500 STORM PHILIPPINE COURT OVER DELAYED LAW

Illustrated picture

MANILA, Philippines - Some 500 members of a Manila-based group have stormed the Supreme Court after a ruling that stopped a law designed to delay elections in the autonomous region for Filipino-Muslims in the southern Philippines from August this year to 2013, a radio report said.
Police officers dispersed members of the All Moro Alliance Reform (AMAR) who divided into two groups, one of which tried to scale the walls of the Supreme Court, and the other which tried to reach the gates of the Apex Court, DZMM, radio station reported.

• Protesters burned effigies of the eight Supreme Court justices who voted for a temporary restraining order on the implementation of the new law which changes the date of elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
• The Supreme Court also prevented President Beningo Aquino to appoint officers-in-charge of the ARMM, adding the elected local government officials of ARMM should continue holding office until the next elections.
• At the same time, Dr Darwin Rasul, spokesperson of the group, filed a motion for the lifting of the Supreme Court's temporary restraining order.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the communist New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), were to hold a 24-hour ceasefire, from midnight yesterday.
The Suspension of Offensive Military Operation (Somo) will be enforced in support of the United Nations declaration of September 21 as international peace day, said AFP public affairs office chief Col. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos. He added that the Al Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group is not covered by the truce.
Source: Agency