President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has granted a reprieve to three death convicts and reset their execution to a later date.

All the three convicts who were granted the presidential reprieve were meted the death penalty for the crime of rape.

One of the convicts, Rolando Pagdayawon y Salabaria, was scheduled for execution on Aug. 30, 2002. He was granted a reprieve until Nov. 28, 2002.

Pagdayawon was meted the death penalty by the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 33, of Davao City

Earlier, Malacanang announced that the President would stay the execution of Pagdayawon in deference to the birthday of Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin who has been urging the government to abolish the death penalty.

The second convict granted a reprieve was Eddie Sernadilla y Ventires whose execution was scheduled on Sept. 3, 2002. His execution has been reset to Dec. 2, 2002.

Sernadilla was meted the death penalty by RTC, Branch 57, of San Carlos City, Pangasinan.

The third convict whose death sentence has been temporarily suspended was Filomeno Serrano y Callado. He was scheduled to be administered the lethal injection on Sept. 20, 2002 but this was moved to Dec. 19, 2002.

Serrano was sentenced to death by RTC, Branch 265, of Pasig City.

The President said that the reprieve given to the three death convicts would give the Office of the President additional time "to conduct a thorough study in order to determine if executive clemency may be extended to the prisoners."

The power of the President to grant a reprieve or executive clemency is provided for under Section 19, Article VII of the Philippine Constitution.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo launched today a "sustained and high-intensity campaign" against illegal drugs in the country as part of her administration’s no-letup drive against all forms of criminality and terrorism.

The President announced the launching of another important leg of the government’s intensified war against criminality as she emerged from a meeting this morning with the top officials of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) and the Philippine Drugs Enforcement Agency (PDEA) at the Music Room in Malacaņang.

"I want to announce this as the launch of what’s going to be a very, very sustained and high-intensity drug campaign," the President told reporters after the meeting.

An Order of Battle listing main target personalities and syndicates similar to the one drawn up during the launching of the anti-kidnapping campaign will be finalized soon in the city, town and barangay levels.

The President said there is now a need to put more stress on the anti-drug campaign following the series of successful campaigns against kidnapping and other criminal gangs, particularly the group of Faisal Marohombsar, in the course of rescuing their last victim, Patricia Chong.

Marohombsar was killed during a shootout with combined Philippine National Police-Armed Forces of the Philippines elements in Magallanes, Cavite last Sunday.

"Many of those rogues that you would see behind me during many of the times when I went to the police to congratulate them, many of them were on drugs when they were arrested. They were on drugs when they were doing rape. They were on drugs when they were doing their crimes," she said.

The President noted that the drug problem is an "underpinning problem" of the whole peace and order problem in the country.

"This is a very important leg of our peace and order campaign," the President told reporters.

At the same time, President Macapagal-Arroyo expressed optimism that the combined efforts of the revitalized DDB and the newly-created PDEA would result in an effective campaign against the drug menace.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina, who also attended the DDB-PDEA meeting, said the value of the illegal drug trade in the country is estimated at P250 billion to P300 billion a year.

This coming Sunday (Sept. 1), Lina said the President will join them in the presentation and validation of existing drug syndicates in the country.

According to him, the process of presenting and validating drug syndicates will be similar to the process that the government went through with the kidnap-for-ransom syndicates.

"There’s a list already but we have to validate and we have to go to the process," Lina said.

He explained that in every city and municipality, there will be an identification of pushers and users so that the police will know who to place under surveillance and arrest later on.

"We will do our best to come up with an order of battle per municipality and city," Lina said, adding that drug syndicates have existing networks down to the barangay level.

While other countries have declared year 2020 as the target year when they can declare themselves as drug-free, the Philippines, according to Lina, has declared 2010 as the year where the country could be drug-free.

However, the DILG secretary said there is a growing consensus among the members of the DDB to advance the said date to 2005.

During the meeting with the President, Lina said the PDEA had already arrested 31 peoeple, 23 of which are drugs pushers and one financier.

Lina added that PDEA operatives also confiscated more than P16 million worth of various illegal drugs and has caused the filing of 16 separate cases in court.

