Category: Auto Guid

LAPU-LAPU CITY, Cebu — Kharl Filkevin Tongco, 24, who was once listed among Cebu Province’s “most wanted persons” in 2023, got cleared of parricide and frustrated murder charges last year, and now he’s applying for his final year of shipboard training to finish his maritime degree.

As he moves forward with his dreams, he still remembers walking with his family to their favorite puto maya (sticky rice) spot in the Lapu-Lapu City Public Market.

They always went to the market around midnight when his father arrived home from work. It was a simple routine, but for Kharl, it became one of his happiest memories with his family, especially of his father, who was caring and present.

Kharl is a resident of Sitio Libertad in Barangay Tingo in Olango Island, but during his younger years, their family lived in Barangay Gun-ob on mainland Lapu-Lapu City.

“Okay kaayo akong growing up,” Kharl said. “Si Papa buutan, happy-going, maayo kaayo siya namo.”

(“We were okay growing up. Papa was so kind, happy-going, very loving toward us.”)

READ: Parricide: What it is and its consequences

The life-changing call

On the night of September 26, 2022, while walking past his favorite puto maya spot at the pubic market, Kharl received a call, telling him that his father had been shot.

At the time, he was a second-year BS Marine Transportation student heading home from school.

He didn’t know whether his father survived or not, so he thought about going to Angasil Port, where his father had been transported to be transferred to another hospital.

But his mother urged him not to go, worried he might be blamed for the shooting.

The next day, he saw posts online saying his father had died. At first, he didn’t believe it. Only when he saw the picture of his father in a coffin did it become real to him.

A broken family

For Kharl, his father had always been a good man. He was happy, easygoing, and someone who cared for his children.

His childhood had been mostly fine until they discovered his father had another woman.

At first, he and his siblings didn’t know what to make of it. But over time, his father’s infidelity changed their family. Fights erupted on their side and on his father’s side. The arguments sometimes turned physical.

In 2018, after years of conflict, they finally asked their father to choose between them and the other woman. However, he chose the latter.

It hurt everyone in the family, especially his younger sister, who had been very close to their father. Kharl has three siblings, and he is the middle child.

READ: NBI files parricide raps vs son who killed, placed inside storage box his own mom 

“Most wanted”

He was accused of killing his father and injuring a relative in Barangay Talima, Olango Island. To this day, he believes he was singled out because of his outspoken nature.

“Akoy pinakabulgar, pinakaisog sa among mag-igsuon,” he admitted. “Mosukol gyud ko nila [relatives]. Naa sad mi conversations ni Papa nga nag-away mi.”

(“Of all my siblings, I am the loudest and bravest. I fight against my relatives. I also had quarrels with my father.”)

But on the night of the murder, he wasn’t in Olango. Kharl said he was on campus, surrounded by classmates and even his professor — witnesses ready to testify he was in school at around 8 p.m.

Meanwhile, his father was shot around 7 pm.

The arrest

Early in 2023, a couple of plainclothesmen with an arrest warrant arrived at his campus. They did not storm the room or handcuff him, even though the Olango Police classified him as “one of the most wanted persons at the provincial level.”

Instead, a working student was sent to call him to the Maritime Office.

The cops quietly escorted Kharl on a motorcycle to the Sta. Rosa Police Station. He was then transferred to BJMP in Sitio Soong, Barangay Mactan.

He told himself to stay calm. He told himself the truth would eventually surface. However, he still spent around one year and five months in detention.

The first month was the hardest. He says, “Kuyaw, guol, hadlok.” (“Fear, sadness, terror.”). But he held on to the belief that he would be cleared.

“Wala gyud koy sala. Makagawas ra gyud ko. Pero dili lang ko mag-expect ug maayo kay masakitan ra.”

(“I am innocent. I know I will be free. But I am afraid I will only get hurt if I expect too much.”)

His family visited him regularly, and he could call them from time to time. This emotional support kept him from breaking.

Case dismissed

On June 10, 2024, the Regional Trial Court in Lapu-Lapu City, Branch 69, presided by Judge Ruelo Saladaga, issued its decision:

“The charges of frustrated murder and parricide are dismissed due to insufficient evidence, as the prosecution failed to establish conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt.”

His record was cleared, and he was finally free.

