BusinessMirror May 9, 2024

THE country’s Gross International Reserves (GIR) marked its seventh straight month at over $100 billion in April, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

This represented the longest $100-billion-level streak since the 22-month streak ended in June 2022.

The country first recorded this GIR level in September 2020 with $100.44 billion. However, BSP data showed the country’s GIR reached $103.4 billion as of end-April 2024.

This was 0.605 percent lower than the $104.1 billion end-March level.

“The month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the National Government’s [NG] net foreign currency withdrawals from its deposits with the BSP to settle its foreign

currency debt obligations and pay for its various expenditures,” BSP said.

The BSP’s reserve assets consist of foreign investments, gold, foreign exchange, reserve position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and special drawing rights.

Based on the April data, the largest was the 26.91-percent decline in foreign currency to $791.7 million in endApril from $1.08 billion in end-March this year.

On a year-on-year basis, foreign currency declined 30.61 percent from the $1.14 billion posted in the endApril period of 2023.

The data also showed gold holdings declined 2.62 percent to $10.255 billlion in end-April 2024, from the $10.532 billlion posted in end-March

this year.

“The latest GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.7 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income,” BSP said. “Moreover, it is also about 5.9 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.6 times based on residual maturity,” it added. The data also showed the net international reserves decreased by $0.6 billion to $103.4 billion as of end-April 2024 from the end-March 2024 level of $104.0 billion. This refers to the difference between the BSP’s reserve assets (GIR) and reserve liabilities such as short-term foreign debt and credit and loans from the IMF.

The BSP explained that by convention, GIR is viewed to

on medium- and long-term loans of the public and private sectors falling due within the next 12 months. The level of GIR, as of a particular period, is considered adequate, if it provides at least 100-percent cover for payment of the country’s foreign liabilities, public and private,

By Cai U. Ordinario

THE severe dry spell has caused the agriculture and fisheries sector to shed more than a million jobs in March 2024, according to the latest data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Based on the March Labor Force Statistics (LFS), the number of employed Filipinos increased by 572,000 to 49.15 million in 2024 from the 48.58 million posted in the same period of 2023.

However, agriculture and forestry, as well as fishing and aquaculture, posted the largest declines in employment with a combined 1.33 million jobs lost in March 2024.

“Among the most affected in terms of employment is the agriculture sector, including fisheries,” said National Statistician Claire Dennis S. Mapa, partly in Filipino.

“[This is really] related to planting, harvesting, growing paddy rice and vegetables. The report on the value of production of agriculture and fisheries has been released, and one sees from there that, in crops and fisheries, including also livestock, particularly hog farming, there has been a reduction in value of production.

TBy Ada Pelonia

HE country’s farm output posted a slight gain in the first quarter despite the havoc wreaked by El Niño on local plantations, based on data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Wednesday.

PSA data indicated that farm production inched up by 0.05 percent in terms of value using constant 2018 prices.

The crops, livestock, and fisheries subsectors recorded declines in terms of value, according to PSA data. The poultry and fisheries subsectors prevented the performance of Philippine agriculture from falling into negative territory.

“Interventions and assistance

provided by the government allowed the agriculture sector to fare better this time compared to periods in the past when we had El Nino,” Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said in a statement.

“The impact of reduced rainfall and hotter temperatures were evident in lower crops and fisheries production in the first quarter. If El Nino will persist through the second quarter, we’re cautiously optimistic that the interventions we have taken will allow the agriculture sector to mend and return better results between April and June,” he added.

The value of agriculture and

@caiordinario

DOTC sounds alarm as LTO’s IT platform gets breached

HBy Lorenz S. Marasigan @lorenzmarasigan

ACKERS have breached the Land Transportation Office’s (LTO) information technology platform called Land Transportation Management System (LTMS) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is cautioning affected individuals to practice stronger cyber hygiene.

number of employed workers reached 1.03 million in March 2024, a decline of 449,000 from 1.48 million in March 2023.

So the value of production of agriculture and fisheries is consistent with labor statistics. So yes, they were affected by the El Niño,” Mapa explained. Based on the data, jobs in agriculture and forestry declined by 881,000 to 9.04 million in March 2024 from 9.92 million in March 2023. On a month-on-month basis, agriculture and forestry also posted the largest decline in employment—estimated to be around 318,000 lost jobs in the sector from the 9.36 million recorded in February 2024. In terms of fishing and aquaculture, the

El Niño link far-fetched ONE expert disagrees with the PSA view. “It seems far-fetched to attribute the increase in unemployment in March to El Niño given that the impact of the heat wave was in April,” Ateneo de Manila University economist Leonardo Lanzona, however, told BUSINESSMIRROR

“Because the government depended more on importation in order to reduce inflation, instead of strengthening the domestic environment, agricultural activities have naturally declined,” he added.

It is the government’s “institutional inflex-

DICT Assistant Secretary Aboy Paraiso said at least 3,200 records of individuals under the LTMS were exposed to the malware attack, with data now being sold in the dark web.

“The LTO reported a breach in their LTMS and in response our Computer Emergency Response Team, one of the units under the DICT, verified the breach. We conducted a vulnerability and breach testing together with their IT provider Dermalog and through the assessment, we have found several low and medium vulnerabilities.

We provided these to the LTO to remediate the problem,” he said.

ibility,” Lanzona said, that will worsen the state of agricultural jobs in the next few months, particularly in April.

As early as last year, Lanzona said, the government has already been apprised of the El Nño and thus should have adjusted its policies to ensure that jobs in the sector are not lost.

If this “inflexibility” continues, the same trend in job losses could be expected or even worsen at the onset of the La Niña weather phenomenon next month.

“In fact, El Niño had been predicted since last year, and the failure to adapt institutionally to these worsening climate conditions was already reflected last March, but this institutional inflexibility will more likely be felt in April,” Lanzona told this newspaper.

Unfortunately, Paraiso said there has been “significant leakage of credentials to the dark web.”

Through information stealing malware, bad actors were able to siphon off records from the LTMS.

“Luckily for us, the LTMS is separate from the [main] system of the LTO,” Paraiso noted.

He said threat actors usually use such stolen information for “more meticulous scamming” activities, such as identity theft and ultimately financial theft.

“They can use the data to guess your passwords to get access to your financial data. AI is now being used to make the process of guess-

“[Given t]his inability to respond immediately to changing climate and social conditions, the agricultural unemployment picture will get even worse in June with the onset of La Niña,” he added.

Planting season

DE La Salle University economist Maria Ella Oplas told BUSINESSMIRROR, however, that the next few months will see an increase in agriculture jobs due to the planting season.

Oplas said planting may have already started in some areas as farmers have begun setting aside cash to prepare planting. Some farmers, she said, have redirected funds from housing construction to capital for planting. She also expected the rainy season to increase farmer’s productivity, especially in areas where irrigation remains a problem. The only caveat is that heavy rains could inundate and destroy crops.

The face of jobs in the farm sector, Oplas said, is also changing through mechanization. Instead of hiring farm hands, some farmers who have access to machines now prefer using these to increase farm productivity.

“It’s not the employment that we used to have, considering that instead of hiring people now, they just rent or buy machines to do the planting,” Oplas said. “Technology plays an important role in agriculture.”

Ibon Foundation Inc. also noted that for the past three consecutive months of 2024, the number of employed persons in the farm sector has significantly dropped year-on-year by 697,000 in January, by 1.32 million in February, and now by 1.33 million to 10.1 million in March 2024 from 11.4 million in March 2023.

It noted that the majority or one million of the 1.7-million decrease in part-time workers was in the agriculture sector. “The huge job losses in agriculture show how volatile employment in the sector is due to its backwardness and vulnerability to weather conditions like El Niño,” Ibon said.

Hunger

IBON also said amid the rise in employment, the government needs to address wage issues since millions remain hungry and consider themselves poor. Citing data from the Social Weather Stations (SWS), Ibon said Filipino families that experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months increased to 14.2 percent in March 2024 from 12.6 percent in December 2023.

Ibon noted that SWS showed 46 percent of Filipino families rated themselves poor and 33 percent as borderline poor in March 2024.

Across all regions, the average minimum wage is only P441 or around one-third (36.5 percent) of the P1,208 average family living wage (FLW) for a family of five, as of April 2024.

ing a lot easier and faster for hackers,” Paraiso said. For now, the government has “quarantined” the servers of the LTO to prevent further breaches.

“The DICT advises the LTMS clients affected by the breach to take immediate action to safeguard their accounts and devices—to clean their devices of malware. We have applications there to detect malware available,” Paraiso said.

Provided by Dermalog, the LTMS is currently under scrutiny for allegedly having incomplete components. The government plans to completely take over the system in the next few years.

In the NCR, the P610 nominal minimum wage—the highest nationwide—is just 51.2 percent of the P1,192 FLW. Meanwhile, BARMM has the lowest minimum wage nationwide at P361, which is only 17 percent of the region’s P2,069 FLW.

“By choosing to ignore the harsh reality of millions of poor and vulnerable Filipinos, the government shows that it is avoiding and not really interested in implementing meaningful measures that could actually improve the people’s welfare,” Ibon said.

Government

THE National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said given the steady decline in unemployment, the government will focus on underemployment. Neda said, however, that the country’s underemployment rate has declined to 11 percent in March 2024, compared to 11.2 percent in March 2023.

“We will continue to prioritize creating high-quality and well-paying jobs to address the rising issues of vulnerable employment. We will focus on attracting job-generating investments from the private sector and scaling up social and physical infrastructure to improve our people’s employment prospects to achieve this goal. These will be accompanied by reskilling and upskilling programs to increase employability,” said Neda Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan.

He also reported that a medium- and longterm Foreign Investment Promotion and Marketing Plan (FIPMP) is underway and targeted to be completed by June 30.

