AMNESTY PROCESS FACE HOUSE SCRUTINY / NOY: GIVE ME TIME FOR PRIVATE LIFE
MANILA, NOVEMBER 29, 2010 (MANILA TIMES) BY LLANESCA T. PANTI REPORTER - THE House of Representatives will not take the easy way out in dealing with the President Benigno Aquino 3rd's Amnesty Proclamation for the rebel soldiers, an official said Saturday. House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., issued the statement a day after the Senate announced that it would skip the Committee Hearings on the Proclamation 75 so that the rebel soldiers can spend the Christmas holidays with their families.
Proclamation 75 grants amnesty to active and former personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police and their supporters who may have committed crimes punishable under the Revised Penal Code, the Articles of War and other laws in connection with the Oakwood mutiny, the Marines standoff and the Peninsula Manila hotel siege.
"We are a big body. It will be better to discuss it in the Committee first," Belmonte told The Manila Times in a text message.
Belmonte said that the amended Proclamation would be referred to the Committee on Justice on Tuesday, December 7. The House Justice panel will then discuss the Amnesty Proclamation on Wednesday, December 8.
"If they [Justice committee] can approve it [on Wednesday], it can be taken up [in the plenary] same day or following week," Belmonte, who reprsents the Fourth District of Quezon City, added.
Belmonte earlier disclosed that the House of Representatives just received on November 24 Proclamation 75, and could not say if the mutineers would be free by Christmas day considering that Proclamation 75 does not state the name of who will qualify for the amnesty and therefore, would need to apply first.
The amnesty will restore civil and political rights or entitlement that may have been "suspended, lost or adversely affected by virtue of any executive, administrative or criminal action or proceedings against the grantee in connection with the subject incidents, including criminal conviction of any form, if any."
Aquino: Give me time for private life
(MALAYA) MALACAÑANG for the nth time yesterday asked the public, particularly the media, to respect the privacy of President Aquino.
The latest buzz aired in media was that the President and his stylist Liz Uy have parted ways. The two had been seen on public dates, and his reported break up with Valenzuela Councilor Shalani Soledad, and his subsequent efforts to take up where they left off was also grist for the gossip mill.
"Hinihingi niya iyung ibalato na natin sa kanya yung katiting at maliit na parte ng kanyang buhay na gusto niyang itago sa kanyang sarili lamang," deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte told Radyo ng Bayan.
Valte said the President has little time for his private life. "The business of running the country is not a limited engagement."
Valte said Aquino and Uy continue to have a "professionally relationship." – Jocelyn Montemayor
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