He went back to school and finished his three-year academic phase in January 2025. He is now applying for his final year of training to complete his program.

To this day, Kharl still has mixed emotions. Anger and sadness remain, but he still feels care and love for his father, saying, “Bisan og naa koy kalagot, dili gyud ko kapungot kay amahan man na. Ang kalagot, opposite ana, care man na nimo.”

(“Even if I hold a grudge at him, he is still my father. I know that my anger only means the opposite: I care for him.”)

His goal now is pursue his dreams to prove to everyone he can keep going on with his life despite everything that had happened.///

Read Next

On November 24-25, some 47 heads of state and government are due to gather in Angola’s capital Luanda for the seventh African Union — European Union Summit, aiming to deepen cooperation.

It comes after German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid a visit to Angola just weeks ago to sound out investment opportunities — with Germany seeking to broaden its partnerships in Africa after turning away from Russian oil and gas in the wake of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

With Angola being an energy giant and logistics hub, Steinmeier could barely mince any of his words during his trip:

“[Angola] is not only of interest to the world as a supplier of oil and gas, but in recent years, it has also signaled that it wants to diversify its own economy,” Steinmeier said during his visit, throwing Germany’s proverbial hat in the ring in vying for influence on the African state.

READ: Geopolitical fractures and Ukraine worries sap G20 summit

Following Steinmeier’s visit to the African nation, high-level visits to Luanda continued, with dignitaries from around the world flying in on November 11 to join Angola’s 50th independence anniversary celebrations.

“One of the key priorities of President Joao Lourenco’s leadership as acting president of the African Union is infrastructure financing. This is critical,” says Angola’s transport minister, Ricardo Viegas D’Abreu, pointing at a Angola’s need for more cash injections — in return for whatever favors might be tabled by its partners.

Lobito Corridor: Angola’s coveted flagship project

These days, any talk of infrastructure in Angola inevitably turns to the Lobito Corridor, the country’s flagship infrastructure project.

The main artery of the transport corridor is a 1,300-kilometer rail link between Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and — in future — Zambia, aiming to connect Africa’s mineral-rich interior directly to the Atlantic port city of Lobito.

Trains are already running on the much-coveted corridor, transporting mostly copper from DRC mines to Lobito, from where the cargo is shipped to Europe and the United States; on their return trips into Africa’s interior, the train wagons carry sulphur back to the DRC, which is essential for mining operations.

Lobito: Growth at a snail’s pace

At first glance, the railway itself may not look impressive: for the most part, it’s run on a single track with no fencing around or other protective structures around.

READ: Russia wants allies, so it is hosting an Africa summit. Food security and Wagner are key questions

The freight trains can only run at a maximum speed of 45 kilometers per hour; on some stretches, this is reduced to only 30 kilometers per hour — barely faster than the top speeds of an average bicycle.

But the trains themselves aren’t the only lethargic feature of the $1 billion-project: Bureaucratic procedures associated with customs clearance are also causing significant delays in moving goods from one part of the African continent to the next, as observed in an OECD report published on the state of the corridor earlier this year.

The whole Lobito corridor system is rather unassuming from beginning to end; even in places like Huambo and nearby Caala, whose municipalities put together are inching closer to featuring a population of a million people, there are relatively small stations along the way.

Nonetheless, the ambitious project offers a series of significant competitive advantages, notes Anna Hoffmann-Kwanga, head of the Namibia and Angola office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung — a political foundation linked to Germany’s conservative Christian-Democrats (CDU) party.

“This railway is practically competing with a corridor from the DRC that leads south to Durban,” Hoffmann-Kwanga stressed, highlighting that this rivalling railroad needs a full month to move goods and resources from the DRC to the South African port city, “whereas the distance to Lobito would only take eight days in a best-case scenario.”

Even with the worst of delays, Hoffmann-Kwanga says that the Lobito pathway is on average at least twice as fast than the alternative route.

Angola’s dependence on China

Many of the infrastructural delays on the railway are due to the fact that it dates back to the early 20th century.

Built during the Portuguese colonial era, the Lobito corridor was heavily damaged during Angola’s war of independence and the civil war that followed — a period of conflict and instability that spanned over 40 years starting in the early 1960s.

Destroyed parts of the rail link were later rebuilt — with help from China. In fact, Beijing only agreed to finance the reconstruction of the Lobito project using Angola’s oil as collateral.