The Inter-Agency Investment Promotion Coordination Committee, established following the amendment of the Foreign Investment Act, leads the formulation of the FIPMP. Together with the private sector, the government plans to enrich the content of training programs for workers and employers by integrating courses on advanced productivity tools such as data science, analytics, and artificial intelligence, Balisacan added.

“For the government to sustain a robust labor market and reap the benefits of the demographic dividend, it must ensure that people are healthy, educated, and skilled. To facilitate the development of soft and hard skills among workers and create a more agile and adaptive workforce, we at Neda continue to advocate for the passage of the Apprenticeship Bill, Lifelong Learning Bill, and the Enterprise Productivity Act,” Balisacan said.

The Neda chief also seeks passage of the Konektadong Pinoy Bill, which Neda expects to reduce costs and expand access. “Digital connectivity can provide the workforce with more opportunities, particularly for individuals engaged in care work and other household responsibilities,” he said.

El Niño...

Continued from A

fisheries production was estimated at P428.99 billion in the first quarter of 2024, slightly higher than last year’s P428.69 billion.

Data showed crop production, which amounted to P247.04 billion, declined annually by 0.3 percent, with the value of palay production posting a 2-percent decline.

Livestock production amounted to P59.46 billion and contracted by 3.6 percent during the period, with the value of hog production recording a 4.3-percent decline.

The value of fisheries production reached P53.73 billion, a contraction of 1.3 percent during the poultry, which amounted to P68.76 billion, posted growth of 5.9 percent with every poultry commodity recording increments in the value of production, except for duck eggs.

“I think everybody was projecting some expansion in poultry but nobody I think expected it will be almost 6 percent,” Roehlano Briones, a senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, told BusinessMirror via phone call.

Briones said commercial poultry growers may have invested in technology to shield chickens from the ill effects of El Niño.

He added that crops and hogs, the biggest sub-industry of livestock, were also affected by the weather phenomenon.

“Many of the backyard growers are having problems sourcing water these days, and then many animals are suffering heat stress so mortality is going up and growth is slowing,” he explained, speaking partly in Filipino.

In terms of volume, poultry production recorded a 6-percent increase to 705,300 metric tons (MT) from the previous year’s same period level of 665,540 MT.

“Chicken production, with a 71.8-percent share to the total volume of poultry production, grew by 7.7 percent. This primarily contributed to the annual increment of poultry production during the period,” the PSA said.

Crop production in the first quarter increased by 4.9 percent to 25.07 million MT from last year’s 23.89 MMT, with sugarcane production at 17.2 percent as its main driver.

Livestock production recorded a 3.4-percent decrease to 523,780 MT from 542,310 MT in the same period last year.

“The top contributor to this decrement was hog production, which dropped by 4.3 percent annually,” the PSA said.

The volume of fisheries production dipped by 0.5 percent to 987,190 MT from the 992,330 MT output in the same quarter of 2023.

“The decline in the volume of fisheries production during the period was mainly brought about by the annual reductions in bali sardinella [tamban] and milkfish [bangus] at 29.9 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively,” it said.

FACTORY OUTPUT POSTS 3% AVERAGE GROWTH IN Q1–PSA

petroleum products.

The manufacture of food products posted an 8.1-percent annual decline in March 2024 from an annual increment of 1.4 percent in the previous month; while the production of computer, electronic and optical products grew 5.3 percent during the period from a double-digit annual increment of 15.2 percent in the previous month.

The manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products, PSA said, posted a 10.2-percent annual increase from a 22.1-percent annual increment in February 2024.

“Of the remaining 19 industry divisions, 12 registered year-onyear declines in March 2024. In contrast, seven industry divisions posted annual increases during the period. The highest annual growth

rate was observed in manufacture of chemical and chemical products at 29.1 percent,” PSA said.

Capacity utilization rate

MEANWHILE, based on responding establishments, the PSA said the average capacity utilization rate for the manufacturing section in March 2024 was reported at 75.3 percent from 75.1 percent in the previous month. In March 2023, the average capacity utilization rate was recorded at 73.6 percent.

All industry divisions reported capacity utilization rates of more than 60 percent during the month. The top three industry divisions in terms of reported capacity utilization rate were manufacture of machinery and equipment except electrical, at 83.9 percent.

This was followed by the manufacture of other non-metallic

mineral products with an average capacity utilization rate of 80.9 percent; and manufacture of rubber and plastic products at 80.5 percent.

“The proportion of establishments that operated at full capacity [90 percent to 100 percent] was 28.5 percent of the total number of responding establishments. Meanwhile, 41.4 percent operated at 70 to 89 percent capacity, and 30.1 percent operated below 70 percent capacity,” PSA said.

The Production Index and Net Sales Index used to be the Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries. It continues to monitor the production, net sales, inventories, and capacity utilization of selected manufacturing establishments to provide flash indicators on the performance of the manufacturing sector. Cai U. Ordinario

www.businessmirror.com.ph

DOJ drafting briefer on ICC for BBM

THE Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday said it is preparing to submit a briefer to President Marcos on the legal options available to the government as well as their implications, including the possible re-entry of the Philippine as member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the latter’s alleged impending issuance of arrest warrants against those charged with crimes against humanity in connection with the bloody anti-illegal drug campaign of the Duterte administration.

While the present position of the government is that the ICC has no jurisdiction over the country and those named in the case led by former President Rodrigo Duterte, DOJ Spokesman Mico Clavano said that the briefer is being done “with an awareness that policy frameworks.”

“There is an awareness that this [policy] may change and we have to be prepared for all of this. Here, at the Department of Justice and as any legal team would tell you, you really have to consider all the options. There should be Plan A Plan B, all the way to Plan Z,” Clavano said.

“What are the implications of staying out, what are the implications of going back, what are the legal obligations that may arise All these, as well the possible or alleged ICC warrants of arrest, these are all included in the legal briefer,” he added.

Clavano’s statement indicated that the Marcos administration is still keeping all its options open with regard to its involvement with the ICC.

“The Department is now preparing a legal briefer for the President, which will describe to him theoptions available to him in relation to any arrest warrants by the ICC,” Clavano said.

“So the briefer would be an objective statement or an analysis of the pros and cons of each option. We are aware that the policy of the government right now which is to bar the ICC’s entry may still change.

“ So it would have to be a very objective briefer so the President would know what to do,” Clavano said.

The briefer, according to Clavano, will also give the President his options in case the ICC issues an arrest warrant against those named

as respondents in the case.

“Once the ICC warrants of arrest, if ever, are issued then he will know the legalities and his options and remedies,” the DOJ official said.

He said the briefer was sought by the President at the height of the ICC’s reported investigation into Duterte’s drug war.

“These discussions and legal analyses are only for the eyes of the President until he chooses a direction or has come up with a decision, then it would have to be kept confidential,” the DOJ official stressed.

Clavano said the DOJ is working with the Solicitor General in coming up with the legal study on issues surrounding the ICC probe.

Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra earlier assured that politics will not alter the non-cooperation stance of the Marcos administration in the ongoing investigation into alleged human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings during the anti-illegal drug war of the Duterte administration.

Guevarra made the assurance amid the political squabble between former President Rodrigo Duterte and President Marcos and their allies over various issues such as the ICC, Charter change, West Philippine Sea and illegal drugs.

“No, the Republic’s legal position has not changed. It is not affected by the winds of politics,” Guevarra said.

While Guevarra acknowledged that there is no preventing the ICC from issuing arrest warrants against any of the respondents, its enforcement would be an issue as it would require the cooperation of the Philippine government.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla has also said that the government has no legal duty to comply with any obligation or proceedings before the ICC since the country has already withdrawn from the Rome Statute in 2019.

The DOJ and the OSG have repeatedly said that the country’s justice system is fully functioning and there is no need for the ICC to step in.

The Philippines withdrew as a State party from the ICC’s Rome Statute effective March 17, 2019. Joel R. San Juan

Poe airs alert amid looming water crisis

WARNING that the Philippines is facing a water supply crisis, Sen. Grace Poe said the shortage is already being felt by consumers.

Citing reports, Poe said the water supply shortage is already being felt in a number of provinces as she aired consumers concerns that “it could happen anew if the management of water resources were not addressed.”

Presiding over the hearing of the Senate Committee on Public Services, Poe sought prompt passage of enabling Senate Bill 102 to tackle the problem.

“Tagtuyotngayon,bahanamansigurado sa susunod na buwan. [It is dry season now, the floods will come in the next months],” she senator warned, adding: “Tilaitonaang realidadparasaatingmgakababayantaontaonnalang. [It seems this is the reality for our people year in, year out].”

SB 102 mandates the creation of a Department of Water that is tasked to lead and consolidate whole-of-society efforts for the comprehensive and integrated development and management of water resources in the country.

“The root of our water crisis is actually a crisis in regulation,” she stressed, adding: “The problem is not that we don’t have resources but that we do not effectively manage our resources.” she added.

Poe asked: “Kailantayohulingnagpatayo ng [When was the last time that we built a]dam?” adding that Angat Dam in Bulacan was built in 1968 when the population was small and water demand was still low.

“Ipinanganak ako, 1968. Kung ako medyo sumasakit-sakit na ang mga buto-buto ko eh iyan pa kayang dam na iyan But what I am saying is, ano ang population natin noong 1968 at ano na ngayon? Doble Magtataka ba tayo na

kinukulangtayongtubig,” she said.

To date, Poe said at least 131 cities and towns from Ilocos Norte to Cotabato have suffered immense water shortage and declared a state of calamity.

The National Economic and Development Authority estimates that out of 1,486 town, at least 332 that are mostly in urban poor spaces or in the poorest provinces, are considered waterless.

She lamented that taps of households and businesses are dry during the El Niño season despite the presence of abundant water resources all over the archipelago.