He said the DILG is now reorganizing and revitalizing the Anti-Drug Abuse Councils (ADACs) nationwide at the level of the province, city, municipality and barangay in response to the President’s call made in her second State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 22.

BONGAO, Tawi-Tawi – Thousands of Filipino repatriates who arrived here from Malaysia are set to see and talk with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when she visits this town on Thursday (August 29).

This will be the President’s first visit to the area since she was sworn in as the country’s Chief Executive on January 21, 2001.

The repatriates, who arrived from Malaysia, would like to tell the President their problems and the hardships they went through after they left the port area of Sandakan in Sabah, a town official said.

They needed adequate food, clothing, shelter, medicine and livelihood.

"But most of all, we need the assurance that we are most welcome and most accepted in our country, our homeland," said a middle-aged woman who was among those who opted to flee Sandakan after authorities carried out the deportation of some 300,000 illegal aliens in Malaysia.

"We know the President can fill this need," she said.

The repatriates used to live in Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Basilan, the Zamboanga peninsula and other Mindanao provinces before they sought work in Sabah.

Some of them have fled Mindanao following the outbreak of the Bangsamoro rebellion in the early ‘70s, and sailed to Sandakan in search for greener pastures.

However, their dreams and aspirations were cut short by their expulsion by the Malaysia government. Many children born there sailed home to the Philippines with their parent-repatriates.

"We want to start productive lives anew in our places of birth, if we could no longer be accommodated in Malaysia, where many of us have been working since the early ‘70s," Hamid Abdullah, 36, a repatriate from Sulu, said.

Leon Omoso, regional director of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) in Western Mindanao, earlier reported that some 1,497 of the repatriates arrived here Monday morning aboard a navy boat.

Omoso cited Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) figures that said more repatriates were expected to arrive in batches soon.

He said this was the first time repatriates were being processed here. Earlier, the documentation of the deportees were done in Zamboanga City.

ZAMBOANGA CITY – On Thursday (August 29) afternoon, a total of 103 agrarian reform family-beneficiaries in Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga Sibugay provinces will finally own the land they have been living on and tilling all these years.

They will personally receive from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo their land titles in a program marking the celebration of the 43^rd founding anniversary of the town of Kumalarang, Zamboanga del Sur.

The President is expected to join the people of Kumalarang at the Kumalarang National High School gym, after attending another appointment with the people of Sergio Osmeņa, Sr. town in Zamboanga del Norte.

A report from the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) in Western Mindanao said the awarding of the land patents and titles supported the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

The President, in her State of the Nation Address, had vowed to eradicate poverty in the country within the decade. Part of the promise, much of which had been implemented even beyond targets, was the distribution of land to both the urban and rural poor.

The PIA, quoting the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Zamboanga del Sur provincial office, said the land distribution fell under the DENR’s "Handog Titulo" program.

The program assures small-time farmers security over the lands they cultivate. The land patents and titles they get serve as their evidence of ownership.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today announced the appointment of former Tawi-Tawi Congressman Nur Jaafar as the government’s crisis manager on the repatriation of thousands of undocumented Filipinos from Sabah to Mindanao.

In her weekly luncheon meeting with members of the Malacanang Press Corps, the President also announced that she would be flying to Bongao, Tawi-Tawi tomorrow to personally look into situation.

"That’s why I am going to Bongao. I am going to preside over a meeting with officials of concerned agencies and then make an ocular inspection," the President said.

The President said that Jaafar would be coordinating with the regional directors of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Department of Health (DOH) as well as with officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on how to handle the orderly repatriation of the Filipinos to their final destinations.

Majority of the repatriates are from Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Basilan, the Zamboanga peninsula and other Mindanao provinces before they migrated to Sabah to find employment.

The President said she would also be sending Jaafar to Sandakan in Sabah so that he can look at the issue from the Malaysian side.

The President said that the government would be sending doctors on board Philippine Navy ships that would fetch the refugees to safeguard their health conditions, especially among the children.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said today that she is confident the Philippines and Malaysia can work together to make the repatriation of undocumented Filipinos to Mindanao in an orderly manner.

