OPINION / A10 SPORTS / A23 NEWS / A16

Fr. Jerry Orbos: In the Rotary’s 4-Way Test, note that the Bacolod girls New petition from nursing professionals
primary question is about truthfulness, and the last is about enter Junior League seeks to invalidate oaths taken by 2,000 successful

INQUIRER
being beneficial. If we were to follow Jesus as our leader, we World Series finals examinees of tainted nursing licensure examinations
must, as He did, put truth above expediency in Washington before Court of Appeals TRO

Man with 2 organs just

wants normal sex life P H I L I P P I N E D A I L Y
NEW DELHI—AN INDIAN
businessman born with
two penises wants one of
them removed surgically
as he wants to marry and
lead a normal sexual life, a
newspaper report said on B A L A N C E D N E W S , F E A R L E S S V I E W S
Saturday.

RP sends SOS on oil spill

MAN/ A6 Sunday, August 20, 2006 HH 10 sections / Vol. 21 / No. 253 P18

US, Japan, Indon help sought

on ‘unimaginable’ disaster
By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr. in Manila
and Carla P. Gomez, Nestor Burgos Jr. and Jhunnex Napallacan
Inquirer Visayas

FEARING A BIGGER ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE, MALA-

cañang has sent out an SOS to the United States, Japan and In-
donesia to help clean up the country’s worst oil spill. ENDANGERED. These starfish are among the creatures
in the Guimaras marine sanctuary endangered by the oil spill.
Greenpeace environmental campaigners said
ARNOLD ALMACEN / INQUIRER VISAYAS
the spill from a sunken tanker off Guimaras Island
was a disaster “completely unimaginable” for a

WHAT’S INSIDE
country as ill-equipped as the Philippines to han-
dle, and that the irony was that the national gov-
ernment failed to see the urgency of the problem.
Remembrances and Police underscored the need for quick action,
saying oil was spurting out of the sunken tanker at
the streets of Manila: the rate of 100 to 200 liters an hour.
“The government has already sounded the alarm
Old familiar landmarks to foreign governments, including Indonesia, the
revisited US and Japan, to help refloat the sunken tanker,”
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said in a statement.
METRO / A17 “This is because a further environmental catas-
trophe looms as a big volume of oil, estimated at

‘Cedula’ rush
450,000 gallons (1.7 million liters), is still trapped
under water.”
to earn P20M in taxes Bunye said the National Disaster Coordinating
Council was working round the clock to address
from Nueva Ecija and “this ecological and economic time bomb.”
“The team is working at all levels to contain the
Bulacan residents alone spill, pinpoint accountabilities, repair the damage,
oversee assistance to the affected communities, set
ACROSS / A13 up prevention measures and look into long-term
policy reforms.”
Officials of the Philippine Coast Guard and the
Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) said initial in-
vestigation indicated the MT Solar I had suffered
damage while sailing through rough seas and that the
vessel should not have continued with the voyage.
The tanker sank last Friday while loaded with
13,000 barrels, or 2 million liters, of bunker fuel.
The spill is considered the biggest in the coun-
try’s history and occurred just eight months after
an oil tanker ran aground off the coasts of Semi-
rara Island in Antique province, spilling more than
300,000 liters of bunker fuel. BAREFOOT ON THE BEACH is an unappealing proposition for the fisherman who owns this oil-soaked foot. Tons of oil

Sea World, where

RP SENDS/ A8 that spilled out of a tanker on Guimaras Strait have reached this beach in Baranay Tando on Guimaras Island. GREENPEACE

dolphins touch the heart,

heads the list of premier IOM: More than just getting OFWs out of harm’s way
tourist attractions in By Volt Contreras
Orlando, Florida
BEYOND THE SOB STORIES AT THE AIR-
LIFESTYLE TRAVEL / D2 port or the bureaucratic squabbles that
have marked the Filipino evacuation from
Lebanon is a steady, experienced hand
that, over the last half-century, has helped
get migrants out of “somebody else’s
war.”
As of yesterday, 3,540 overseas Fil-
ipino workers had been bused out of
Beirut to Damascus, Syria, and then
flown to Manila courtesy of the Interna-
tional Organization for Migration (IOM),
of which the Philippines is a member.
That’s easily more than half of the ap-
proximately 5,600 OFWs so far repatriat-
ed, the rest of whom had their transport
expenses shouldered by the Philippine
government.
Filipinos have also made up about a
quarter of the total number of foreign na-
tionals who have left Lebanon with IOM
assistance since the conflict began a
month ago. The group has spent $11 mil-
lion helping 15 countries get their citi-
zens out.
But IOM’s work in the Philippines in
the last 25 years has certainly been more
than just getting OFWs out of harm’s
way.
From giving orientations to job-seek-
ers abroad, to training immigration
agents, to helping policymakers find the
best ways to use the dollar remittances
for nation-building, IOM has been an en-
gaged witness to the Philippines’ increas-
ing dependence on OFWs.
For now, however, the country has
been counting on it to save Filipino lives
on the other side of the globe.
Although IOM’s Manila-based officers
monitor the movement of evacuees
IOM/ A8

Eggie Apostol: Lifetime lamplighter Finally, Apo’s

By Juan Rufino Vigilar Jim Paredes
gives up on RP
Contributor

Jay-R says tiff

with Borgy Manotoc not
a fight, just ‘a guy thing’
ENTERTAINMENT / F1
EVEN BEFORE THE PHILIPPINES WOULD HAVE
its first woman president, another woman was
helping pave the way for it to happen through the
weekly magazine she founded and edited. By Gerry Lirio
At a time when it was safer for the media to bow
MELBOURNE—THE SINGER-COMPOS-
to the murder of a dictator’s political nemesis as
er who helped topple the Marcos dicta-
the sternest warning against dissent, Eugenia Du-
torship but years later gave up all hope
ran Apostol chose to unmuzzle a people’s voiceless
pain. for a better Philippines is doing just fine

At 92, he plays golf It was her magazine Mr. & Ms., not any of the
daily broadsheets cowed by Ferdinand Marcos’ au-
3 days a week— thoritarian regime, that gave the hours-long funer-
al procession of Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983 the na-
without tional significance it deserved.
using a Thousands of Filipinos from all walks of life, led
by the widow who would be president, attended
golf cart— what was the biggest demonstration against Mar-
at RP’s cos. The bearer of shared grief, Mr. & Ms., signaled
that the time was ripe to openly and jointly cry out
oldest in protest.
The public thirst for information was so great
course that all copies of the magazine’s special issue on
the funeral sold out. It promptly spun off into a sep-
arate weekly that later would reach a circulation of
half a million copies, unsurpassed by any publica-
SUNDAY MAGAZINE / 3
EGGIE/ A5
in his new-found home in Sydney, Aus-
tralia.
Five months into his new life as an im-
migrant, Jim Paredes is slowly becoming
the face of a new set of overseas Fil-
ipinos, one of the many disillusioned mil-
lions who left the country in search of
kinder, greener pastures.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would
be,” Paredes told the INQUIRER in an inter-
view. “I’m happy I moved. No regrets.”
He inspired young men and women to
stay in the country and fight the Marcos
regime when it was not fashionable to do
so. Today, he urges Filipinos to follow
their dreams, even if it means leaving the
EGGIE APOSTOL: Ramon Magsaysay awardee and grand dame of country for a better life.
FINALLY/ A6
Philippine journalism INQUIRER FILE