Based on data, the Philippines has 421 river basins; 59 natural lakes; 100,000 hectares of freshwater swamps; 50,000 square kilometers of groundwater reservoir; and 2,400 millimeters of average rainfall throughout the year.

“Sa isang archipelago na napapalibutan ng tubig,nakakabahalanamaymgalugarparin na walang malinis na tubig, at nakakahiya dahil ang mga bansang disyerto, parang maswalapangwaterinterruptionkaysasa atin. Our problem is the system,” Poe said.

She noted that several government bodies are tasked to take charge of water supply and irrigation, but not all have specializations on water management and regulation.

“With over 30 departments and line agencies handling water-related functions, coordination on vital programs and data collection has been very limited, if not nonexistent,” she added.

Poe’s bill, one of the administration’s priority measures, aims to put in place robust policies that will help address the country’s water woes.

“We will endeavor to pass this definitely by this Congress because we have to, this is crucial,” Poe said. Butch Fernandez

FMJr’s PFP, Lakas unite for 2025 polls

By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz

@joveemarie

& Samuel P. Medenilla

@sam_medenilla

PRESIDENT Marcos on Wednesday said he would push for reforming the “Uniteam” for the 2025 elections to sustain the critical mass support of Congress for his priority agendas, including ending involuntary hunger.

Marcos made the announcement during the signing ceremony of the alliance between Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) and LakasChristian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) at the Manila Polo Club, in Makati City.

“Like what we did in the last election, we will reform—or we will formalize it because there is a political cycle. We have to formalize the UnitTeam once again so that when we look into our future, we will know we are cooperating and going should-to-shoulder with our goal to improve the Philippines and the lives of all Filipinos,” Marcos said at the event.

Among those who were present in the ceremony were PFP President Reynaldo “Jun” S. Tamayo Jr.; Lakas-CMD President Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, House of Representatives Speaker; Sen. Ramon Ramon Revilla Jr., Lakas-CMD chairman, and the Lakas-CMD president emeritus, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is now the congresswoman representing the Second District of Pampanga.

Other personalities who attended the event House Senior Deputy Majority

Leader and PFP vice chairman Ferdinand

Alexander Marcos, PFP executive vice president Antonio Lagdameo Jr., and Lakas-CMD executive vice president and House Majority Leader Manuel Jose Dalipe.

During the 2022 National and Local Elections (NLE), Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte ran under the Uniteam Alliance.

The Uniteam Alliance is comprised by the following political parties: the President’s Partido Federal ng Pilipinas; Duterte’s Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP); Romualdez’s Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) and the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP).

Marcos, who is also the chairman of PFP, said the Uniteam Alliance has helped in the passage of critical legislative reforms in the last two years in line with the priorities of

his administration.

He said he wants to sustain such “transformative politics” in the 20th Congress, with the election of lawmakers, who will back his initiatives.

Aside from ending involuntary hunger, the Marcos administration is seeking the passage of 57 priority legislation as well as amending the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution.

“And we have to position the Philippines in a way that will take full advantage of the new economy. And to do that, we have to make some very, very fundamental structural and policy changes,” the President explained.

“We cannot do those policy changes without the support of the legislature. Legislative support for any policy is absolutely necessary,” he added.

Romualdez, the first cousin of Marcos, welcomed the renewed Lakas-CMD-PFP alliance since it will allow both parties to compliment their respective strengths.

“It is an alliance between PFP and Lakas—two of the strongest parties. Lakas comes in with 100-strong members of the House, and PFP comes in with the majority of the local government officials,” Romualdez said.

This union lays the foundation for a potent political force, bringing together the legislative and executive strengths of both parties for the 2025 midterm elections, said Romualdez.

He disclosed that the process of forming a senatorial lineup is still underway, with key details yet to be finalized.

While he refrained from disclosing specific numbers or names, he assured that the alliance intends to field a “full slate” of candidates for the upcoming polls.

When asked about the potential inclusion of Vice President Sara Duterte’s HNP in the alliance, the Speaker expressed openness to discussions, stressing the importance of consulting with PFP before any decisions are made.

As for the inclusion of other political parties in the alliance, the House chief hinted at the involvement of major political entities, yet refrained from preemptively disclosing details.

On the possibility of PDP-Laban joining the alliance, Romualdez said, “Anything is possible,” leaving the door open for potential collaborations with other political parties.

BuCor grounds 7 guards as DOJ orders probe on strip searches

By Joel R. San Juan @jrsanjuan1573

THE Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday directed the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) to immediately investigate and sanction prison guards who will be found to have violated existing protocols during strip search of visiting relatives and friends of inmates.

Following the directive, the BuCor announced that it had relieved seven prison officers from their duties to pave the way for the investigation ordered by Corrections Director General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr., the bureau’s chief, in connection with complaints of alleged abuses committed during strip search of visitors.

Relieved from their present duties are Correction Officers 1 Karen Soriano, Kiera Iket, Odesa Etong, Ahmor Darasin, Guada Bello, Melowyne Tallongan, and Angelique Domingo.

They will be placed under attached/ unassigned at the New Bilibid Prison Superintendent’s Office.

Their relief order was signed by Corrections Chief Insp. Ruben Formoso, acting NBP Superintendent.

Formoso said, the investigation on the seven correction officers will focus on how they conducted strip search to determine if they violated the protocol on the conduct

of strip search being implemented by the bureau.

Meanwhile, Corrections Senior Inspector Abel Ciruela, facility commander of the NBP-Maximum Security Camp, during a walkthrough on Wednesday, showed the media how BuCor personnel conduct inspection of prisoners’ visitors.

Ciruela said that strip cavity searches are being done on all visitors since 2018, but owing to the numbers of contrabands confiscated inside the camp and the visitors caught who tried to smuggle in contrabands, the strip cavity search became mandatory.

In a statement quoting Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, the DOJ maintained that the BuCor strictly adheres to international standards-policies on the proper conduct of body searches, specifically, pertinent rules under the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) which generally underscore that searches should be conducted in a manner that is respectful of the inherent dignity and privacy of the individual being searched.

In addition, the DOJ said proper decorum of prison personnel conducting physical searches are highlighted under the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Operating Manual on how a proper search must be conducted, providing certain sanctions-penalties against those proven to be carrying banned items like drugs and weapons.

“Our Department remains fully committed to upholding the highest degree of respect for human rights in the conduct of our Corrections functions and guarantee that our agency will continue to innovate ways on how to improve our services to our PDLs and their loved ones,” Remulla was quoted as saying.

“We do not condone degrading or inhuman or absurd treatment towards anyone because we want our prisons to be safe, secure and decent,” Remulla added. He issued the directive after the wives of some prisoners filed a complaint before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) for alleged degrading and traumatic strip searches conducted by prison guards during their recent visit at the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City.

Strip search is implemented by searching a person for contraband suspected hidden on their body and clothing which usually not found by performing frisk search.

While Catapang said the agency is open for investigation over alleged abuses committed by its personnel, he defended the conduct of strip search as part of the agency’s Operator Manual on Visitor Control.

Under the manual, all visitors are required to undergo a thorough body search and their belongings or packages screened for contraband before entering the security camp.

The manual also required women visitors

Former Manila mayor Atienza offers solution to traffic mess

FORMER Deputy Speaker Rep. Lito Atienza, who represented the Buhay partylist group during his incumbency, has urged the government to consider allowing ordinary motorists to use the Edsa Bus Lane during off-peak hours while limiting its exclusive use for buses during rush hours.

In a letter to President Marcos, Atienza emphasized the need for flexibility in the use of the Edsa Bus Lane, suggesting that buses be given exclusive access during peak hours while allowing ordinary motorists to utilize the lane during off-peak times.

Padilla: Private sector should give port access for PHL Navy vessels

SBy Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

EN. Robinhood C. Padilla has appealed to the private sector to allow better port access for Navy vessels, saying such would help the Armed Forces, particularly the Navy, do their job of defending the nation.

In a privileged speech late Tuesday, Padilla lamented that Navy ships need to

wait four to 48 hours before being given access to ports.

“Hindinamanpolingidsaatingkaalaman ang tumitinding sitwasyon sa West Philippine Sea, bunsodngmgaagresibong aksyon ng kabilang panig. Nararapat lamangnamagkaroontayongmgahakbangin sa paghahanda sa anumang senaryo na maaaring maganap sa ating bayan. [We all know that with rising tension in the West Philippine Sea due to aggressive

actions from the other side, we must take steps to ensure our preparedness to defend ourselves],” Padilla said. He added: “Kung kaya po ng ibang nasyonnatulunganangatingbansa,tulad na lamang ng nagaganap naBalikatan Exercises ngatinghukbo,kasamaangmga sundalo ng America, nararapat lamang siguro po,Ginoong Pangulo, na asahan din natin ang suporta at tulong ng mga pribadongsektornatingmgakababayan.[If

“Buses can be given this privilege during rush hours—two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. The rest of the day, let ordinary motorists enjoy the full use of Edsa. It is so sad, even tragic, to see one lane empty most of the day while ordinary citizens are cramped in the very limited roadway,” he said.

Drawing from his extensive experience as the former mayor of Manila, Atienza provided practical recommendations to solve the traffic issues in Metro Manila. These include the reinforcement of existing truck bans, particularly within

other nations can help us with activities like the ongoing Balikatan where our forces are training with those of the United States, then it is proper that we get support from our own private sector].” The senator recalls that due to the lack of port access, Navy vessels face wear and tear, and delays in their maintenance as well as refueling and reprovisioning.”

Speaking mostly in Pilipino, he conveyed an appeal to the private sector to ease restrictions for accommodating mililtary units.

urban centers, and implementing regulations to restrict the movement of container vans to designated hours, primarily during off-peak periods.

Atienza also suggested re-orienting the training of traffic enforcers by making them fully concerned with freeing traffic flow and not merely waiting for violators to be apprehended for possible extortion.