Applying the same rationale to many other infrastructure projects supported by China after the official end of animosities in 2002, Angola eventually became China’s largest borrower in Africa, owing an estimated total of $46 billion, according to data compiled by Boston University.

From China to US to EU: Angola’s balancing act

Now, Angola is trying to balance this over-reliance on China by seeking other partners.

Since taking office in 2017, Angolan President Joao Lourenco has courted Western partners — with considerable success.

Both the European Union and the US have pledged billions to the Lobito Corridor project; the railway itself is now operated by a European consortium, and both partners have shifted their narrative to one of genuine “partnership” rather than a perpetuation of economic dependency, Beijing-style.

“Europe has a very different offer. The Lobito Corridor breaks with the extractive logic of other corridors, both colonial and current,” says Anna Hoffmann-Kwanga of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, emphasizing in particular China’s current policy.

The Lobito Corridor project, she explains, will improve living conditions for all communities along the route.

Local communities last to profit

That vision, however, is still far-removed from today’s reality. So far, people living along the corridor only watch on as the trains pass by, remarks Angolan economist Heitor de Carvalho.

The corridor cuts through an area that is predominantly agricultural; locals cannot contribute anything that could even begin to compete with the riches that are being transported on the railway, especially not with their current output levels.

De Carvalho highlights that the region also lacks the infrastructure required to help local farmers sell their products to other regions using the Lobito railway: Road networks need improvement, storage facilities need to be built next to the train stations, business strategies need to be introduced on a massive scale, and production rates need to be ramped up significantly:

“I’m talking about an exponential increase in production — not 3%, but 300%,” says de Carvalho.

At the same time, de Carvalho stresses that while a positive trickle-down effect on rural farmers situated along the corridor may take long to truly take root, the overall sense of competition between European and US American state investors is welcome:

“This interest has a lot to do with the fact that Angola’s political leadership has opted for a pro-Western approach rather than continuing its traditional ties to Russia and China,” de Carvalho summarizes.

What can a summit accomplish?

Still, Angola continues to rely heavily on its oil sector rather than reaping the full potential of the Lobito project.

Meanwhile, both the public and foreign investors fear that President Lourenco has failed to fully address the nation’s corruption problems alongside its performance in democratic governance repeatedly facing challenges as well.

That is why Angolan agribusiness entrepreneur Amílcar Armando does not expect much to come out of the two-day AU-EU summit: “These summits … often feel like begging for money for certain projects and risk feeding corruption. We should focus on building our own infrastructure.”

The country, he argues, should do its basic homework, putting people’s immediate needs first rather than hosting lavish summits. /dl

DHAKA — Two minor tremors hit Bangladesh on Saturday, a day after a powerful earthquake struck outside the capital Dhaka and killed at least 10 people.

A 3.3-magnitude jolt was recorded in Narshingdi district, east of Dhaka, in the morning, followed by a 4.3-magnitude quake that struck the capital around 6:00 pm (1200 GMT), according to the Bangladesh Meteorological Department.

Dhaka resident Tasnuba Sharmin Sharna, 32, said her children started screaming as the furniture in their apartment began shaking.

READ: Filipinos spared from powerful Bangladesh quake – DFA

“We are praying to God for mercy,” Sharna told AFP.

Friday’s deadly earthquake was felt in Dhaka and neighbouring districts, causing widespread destruction.

Updating earlier tolls from the 5.5-magnitude quake, disaster management official Ishtiaqe Ahmed told AFP that “the number of casualties has reached 10, while a few hundreds were injured”.

There were no immediate reports of casualties on Saturday, but the aftershocks — which are common after major earthquakes — have added to fears of an even greater disaster.

READ: TV: 2 dead, 100 injured in Bangladesh from Nepal quake

“I don’t feel safe yet, as there was another jolt this morning… Maybe we are next,” said Shahnaj Parvin, 44, who lives near the epicentre of Friday’s earthquake and told AFP she had never experienced such a tremor.

Cracks have developed in dozens of houses in her area, she said.

“I was hanging my children’s clothes on the washing line when the tremor struck,” added Parvin.

“I held onto a mahogany tree, and when I returned home, I found my glassware broken.”

