“Nakaranas na ba kayong ... mamatayan ng kapatid dahil wala kang pera pangpagamot (Have you experienced losing a brother because you did not have the money to provide him proper medical care)? — Manny Villar asked in his “PANATA (Advocacy)” TV commercial. Villar was referring to his younger brother Danny who passed away on October 1962. In the same commercial, Villar’s 1962 photo with his younger brother was shown.

This portrayal of being poor once upon a time is a fantasy which comes in a series of similar attempts by Villar to create empathy with the nearly 90% of voters who belong to the socio-economic classes D and E. However, this particular attempt to use his late brother Danny to further his political ambition showed that Villar is as capable of lying just like Madame Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA).

Two public documents — the death certificate of Danny B. Villar and the Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT number: 135396/3194) of the 560 square meter property in the upper class San Rafael Village of Navotas where the Villars had lived when Danny died — shattered this ONCE POOR fantasy that Villar has been peddling.

What the San Rafael Village TCT presents:

1. Before 1962, the Villars bought 560 square meters (SQM) of high valued real estate on Bernardo Street in San Rafael Village where the more affluent folks in the Tondo-Navotas area resided.

2. The DEATH CERTIFICATE of the deceased Danny B. Villar established that they were already residing there in 1962.

3. Based on 2009 prices, the P16,000 GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) mortgage mentioned in the TCT — not necessarily the total cost of the two 280 SQM lots — is now the equivalent of P1,140,000.00. Poor people today cannot even borrow P200,000. Those who are familiar with the subdivision say that the cost per SQM in San Rafael Village today would be around P10,000 per SQM or an equivalent of around P5,600,000 for the entire property.

4. Jun Borres, the present owner who is using the 560 SQM property as offices of his firm, Jumbo Fishing, stated that when they bought it in 1987 - it had a one and a half floor house. The ground floor was made of concrete while the upstairs was made of wood. This was typical upper middle class and upper class dwelling in the 1960s.

Implications of the San Rafael Village ownership

1. Together with established Manny Villar bio information, they could not have been dirt poor to be able to move to San Rafael Village before 1962.His mother was a seafood (shrimp, crab and fish) dealer in Divisoria Market, not a fish vendor as what Villar tries to project. A seafood dealer supplies the vendors. For a family of 11, they ate canned corned beef — which Manny Villar admitted on his earlier TV ad. His father was a government official, said to be a Budget Officer of the then DANR (Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources) under which was the Fisheries Bureau. Manny Villar studied in private schools — the Holy Child Catholic School for elementary and Mapua Institute of Technology for High School. Poor folks send their kids to public schools.

2. Villar’s parents must have had a sizeable combined income to be able to buy the San Rafael Village property. The 560 SQM size demonstrates their financial capacity. If they could, poor people buy lots sized less than 100 SQMs. Villar’s father must also be making a sizeable income from the government to be able to borrow P16,000 from the GSIS. In 1962, senior executives in big corporations made monthly salaries of about P2,000.

What Danny B. Villar’s DEATH CERTIFICATE reveals:

1. It is NOT TRUE that Danny died because they were poor and could not afford proper health care. The stated residence in Danny’s death certificate was the San Rafael Village property.

2. The BIG LIE is further proved by the fact that Danny stayed 13 days at the FEU (Far Eastern University) Hospital where he expired at age 3 years and 8 months. If they were really poor, the PGH (Philippine General Hospital) would have been the affordable hospital to bring Danny. He was definitely given proper health care. FEU Hospital was one of the top hospitals in 1962, before the establishment of the Makati Medical Center and St. Luke’s Hospital.

3. Danny died from CARDIAC and RESPIRATORY FAILURE resulting from COMPLICATIONS OF LEUKEMIA. In 1962, there was no bone marrow transplantation and chemotherapy yet and everyone whether rich or poor died from contracting leukemia.