He also suggested tapping all mayors and barangay leaders to work together to ensure the smooth flow of traffic by removing all obstructions in their respective areas

“The call is simple: give access to Philippine Navy vessels in our ports under the Philippine Ports Authority,” the senator said.

Moreover, Padilla also batted for more convergence projects between the PPA and Navy through their mother agencies—the Department of Transportation at Department of National Defense (DND).

“My

to be searched only by female corrections officers and it is done in a private area with the consent of the concerned visitor.

Catapang added that the strip search policy is strictly being implemented in all operating prisons and penal farms of the agency to address the increasing number of visitors being caught smuggling contrabands, usually illegal drugs, hidden in their private parts.

Meanwhile, the CHR yesterday expressed grave concern over the reported cases of strip searches of prisoners’ wives at the NBP.

The CHR said an investigation will be conducted by the Investigation Office and the Prevention Cluster.

“With these continuing acts of concerned security officers, we reiterate Rules 51 and 52(1) of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, or the Mandela Rules, which state that security searches ‘shall not be used to harass, intimidate, or unnecessarily intrude upon a prisoner’s privacy’ and that ‘intrusive searches shall be conducted in private and by trained staff of the same sex as the prisoner’,” the CHR said in a statement.

“While we recognize the importance of maximum security inspection to ensure the safety and security of correctional facilities, it is vital that these security measures do not jeopardize visitors’ fundamental human rights,” the CHR said.

of responsibility. He exhorted the mayors to be very strict with construction companies that make use of the sidewalks and even inner streets to store their materials and debris, without even bothering to clean them up after the construction is finished.

All mall owners should also be required to participate in the total effort to ensure a more efficient traffic flow in areas surrounding their establishments, especially during rush hours.

“We believe that if the national and local government leaders, as well as the motorists themselves, work together, we would be able to achieve a smoother flow of traffic in major areas of the country,” Atienza said. Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

cannot be at sea all the time because they need rest and maintenance. The situation is unacceptable. All Filipinos want us to defend ourselves, yet our ports are not very accessible to our Navy,” Padilla also said. At the same time, Sen. Padilla sought to enlist the cooperation of the private sector as “a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to improve the country’s security.”

“This could be a small thing for some but it means a lot for our Navy and Armed Forces,” he said.

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. (sixth from left, front row) poses with key officials after the signing of the aliance between his political party, Partido Federal ng Pilipinas, and LakasChristian Muslim Democrats for the 2025 elections at Manila Polo Club in Makati City. Also in photo are Special Assistant to the President Anton Lagdameo Jr.; Lakas-CMD chairman emeritus,

former President and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo and Lakas-CMD president and House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez. (fourth, fifth and seventh from left, front row). PNA

Congressman presses Senate to pass bill on natural gas

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

TO reduce dependence on imported energy and ensure reliable power supply, an official of the House of Representatives joined the call urging the Senate to give priority to a bill that mandates the establishment of a comprehensive state policy for the progress of the Philippine natural gas sector.

House Deputy Majority Leader Jude A. Acidre, the nominee of the party-list group Tingog to the House of Representatives, stressed the significance of the Philippine Downstream

Natural Gas Industry (PDNGI) Development Act, which has already been approval on third and final reading in the lower chamber.

The bill stands as a key priority of the Marcos administration and the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council, aimed at bolstering the nation’s energy security and stability, Acidre said.

“While this is not a silver bullet that will address all the problems in the energy sector, I am certain that it will alleviate the conditions of our energy supply,” he added.

The measure seeks to establish the PDNGI to promote indigenous

natural gas as a “safe, environmentfriendly, efficient, and cost-effective source of energy.”

Its counterpart bill in the Senate, SB 2247, authored by Sen. Raffy Tulfo, is now being reviewed by a technical working group.

Acidre cited expert discussions in the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28) held in Dubai late last year, “that natural gas is an important energy source that needs to be harnessed to reach energy independence.”

“Developing the natural gas industry can help the Philippines become more self-reliant in meeting its

Power interruptions loom in Negros

By Lenie Lectura @llectura

THE National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on Wednesday warned of possible power interruptions in Negros Oriental due to the overloading of the AmlanSiaton 69 kilovolt (kV) line.

The existing Amlan-Siaton 69kV line serving Negros Oriental, including Dumaguete City, is already overloaded at 69 MW as of April 25, 2024, beyond the normal limits of 58MW, more or less, the company said.

As such, NGCP added, localized

manual load dropping or rotating power interruptions might occur if the proposed Amlan-Dumaguete 138-kiloVolt (kV) transmission project—meant to address the limitations of the Amlan-Siaton 69kV line—were not finished soon.

NGCP is asking stakeholders and government officials in Negros Oriental for assistance as it expedites the completion of the Amlan-Dumaguete 138-kV transmission line to mitigate potential power interruptions due to the overloading of the Amlan-Siaton 69kV line.

NGCP’s project application to the

Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) initially targets completion by September 2024. However, local resistance to the project compelled the grid operator to file a motion to extend the completion date to January 2026.

“NGCP is working with the Provincial Government of Negros Oriental, local distribution utilities, and local stakeholders to complete and energize this line as soon as possible,” NGCP said. “We are grateful to Gov, Manuel Sagarbarria for supporting NGCP and we are eagerly awaiting the issuance of the needed permits,” the company added.

energy needs,” Acidre said.

“By tapping into domestic natural gas resources and building a robust industry around them, the country can reduce its dependence on imported energy sources,” he added.

Acidre said that the country needs to have a PDNGI in place to sustain stability in electricity supply.

“Considering the energy crisis that repeatedly comes to the fore every summertime, the development of the downstream natural gas industry can help enhance the country’s energy security by diversifying its energy sources,” Acidre said.

One of the permits needed is the Certificate of No Objection. The issuance of which, NGCP said, is a requirement for the grant of barangay clearance and building permit.

The Amlan-Dumaguete 138-kiloVolt (kV) transmission line has been identified as an Energy Project of National Significance by the Department of Energy.

NGCP said the proposed project will address the limitations of the existing Amlan-Siaton 69kV line, the low voltage incidents, and mitigate potential recurring and prolonged power interruptions in the area. It will also accommodate the growing power demand in Dumaguete City and the province of Negros Oriental.

Davao intl airport runway rehab finished

FLIGHT operations at the Davao International Airport are set to return to normal following the substantial completion of runway repairs on Wednesday, May 8.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) Area Center 11 reported that the remaining works on the runway were completed on May 7 and an inspection was conducted to check all completed segments of the asphalt overlay repair.

CAAP Area Center Manager Rex Obcena said, “Some portions need rectification wherein repairs will be conducted during the daytime when there are no flights in close coordination with the air traffic control tower.”

Obcena added, “Nevertheless, the Notice to Airmen [Notam] for this project is scheduled to be lifted tomorrow, May 9, or once all remaining concerns are adequately addressed. This is ahead of the original target date of May 31.”

Since April 8, the DIA runway has been closed for four hours each day, from midnight to 4:00 a.m., to expedite the rehabilitation process. This involves a 1,200 square meter affected area, including the removal of 2-inch thick damaged asphalt pavement, application of emulsified asphalt tack coat, laying of hot bituminous asphalt mixture, and repainting of existing runway markings.

Mining industry calls for stakeholder support for greater economic growth

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

THE mining industry’s untapped potential can further drive economic growth and support social development at the national and local level, while fostering environmental stewardship.

As such, mining companies called on industry stakeholders to strengthen support for responsible mining in the Philippines.

The sentiment was echoed by mining companies during the launch of “Living with a Brighter Future,” a documentary developed as part of the industry’s Better Mining, Brighter Future communication and advocacy campaign.

The campaign, which aims to raise awareness about responsible mining, is a joint initiative of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines; the Philippine Nickel Industry Association; the Chamber of Mines - Caraga; the Alliance of Responsible Miners and Operators - Visayas; the Eastern Rizal Miners Association; the Mindanao Association of Responsible Quarry Operators Foundation Inc.; and the Philippine Mining and Exploration Association.

The “Living with a Brighter Future” documentary provides a comprehensive narrative of responsible mining practices, portraying the collaborative efforts between mining companies, local communities, and local government units.

Through the eyes of company representatives and community members, the documentary showcased the

positive socio-economic impact and environmental sustainability initiatives of the mining industry across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

“Mining companies have made substantial contributions to local communities through its Social Development and Management Program or SDMP. Additionally, the industry’s environmental commitments have been significant,” lawyer Mike Toledo, chairman of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines.

From 2002 and 2027, mining companies have pledged a total of P31.81 billion towards SDMP initiatives, with P20.3 billion earmarked for the period spanning 2002 to 2024. Since 2002, SDMPs have helped over 1,160 barangays.

SDMPs serve as a collaborative platform where mining companies, the local government, and the community come together to bridge the gaps in both physical and social infrastructures within the communities they operate in.

The mining industry has provided P387.81 billion, as of December 2023, to environmental protection and enhancement programs. In addition, the mining industry has committed P6.72 billion for the rehabilitation of decommissioned mines. One concrete example of the initiatives of the industry is the number of trees planted where, as of December 2023, more than 50 million seedlings covering almost 45 hectares of land have been planted by the industry. Of these planted trees, approximately 90 percent have survived.

Semiconductor-electronics industry prods CHED to improve IT courses

By Andrea San Juan @andreasanjuan

THE semiconductor and electronics industry is prodding the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to improve courses that would help meet the industry’s needs as the country plays catch-up with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“They need to talk to the industry and understand what the industry needs and then act expeditiously and basically give flexibility to the industry and academe, the [higher education institutions] HEIs, to be able to improve or enhance the courses that would meet the industry’s needs,” Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Foundation Inc. (Seipi) President Danilo C. Lachica told reporters at a forum.

Lachica revealed that Seipi submitted recommendations to improve the curriculum to CHED 12 years ago, specifically adding eight engineering subjects and four in Applied Sciences but noted that the industry group’s request is still “in the waiting CHED.”

