Arroyo's lawyer Benjamin Santos filed a motion before the Pasay Regional Trial Court Branch 112 to require a certification that Unas is under the witness protection program.

Unas is a crucial witness against Arroyo, and his absence could weaken the case against her. 

The same motion points out that Unas' whereabouts is unknown. 

Mrs. Arroyo has filed a motion to be allowed to post bail. While electoral sabotage is a nonbailable offense, judges can allow her to post bail if evidence is weak.

The next bail hearing is set for May 31.

Santos said they have not yet filed any motion regarding the medical condition of the former president following reports that she needs to get medical treatment abroad. He said they will make a motion on her medical condition if recommended by her doctors. 

Santos said the medical report on Arroyo's condition is still being finalized.

SOURCE: AB-CBN NEWS

Metro Manila workers from the private sector can soon look forward to a P30 hike in their cost of living allowance (Cola).

Alan Macaraya, Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) chair in the National Capital Region, announced this yesterday, adding that the increase would be given in two tranches—P20 upon the effectivity of the wage order and the remainder on Nov. 1.

The wage order is expected to take effect 15 days after its publication in a newspaper of general circulation. According to the Department of Labor and Employment, around 700,000 minimum wage earners in the metropolis will benefit from the Cola hike.

With its effectivity, the daily minimum wage rate for Metro Manila workers in the nonagricultural sector will go up to P456 compared to P419 for those serving in the agricultural sector, private hospitals with a bed capacity of 100 or less, retail and service establishments with only 15 employees or manufacturing firms with fewer than 10 laborers.

Macaraya said that the P22 Cola hike which took effect last year would now be incorporated into the basic pay of  minimum wage earners in Metro Manila. This means that the amount would be included in the calculation of their overtime pay, night differential and 13th month bonus.

The RTWPB’s decision to hike the Cola was arrived at following the holding of consultations and public hearings on a Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) petition for a P90 across-the-board wage increase for workers in the metropolis.

Macaraya, who is also the labor department-NCR director, said that the additional P30 would have a “manageable” impact on the unemployment rate in the region.

“The P30 is within the range of the five percent inflation target set by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, meaning [it] will not raise the basic price of commodities. It will also have minimal impact [on] employment that’s why the board decided to approve the new wage order,” he told reporters.

Several labor groups, however, were far from pleased.

“The increase given was loose change and yet it will still be given in installments. This is an added insult to workers and their families. The increase is still too meager to meet their needs. It does not do much to help them cope with increases in the prices of basic goods and services and in the payments for public utilities,” said Roger Soluta, Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) secretary general.

He called on Congress to approve the pending P125 legislated wage hike bill being pushed by his group. At the same time, he announced that the KMU has set a protest march to Chino Roces (formerly Mendiola) Bridge near Malacañang on May 30 to “condemn the Aquino government’s refusal to increase workers’ wages by a significant amount.”

The “Herrera faction” of the TUCP also expressed dismay over the P30 hike as it vowed to file a motion for reconsideration.

“The allowance does not address workers’ concerns articulated by TUCP that real wages have not improved through the years and that workers have not participated in real gains in production and productivity,” said TUCP president and former Sen. Ernesto Herrera.

“However, we welcome the immediate implementation of the wage order, if only to provide temporary relief to many, many minimum wage earners and their families in the NCR. We welcome the integration of the P22 Cola from the last wage order,” he added.

The other TUCP faction headed by Democrito Mendoza which was responsible for filing the wage hike petition in the RTWPB said it had “mixed feelings” about the two-tranche Cola increase.

It added that it would also file an appeal.

“We [asked for] a P90 increase to narrow the gap between the basic minimum pay of P426 and the family living wage in NCR which is P993. It is very clear that the wage board does not seriously take into account the lives of the workers. What they did in this instance is to heed the profit-oriented employers,” Mendoza said.

SOURCE: INQUIRER NEWS

The petitioners - Pacific Rehouse Corporation, Pacific Concorde Corporation, Mizpah Holdings, Inc., Forum Holdings Corporation and East Asia Oil Company Inc. - asked the SC to set aside the appelate court's April 26 ruling that nullified two orders issued by a court in Makati last year.

The case stemmed from allegations of the 5 companies regarding the unauthorized sale of said DMCI shares made by their broker, EIB Securities, Inc.

The Makati RTC issued an order on August 26, 2011 directing the garnishment of P1.47 billion, representing 32.18 million DMCI shares at P45.55 per share against EIB Securities. It also authorized the sheriff to acquire the shares from the Philippine Stock Exchange at the cost of EIB Securities Inc. and Export Bank.