"If we work together, we will be able to make it much, much more orderly, as it has been orderly in the past," the President said in her weekly luncheon meeting with the Malacaņang Press Corps.

The President said that her impression, from the report of Foreign Secretary Blas Ople, is that Malaysian authorities were also unhappy over the manner that the repatriation has been conducted.

She was referring to news reports that some of the Filipino deportees have been maltreated while in detention centers in Sandakan, Sabah before their repatriation to the Philippines.

"My impression is that even the Malaysian officials were abhorred with what they saw on TV," the President said.

The President said that Malaysian authorities have assured Secretary Ople that they would handle the situation in a humane way.

"That is why Secretary Ople has said that there is some gap between what they (Malaysian authorities) assured him and what actually happened, and he would like to call their attention to that," the President said.

BONGAO, Tawi-Tawi – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will personally welcome another batch of some 1,400 repatriates from Malaysia who are expected to land here tomorrow from Sabah.

The President, who is due to arrive here in the morning, will also interact with this new batch of repatriates and those who arrived earlier and find out for herself the problems they are faced with and offer solutions.

She will also distribute relief goods and medical supplies to the Filipinos expelled from Malaysia for lack of proper documentation.

According to the regional office of the Department of Labor and Employment, the President has directed DOLE and local government officials here to coordinate efforts in setting up livelihood projects that will benefit the repatriates and their families.

The Department of Foreign Affairs, in response to the President’s order, also informed Malacaņang that it is setting up a processing center here to facilitate the documentation of Filipino travelers and workers.

The center will assist a similar office in Zamboanga in processing documents for travelers and workers within two to four days.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has appointed Court of Appeals Justices Conchita Morales and Romeo Callejo, Sr. to fill up two of the three vacancies in the Supreme Court.

The President said the new Supreme Court justices were the two topnotchers in the list submitted by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC),

Morales will replace Justice Jose Melo who retired last May 28, 2002 while Callejo will take the place of Justice Sabino de Leon, Jr. who retired last June 9, 2002.

In his press briefing this afternoon, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said under the Constitution, any vacancy in the Supreme Court must be filled within 90 days from its occurrence from among the list of nominees of the JBC.

Bunye said that in a letter dated August 14, 2002, the JBC submitted a list of nine nominees which was received by the Office of the President on August 15.

CA Justices Morales and Callejo were tied for first place as they both received the unanimous vote of seven JBC members, Bunye said.

A graduate of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law, Morales has been in the judiciary for 19 years, eight years in the Court of Appeals and 11 years with the Regional Trial Court.

Prior to her appointment to the high tribunal, Morales was the chairman of the CA’s seventh division.

Morales was born in Paoay, Ilocos Norte on June 19, 1941.

Callejo, Sr. has served 16 years in the judiciary, eight years in the Court of Appeals and eight years as an RTC judge. He was the chairman of the CA’s 11^th division.

A graduate of the San Beda College, Callejo has taught law in San Beda, Ateneo de Manila University and the Far Eastern University.

Press Secretary Ignacio "Toting" Bunye today said a good number of officials have already complied with the President’s directive through Memorandum Order No. 20, requiring all government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), Government Financial Institutions (GFIs) and subsidiaries exempted from the salary standardization law (SSL) to implement pay rationalization in all senior officer positions.

The Press Secretary issued the statement in the wake of news reports that Presidential Anti-Graft Commission Chairman Dario Rama has started the investigation of some government owned and controlled corporations on their compliance with the SSL.

"We would like to point out that this is merely an inquiry into the implementation of Memorandum Order No. 20 requiring all government- owned and controlled corporations to rationalize their salary structures," Bunye said during a press briefing this afternoon at Malacaņang.

Bunye said the PAGC’s move to conduct an investigation on the matter is in line with the administration’s commitment to good governance, which is being espoused by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

"A good number of officials covered by the inquiry have already submitted their explanations, among them Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. Rafael Buenaventura," he said.

Under MO No. 20, the President said Administrative Order No. 5, which she issued shortly after assumption into office on Jan. 20, 2001, directs the adoption of fiscal discipline measures in the public sector to sustain economic recovery and address the fiscal deficit problem.