On top of this, the Seipi chief said that the industry group, in hopes of building the information technology part of the curriculum, proposed to incorporate emerging technologies in the education system such as building cybersecurity systems and artificial intelligence, among others, but to no avail.

Lachica added that when he tried to bring up the need to include emerging technologies in the curricula, an official from CHED responded: “We already talked about that,” adding that the last time they conversed about this was five years ago, a time when he said, “these emerging technologies were not yet in existence, let alone included in the curricula.”

“I hope the new chairman would do a better job,” he added.

Moving forward, Lachica said he won’t “give up” on engaging in dialogues with the officials in the higher education arm of the government, but he noted that “there has to be some humility, some reality check...not

only for Industry 4.0 but for the rest of the Education [system].”

In terms of the industry-led initiatives, however, the Seipi chief shared that the industry group has been working with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to improve the skills and reskill incoming and existing workforce to meet the demands of the manufacturing sector in the Philippines.

This is the Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Development Alliance (AMDev), an “industry-led alliance with the academe, manufacturing companies, and government to help Filipinos upgrade their skills to meet the demands of modern work.”

Lachica is the Chief of Party of this program.

Last November, the DTI, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Makati Business Club, and Unilab Foundation, inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) related to this program.

According to the website of Unilab, AMDev aims to train 11,000 individuals making them “Industry 4.0-ready.”

“The members of the workforce will be trained in both scientific and technology-based knowledge and advanced cognitive skills. Depending on their job, they may be taught information on automated equipment, utilizing big data and AI or artificial intelligence,” the Unilab website noted.

Currently, about 400 workers in the electronics and pharmaceutical industries are covered by the program, but soon they will add more sectors particularly those working on advanced manufacturing or the Industry 4.0 level.

“We will expand to other industries. We’re probably going to look at chemicals, the food, agri manufacturing industries,” Lachica said.

Meanwhile, USAID will provide $5.2 million in funding for the 5-year program, while the private sector will try to match it through cash or other services. The group said improving the skill set of workers can boost the manufacturing sector and help the economy further.

SCS about our identity, not site for US-China proxy war: Manalo

By Malou Talosig-Bartolome @maloutalosig

FOREIGN

Affairs Secretary

Enrique Manalo called on the international community to regard the South China Sea dispute as the country’s quest to redeem its maritime identity, and not merely the site of a proxy war between superpowers China and the US.

“Protecting our rights in our Exclusive Economic Zone and ensuring unimpeded access is critical for safeguarding the livelihoods of our fisherfolk and preserving marine resources vital to our future.

“Far more than the noise of politics, it must be understood as an issue about our maritime identity, our people and our future,” Manalo said in a speech at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in Vancouver Tuesday. Manalo is in Canada for a fiveday official visit to further improve bilateral relations between Manila and Ottawa.

Poe recalls ‘Hello Garci’, says lessons unheeded

By Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

SAYING the painful lessons of the “Hello Garci” controversy must be seriously considered in crafting reforms on the eve of another election year, Sen. Grace Poe on Wednesday jogged the nation’s memory with details of what she called the “biggest electoral crisis” in recent times, involving the presidential elections 20 years ago. Poe immediately drew support from Senate colleagues who, like her, had played varied roles in that electoral drama when her father, Fernando Poe Jr., complained of fraud in the May 2004 elections that saw him lose to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The vastly popular actor died just months after filing the electoral complaint, deeply frustrated at the system that failed voters, Senator Poe said.

Among those who said on Wednesday that electoral reforms should be taken seriously to avoid a repeat of the scandal were Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda, then FPJ’s vice presidential mate, who continued the legal battle with the Presidential Electoral Tribunal for three years.

Also weighing in were Majority Leader Joel Villanueva, whose father Bro. Eddie Villanueva was among those believed to be victims of fraud in the presidential polls; and Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel, who  thoroughly studied the “dagdag bawas” modus operandi begun in the 2004 “Hello Garci’ mess, and perpetrated against him in a case he filed, and won, a few years later.

In her privilege speech, Senator Poe reminded her peers: “Twenty years ago this month, a phone call ‘Hello Garci’ changed the course of our country’s history.

To jog our collective memories, recorded phone calls between a presidential candidate who was then trailing behind the votes, and then-Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, resulted in the biggest electoral crisis that this country has seen.”

Two decades since the “Hello Garci” was pulled off, Poe said, and “I am recalling it today, not as a daughter of the decent man who was robbed of votes, but as a senator of

the Republic who believes it is her duty not to let this blot in our history fade from the nation’s memory.

“In doing so, I am just taking the cue from my father who died heartbroken for the people who were let down by the system. But while the father may have forgiven those who did him wrong, the daughter will never forget the names nor the crimes that were committed to our people.”

Poe continued: “More than the need to move on, we need to move forward, because I believe that it is not the passing of time that heals wounds, or mends wrongs. It can only be cured if we apply remedies that will prevent it from happening again, of lessons so powerful that it deters repetition, by sanctions that await those who try to commit it once.”

Tragedies, she stressed “ought to be a teachable moment,” but the 2004 scandal did not birth “laws that would prevent it from revisiting us.”

She acknowledged that laws were passed, “like poll computerization, and minor fixes, but the biggest scourge, the buying of votes has not been purged” from Philippine politics.

Meanwhile, counting has turned electronic, “but our machines are fast aging.”

Besides technological reforms, the senator said, “ a lot more needs to be done in our electoral landscape. These include redefining what electoral crimes are, citing premature campaigning, vote-buying and vote-selling cover.

Poe said she will file a bill that prohibits vote buying and selling through electronic means like GCash or Maya. She added that “so much must be done in so little time. We are fast approaching the midterm national elections next year and yet the landscape has not changed much since the electoral crisis two decades ago.”

Of the “hello, Garci” scandal, the senator recalled how “a leader—who had placed her hand on the Bible to swear before God and people that she will obey the laws of land—was clearly heard shopping for votes to salvage an electoral debacle.”

He told the forum attended by foreign policy analysts and academicians that the heightened tension now between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea should not be diminished as an extension of the US-China rivalry.

“The Philippines finds that

over-characterizing developments in the South China Sea mainly as a function of the US-China strategic rivalry muddles understanding of the situation on the ground. For one, it places the legitimate rights and interests of countries like the Philippines aside, and secondary to the interests of rivals.

It also obscures our judgment: actions that are clearly illegal in international law and against the UN Charter are sometimes justified under the pretext of this rivalry. At the same time, remedies to respond to these actions are viewed by a party in the prism of this strategic rivalry,” said the DFA chief.

PRC holds drill for ‘The Big One’

Continued from A16

PRC is prioritizing the provinces of Palawan, Ilocos Norte and Abra being near Taiwan, the chairman and CEO bared.

“Dinadagdagan namin ng  first aiders and, then,  nag-iimbak kami ng mga first aid kits para halimbawa magkagulo, meron kaming mga dadalhin na mga VERB or Volunteer Emergency and Rescue Vehicles. We are adding more first aiders there and, then, we stock up first aid kits so if ever there’s chaos, we

can bring the VERB or Volunteer Emergency and Rescue Vehicles,” Gordon said.

Timely to the WRCRC Day celebration, foreign leaders of the Red Cross lauded the successful MCI simulation of PRC, plus its other humanitarian services to Filipinos affected by conflicts, disasters, and health emergencies, especially those in rural and isolated areas.

“I see the commitment from the Philippine Red Cross leadership is really way better.

So congratulations,” said International Federation of Red Cross Philippines Head of Delegation Sanjeev Kumar Kafley.

“The Philippine Red Cross has improved its capacities over the years. They are the top most committed organization in the country. They are there always whenever that something happens. So we will do whatever we can to support PRC to support the affected communities,” added Nathan Ramalingompillai of the German Red Cross.

‘Semicon imports dip signals weak exports’

Continued from A16

March performance PSA data showed the country’s total export sales in March 2024 amounted to $6.13 billion, indicating an annual decrease of 7.3 percent from the $6.61-billion total exports in the same month of the previous year.

In February 2024, the total exports recorded an annual increase of 15.7 percent, while posting an annual decline of 9.5 percent in March 2023.

By major type of goods, exports of manufactured goods contributed the largest to the country’s total exports in March 2024 amounting to $4.97 billion, or a share of 81 percent. This was followed by mineral

products with a share of $567.35 million or 9.3 percent, and total agro-based products, which contributed $463.7 million or 7.6 percent.

By major trading partner, exports to the United States of America comprised the highest export value amounting to $961.94 million, or a share of 15.7 percent to the country’s total exports in March 2024. Completing the top five major export trading partners for this month with their export values and percent shares to the total exports were Hong Kong with $880.88 million or 14.4 percent of the total and the People’s Republic of China, $837.51 million or 13.7 percent.

Other top export markets in March were Japan, which

PHL caregivers sent to S. Korea protected–DMW

By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla

FILIPINO caregivers who will be deployed under the Employment Permit System (EPS) of South Korea will be protected from abuse and discrimination through comprehensive employment contracts, according to the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW).

In a television interview with PTV, DMW Assistant Secretary Levinson C. Alcantara assured each of the successful applicants that they will have the contract, which was agreed upon by the Philippine and South Korean governments.

“It (contract) contains protective [measures], which includes their minimum standards, right salary and work hours, and who will take care of the caregivers. It also includes their social protection,” the DMW official said.

DMW issued the remark as it starts on Thursday the registration period for 100 applicants for the expanded EPS, which now covers caregivers.

Healthcare worker THE applicant must be a woman in the 24 to 38 age group with a national certificate ll (NCll) in caregiving from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), must have passed the necessary computerbased test, and met language and health requirements to qualify for the position.

Successful applicants will be required to perform childcare as well as daily tasks like cleaning and laundry, and providing support for pregnant women.