This was supposed to cover all holding money, properties, and personal belongings owned by Export Bank and EIB Securities.

In its 38-page petition review, the petitioners argued that the CA should have stopped EIB's petition for violating the rule against forum shopping.

"One of the grounds invoked by petitioners for the dismissal of the petition...is the filing by  respondent bank and its wholly-owned subsidiary, EIB Securities, of multiple petitions both praying for a TRO and a writ of preliminary injunction and for setting aside the orders...of the RTC of Manila. The Court of Appeals, however,totally ignored this issue and did not bother to rule on it in its assailed decision," the petition said.

The petitioners also claimed EIB tried to transfer its properties and shares in Arthaland Corporation while the case was pending before the CA.

"Unless respondent Exportbank is enjoined from transferring its properties, it will continue to do so and the bank's depositors and creditors including petitioners who are entitled  to the return of their 32,180,000 DMCI shares pursuant to the final and executory decision of this Honorable Court...would be deprived of their right to be paid their credits n the liquidation of Exportbank should the PDIC decide that the bank can no longer be rehabilitated," the petitioners added.

EIB is currently under receivership of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC). EIB was placed under receivership by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas due to its inability to service maturing time deposits because of insufficient liquidity.

EIB had P15.98 billion in deposits covering 50,052 deposit accounts when it was ordered closed.

SOURCE: ABS-CBN NEWS

NEW YORK – Facebook has priced its initial public offering of stock at $38 per share, at the high end of its expected range. It means investor demand is strong for the world’s largest online social network.

Facebook Inc. and its early investors now stand to reap as much as $18.4 billion from the IPO, if the extra shares reserved to cover additional demand are sold as part of the transaction. Without the extra shares, the offering raises $16 billion. The IPO values the company at around $104 billion, above Amazon.com, Disney and Kraft.

The offering is shaping up to be one of the largest in history – a huge payoff for a company that started out eight years ago with no way to make money.

The $38 price tag is what the investment banks orchestrating the offering will sell the stock to their clients. Facebook’s stock is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market sometime Friday morning under the ticker symbol “FB.” That’s when so-called retail investors can try to buy the stock.

Facebook is the third-highest valued company to ever go public, according to data from Dealogic, a financial data provider. Only the two Chinese banks have been worth more.

For the Harvard dorm-born social network that reimagined how people communicate online, the stock sale means more money to operate the data centers that hold the trove of status updates, photos and videos shared by Facebook’s 900 million users. It means more money to hire the best engineers to work at its sprawling Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, or in New York City, where it opened an engineering office last year.

And it means early investors, who took a chance seeding the young social network with start-up funds six, seven and eight years ago, can reap big rewards. Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist who sits on Facebook’s board of directors, invested $500,000 in the company back in 2004. He’s selling nearly 17 million of his shares in the IPO, which means he’ll get some $640 million.

The offering values Facebook, whose 2011 revenue was $3.7 billion, at as much as $104 billion. The sky-high valuation has its skeptics. Google Inc., whose revenue stood at $38 billion last year, has a market capitalization of $207 billion.

“There seems to be somewhat of a hype around the stock offering,” says Gartner analyst Brian Blau in somewhat of an understatement.

There are a few reasons for the exuberance. One is the IPO’s sheer size. Investor appetite for the stock will likely propel Facebook’s valuation above other well-known companies such as Kraft, Disney and even Amazon.com.

Secondly, it’s personal.

“It’s probably one of the first times there has been an IPO where everyone sort of has a stake in the outcome,” Blau says. While most Facebook users won’t see a penny from the offering, they are all intimately familiar with the company, so it resonates as something they understand.

And then there’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who just turned 28 on Monday. He has emerged as the latest in a lineage of Silicon Valley prodigies who are alternately hailed for pushing the world in new directions and reviled for overstepping their bounds. He’s counted the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs among his mentors and he became one of the world’s youngest billionaires – at least on paper – well before Facebook went public. A dramatized version of Facebook’s founding was the subject of a Hollywood movie that won three Academy Awards last year, propelling Zuckerberg even further into the public spotlight.

Though Zuckerberg is selling about 30 million shares, he will remain Facebook’s largest shareholder. He set up two classes of Facebook stock, building on the model Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin created as part of the online search leader’s 2004 IPO. The dual class structure helps to ensure that he and other executives keep control as the sometimes conflicting demands of Wall Street exert new pressures on the company.

As a result, with the help of early investors who’ve promised to vote their stock his way, Zuckerberg will have the final say on how nearly 56 percent of Facebook’s stock votes.

