Editor’s Note: In this timeline, our researchers take you through the bumpy and tortured road towards election automation.
It has been seventeen years since the first initiatives to automate Philippine elections. The effort has spanned three administrations (Presidents Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) and five national elections (not counting barangay elections and the ARMM gubernatorial elections).
By Leilani Chavez, Purple Romero and Althea Teves, abs-cbnNEWS.com and Newsbreak 07/01/2009 10:53 PM
MANILA - The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) hopes to finalize the poll automation contract with the consortium of Smartmatic and Total Information Management Corp. (Smartmatic-TIM) by June 30, said COMELEC law department director Ferdinand Rafanan. But the real work in preventing cheating does not start and end with poll automation since the COMELEC still has to finish an equally important task--the cleansing of voters’ lists.
by Purple S. Romero, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak 06/28/2009 11:59 AM
Rent-a-womb & egg harvesting may be next RP sunrise industry
Ho's company, Asian Surrogates, has targeted the Philippines as its area of operations because its “laws are pro-family and show the way in this part of the world by helping infertile couples to start a family without hassles.”
Raissa Robles, Newsbreak 06/19/2009 2:46 PM
The average number of Filipino women who die yearly due to childbirth and pregnancy complications has doubled in the last four years, but this doesn’t seem to alarm lawmakers who continue to oppose the reproductive health bill, according to health and women’s groups.
By LILITA BALANE, Newsbreak 06/18/2009 1:59 AM
A growing number of Filipinos wish to rent out their wombs and sell their eggs or sperm, prompting authorities to call for a review of the law against child trafficking.
By Raissa Robles, Newsbreak 06/16/2009 11:35 AM
In the last four years, the government’s counter-insurgency drive had 70 collateral victims in the labor sector
by Aries Rufo, Newsbreak 06/15/2009 11:35 PM
The health and social cost of smoking could be 17 times more than government revenues from cigarettes
The government’s failure to impose higher taxes on tobacco products in the past four years has widened the gap between government earnings and the cost, borne by citizens, of treating diseases and of losing productivity due to premature deaths linked to smoking.
By Lilita Balane, Newsbreak 06/08/2009 10:07 AM
The government’s failure to impose higher taxes on tobacco products in the past four years has widened the gap between government earnings and the cost, borne by citizens, of treating diseases and of losing productivity due to premature deaths linked to smoking.
By LILITA BALANE, Newsbreak 06/08/2009 1:12 AM
Comedy of errors weakens child trafficking case
When Jala Jala police chief Larry Malaybalay found 11 adults including a foreigner in possession of nine babies and no papers to show why they were there, he suspected this to be a case of child trafficking.
By Raissa Robles, Newsbreak 06/04/2009 1:31 PM
Mothers smuggle their own babies
Irene Low Ai Lian, a Singaporean national who was arrested for being in possession of nine babies in a house she was renting outside Manila, once said she was ordained by God to save unwanted Filipino babies.
By Raissa Robles, Newsbreak 06/03/2009 3:42 PM