The government has activated Bangladesh’s emergency operation centre to assess the scale of the damage and to coordinate relief and rescue operations.

Rubayet Kabir of the Meteorological Department’s Earthquake Observation and Research Center said Bangladesh’s geography makes the country of 170 million people prone to quakes.

“That’s why we experience earthquakes quite frequently, though they are not as strong as the one” on Friday, he told AFP.

“Some small tremors are expected after any major earthquake,” Kabir said.

“There has been no massive earthquake in the last 100 years or more, but Bangladesh has been vulnerable for quite some time.” /dl

WASHINGTON — Britain’s disgraced former prince Andrew failed to respond to a request from US lawmakers to be questioned about his friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, members of a US Congressional committed have announced.

Sixteen Democratic lawmakers signed a letter asking Andrew to participate in a “transcribed interview” with the House of Representatives oversight committee investigating Epstein, who took his own life in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges.

The letter asked Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor after King Charles III formally stripped his younger brother’s titles over his ties to Epstein, to respond by November 20.

READ: UK’s Andrew asked to testify over Epstein as he formally loses titles

The US Congress cannot compel testimony from foreigners, so it was always unlikely that Andrew would consent to do so. Democrats are in the minority in the House.

“Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s silence in the face of the Oversight Democrats’ demand for testimony speaks volumes,” two members of that committee, Robert Garcia and Suhas Subramanyan, said in a statement Friday.

“The documents we’ve reviewed, along with public records and Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s testimony, raise serious questions he must answer, yet he continues to hide.”

READ: Prince Andrew gives up Duke of York title amid Epstein scandal

Emails recently released by the committee as well as a posthumous memoir written by Giuffre, who accused Andrew of sexual assault, reignited anger in the UK over Andrew’s ties to Epstein.

Andrew has always denied that he sexually abused Giuffre, who alleged that she was trafficked to have sex with him on three occasions, twice when she was 17.

After she launched a lawsuit against him, he paid her a multi-million-pound settlement in 2022 without making any admission of guilt.

Giuffre, a US and Australian citizen, died by suicide at her home in Australia in April.

Garcia and Subramanyan said the committee’s work to understand the extent of Epstein’s network would “move forward with or without” testimony from the 65-year-old Andrew.

“We will hold anyone who was involved in these crimes accountable, no matter their wealth, status, or political party. We will get justice for the survivors,” they said. /dl

BAGUIO CITY — The summer capital’s working journalists on Sunday advocated for economic protection during the 16th year commemoration of the 2009 massacre of 57 people by a Maguindanao political clan, including 32 newsmen who were found in shallow graves.

In a statement, the Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club Inc. declared that its members reaffirm their “unwavering commitment to the principles of press freedom, truth and justice (to) honor the lives of our colleagues who were brutally silenced.”

But the group asserted that “true press freedom is impossible when the very practitioners of the craft are themselves vulnerable and unprotected.”

“Therefore, we continue our resolve to tirelessly uphold the economic rights and welfare of all media practitioners and workers (and) call for an immediate end to unfair labor practices that compromise job security, unjust compensation that fails to reflect the demanding and vital nature of journalistic work, and unsecured work tenure and precarious employment contracts that leave media workers economically vulnerable,” read the statement penned by BCBC president and radio newsman Dionisio Dennis Jr.

“Our colleagues deserve stability, fair compensation, and respectful working conditions commensurate with the crucial role they play in a democratic society, ” BCBC asserted, as well as their “absolute protection from the constant threat of harassment, threats, and intimidation.”

“Journalists must be allowed to perform their duty — delivering the news as fairly and factually as possible and being the voice of the voiceless — without fear of reprisal,” the group says.

The journalists were abducted and murdered along with a convoy of family members and supporters of gubernatorial candidate Esmael Mangudadatu, then a municipal mayor, who were on their way to file his certificate of candidacy. Among the slain were Mangudadatu’s pregnant wife and sister.

His rival, Andal Ampatuan Jr., was convicted for their murders in 2019 along with several conspirators, but other suspects did not stand trial.

The non-profit Center for International Law on Saturday said it will seek an urgent motion before the Court of Appeals to resolve the pending appeals in the Maguindanao massacre cases and to judicially recognize journalist Reynaldo Momay, the 58th victim in the killings. /das

CEBU CITY, Philippines — In any sport, referees often bear the brunt of spectators’ disagreements with their decisions.