True to form, Zuckerberg and Facebook’s engineers are ringing in the IPO on their own terms. The company is holding an overnight “hackathon” Thursday, where engineers stay up writing programming code to come up with new features for the site. On Friday morning, Zuckerberg will ring the Nasdaq opening bell from Facebook’s headquarters.

SOURCE: INQUIRER NEWS

Azkals team members Roel Gener and Eduard Sacapano will lead a football clinic at the Southern Christian College grounds in Midsayap, Cotabato on May 28 and 29. Both are regular military personnel from the Philippine Army.

Dubbed as “Football Para sa Kapayapaan 2012 [Football for Peace],” the event aims to teach children aged between 6 and 12 the virtue of sportsmanship and peace building.

Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Sagun, project officer and Commander of the 7th Civil Relations Group, found this an opportune time to promote the sport among the tri -people of Mindanao of Central Mindanao –Katawhang Lumad, Katawhang Bangsamoro, Katawhang Migrante – at the grassroots level.

Sagun, who was an alumnus at the SCC and a witness of war in Mindanao in his childhood, expressed his dream of lasting peace in Mindanao.

“Sports is capable of conveying basic rules and essential values of peaceful coexistence, such as tolerance, team spirit, camaraderie and fair play. In addition, it forms character skills…and it gives the value of discipline, endurance, courage and self-motivation. The ethics of sports lays the foundation for a more peaceful, humane world,” he said.

The event is an endeavor of the SCC, Asia America Initiative, Order of Demolay-Midsayap, Philippine Army, Civil Relations Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Team Azkals, San Miguel Corporation, REACT and JCI Manila.

SOURCE: INQUIRER NEWS

The meeting between the PBA and representatives of Talk ‘N Text went well on Monday night, with both sides clearing the air with regard to several calls the Tropang Texters questioned in the dying minutes of Game 7 of the Commissioner’s Cup Finals.

“I am particularly happy with the constructive and positive stance Talk ‘N Text representatives have approached this meeting,” commissioner Chito Salud said in a statement sent via text to media yesterday.

“They assured me of their continued support for the overall interest of the PBA which is all a commissioner could ask from all of its member teams.”

Ricky Vargas and Pato Gregorio represented Talk ‘N Text in the meeting where  the PBA also accepted the explanation of the team regarding the non-participation of Ranidel de Ocampo and Jimmy Alapag during the last All-Star Weekend in Laoag, Ilocos Norte.

De Ocampo underwent surgery to repair a damaged nose, while Alapag opted out because of health issues in his family. Only the explanation of Japeth Aguilar has yet to be received and, like in past All-Stars where the league penalized players for not showing up, Aguilar could be fined a lot.

The 6-foot-9 former Western Kentucky University reserve in the US NCAA was supposed to take part in the Slam Dunk Contest and start for the RSJ squad that lost horribly to the Veterans, 176-144.

SOURCE: INQUIRER NEWS

An Indonesian search team has found part of the black box of a Russian Sukhoi Superjet plane that crashed killing all 45 people on board.

The plane vanished 50 minutes after taking off from Jakarta for a brief demonstration flight on 9 May.

The voice recorder, which was badly burned and had lost its distinctive orange colour, was found about 100m from the tail of the plane.

The flight data recorder remains missing, officials say.

Earlier reports suggested that both parts were recovered.

"The thing that we found is CVR or cockpit voice recorder," Daryatmo, the head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, said during a press conference.

"I asked the controllers in the field and all rescuers, especially the rescue team from military and police to continue searching for FDR (flight data recorder)," said the official, who goes by one name.

Tatang Kurniadi, who heads the National Transportation Safety Commission, said the data from the device that was found would be analysed in Indonesia with help from Russian experts.

It will take between two to three weeks for any details to be revealed, says the BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta.

Eight Russian pilots and technicians, Indonesian airline representatives and journalists were among those said to be on board the plane.

The plane took off from east Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma airport at 14:00 (07:00 GMT) on 9 May, on its second flight of the day.

At 14:50, it was recorded as dropping from 10,000ft (3,000m) to 6,000ft near Salak, a peak measuring 7,200ft (2,200m).

Villagers living in the area reported seeing a plane flying low into the mountain area.

The crash came with Sukhoi officials on an Asia-wide tour to show off their aircraft to airline firms.

The Superjet, a mid-range airliner that can carry up to 100 people, is military plane-maker Sukhoi's first commercial aviation plane.

It was created by a joint venture, majority-owned by Sukhoi, with Italy's Finmeccanica and a number of other foreign and Russian firms also involved.

SOURCE: BBC NEWS