4. Upon Danny’s death, his remains were turned over to LA FUNERARIA PAZ — then, until now, considered one of the top two mortuaries (Funeraria Nacional, the other). This further disproved Manny Villar’s claim that Danny died because they did not have the money to take care of him.

When Iggy Arroyo was seen as having taken the Jose Pidal rap for his elder brother Mike, many folks felt that it was rather low of Mike Arroyo to place his younger brother at risk. Our culture expects the older brother to protect the younger brother.

In that regard, we can consider Manny Villar as having done worse than Mike Arroyo. At least, Iggy Arroyo was alive and kicking and he could have opted to stay out of the Jose Pidal controversy. But in the case of Manny and Danny Villar, Danny was used to promote a myth when Danny was in no position to agree to his elder brother Manny’s portrayal of his death.

With the propagation of this ONCE POOR fantasy, don’t you think that Manny Villar also desecrated the memory and honor of his parents who strove to be able to provide their children quality education and an upper class domicile?

If Manny Villar can lie and use his dead younger brother like this, what makes you think that he will really improve and not worsen your life? What makes you think that he is not as greedy as he is being charged in this presidential campaign? What makes you think that you can trust Manny Villar?

From: William Esposo of PhilStar

Former Philippine President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino has passed away.

She was 76.

Her son Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III confirmed that she died of cardio-respiratory arrest at exactly 3:18 a.m. Saturday at the Makati Medical Center.

Mrs. Aquino has been diagnosed with colon cancer early in 2008 and has been confined at the Makati Medical Center for more than a month.

Mrs. Aquino, widow of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., will be remembered as an icon of democracy, having led a military-backed popular revolt in 1986 that ousted a dictator who ruled the country for 20 years.

At about 5 a.m. outside the hospital, Noynoy read a statement announcing the death of his mother.

The statement read:

"Our mother peacefully passed away at 3:18 a.m., August 1, 2009, of cardio-respiratory arrest.

“She would have wanted to thank each and every one of you for all the prayers and your continued love and support. It was her wish for all of us to pray for one another and for our country.

“Hinihiling po ng aming pamilya ang kaunting panahon para makasama namin ang aming mahal na ina.

“Later today, we will be announcing further details of her wake para sa lahat ng ating mga minamahal na kababayan na nais magbigay ng respeto sa aming ina. Maraming salamat po.”

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo expressed her condolences to the family of the former President, Arroyo's press secretary said.

The President is set to declare a week of national mourning, said Press Secretary Cerge Remonde in a live phone patch from the US where he is accompanying Arroyo who is on official visit there.

Remonde said the President could cut short her trip but that they were going to discuss the matter when they get to New York, their next stop after Washington D.C. where she met President Barack Obama at the White House.

Arroyo is expected to be back in Manila on August 5.

Remonde also said that under the law, all presidents were entitled to a state funeral but added that this would be subject to the family's approval.

Popular TV host Boy Abunda, a close friend of the Aquino family, told reporters on Saturday that the Aquinos were praying the Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary when Cory gave her "last deep breath.”

Abunda said all five children of Mrs. Aquino, and her close friends and relatives were at her bedside when the former leader passed away.

After that last breath, Abunda said, Mrs. Aquino's children quietly cried.

"Malungkot. Tahimik na nag-iiyakan. Tahimik, except for Kris who was very quiet," he said, referring to the youngest daughter of Mrs. Aquino.

"Kris was very quiet. She was displaying such courage pero noong dindadala palabas mga labi ni Tita Cory... because you have to remember that Kris was in the hospital, Kris was by the side of her mother since July 20 hanggang sa mga oras na yun. Hanggang ngayon si Kris ay nasa tabi ng kanyang ina," Abunda said.

He said a Mass, officiated by Fr. Catalino Arevalo, was held after Mrs. Aquino's death.

Abunda said Arevalo is a very close friend of the former leader and had been officiating a Mass for her at the hospital.