They spend most nights being yelled at, with many fans throwing up every insult they can think of.

It’s one of the most thankless jobs in sports. Yet a few who are tough enough choose this path and excel in it.

One of them is Aaron Rey Balbuena Cañete, a Cebuano who recently and quietly carved out a piece of history.

Earlier this year, he became the first Filipino basketball referee to earn an invitation to a National Basketball Association (NBA) enrichment program.

The NBA Summer League International Officiating Instructor Program was rare opportunity that put him in the same room with some of the best officials in the world.

READ: Cebuano referee makes history in NBA Summer League

It was a milestone he talks about with both pride and humility.

“It was a great learning experience. I learned a lot, especially about individual officiating techniques and NBA officiating protocols,” he said.

Cañete even got the chance to meet Scott Foster, one of the NBA’s most well-known referees.

“My ultimate goal is to officiate, at the highest level, international games like Fiba competitions,” he said.

A different love for basketball

Cañete grew up around the game.

His father, Reynaldo, is a respected regional executive of the Samahang Basketball ng Pilipinas and a familiar figure in Cebu’s basketball community.

But Aaron didn’t take the common route. He was 16 and still a high school player when he officiated his first game. It wasn’t passion, as he said, that hooked him at first. It was the challenge.

“The most common misconception is that referees are biased or favor one team during the game, which is not true,” said Cañete.

He knows the pressure that comes with working in tense arenas where emotions can shift in an instant and entire crowds direct their frustration at referees like him. Still, he tries to approach every situation with professionalism and authority.

“Yes, I’ve experienced this during different games, especially in intense or close matches. Emotions run high, and sometimes players, coaches, or fans become confrontational. It’s part of the job, and we learn how to handle it professionally,” he added.

His father and his uncle, Paul, were the ones who inspired him to officiate. From there, he quietly climbed the ladder, moving from local games to national leagues and eventually into the National Collegiate Athletic Association in Manila.

Grateful to mentors

In 2023, he became an accredited referee of the International Basketball Association or Fiba for both 5-on-5 and 3×3. That opened the door to the NBA Summer League invitation

Cañete is quick to credit others for helping him with his achievements.

He acknowledged the support of SBP technical head Andrew Te, along with Fiba World Cup and Olympic referee Ferdinand “Bong” Pascual, and SBP executives Al Panlilio and Erika Dy, who helped open the door to the NBA Summer League opportunity.

He also expressed his gratitude to those who guided him from the beginning.

“I’d like to thank my father, my family, my senior referees in the Philippines, the Fiba Commissioners and Fiba referees in the country, Sir Liberato Valenzuela, Sir Andrew Teh, and especially Sir Ferdinand ‘Bong’ Pascual, who has always been there to guide me,” he said.

“Thank you all for your support, guidance, and for believing in me throughout my journey.”

Even with a packed schedule in Manila and abroad, he always finds time to return home. In August, he worked as one of the referees in Cebu’s inaugural inter-collegiate invitational tournament — a full-circle moment in what’s becoming an impressive career in basketball officiating.

3rd photo: Aaron Rey Balbuena Cañete. | Facebook photo

WASHINGTON — A resident of Washington state has died after contracting a rare strain of bird flu previously only reported in animals, state health officials said — the second human fatality linked to the virus in the United States this year.

The patient was only identified as “an older adult with underlying health conditions” and had been hospitalized since early this month, the Washington state department of health said Friday.

Tests conducted by the University of Washington confirmed the patient was suffering from H5N5 avian influenza, the department said in a statement, calling it “the first recorded infection with this variant in a person globally.”

READ: US records its first human death from bird flu

The result was confirmed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The risk to the public remains low. No other people involved have tested positive for avian influenza,” it said. “There is no evidence of transmission of this virus between people.”

The patient has “a backyard flock of mixed domestic birds,” and officials believe this was the source of exposure.

READ: WHO: First human case of H5N2 bird flu died from multiple factors

The CDC has recorded more than 70 human cases of bird flu this year. A person died after contracting H5N1 in Louisiana in January.

The World Health Organization has recorded more than 1,000 bird flu cases in humans since 2003 in 25 countries — a figure that includes all strains of the virus. /dl