Despite having similarities to the task of household service workers (HSW), DMW Undersecretary Bernard P. Olalia assured those who will be deployed under the EPS will be covered by policies for caregivers.

“They will be caregivers as health workers, not as domestic workers,” Olalia told BusinessMirror in a Viber message.

Starting a family THE EPS initially only covered Filipino workers who are deployed to the manufacturing sector of South Korea.

Alcantara said the South Korean government opted to include caregivers in the EPS to help Korean couples in starting a family.

“This is a program by their government to help double-income families, which are just starting out to balance their work and life balance. So they considered providing a skilled caregiver in their household will give the Korean couples the incentive to start a family,” Alcantara said.

The Korean government is currently trying to encourage families to have more children through different assistance, which includes childbearing and childrearing cash subsidies, to help address their declining South Korean population.

accounted for $790.02 million or 12.9 percent of total exports; and the Republic of Korea, $391.59 million or 6.4 percent.

In terms of imports, the data showed total imported goods in March 2024 amounted to $9.31 billion, indicating an annual decrease of 20 percent from the $11.63-billion import value in the same month of the previous year.

In February 2024, import value recorded an annual increase of 6.5 percent, while in March 2023, it exhibited an annual decline of 1.2 percent.

By major type of goods, imports of raw materials and intermediate goods accounted for the largest share of the country’s total imports in March 2024, amounting to $3.18 billion or 34.2 percent of the total.

This was followed by capital goods with a share of $2.81 billion or 30.2 percent of the total and consumer goods with an import value of $1.83 billion or 19.6 percent.

For import sources, the People’s Republic of China was the country’s largest supplier of imported goods valued at $2.27 billion, or 24.4 percent of the country’s total imports in March 2024.

The other top import sources of the Philippines were Japan with import receipts worth $794.02 million or 8.5 percent of the total; and the United States, $705.85 million or 7.6 percent.

The list includes the Republic of Korea which cornered $698.79 million or 7.5 percent of the country’s import receipts and Indonesia, $665.49 million or 7.1 percent.

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng

Rice stockpile shrinks in April–report

By

Pelonia

by t he comme rc i al sector reac hed 510, 3 40 MT w hi le t hose stored i n hou se holds reac hed 91,800 MT. “From t he same mont h of t he prev iou s yea r ’s level, cor n stocks i nventor y i n t he comme rc i al sector recorded an annu al i nc rease of 29.6 pe rcent. On t he ot he r h and, cor n stocks i nventor y i n t he hou se holds decl i ned by 10.8 pe rcent,” t he P SA sa id. “Relat i ve to t he i nventor y level i n Ma rc h 2024, t he volu me of cor n stocks i n t he hou se hold and comme rc i al sector s reg i ste red mont h -on-

‘Congress can finish RTL reform before 2025’

TBy Butch Fernandez @butchfBM

Wednesday, V i lla r also cla ri f i ed t h at t h e RTL s i mply took o u t t h e a u t h o rity of t he Nat ional Food A ut hority (NFA) to i mpor t, but t hi s i s not t he

one be i ng restored by t he proposed RTL amendments. T he amendments wou ld i nstead mandate NFA to boost

its purc h ases f rom local produ ce r s to f r ee fa r me r s f r om explo i tat i ve m iddlemen w hi le stab i l i z i ng ma r ket prices for cons u me r s reel i ng u nde r hi g h i nflat ion. T he senator wants t he agency to foc u s on t he acqui s it ion, ma i ntenance, and d i st ri b ut ion of rice for b u ffe r stock i ng sourced f rom local fa r me r s and for calam ity ass i stance, for whic h it h as a yea r ly budget of P 9 b i ll ion. “T he NFA h as not proven itself to be tak i ng ca re of t he welfa re of t he rice fa r me r s and cons u me r s,” s he sa id i n a statement last Monday.

By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga

Relatedly, t he b i ggest ag ric u lt ur al coal it ion expressed s uppor t for t he tweak i ng of NFA’s mandate i n t he amendator y law. “On t h e r ole of NFA, we’d r at h e r t h at t h e ir f u nct i on be l i m i ted to b u ffe r stock i ng, p r oc uri ng palay d ir ectly f r om local fa r me r s,” t h e Sama h ang Ind u st ri ya at Ag ri k u lt ur a (S i nag) sa i d i n a statement sent to t h e B usiness M irror W hi le say i ng i t welcomed t h e Pres ident’s ce r t i f icat ion of t he RTL extens ion proposal as ur gent, “Si nag i s propos i ng to i nc rease t he f u nd allotment f rom P 10 b i ll ion pe r yea r to P3 0 b i ll ion pe r yea r so more pu bl ic s uppor t can be g i ven to our rice fa r m-

e r s and t he local rice i ndu st r y.”

Its exec ut ive d irector, Jayson Ca i nglet, sa id t he P3 0 b i ll ion s hou ld be allotted for seeds ( P 6 b i ll ion), mac hi ne ries ( P5 b i ll ion), c red it ( P 1 b i ll ion), extens ion ( P 1 b i ll ion) and cas h ass i stance t h at w i ll be g i ven d irectly to fa r me r s t i ll i ng 3 hecta res and below ( P 7 b i ll ion).

T he rest of t he excess f u nds or P 10 b i ll ion, Si nag sa id, can i nclude s uppor t for post produ ct ion fac i l it ies (d r ye r s, wa re hou se and m i ll i ng e quipment); small wate r i mpou nd i ng pro j ects; and pest management and fe r t i l i ze r s uppor t. Bes ides t he tweak i ng of t he NFA’s mandate, V i lla r sa id s he i s pu s hi ng for t he allocat ion of more resources fo r seeds, r amp i ng u p mode r n i zat ion t hrou g h t he Phi l ipp i ne Cente r fo r Post h a r vest Development and Mec h an i zat ion, and expand i ng t he

campa i gn to encour age fa r me r s to produce t he ir own fe r t i l i ze r s t hrou g h mass i ve compost i ng, to c ut t he ir rel iance on i mpor ted fe r t i l i ze r s. ‘Economic saboteurs’

VILLARalso noted t h at Senate B i ll (SB) 24 32 or t he Ant i -Ag ric u lt ur al Econom ic Sabotage Act, was passed by t h e Senate i n Decembe r 202 3 and h as been ce r t i f ied as ur gent by Pres ident Fe rd i nand Ma rcos Jr On Ma rc h 20, 2024, t he representat i ves of bot h Hou ses held a pre-b icame r al confe rence for t he b i ll but t he meas ure st i ll h angs.

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US paused bomb shipment to Israel to signal concerns over Rafah invasion, official says

By Zeke Miller & Aamer Madhani The Associated Press

WASHINGTON—The US paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the US, a senior administration official said Tuesday. The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, with the focus of US concern being the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban setting. More than 1 million civilians are sheltering in Rafah after evacuating other parts of Gaza amid Israel’s war on Hamas, which came after the militant group’s deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7. The US has historically provided enormous amounts of military aid for Israel. That has only accelerated in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 in Israel and led to about 250 being taken captive by militants. The pausing of the aid shipment is the most striking manifestation of the growing daylight between Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the administration of President Joe Biden, which has called on Israel to do far more to protect the lives of innocent civilians in Gaza.

It also comes as the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and US laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war. A decision against Israel would further add to pressure on Biden

to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military.

Biden’s administration in April began reviewing future transfers of military assistance as Netanyahu’s government appeared to move closer toward an invasion of Rafah, despite months of opposition from the White House. The official said the decision to pause the shipment was made last week and no final decision had been made yet on whether to proceed with the shipment at a later date.

US officials had declined for days to comment on the halted transfer, word of which came as Biden on Tuesday described US support for Israel as “ironclad, even when we disagree.”

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to square the arms holdup with Biden’s rhetoric in support of Israel, saying only, “Two things could be true.”

Israeli troops on Tuesday seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing in what the White House described as a limited operation that stopped short of the full-on Israeli invasion of the city that Biden has repeatedly warned against on humanitarian grounds, most recently in a Monday call with Netanyahu.

Israel has ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from the city.

Israeli forces have also carried out what it describes as “targeted strikes” on the eastern part of Rafah and captured the Rafah crossing, a critical conduit for the flow of humanitarian aid along the GazaEgypt border.

Privately, concern has mounted inside the White House about what’s unfolding in Rafah, but publicly administration officials have stressed that they did not think the operations had defied Biden’s warnings against a wide scale operation in the city.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Israel described the operation along the Gaza-Egypt border

Russia launches wide attack on Ukrainian energy facilities

KYIV, Ukraine—Russia launched aerial attacks on energy facilities throughout Ukraine early Wednesday, targeting seven regions with more than 50 missiles as well as drones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

in eastern Rafah as “an operation of limited scale and duration” aimed at cutting off Hamas arms smuggling, but also said the US would monitor the fighting.

Just last month, Congress passed a $95 billion national security bill that included funding for Ukraine, Israel and other allies. The package included more than $14 billion in military aid for Israel, though the stalled transfer was not related to that measure.

The State Department is separately considering whether to approve the continued transfer of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which place precision guidance systems onto bombs, to Israel, but the review didn’t pertain to imminent shipments.

The US dropped the 2,000-pound bomb sparingly in its long war against the Islamic State militant group. Israel, by contrast, has used the bomb frequently in the seven-month Gaza war. Experts say the use of the weapon, in part, has helped drive the enormous Palestinian casualty count that the Hamas-run health ministry puts at more than 34,000 dead, though it doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians.

The US-Israel relationship has been close through both Democratic and Republican administrations. But there have been other moments of deep tension since the founding in which US leaders have threatened to hold up aid in attempt to sway Israeli leadership.

