Aquino election could jumpstart government reform in Philippines

Of course, it's not the first time that the election of a new government in the Philippines captured the imagination of people hoping for honesty and integrity in the southeast Asian country. But the landslide victory of Benigno Aquino III, son of two of the country's most beloved leaders, could be the start of something extraordinary for the traditional ally of the United States. Aquino, who has promised to eliminate corruption and protect Philippine democracy, takes office June 30. He also has promised to negotiate with Marxist and Islamic rebels in the county's south, whose long-running insurgency threatened to disrupt the presidency of his mother, Corazon Aquino, who replaced longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. She survived seven coup attempts before her term expired in 1992, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Aquino's father, Benigno, known as Ninoy, was murdered in 1983 upon his return from exile to the Philippines, where he was planning to lead a campaign against Marcos. Aquino easily defeated eight other candidates in May's presidential election, including former President Joseph Estrada, and the day of his inauguration, planned for a seaside park in Manila, has been declared a national holiday. Aquino has promised a truth commission to ferret out corruption in government, and pledged to appoint a former chief justice to look into fraud allegations arising during the term of his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, CNN said.

Arroyo government settles mass tribal kidnapping in Philippines

Officials of the Arroyo administration in Manila must be relieved that a tense standoff with dozens of hostages in lawless Mindanao has been resolved safely, even at the cost of a bit of integrity. Authorities in Prosperidad convinced a group of tribal gunmen to release their 42 remaining hostages and surrender Sunday by promising not to charge them for the kidnapping and by allowing criminal charges already pending against them to be tried in tribal courts. "At last the crisis is over," provincial vice-governor Santiago Cane told the Reuters international news service. "The guns, bullets and grenades of these men are with me now." The gunmen had originally taken 71 hostages in Agusan del Sur province after a gunbattle with a rival tribal group but released 29, including 18 children, before the final negotiations. The southern island of Mindanao has been a rebel hotbed for decades, with Islamic and communist militia jockeying for power with private armies controlled by wealthy families and the authorities in Manilla. Reuters said studies by the Asia Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2007 found more than 5,000 people had been killed and tens of thousands displaced in clan feuds in the southern Philippines. The kidnapping came just three weeks after the massacre of 57 people in nearby Maguindanao province raised questions about the administration of Gloria Arroyo months before next year's presidential election.