Category: Philippines Daily Inquirer

Lead defense counsel Sheila Sison on Monday hit back at the prosecution panel for calling the defense ‘delatory’ after her camp sought an hour-long break during Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial.

Nearly eight hours into the trial, defense lawyer Mark Vinluan asked for an hour to prepare his next set of questions for the cross-examination of Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) Secretariat Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura.

Private prosecutor Mae Divinagracia criticized the request as ‘delatory.’

Shortly after, Sison took the stand in defense of Vinluan.

‘When Atty. Vinluan asked for time to organize his notes so that he may intelligently examine this witness, and the prosecution insinuates that this is delatory, that’s not true, Your Honor,’ Sison said.

‘I don’t think there’s any doubt here that the prosecution took the entire day direct examining this witness. We have only examined this witness for an hour. We’re not asking for a long time,’ she added.

Sison also explained that the defense had only had the documents for a few days after they were resubmitted over the weekend.

‘We’re only asking for a fair and meaningful opportunity to examine on behalf of this respondent this witness. Because the prosecution took the entire day direct examining this witness. We cannot be rushed in cross-examining this witness,’ she added.

Divinagracia explained her remark, saying Vinluan had earlier made remarks about ‘calling it a day.’

She also criticized that the two camps were provided with the witness’ documents on the same day.

‘The time that they were given to review the documents is the exact same time that we were given… Just like the defense, the prosecution also received the summary from the AMLC on the same day. And yet, your honor, we took the pains of going over it over the weekend to prepare for today’s hearing,’ Divinagracia pointed out.

An ambush of a military convoy in Tipo-Tipo, Basilan, on Monday morning wounded four more soldiers from the 45th Infantry Battalion, as well as a member of the Civilian Armed Auxiliary (CAA), raising the number of injured to 11.

Joint Task Force Orion reported that troops from the 45th Infantry Battalion (45IB) were traversing the road in Barangay Badja at around 7:45 a.m. when the assailants opened fire on their vehicles.

Earlier this morning, authorities reported that only six soldiers were wounded in the ambush.

Brig. Gen. Frederick Sales, commander of the 1101st Infantry ‘Gagandilan’ Brigade, told the Inquirer that Lt. Col. Franco Baylon, 45IB commanding officer, led the convoy.

The group-comprising three KM450 military trucks and three civilian vehicles-was en route from Tipo-Tipo to the 1101st Brigade headquarters in Barangay Tabiawan, Isabela City, via Lamitan City when they were attacked at Sitio Bauno Dagao in Barangay Badja.

Of the wounded, three were reported in critical condition.

The wounded personnel were initially brought to a medical facility in neighboring Lamitan City for immediate care.

By 9 a.m., military authorities dispatched a Black Hawk helicopter to airlift the three critical patients to Camp Navarro General Hospital in Zamboanga City for further treatment.

A female third-year college student at the Biliran Province State University (BiPSU) in Naval was brought to the school’s guidance office on Monday after allegedly threatening to shoot one of her teachers, prompting a quick response from school officials and police.

The incident, reported around 10 a.m., was contained without anyone being hurt, according to BiPSU president Victor Cañezo.

Cañezo said the student allegedly sent a text message to one of her classmates threatening a teacher whom she reportedly described as ‘bad.’

The classmate then informed school authorities, leading officials to identify and immediately bring the student to the guidance office.

‘This is an isolated case. The (concerned) student is now with our guidance office,’ Cañezo said in a public message, adding that the student’s act was because of a ‘personal grudge’ against the teacher.

He assured students, faculty members, and the public that the situation was under control as classes were not generally disrupted.

Cañezo also clarified that no firearm was found in the student’s possession following the incident.

He thanked the local police for their immediate response, saying their prompt action helped ensure the safety of the university community.

However, Cañezo said the investigation was still ongoing and that he could not provide additional details while authorities were looking into the circumstances surrounding the reported threat.

The incident came amid heightened concern over threats and acts of violence in schools in the country, particularly following a series of incidents involving minors.

In Tacloban City, three students were killed, and 20 others were injured in a shooting at San Jose National High School on June 22. The incident involved minors aged 14 and 15.

The shooting prompted renewed calls for schools, parents, local governments and law enforcement agencies to strengthen security measures and address threats of violence involving young people.