President Dwight Eisenhower pressured Israel with the threat of sanctions into withdrawing from the Sinai in 1957 in the midst of the Suez Crisis. Ronald Reagan delayed the delivery of F16 fighter jets to Israel at a time of escalating violence in the Middle East. President George H.W. Bush held up $10 billion in loan guarantees to force the cessation of Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories.

“Massive missile attack by Nazi Putin on the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in the Second World War,” Zelenskyy said. “The whole world should clearly understand who is who; the whole world has no right to give Nazism another chance.”

Russia consistently targets Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. There was a major aerial attack on energy facilities on April 27 and another a week earlier.

In a social media post, Zelenskyy noted that Wednesday’s attacks occurred on the day that Ukraine observes the end of European fighting in World War II.

The attacks also damaged the railway station and tracks in the city of Kherson, across the Dnieper River from Russianheld territory, and injured two people in Brovary, adjacent to the capital Kyiv, officials said.

National electrical grid operator Ukrenergo said facilities were hit in the Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad, Poltava and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. Two energy facilities were hit in the Lviv region, which is in the country’s far west and distant from the fighting’s front lines, according to regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi. AP

From flooding in Brazil and Houston to brutal heat in Asia, extreme weather seems nearly everywhere

By Seth Borenstein, Suman Naishadham, Sibi Arasu & Fabiano Maisonnave The Associated Press

IN sweltering Brazil, flooding killed dozens of people and paralyzed a city of about 4 million people. Voters and politicians in India, amid national elections, are fainting in heat that hit as high as 115 degrees (46.3 degrees Celsius).

A brutal Asian heat wave has closed schools in the Philippines, killed people in Thailand and set records there and in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives and Myanmar. Record temperatures— especially at night when it just won’t cool down—have hit many parts of Africa. Flooding devastated Houston, and the United States as a whole just had its second highest number of tornadoes for the month of April.

In a world growing increasingly accustomed to wild weather swings, the last few days and weeks have seemingly taken those environmental extremes to a new level. Some climate scientists say they are hard pressed to remember when so much of the world has had its weather on overdrive at the same time.

“Given that we’ve seen an unprecedented jump in global warmth over the last 11 months, it is not surprising

to see worsening climate extremes so early in the year,” said University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck.

“If this record pace of warming continues, 2024 will likely be a record year of climate disasters and human suffering.”

When the world is warmer, it is likely to have more extreme weather and climate events, including record heat and rainfall, scientists say. And climate change is also changing weather patterns, leading to rainy and hot systems stalling over areas and the jet stream meandering, said Alvaro Silva, a climate scientist at the World Meteorological Organization.

Adding to the stronger effects of human-caused climate change is a nowweakening El Nino—a natural warming of parts of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide—that came on the heels of a three-year La Nina, its cool counterpart, Silva said.

Scientists also pointed to 13 straight months of record hot oceans as a potential factor in the weather extremes.

This all comes as the world just finished its 11th record-breaking hot month in a row, the European climate service Copernicus reported Wednesday.

The average global temperature of 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius) in April beat the old record from 2016 by a quarter of a degree (0.14 degrees Celsius). Copernicus’ data set goes back

to 1950, while other climate monitoring agencies go back to 1850 but have yet to report April calculations.

Last month was 1.58 degrees Celsius (2.84 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the pre-industrial late 19th century. The world in 2015 adopted a goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, but it mostly applies to being that warm for a decade or more, not a month.

While several factors play a role in this recent spate of extremes, “climate change is the most important one,” Silva said.

The trouble is that the world has adapted to and constructed cities designed for 20th century temperatures and rainfall, but climate change brings more heat and downpours, said Andrew Dessler, a Texas A&M University climate scientist.

“We’re departing the climate of the 20th century right now and we just can’t handle these events,” Dessler said. “So they’re getting slightly more extreme, but they’re passing our ability to handle them.” Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy, said more extremes in more places are overlapping.

Borenstein and Naishadham reported from Washington, Arasu from Bengaluru, India, and Maisonnave from Brasilia, Brazil.

Has Israel followed the law in its war in Gaza? The US is due to render first-of-its-kind verdict

By Ellen Knickmeyer The Associated Press

WA decision against Israel would add to pressure on President Joe Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military.

The administration agreed in February at the insistence of Democrats in Congress

ASHINGTON—Facing heat over its military support for Israel’s war, the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and US laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war.

to look at whether Israel has used USprovided weapons and other military assistance in a lawful manner.

Additionally, under the same agreement, it must tell Congress whether it deems that Israel has acted to “arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly,” delivery of any US-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Tuesday that the department was trying to meet the Wednesday deadline for completing the review but “it’s possible it slips just a little bit.”

The administration is compelled to make a decision at a time when tumult in internationally brokered cease-fire negotiations and a threatened Israeli offensive on the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah—a move adamantly opposed by the US—could change both the course of Israel’s war and Americans’ support for it.

Israel’s campaign to crush the Hamas militant group following its surprise October attack and the disaster that’s followed for Gaza’s civilians also have fueled debate within the Biden administration and Congress over broader questions.

Does the US call grave human rights violations by one of its foreign recipients of military support when it sees them? Or only when it deems doing so serves broader US strategic interests?

Democratic and Republican lawmakers openly frame the current decision in those terms.

“While human rights is an important component of the national interest, American priorities are much broader— particularly in an era of strategic competition,” Sen. Jim Risch, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote last week in urging to Biden to repeal his February directive, formally known as National Security Memorandum 20.

But Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat who spearheaded congressional negotiations with the White House to mandate the review, told reporters he feared the longstanding desire of American administrations to maintain the strong security partnership with Israel would shape the outcome.

Israel is the largest recipient of US security assistance. Palestinian suffering in the war in Gaza has churned up protests and other challenges for Biden at home and abroad as he seeks reelection against Donald Trump.

The administration’s findings must be “seen to be based on facts and law, and not based on what they would wish it would be,” Van Hollen told reporters last week.

At the time the White House agreed to the review, it was working to head off

moves from the Democratic lawmakers, and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, to start restricting shipments of weapons to Israel.

Israel launched its offensive after attacks led by Hamas killed about 1,200 people on Oct. 7. Nearly 35,000 Palestinian civilians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since then, according to local health officials. US and U.N. officials say fullfledged famine has set in in northern Gaza, owing to Israeli restrictions on food shipments and to the fighting.

Human rights groups long have accused Israeli security forces of committing abuses against Palestinians, and accused Israeli leaders of failing to hold those responsible to account.

Israel says it is following all US and international law, that it investigates allegations of abuse by its security forces, and that its campaign in Gaza is proportional to the existential threat that it says is posed by Hamas.

As the suffering of Palestinian civilians grew, Biden and his administration edged away from their initial unwavering public support of Israel and began to criticize its conduct of the war.

Biden in December said “indiscriminate bombing” was costing Israel international backing. After Israeli forces targeted and killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in April, the Biden administration for the first time signaled it might cut military aid to Israel if it didn’t change its handling of the war and humanitarian aid.

A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the US paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns about Israel’s decision on Rafah.

Republican Ronald Reagan was the last president openly to suspend some US support for Israel’s military as a way to pressure Israel over its offensives.

But critics say Biden and other recent presidents have looked the other way when Israel’s security forces are accused of extrajudicial killings and other abuses against Palestinians. They have accepted Israeli assurances over alleged grave abuses that would trigger suspension of military aid for any other foreign military partner, two former State Department officials who left the government last year said. The administration denies any double standard. Now, though, Congress is compelling the administration to render its most public assessment in decades over whether Israel has used US military support lawfully.

Under a 1997 congressional act known as the Leahy Laws, when the US finds credible evidence that a unit of foreign security forces has committed gross human rights abuses, any US aid to that unit is supposed to be automati-

cally suspended.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote House Speaker Mike Johnson last week that the US found the evidence of such abuses by one particular Israeli unit to be credible. Blinken added that Israel had yet to rectify the unit’s wrongdoing, something the Leahy laws say must happen for any suspension of military aid to be lifted. Blinken said rather than suspend the aid, the US would work with Israel to “engage on identifying a path to effective remediation for this unit.”

Israeli officials have identified it as the Netzah Yehuda, which is accused in the death of a Palestinian American man and other abuses in the Israelioccupied West Bank before the war in Gaza erupted.

Tim Rieser, a veteran Senate foreign policy staffer who helped now-retired Sen. Patrick Leahy craft the law, said if it had been applied to Israel, “maybe it would have been a deterrent.”

Instead, “what we’ve seen is that abuses against Palestinians are rarely punished,” Rieser told the AP.

While a finding against Israel under the national security memo wouldn’t obligate the administration to start cutting military support for Israel, it would increase pressure on Biden to do so.

A report to the administration by an unofficial, self-formed panel of military experts and former State Department officials, including Josh Paul and Charles Blaha, points to specific Israeli strikes on aid convoys, journalists, hospitals, schools and refugee centers and other targets broadly protected by law. The report argues the administration must find Israel’s conduct in Gaza has violated the law. Amnesty International has argued the same.

The high civilian death tolls in Israel’s strikes go far beyond the laws of proportionality, the US critics and rights groups say. They point to an Oct. 31 strike on a six-story apartment building in Gaza that killed at least 106 civilians. Critics say Israel provided no immediate justification for that strike.

“They’re taking what we did in Mosul and Raqqa, and going tenfold beyond,” exceeding even what was allowed under US rules of engagement at the time in the so-called war on terror, said Wes Bryant, a former Air Force targeting expert who led strike cells against the Islamic State and other extremist groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. He is among those urging the US to condition military support to Israel.

“If this is the new bar for 21st-century warfare, we might as well go back to World War II,” Bryant said. Israel and the Biden administration say Hamas’ presence in tunnels throughout Gaza, and alleged presence in hospitals and other protected sites, make it harder for Israeli forces to avoid high civilian casualties.