A family driver of the Aquinos was seen loading stuff into a white Toyota Hi-Ace van parked at the back entrance of the hospital. He said the boxes and luggage belonged to Kris who left the hospital early Saturday morning.

With a report from Niña Calleja and Gil Cabacungan Jr., Philippine Daily Inquirer

In March 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight felonies, including perjury and obstruction of justice. In August, he violated his bail agreement and was thrown in jail. His actions were deplorable for anybody, but Kilpatrick was no Average Joe--he was the mayor of Detroit.

Unfortunately for the Motor City, Kilpatrick, 38, is just one ripple in the area's sea of crime. Detroit is the worst offender on our list of America's most dangerous cities, thanks to a staggering rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people.

"Detroit has, historically, been one of the more violent cities in the U.S.," says Megan Wolfram, an analyst at iJet Intelligent Risk Systems, a Maryland-based risk-assessment firm. "They have a number of local crime syndicates there--a number of small gangs who tend to compete over territory."

Detroit was followed closely on the list by the greater Memphis, Tenn., and Miami, Fla., metropolitan areas. Those three were the only large cities in America with more than 950 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people.

Behind the Numbers

To determine our list, we used violent crime statistics from the FBI's latest uniform crime report, issued in 2008. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. We evaluated U.S. metropolitan statistical areas--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics--with more than 500,000 residents.

Though nationwide crime was down 3.5% year over year in the first six months of 2008, the cities atop our list illustrate a disturbing trend: All 10 of the most dangerous cities were among those identified by the Department of Justice as transit points for Mexican drug cartels.

Run by crime lords like Joaquin Guzman Lorea, these gangs--and their violent turf wars--are spreading into the American Southwest and beyond. Places like Stockton, Calif., nearly 500 miles from Tijuana, have seen an uptick in related violent crime.

"Stockton is a major transit point along the I-5 corridor on the way to Seattle and Vancouver," says Wolfram. "A lot of it is similar to crime happening in the Southwest. For the most part, it's drug gang on drug gang."

Motown Blues

The situation in Mexico has escalated in recent years, but Detroit has been dealing with the same problems for decades. An industrial boomtown during the first half of the 20th century, the population of Detroit proper swelled from 285,000 in 1900 to 990,000 in 1920, reaching a peak of 1.8 million in 1950.

Only half that number still lives within city limits. Starting in the 1960s, Detroit began a precipitous decline. Most scholars blame rapid suburbanization, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency. Residents fled to the suburbs and to other regions of the country entirely, leaving behind a landscape littered with abandoned buildings.

"Factories that once provided tens of thousands of jobs now stand as hollow shells, windows broken, mute testimony to a lost industrial past," wrote Thomas J. Sugrue in his book The Origins of the Urban Crisis. "Whole sections of the city are eerily apocalyptic."

Detroit isn't the only city on the list that's suffering from abandonment issues.

In Las Vegas, Nev., for example, the housing boom created loads of excess inventory. When the market tanked, homeowners suddenly found themselves with properties worth far less than the mortgages they'd taken out. In the worst cases, banks foreclosed, leaving people without homes--and with more debt than they'd had to begin with. As a result, Sin City is even emptier than Detroit.

"Detroit has trouble showing improvement in its crime rate because dedicated, desperately needed and appropriate resources are not invested in public safety. Painfully, it is not a priority," says Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Kym L. Worthy. "I wish that those with the resources would view domestic terrorism like they do terrorism across the water. It used to be that we were keeping our head above water and treading quickly. Now we are drowning, and no one seems to really care. All they tell me to do is cut some more."

Few Signs of Improvement

Making matters more difficult, as municipal budgets shrink during this recession, crime-fighting funds are often among the first casualties.

"There's less public spending during downturns," says Wolfram. "Police departments and incarcerations systems are tough to fund."

The news has been bad for decades, but there may yet be hope for Detroit. The city's new mayor, Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr., assumed office on Sept. 19, 2009--and hasn't committed a single felony.

Top 5 Most Dangerous Cities:


No. 1 Detroit, Mich.

(Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich., metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 1,951,186

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 1,220

No. 2 Memphis, Tenn.

(Memphis, Tenn.-Miss.-Ark. metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 1,295,670

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 1,218

No. 3. Miami, Fla.

(Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla. metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 2,401,971

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 988

No. 4 Las Vegas, Nev.

(Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 1,834,533

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 887

No. 5 Stockton, Calif.

(Stockton, Calif., metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 684,406

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 885

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said no nation is more important to the United States than China. But ties between the two powers may be off to a rocky start just days into the Obama administration.

In his inaugural address Tuesday, President Barack Obama spoke of how earlier generations of Americans had "faced down fascism and communism." China's state broadcaster quickly faded out the audio of its live broadcast, the camera cutting back to a flustered studio anchor.

Then, on Thursday, Obama's choice to lead the Treasury Department, Timothy Geithner, wrote that Obama believes China is "manipulating" its currency, which American manufacturers say Beijing does to make its goods cheaper for U.S. consumers and American products more expensive in China.

Geithner's comments could anger Chinese officials, who closely follow U.S. political rhetoric and frequently decry what they consider foreign interference in China's internal affairs. The United States often criticizes China about human rights and trade abuses, but Washington and Beijing find themselves increasingly intertwined in a host of crucial economic, military and diplomatic efforts.

China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, said his country was committed to working with the Obama administration to strengthen ties and cooperation.

"China-U.S. relations are one of the most important bilateral relations in the world," the official Xinhua News Agency cited Yang as saying.

Selig Harrison, director of the Asia program at the U.S.-based Center for International Policy, said it was "very ill-advised for the new administration to confront China as if this were 10 years ago and we were in a strong financial position internationally."

"We are dependent on Chinese goodwill for our economic survival and viability, and, therefore, it seems to me that this type of posture is very risky," he said.

Despite an early face-off with China over an intercepted U.S. spy plane, former President George W. Bush made it a priority to strengthen relations with China while also pushing the country to live up to what he considered its duties as an emerging global superpower and a veto-holding member of the U.N. Security Council.

Trade ties between the United States and China often are tense. China says it has made progress on currency changes and worries about bills introduced in Congress that would impose economic sanctions on China unless it moves more quickly to let its currency rise in value against the dollar.

Although Geithner said China is "manipulating its currency," he suggested Thursday that now might not be the right time to brand Beijing as a currency manipulator under U.S. trade law, which could lead to U.S. trade sanctions against imports from China.

His testimony may not have been a complete shock to China. Yang, the foreign minister, has said he studies American television and newspapers. Obama and Clinton, during their long campaigns to secure the Democratic nomination for president, made no secret of their desires for a tougher position with China about its human rights record and its trade practices.

Still, Obama's young administration is not complete: he has yet to name many of the officials who will be dealing with China issues; he also has not yet decided whether to continue the high-level economic discussions the Bush administration has held twice a year with China since late 2006.

Bonnie Glaser, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said the Chinese have said during the past few months that they want a good start to their relationship with the new U.S. administration.

"Everybody just needs to be a little patient on this," Glaser said. "I would not draw any premature conclusions that the administration has decided to take a tougher stance, and hopefully the Chinese will be patient while the administration works this out."

U.S. Senator Barack Obama won his bid to become President of the United States of America on November 4, 2008. He was sworn into office on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. (He resigned his senate seat after winning the election.)

Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States and the first African-American to hold this high office.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) was officially formed on November 25, 2008. It was led by five co-chairs: William Daley, Penny Pritzker, John W. Rogers, Patrick Ryan, and Julianna Smoot.

PIC is the committee that was responsible for administering the inaugural events for President-Elect Obama. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) is a non-partisan committee responsible for managing the swearing-in ceremony.

So, roughly, the former committee represents the incoming Obama team and the latter committee is responsible for the orderly transition of government through the swearing in ceremony. Although, both committees certainly work together.