Another school-related firearm incident was reported in Catarman, Northern Samar, on Oct. 1, when a 15-year-old Grade 10 student was found allegedly carrying a high-powered firearm inside a school with more than 5,000 students.

Unlike those incidents, however, Cañezo said no firearm was found in the possession of the BiPSU student involved in Monday’s reported threat.

The latest incident was the second reported threat to hit BiPSU in less than a month.

On Sept. 22, authorities found a threat letter inside the BiPSU Student Center, prompting an investigation.

University officials have not disclosed whether the latest incident was connected to the earlier threat.

On the 33rd day of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, the prosecution presented Anti-Money Laundering Council Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura as its witness for Article II, which covers allegations of unexplained wealth.

The Senate impeachment court denied a defense motion to exclude Buenaventura, with Presiding Officer Francis Escudero ruling that Republic Act No. 1405 separately and expressly permits inquiry into bank deposits in impeachment cases.

Buenaventura, who admitted he skipped lunch because he was too nervous to eat, told the court: ‘Kinakabahan po, Your Honor,’ drawing laughter from those in the session hall.

A tabular summary presented in court showed 666 covered transaction reports and 55 suspicious transaction reports involving Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, totaling P4.4 billion.

The AMLC official confirmed that inward financial transactions from mainland China and Hong Kong to Carpio’s CALE88 Foods Corp. amounted to P319,326,770.41, a figure close to what former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV had earlier alleged.

He also testified that joint accounts of Duterte and her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, recorded P193,705,615.88 in transactions in a single day on March 28, 2014.

Senator-Judge Imee Marcos objected to the presentation of foreign currency accounts, arguing such accounts are excluded under law and precedent. Escudero overruled the objection, noting that the Corona impeachment court had allowed testimony on foreign currency deposits under a comparable framework.

At the opening of the session, Escudero reminded all parties to observe civility and professionalism, acknowledging that emotions were running high, and urged participants not to stoop to retaliation over outbursts or expressions of animosity inside or outside the courtroom.

Separately, Senator-Judge Raffy Tulfo moved to have court spokesperson Reginald Tongol admonished after Tongol was quoted as suggesting the trial might conclude by December 16, which Tulfo characterized as preempting the tribunal. Tongol responded that he was grateful for the senator-judges’ guidance.

When leading scorer Allisha Gray went down with a left hand injury early in Game 1 of the WNBA semifinals, the Atlanta Dream needed someone to step up.

Playing in just her eighth game with the franchise, 39-year-old DeWanna Bonner provided everything the Dream needed. Bonner had 23 points, nine rebounds, two assists and two steals in over 30 minutes off the bench, helping Atlanta stabilize and eventually pull away in a 92-82 victory over the New York Liberty.

‘I’m still learning a lot,’ Bonner said. ‘My head is always spinning, because I’m learning new people, learning the plays, learning the city, but they just made it easy.’ Bonner, who has played in a WNBA record 101 playoff games, signed with Atlanta as an unrestricted free agent on Aug. 27. It was a rare late season addition for a team desperate to finally find playoff success after three consecutive first round exits, and the six-time All-Star and two-time WNBA champion felt like the final piece of the puzzle.

‘We tried to get her a couple times and it just never worked out,’ Dream head coach Karl Smesko said. ‘I just thought she was exactly what we needed. Not just because she is a veteran presence and all of those things, but because she still plays like she did tonight. That was a huge performance. When we needed a play, she made it.’

Heading into Sunday she was averaging 20 minutes and nine points per game in a sporadic role, but Gray’s injury shrunk the rotation and forced her into more action. She played every second of the fourth quarter and all but two minutes of the second half, making crucial plays at both ends of the floor and in the locker room after Atlanta went into the intermission trailing 40-37.

‘DB got into us,’ Jordin Canada said about the message at halftime. ‘We said coming out into the third quarter that we talk about a second half surge, and that the first three minutes of the game in the second half was going to be really important. We came out ready to go.’

Bonner opened the fourth quarter with an offensive rebound and score on a putback, and knocked down a 3-pointer to take the lead back into double-figures after New York had closed to within eight.

