BROADSHEETS

INQUIRER -- Dacer kids sue Estrada, Lacson for $120M in US

PHILIPPINE STAR -- Noy gets hostage report

MANILA BULLETIN -- Senate to Clip Mayors’ Powers

DAILY TRIBUNE -- Noy’s 60-man US delegation to spend P25M, says Palace

MANILA STANDARD -- President will dine at Jollibee

TABLOIDS

PEOPLE'S JOURNAL -- Aquino gets hostage fiasco report

ABANTE -- Binoe, binastos mo kami!

ABANTE TONITE -- Mag-asawa binitay ng katulong!

PEOPLE'S TONIGHT -- Stude kills teacher over hair cut

PILIPINO STAR NGAYON -- 12 kakasuhan sa hostage 

ISSUES MONITORING

On hostage crisis

President Aquino began reviewing a report that named those liable for the tragic outcome of the Aug. 23 hostage drama in Rizal Park, but decided to defer immediate action. The President received a copy of the report of the incident investigation and review committee (IIRC) yesterday. Malacañang said he would reveal the steps he would take in a press briefing on Monday. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, chair of the IIRC, submitted to Mr. Aquino the 83-page report containing the body’s findings and recommendations. (Philstar)

On government TV stations

The Aquino administration is bent on privatizing the two sequestered television stations, RPN-9 and IBC-13, Secretary Herminio Coloma of the Presidential Communications Operations Office told congressmen. “We will privatize these two networks because government is not in the business of operating multiple TV stations,” he said. He said what would remain after the sale of RPN-9 and IBC-13 would be the original government TV station, People’s Television Network 4. (Philstar)

On local government

Determined to defang the powerful “jueteng” (illegal numbers game) syndicates, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee wants to remove from mayors their power to select their own chiefs of police by withdrawing the requirement that they could choose from a list of three names submitted to them. Sen. Teofisto L. Guingona III, committee chairman, said he is likely to seek amendments to current laws related to the Local Government Code which empowers a mayor to select the chief of police from a list of three nominees prepared by the Philippine National Police (PNP). (Manila Bulletin)

On Dacer-Corbito case

Daughters of slain publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer have filed in a US district court a $120-million civil suit against former President Joseph Estrada, fugitive Sen. Panfilo Lacson and several others in connection with the double murder of their father and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000. The Dacer sisters Carina, Sabina, Emily and Amparo filed the civil suit at the US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco for compensatory and punitive damages for the cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment, torture and extrajudicial killing of their father, according to a notice received by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Through lawyers Rodel Rodis and Felix Antero, they sought $20 million in principal compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages. (Philstar)

On Congress

As Congress organized the 25-man panel of the bicameral Commission on Appointments (CA) last Wednesday, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said the CA cannot scrutinize the credentials of the three acting secretaries appointed by President Aquino. Three Cabinet officials – Jesse Robredo of the Interior and Local Government, Ramon Paje  of the Environment and Natural Resources and  Labor’s Rosalinda Baldoz – have been appointed as “acting secretaries.” Apart from permanent appointments, Enrile said the CA, as a body, can look into the credentials of ad-interim appointments, which refer to persons who were appointed during every recess of Congress where the President can re-appoint them if they failed to pass CA scrutiny. (Philstar)

On Baby Francis

The mother of George Francis, the baby abandoned on a Gulf Air jet last Sept. 12, will not be reunited with her son  until the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) completes the extensive examination on the child, including DNA and psychological testing, officials said yesterday. Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman told a press conference yesterday that the DSWD needs at least a month to confirm if the overseas Filipino worker claiming to be the mother of George Francis is really who she says she is. Cavite Rep. Lani Mercado-Revilla, who already met the mother, said the woman wants to be reunited with her son.