banc order.

'SECOND CHANCES ARE NOT A GIFT, BUT A RIGHT'

That was the brief but powerful opening message of former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, a 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee, in introducing Fr Flavie Villanueva, the Filipino 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee, considered Asia's Nobel Prize.

Fr Flavie will be delivering his Ramon Magsaysay lecture this morning

Fr Flavie, a former person who uses drugs (PWUD) who became a priest, set up the AJ Kalinga Foundation based in Manila which helps PWUDs, street dwellers and provides them shelter, food, bath, clean clothes, solace. Fr Flavie was an outspoken critic of Duterte's war on drugs, and helped drug war victims during the bloody peak of the campaign. Fr Flavie was sued for sedition during the Duterte years, and became a key figure in the congressional hearings last year that preceded Duterte's arrest by the ICC.

Fr Flavie says this morning: I am not here as a person with all the answers, but as someone who had been lost, found and forgiven.

Fr Flavie calls the Duterte years "the bloodiest years in Philippine history." What used to be the streets in Sta Cruz, Manila, where AJ Kalinga Foundation provided baths people "became streets of bloodbath."

During the drug war, Project Paghilom was set up to provide all kinds of help to Filipinos orphaned or widowed by the drug war, "or what I would rather call war against the poor."

Fr Flavie on Duterte's arrest: "Arrests alone do not restore a nation's soul," says the arrest of the principal is not enough. "Hopefully we wil see the arrest of a senator soon, and his fellow senator will follow," referring to Senators Bato Dela Rosa and Bong Go.

Sidenote from me: It's honestly a little challenging for me to report on Fr Flavie. We've covered and interviewed him so many times especially during Duterte years. We know him very well by now, and know more about his work than what can be disclosed. His Prize doesn't make his work any different now for those of us in the human rights world. But listening to him now, maybe the work isn't to reintroduce Fr Flavie to a possibly new audience, but to continue telling the story of human rights and kindness until such time that it's no longer radical to be compassionate, but normal.

It's actually been 8 years since Rappler's Social Good Summit where Father Flavie spoke about giving hope to the hopeless. https://www.rappler.com/moveph/social-good-summit/182376-inspire-courage-giving-hope-hopeless-flavie-villanueva/

JUST IN. The Bureau of Internal Revenue files tax evasion complaints with the Department of Justice on Thursday, November 6, against ex-DPWH engineers Henry Alcantara, Brice Hernandez, and Jaypee Mendoza over P1.6-billion tax liability.

The bureau says the officials generated income from alleged kickbacks from ghost flood projects which they allegedly laundered through casino gambling.

Fr Flavie: 'What you pray for should be explicitly and vividly reflected in what you do in the elections'