‘She played multiple positions,’ Smesko said. ‘She guarded people that were MVPs in this league. She moved positions in this game when she hasn’t even been practicing really in that position. But she adjusts and is able to flow in it just because she has so much basketball experience. She has a sense of what she should do on a play even if she never ran the play before, and she just knows where the ball should move and what the next action should be. She has a lot of enthusiasm about her, but she also has a calming presence about her.’

Atlanta is now 8-0 with Bonner, and moved two wins away from its first trip to the WNBA Finals since 2013.

The quality of living is a reflection of Filipino preferences for leadership. Oftentimes, it has been a practice that Filipinos have preferred the leaders they want more than they need, which led to their pitfall.

As this trend continues and as poverty hunts the marginalized sector, Filipinos turn ‘bright eyes and ears’ to religion and charismatic leaders. This even makes scholars turn an eye back to the precolonial Filipino leadership. For academics, ‘pamathalaan’ implies ‘kasama ni Bathala’ as an approach to redefine Filipino leadership and to reinforce unity based on ‘native Filipino philosophy’ and leadership practices.

Meanwhile, ‘pamathalaan’ as a systemic philosophy that is based on unity and nurtured by love of God, country, and fellow human citizens as well as respect for nature, serves as the core value of democracy and citizenship. Today’s ‘ministros’ or ‘supreme head’ are possibly reinforcers of ‘indigenous principle.’ Through the ideas of ‘pamathalaan,’ leaders are called to become ethical models by living with moral laws and respecting diversity and ethnicity.

Generally, any leaders today could now interchangeably be termed as charismatic leaders in a way that they are ‘charismatic, persevering, eloquent, persuasive in speech, approachable, sociable, and much more authoritarian but paternalistic’ to the extent that they are more personal to their members/followers.

The ‘Bagong Baylan’ leadership is totally a unique Filipino way of leadership, for this is culturally rooted in once-unadulterated precolonial Philippines. It must be emphasized that it was never a battle of ideologies, an issue of spiritual or secular dominance but of social welfare through public service.

‘Baylan’ leadership does not imply amalgamation of the Church and State but mere ‘cooperative church-state relations’ or cultural and bureaucratic harmony, especially since the two share common values of social justice, equity, and nationalism.

To restore the precolonial Filipino leadership, Filipinos should learn to examine their leaders when it comes to the following standards: enthusiasm to promote ‘national interest,’ priority of ‘public welfare,’ possession of ‘unquestionable integrity,’ commitment to fulfill the public task and ‘communicate with people’ through the common language that reflects people’s will.

In the end, it is now not a surprise to see a transformed ‘Baylan’ either seated in an elective position or in a delegate position, uniting and directing people to work for the achievement of a common set of goals and objectives.

Far Eastern came out of the halftime break with all guns cocked and firing on Sunday night, with a 16-2 run to open up the third period going on to result in a 90-79 conquest of University of the Philippines that now has the Tamaraws sharing top spot in Season 89 eliminations of the UAAP men’s basketball tournament.

Kirby Mongcopa had 24 points and nine rebounds in leading the Tamaraws to their third straight win and a 3-1 card like Ateneo, even as La Salle snapped a two-game slide earlier after a 112-87 rout of University of the East at PhilSports Arena in Pasig.

Five players finished in twin digits for Far Eastern, which already owns victories over National U and La Salle before drubbing the Maroons, the losing finalists to the Green Archers last season.

Jorick Bautista and Janrey Pasaol turned in 16 and 15 points, respectively, while Mo Konateh had 10 points and 11 rebounds for the Tamaraws.

Veejay Pre, the former Far Eastern star who served his residency requirement last season, top scored for the Maroons in the loss with 16 points. Francis Nnoruka scored 12 while Rey Remogat scattered 12 points in State U’s second loss of the season.

The Archers got 19 points from Mason Amos, the heady big man who played his finest game this season, as La Salle kept the Red Warriors winless in four games.

La Salle thus improved to 2-2, tied with the Maroons, the Bulldogs and the University of Santo Tomas Golden Tigers, making for a highly competitive middle of the pack.

‘This is going to make every game very interesting,’ said a giddy La Salle coach Topex Robinson. ‘We came from back-to-back losses which are big. But for us now, it’s more of focusing on our own selves.’

‘We just discussed how unpredictable this season will be, especially with the [results of the] games [on Saturday],’ Robinson said, referring to Ateneo’s stunning win over National U and Adamson’s 28-point rout of the Tigers on Saturday.

