News Briefs: Dec 4, 2018
Business, big labor group mourn death of Donald Dee
Business leader Donald Dee died on Saturday last week after a long bout with cancer. He was 72.
Dee, a former president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, campaigned against the short-term hiring practice called “endo,” but backed legal forms of contractualization.
Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., president of the Philippine Exporters Confederation; Alegria Sibal-Limjoco, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines head Raymond Mendoza said Dee would be missed. —Roy Stephen C. Canivel
Despite purge, PDP-Laban ‘still country’s dominant party’
The Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) is still the country’s dominant political party despite its purge of several “rogue elements” following an ugly leadership dispute, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III said on Monday.
Pimentel, who was recognized last week by the Commission on Elections as the legitimate PDP-Laban president, said the party chaired by President Rodrigo Duterte still boasted some 100,000 card-carrying members.
“We believe so,” he said, when asked if PDP-Laban remained the No. 1 party.
“The true PDP-Laban was not affected because these people who want to be high-profile in the party, some of them so new to the party … went into a power grab,” Pimentel said. —DJ Yap
New party-list lawmaker takes oath
The new representative of Arts, Business and Science Professionals (ABS) party-list group, Ulysses Garces, took his oath on Monday as replacement for Rep. Eugene Michael de Vera.
De Vera’s ally, LPGMA Rep. Arnel Ty, opposed the move to swear in Garces as the newest member of the House, but Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. said there was “no motion for reconsideration timely filed before this plenary.”
De Vera was removed from the House of Representatives during the Nov. 19 session on Andaya’s motion.
Andaya cited communication from ABS that the party-list group had expelled De Vera — the head of a House faction that included former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez — for challenging the minority leadership of Rep. Danilo Suarez. —Vince F. Nonato
