Good day. Here are the stories for The Manila Times for Thursday, October 3, 2024.
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READ: Sotto, Lacson eye return to Senate
FORMER senators Tito Sotto and Panfilo Lacson — both in their 70s — filed their certificates of candidacy (CoCs) Wednesday, seeking to return to the Senate after a two-year absence. Lacson ran for president with Sotto as his running mate in 2022 but lost miserably to now President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte. They are now running under Marcos' Alyansa ng Bagong Pilipinas (ABP) coalition. Joining the former senators were current Sens. Imee Marcos and Lito Lapid. Senator Marcos, the President's sister, filed her certificate of candidacy before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for her reelection bid in the 2025 midterm polls. She filed her CoC under the Nacionalista Party (NP); she was accompanied by her mother, former first lady Imelda Marcos, and sons Borgy and Michael Manotoc. Marcos was originally included in the administration's 12-person senatorial lineup but did not show up at the launch of the administration alliance and said she would run instead as an independent. Senator Marcos, who is allied with the family of former president Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, Vice President Duterte, snubbed the administration alliance, but the President said they would still support her. Lapid is also in the administration's ABP coalition. He won his third Senate seat in the 2019 midterm elections. He first ran for the Senate in 2004 and won reelection in 2010. Lapid, a former movie star, said in 2015, after two terms as senator, that he really did not fit the role because he lacked a college education. Still, he was reelected to the Senate in 2019.
READ: NSC skeptical of claims Guo is a Chinese spy
THE assistant director general of the National Security Council (NSC) this week expressed skepticism over the claims by a jailed Chinese businessman in Thailand that dismissed Bamban mayor Alice Guo was a spy for China. In an interview on Tuesday with Lia Badillo-Crisostomo for "PrimeTimes," a program that streams on all social media platforms of The Manila Times, Malaya said the broader implications of the claims made by confessed Chinese spy She Zhejiang were not lost on the local intelligence community.
READ: Panel calls for charges in Barayuga slay case
HOUSE quad committee chairman and Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers has called on the Department of Justice (DoJ) to file murder charges against Royina Garma and Edilberto Leonardo for the ambush of retired police general Wesley Barayuga. In a statement, Barbers said they were in "close coordination" with the DoJ through their representatives, who were monitoring their hearings as they were "unearthing evidence of criminal activities and other acts of wrongdoing in the course of our inquiry." He added that the DoJ should have interviewed the two witnesses last Friday, Lt. Col. Santie Mendoza of the Philippine National Police Drug Enforcement Group and his drug informant Nelson Mariano, and assessed their testimonies.
READ: Govt officials get lower approval, trust ratings
TOP government officials and agencies continue to experience a downward trend in their approval and trust ratings, according to the third quarter Pahayag 2024 Survey conducted by Publicus Asia. In the approval ratings, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. saw a slight decline in his approval ratings, with a 1-percentage-point decline from the previous quarter from 44 percent to 43 percent, which Publicus noted as "relatively stable." Speaker Martin Romualdez and Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo also experienced slight dips in their approval ratings from the previous quarter, with Romualdez getting a 25 percent rating in this quarter, down 2 percentage points, and Gesmundo getting a 28 percent rating from 29 percent in the previous quarter.
BUSINESS: IMF trims PH forecasts
Headlining business, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its growth projections for the Philippines following a slowdown in private consumption. Elif Arbatli-Saxegaard, chief of a visiting IMF mission, told a briefing on Wednesday that the global lender now expects the country to grow by 5.8 percent this year, down from a July forecast of 6.0. The outlook for 2025 was also trimmed, to 6.1 percent from 6.2 percent. Both forecasts fall below the government's 6.0- to 7.0-percent target for 2024 and the 6.5-7.5 percent for the following year.
SPORTS: Yulo adopts coach Mune's strong work ethic
Over to sports, gymnast Carlos Edriel "Caloy" Yulo and his longtime coach Munehiro Kugumiya might have parted ways due to personal differences but there is no denying that their partnership worked wonders for the former even before he won two Olympic gold medals in Paris last August. Yulo surely learned from "coach Mune" not just from the technical skills perspective in gymnastics but also when it comes to work ethic. During his recognition from Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Endo Kazuya at the ambassador's residence in North Forbes Park in Makati on Tuesday evening, Yulo talked about the values instilled to him by coach Mune.
READ: Opinion and editorial
Antonio Contreras and Danton Remoto are today's front page columnists. Contreras looks into Sen. Imee Marcos' "difficult" political moves, while Remoto analyzes the administration slate again.
Today's editorial gives a warning on foreign direct investment assumptions. Read the full version in the paper's opinion section or listen to the Voice of the Times.
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