"There is a need to channel scarce resources of the government into more priority and critical concerns like poverty reduction, agriculture modernization and agrarian reform, information and communication technology, tourism, peace and order," according to the President.

The President said the re-channeling of government resources necessitates looking at compensation packages of GOCCs and GFIs that are exempt from or do not follow the SSL.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today welcomed the invitation of the Japanese government for the participation of the Philippines in the World Expo in 2005.

"We will be very happy to participate," the President told Mikio Shimoji, Parliament Secretary of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), who called on her at the Music Room in Malacaņang.

Several government agencies led by the Department of Tourism (DOT) are already in the process of coordinating with their respective counterparts in Japan for the preparation of the Philippine participation in the said event to be hosted by Japan.

According to Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II who was present in the meeting, the Philippines had earlier requested the Japanese government for an Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) in order to enable the country to have a good presentation in the upcoming international trade fair.

During their meeting, Shimoji also asked the President to look into the possibility of establishing a direct flight between Manila and Okinawa in view of the significant number of Okinawans residing in the Philippines and the sizeable influx of Japanese tourists to the country.

"That’s a good idea. If it will improve the Japanese visits to the Philippines, we can ask the Secretary of Transportation to provide more flights," President Macapagal-Arroyo told the visiting Japanese official.

The Chief Executive pointed out that the policy of her administration is to promote tourism and it was for that purpose that the government liberalized its air policy.

For his part, Shimoji informed the President that majority of the chief executive officers of the Japanese companies here in the Philippines are very happy about the quality of Filipino workers.

He said the Japanese business executives also acknowledged the President’s sincere efforts against criminality and terrorism.

The President assured the Japanese official that her administration would continue to work hard in resolving the issue of criminality and terrorism.

Shimoji likewise offered to help facilitate the issue of human resource exchange program which was discussed by the President with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

The Japanese official, who arrived here last August 26, said he has learned to like the Philippines and its people and promised to visit the country more often.

ZAMBOANGA CITY – The towns of Sergio Osmeņa, Sr. and Kumaralang in the Zamboanga peninsula may be poles apart. But on Thursday (August 29), their residents will share a common event – a rare yet memorable visit from the country’s Chief Executive.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is set to arrive in Sergio Osmeņa, Sr., dubbed as a potential landlocked summer capital in Mindanao, in Zamboanga del Norte and in Kumalarang, a progressive agricultural beehive facing the coast of Dumaguiling Bay, in Zamboanga del Sur.

Fresh from a scheduled mid-morning rendezvous with Filipino repatriates from Malaysia in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, the President will jump off for the two towns from Pagadian.

Sergio Osmeņa Sr. is some six to seven hours by road up north from Pagadian City while Kumalarang may be reached in three to four hours down southeast from Pagadian City. Sergio Osmeņa, Sr. is only two hours nearer to Dipolog City.

What makes the twin visit more significant is the President’s desire to uplift the lives of the indigenous Filipino people, particularly the poor.

According to Leon Omoso, regional director of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), both towns were once strongholds of the Subanen tribesmen.

In due time, many of the lumads (highlanders) of Sergio Osmeņa, Sr. and Kumalarang were converted to the Christian and Islamic faiths, respectively; though a number clung to the tribe’s unique customs and traditions, Omoso said.

This immersion into a different cultural and social psyche, however, did not obliterate but instead strengthened the blood of the Subanen in them, he added.

On Thursday, the Subanens will once more come to the fore – with honor and dignity – to receive from the President the realization of their dreams, that is to own the piece of land they have nurtured as their home and source of farming livelihood.

Beside this, the President is expected to award to them socio-economic programs and projects intended to increase their chances of getting a better share of the national wealth.

The President may also take up the eco-tourism potentials of Sergio Osmeņa, Sr. (population: 39,437) and Kumalarang (population: 27,680).

The first boasts of its cool weather and the beauty of Mt. Malindang. The second takes pride in its Cabug Island and Sicade Falls.

These natural wonders are coupled by the edible colors almost found everywhere – gold for palay and corn, green for most fruits and vegetables among others.