Faces of the News: January 10, 2021

ILLUSTRATION BY RENE ELEVERA

Harold Depositar

Within the first few days of the new year, the Philippine National Police came under fire for making premature conclusions and mishandling the investigation of the death of ‍23-year-old flight attendant Christine Dacera.

The case fell on the lap of the Makati City police chief, Col. Harold Depositar, barely a month after he assumed his post. With Depositar’s men still not done with their probe, PNP chief Gen. Debold Sinas, already announced that the “rape-slay case of [Dacera] is solved with the arrest and indictment of three suspects,” referring to the woman’s three gay friends who partied with her and several other men at a hotel on New Year’s Eve.

The PNP later clarified that the investigation was actually still ongoing. Depositar later drew his share of criticism for saying that Dacera’s gay friends still had the “men’s instinct” that could be aroused when they got drunk.

All these would later explode in the PNP’s face when the city prosecutor’s office ordered the case returned to the police for further investigation.

—Dexter Cabalza‍

Teresita Ang See

Chinese Filipino civic leader Teresita Ang See revealed in a recent forum that some 100,000 Chinese nationals, most of them working for Philippine offshore gaming operators, were inoculated in the country starting November last year, and that the vaccines came from “legitimate” and “official channels.”

The vaccines used on members of the Presidential Security Group also came from the same supply, she added.

The vaccinations took place although there was still no COVID-19 shot approved for local use. Ang See later clarified in an Inquirer interview that she was citing reports from the Chinese press and social media.

But she also criticized the government’s “failure of intelligence” regarding the clandestine vaccinations and complained that the burden of getting more information about the illegal inoculations was being put on her.

She had found herself in a “very unpleasant situation” because of that failure.

—Jodee A. Agoncillo

Pag-asa

Pag-asa, the first male Philippine eagle bred and hatched in captivity, died on Wednesday night—nine days shy of turning 29. The avian poster boy for the Philippine eagle conservation program suffered from various infections, causing his health to deteriorate.

“It’s sad. We lost a very iconic bird,” Dennis Joseph Salvador, Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) executive director, said.

Named as a symbol of hope for the country’s wildlife conservation efforts, Pag-asa was bred and hatched through cooperative artificial insemination techniques at the Philippine Eagle Center in Davao City.

Salvador said Pag-asa’s birth in 1992 “was a magical moment for all of us.” PEF has been breeding eagles in captivity in an attempt to increase their population.

The Philippine eagle, the world’s largest bird of prey, was declared endangered in 1965. It was later classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It was declared the national bird in 1995.

—Joselle Badilla

Stephen Curry

Trailing behind the fast break with 46 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Stephen Curry went straight to the left wing, got the handoff from Draymond Green, shot an off-balanced three-pointer and scored his NBA career-high 62 points — the most points scored by a Warrior since his buddy Klay Thompson swished 60 points back in 2016.

If this was back in 2015, when Curry became the first ever unanimous NBA MVP, the performance would have been just another day in the office for the Golden State star. However, after suffering an injury in his left hand back in 2019 many wondered if he would return the same.

Curry’s career night came two days after Portland’s Damian Lillard commented on how it would be more difficult this time around for the Warrior’s superstar to get as many clean looks as he did four or five years ago, when he was leading a dynastic squad that missed the playoffs last season — making it fitting that Curry lit up the stat sheet against Lillard’s Blazers.

Donald Trump

A month before the election, Donald Trump said he could not imagine losing to someone like Joe Biden, likening the scenario to “running against the single worst candidate in the history of American politics.” Then what to him was unthinkable happened.

His unraveling began slowly, with sporadic legal challenges claiming election fraud in contested states. Republican allies tried to help in early December by attempting to influence the selection of Electoral College representatives.

The undoing escalated when this failed to bolster Trump’s bid. A call made to Brad Raffensperger, secretary of state of Georgia, to look for 11,780 votes to overturn Biden’s win there was exposed. After which, Trump called on supporters to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote.

Despite the resulting violence, an unperturbed Vice President Mike Pence still pronounced Biden the winner.

Trump — clearly defeated but still unbowed — announced that “a new administration will be inaugurated on Jan. 20.”