After sluggish starts in their games against the Tigers and Tamaraws, the Green Archers finally opened a game on the right foot, immediately establishing a double-digit lead over the Red Warriors after the first quarter, 31-19.

La Salle did not let up in the second period, continuing its offensive onslaught to stretch the lead to 19 at halftime, 61-42.

A year of elevation. A year of going beyond the limits. Because honestly, my 2025 was a year of breakthroughs.

I got into my dream university to pursue my master’s degree. I realized that my career is both rewarding and empowering, and it lets me inspire younger generations. Most importantly, I was able to pursue passions like graphic design and feature writing.

I came into the first month of 2026 with radical optimism, ready to take on the challenge of what lies ahead. Then, all of a sudden-reality slapped me. I had the will to defy gravity, but the force was too strong for me to pick myself up and face the aftermath of the mistakes I’ve made.

I was slowly unravelling a thread of mistakes that resurfaced and exposed my incompetence, inconsistencies, and negligence. I became a cautionary tale. I became the subject of people’s conversations. I became either a narrative that deserves pity or intense criticism. Sometimes, I couldn’t bear to look at people in the eye and flash them a smile because I was too busy overthinking what they thought of me.

It came to a point that after committing one mistake, followed by a couple more, I slowly realized that instead of becoming a strategic asset, I had turned into a replaceable disposable. It dawned on me that maybe I did not deserve to laugh or smile after what I’ve done. I wanted to morph into the darkness, remain unnoticed, and just keep on working silently.

I wanted to admit that I was okay, even though it was hard to keep being strong when I felt weak.

There were sleepless nights, a lot of contemplating, and recognizing the anxieties I’ve been so afraid to talk about. Some moments made me question if the mistakes I’ve made automatically made me a bad person. That’s the sad part: when you make a mistake, no matter how hard you try to clear your name, no amount of good you’ve done could replace the impact of the mistakes you’ve committed.

But after some time, you realize that all the pain and vulnerability that you’ve felt was necessary. That the consequences of the mistakes you have made needed to be felt to truly grow and transform in the pursuit of becoming the best version of yourself. At some point, it’s not adding salt to the wound, but as the pain pierces through our hearts, we also realize that we are still alive, we’re still standing, we still have a chance to make things right and not just merely allow people to equate our mistakes to the entirety of our being.

For the longest time, I always cared about what other people had to say about me, but this time, I am emancipating myself from people’s perceptions of me. I’ve made peace with the fact that no matter what I do, whether it’s a mistake or a good deed, everyone will still have an opinion about me-but I do have a choice. I can keep on trying to change or convince them of what they think of me, or I could just simply let them be and let go, knowing that people are going to talk about you since it is the price when you make a mistake.

There were three things that I’ve learnt throughout this entire experience.

First, I never thought how strong I was, because while the thought of giving up was barely an option that presented itself as a choice, I kept showing up, living life, and accepting that it is innately within the nature of human beings to make mistakes. Of course, a part of me wanted to go back in time, and if I could, I would’ve done things differently-but we must not keep on regretting because this could limit us from becoming truly happy. It may take years, but you must eventually learn to forgive yourself.

Second, while you may feel that the entire world has turned its back on you-it actually did not. During the toughest times, the compassion, love, and support from genuine people eventually find their way to you, and you will feel comforted, making the pain a little more bearable.

Finally, I have come to realize that the world did not stop when I made a mistake. Life did not stop when I experienced the lowest of lows. When I committed mistakes, it was not the epilogue of the story, but a prologue of what’s yet to come and what’s still out there for me to experience. Let the mistakes we have made become a reminder that life is not all about consistency and winning, but sometimes even in failure we can see that we dared to try, and we can see growth. Mistakes don’t define us, but the courage to continue does.

Life goes on even after you make mistakes, and so must you.

The 2026 Mutya ng Pilipinas pageant season has just started, but one candidate has already picked up an early win, Rica Mae Villasanta who was proclaimed as ‘Mutya ng Bayan.’

The delegate from Camarines Norte garnered 70,230 votes from the official online voting portal, more than 10,000 votes ahead of first runner-up Lyra Punsalan from Davao del Norte, who got 59,630.

Close behind with 52,750 votes and closing the podium at third place was Patricia Dueñas from Cebu City, who was proclaimed second runner-up for the Mutya ng Bayan voting.

Villasanta received her Mutya ng Bayan title at the press presentation of the official candidates for the 58th anniversary edition of the second longest-running national pageant in the Philippines.

The event was held at the ballroom of Bellevue Manila in Muntinlupa City on Sunday evening, Oct. 4. Forty candidates from across the Philippines and from different overseas Filipino communities were presented to members of the media and other guests.

They also received their official sashes bearing their respective hometowns during the event, where they strutted down the runway wearing swimsuits in orange, yellow, and lilac.

But there are two more ways where fans can actively throw their support behind their bets. Voting for Mutya La Elegante Filipinas and Heart of Mutya are currently ongoing, with the winners’ proclamation scheduled on Oct. 11 during the Charity Gala event.

Also to be named during the Charity Gala will be the ‘Darling of the Press,’ the Mutya who garnered the most votes from the members of the media who attended the Press Presentation, as well as her runners-up who received the second highest and third highest number of votes.

The 2026 Mutya ng Pilipinas Grand Coronation Night will be held at the PlayTime FilOil Center in San Juan City on Oct. 14. Several national titles will be awarded at the end of the competition.

The late Salvador ‘Sonny’ Escudero III, who served as secretary of agriculture and a member of the House of Representatives, once said that career advancement was often slow for the better teachers and they were often overlooked when it was time for recognitions and awards.

The problem is not always political patronage or palakasan, a common practice in the Philippines.

Escudero, who was a professor and dean of the University of the Philippines (Los Baños, Laguna) College of Veterinary Medicine and a strong advocate for education, explained that such exemplary teachers were often so dedicated to their work that they could hardly find time or were reluctant to leave the classroom to pursue graduate and postgraduate studies or attend seminars and conferences that were often the bases for promotion.

Fortunately, there are groups that have started to do something for them.

One is the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation (GBF), whose chair, Lance Gokongwei, highlights the crucial role teachers can play in ‘shaping the future of learners.’

‘GBF hopes to help address science specialization gaps through targeted upskilling, so that more teachers are equipped with stronger content knowledge, practical teaching strategies and renewed confidence in the classroom,’ GBF general manager Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng added.

GBF, said executive director Grace Colet, was premised on the belief that education had the power to change not just individual lives but the nation’s own destiny.

For GBF, investing in teachers was a key strategy for improving student learning outcomes. Its educator programs thus focus on strengthening content mastery and pedagogy through various complimentary interventions.

One example, the GBF Class Builder, is a proprietary education technology solution that provides teachers with free, high-quality instructional resources.

A total of 41,000 teachers across 6,000 schools have been onboarded to GBF Class Builder in eight regions.

Through a Reading Remediation component, as well as Mathematics resources, educators have access to ready-to-use lesson plans, slides, and worksheets designed to support more effective classroom instruction.

PH-wide community

The GBF STEM Collab is a nationwide learning community where educators can access free expert-led learning sessions and resources, and peer discourse on relevant topics and strategies they can apply in the classroom. (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, a major focus of GBF’s education initiative.)

The Collab now has 380,000 participants in its webinars, making it ‘the biggest online community of STEM teachers nationwide,’ according to GBF.

In 2025, its ARAL Remediation Series reached more than 209,000 live participants, the biggest virtual audience for teacher training to date.

GBF’s TeachSTEM Scholarship program develops and supports Filipino STEM educators through scholarships and targeted professional development.

The TeachSTEM Certificate Program is designed to fill teacher-subject specialization gaps by giving public school teachers opportunities to deepen their subject knowledge and strengthen their instructional skills through certificate courses delivered by university partners.

Partner schools

The foundation has partnered so far with Centro Escolar University and schools division offices of the cities of Navotas, Marikina and Mandaluyong in the National Capital Region to support 48 Math teachers for the Certificate Course in Math Teaching.

GBF has also partnered with the University of Santo Tomas,

together with the Schools Division Offices of the cities of Quezon, Caloocan, Muntinlupa and Pasig, to support 100 public school teachers through a Certificate in Science Teaching.

The foundation continues to work with the Department of Education-National Educators Academy of the Philippines (DepEd NEAP) to provide professional development opportunities for teachers, including learning sessions that can be credited as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) units.