Italy’s president says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can’t be solved by rewarding Moscow’s aggression

UBy Edith M. Lederer The Associated Press

NITED NATIONS—Italy’s president told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can’t be solved by rewarding its aggression and peace can only come when Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are restored.

Sergio Mattarella said Italy, which now heads the G7 meetings, and many international partners have come to Ukraine’s defense to support the principle that solidarity must be given to nations attacked by acts that violate international law and the UN Charter.

“No state, no matter how powerful or how equipped it is with a menacing nuclear arsenal can think of violating principles, including the sovereignty,

territorial integrity, and independence of another country without facing sanctions,” he said. Mattarella said the end of two world wars and the collapse of the Soviet Union had brought new hope to Europe, and that “Russia has taken on the great historic responsibility of having brought war back to the heart of the European continent.”

The Italian president stressed that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t merely a regional conflict since Moscow wants to exercise global influence. Russia is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, which is charged with ensuring international peace and security.

The war in Ukraine, once one of the world’s main breadbaskets, has created food and energy scarcities, especially in parts of Africa, he said.

Mattarella added that the peace dividends that incentivized the allocation of resources to development instead of arms after the end of the Cold War have been wasted as Russia turns back time and starts a new arms race.

With the war in Ukraine now in its third year, he said Italy, its international partners and people everywhere are committed to achieving a peaceful and long-lasting solution to the conflict.

“Not just any solution, though, let alone a solution which would reward the aggressor and humiliate those being attacked, setting a dangerous precedent for everyone,” Mattarella said.

“If peace is to be fair and long lasting, it must be based on the noble and inalienable principles of international law and the Charter of the United Nations,” he added.

TikTok and ByteDance file lawsuit challenging US ban, citing unconstitutional attack on free speech

By Haleluya Hadero, Michelle Chapman & Barbara Ortutay AP Business Writers

TIKTOK and its Chinese parent company filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a new American law that would ban the popular video-sharing app in the US unless it’s sold to an approved buyer, saying it unfairly singles out the platform and is an unprecedented attack on free speech.

In its lawsuit, ByteDance says the new law vaguely paints its ownership of TikTok as a national security threat in order to circumvent the First Amendment, despite no evidence that the company poses a threat. It also says the law is so “obviously unconstitutional” that its sponsors are instead portraying it as a way to regulate TikTok’s ownership.

“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than 1 billion people worldwide,” ByteDance asserts in the lawsuit filed in a Washington appeals court.

The law, which President Joe Biden signed as part of a larger foreign aid package, marks the first time the US has singled out a social media company for a potential ban, which free speech advocates say is what would be expected from repressive regimes such as those in Iran and China.

The lawsuit is the latest turn in what’s shaping up to be a protracted legal fight over TikTok’s future in the United States—and one that could end up before the Supreme Court. If TikTok loses, it says it would be forced to shut down next year.

The law requires ByteDance to sell the platform to a US-approved buyer within nine months. If a sale is already in progress, the company would get another three months to complete the deal. ByteDance has said it doesn’t plan to sell TikTok. But even if it wanted to divest, the company would need Beijing’s blessing. According to the lawsuit, the Chinese government has “made clear” that it wouldn’t allow ByteDance to include the algorithm that populates users’ feeds and has been the “key to the success of TikTok in the United States.”

TikTok and ByteDance say the new law leaves them with no choice but to shut down by next January 19 because

continuing to operate in the US wouldn’t be commercially, technologically or legally possible. They also say it would be impossible for ByteDance to divest its US TikTok platform as a separate entity from the rest of TikTok, which has 1 billion users worldwide—most of them outside of the United States. A US-only TikTok would operate as an island that’s detached from the rest of the world, the lawsuit argues.

The suit also paints divestment as a technological impossibility, since the law requires all of TikTok’s millions of lines of software code to be wrested from ByteDance so that there would be no “operational relationship” between the Chinese company and the new US app.

The companies argue that they should be protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression and are seeking a declaratory judgment that it is unconstitutional.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the suit Tuesday. And White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to engage on questions about why the president continues to use TikTok for his political activities, deferring to the campaign.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, issued a statement Tuesday defending the new law.

“This is the only way to address the national security threat posed by ByteDance’s ownership of apps like TikTok. Instead of continuing its deceptive tactics, it’s time for ByteDance to start the divestment process,” he said.

ByteDance will first likely ask a court to temporarily block the federal law from taking effect, said Gus Hurwitz, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School who isn’t involved in the case. And the decision whether to grant such a preliminary injunction could decide the case, because its absence, ByteDance would need to sell TikTok before the broader case could be decided, he said.

Whether a court will grant such an injunction remains unclear to Hurwitz, largely because it requires balancing important free speech issues against the Biden administration’s claims of harm to national security. “I think the courts will be very deferential to Congress on these issues,” he said.

The fight over TikTok comes amid a broader US-China rivalry, especially in areas such as advanced technologies and data security that are seen as essential

Pro-Palestinian student protests spread across Europe. Some are allowed; some are stopped

By Mike Corder, Barbara Surk & Pietro De Cristofaro The Associated Press

AMSTERDAM—Campus protests by proPalestinian activists spread across Europe on Tuesday as some called for a break in academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza, while schools increasingly faced the question under debate in the US: Allow or intervene?

German police broke up a protest by several hundred pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied a courtyard at Berlin’s Free University. Protesters occupied a university building in Amsterdam hours after police detained 169 people at a different campus location. Two remained in custody on suspicion of committing public violence.

Elsewhere in Europe, some student camps have been allowed to stay in places like the lawns of Cambridge. In recent days, students have held protests or set up encampments in Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain, France and Britain.

In Berlin, protesters put up about 20 tents and formed a human chain around them. Most covered their faces with medical masks and draped keffiyeh scarves around their heads, shouting slogans such as “Viva, viva Palestina.”

Organizers said the protests were made up of students from various Berlin universities and other individuals.

Police were seen carrying some people away and using pepper spray as scuffles erupted between officers and protesters. The school’s administrators

to each country’s economic prowess and national security.

US lawmakers from both parties, as well as administration and law enforcement officials, have expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over US user data or sway public opinion by manipulating the algorithm that populates users’ feeds. Some have also pointed to a Rutgers University study that maintains TikTok content was being amplified or underrepresented based on how it aligns with the Chinese government’s interests—a claim the company disputes.

Opponents of the law argue that Chinese authorities—or any nefarious parties—could easily get information on Americans in other ways, including through commercial data brokers that rent or sell personal information. They say the US government hasn’t provided public evidence that shows TikTok has shared US user information with Chinese authorities or tinkered with its algorithm for China’s benefit.

“Data collection by apps has real consequences for all of our privacy,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “But banning one social media platform used by millions of people around the world is not the solution. Instead, we need Congress to pass laws that protect our privacy in the first place.”

Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, expects TikTok’s lawsuit to succeed.

“The First Amendment means the government can’t restrict Americans’ access to ideas, information, or media from abroad without a very good reason for it—and no such reason exists here,” Jaffer said in a statement.

Although TikTok prevailed in earlier First Amendment challenges, it isn’t clear whether the current lawsuit will be as simple.

“The bipartisan nature of this federal law may make judges more likely to defer to a Congressional determination that the company poses a national security risk,” said Gautam Hans, a law professor and associate director of the First Amendment Clinic at Cornell University.

“Without public discussion of what exactly the risks are, however, it’s difficult to determine why the courts should validate such an unprecedented law.”

TheAssociated Press writers David Hamilton and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

media studies department, told the gathering that “the only path forward is a total academic boycott of Israel.”

said in a statement they had called the police after protesters had rejected any kind of dialogue and some had attempted to occupy lecture halls.

“An occupation is not acceptable on the FU Berlin campus,” university president Guenter Ziegler said. “We are available for academic dialogue—but not in this way.”

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner hailed the school’s decision to call police before things escalated.

In the eastern German city of Leipzig, about 50 pro-Palestinian protesters set up tents at Leipzig University and occupied a lecture hall, the dpa news agency reported. It said the main student association in the state of Saxony, where Leipzig is located, called on the university to break up the occupation over concerns about the safety of Jewish and Israeli students.

In the Netherlands, police broke up a proPalestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam, beating some of the protesters and pulling down tents. Police said on the social media platform X that the action was “necessary to restore order” after protests turned violent.

Police used a mechanical digger to push aside barricades and officers with batons and shields moved in. Protesters had formed barricades from wooden pallets and bicycles, national broadcaster NOS reported.

A crowd that swelled to some 3,000 demonstrators, including students and staff, some wearing keffiyeh scarves, gathered near the location of the dismantled camp, chanting slogans including, “Palestine will be free!” and “Cops off campus!” Jamil Fiorino-Habib, a lecturer at the university’s

In a statement, the University of Amsterdam said: “We share the anger and bewilderment over the war, and we understand that there are protests over it. We stress that within the university, dialogue about it is the only answer.”

In the early evening, a group of protesting students occupied a building on another campus of the school in the historic heart of Amsterdam, an AP video journalist at the scene said.

In Austria, protesters camped out in about 20 tents in the main courtyard of the University of Vienna for a second day. As police watched, protesters cordoned off the encampment, which is near a memorial for Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust.

The University of Vienna and the main Austrian Union of Students distanced themselves from the protest. The union said “antisemitic groups were among the protest’s organizers,” which the protesters denied.

Pro-Palestine protest camps have sprung up at about a dozen universities in Britain, including at Oxford and Cambridge, urging the institutions to fully disclose investments, cut academic ties with Israel and divest from businesses linked to the country.

“Oxbridge’s profits cannot continue to climb at the expense of Palestinian lives, and their reputations must no longer be built on the whitewashing of Israeli crimes,” said a joint statement from protesters at the two universities. Over 200 Oxford academics signed an open letter supporting the protests.

Surk reported from Nice, France, and De Cristofaro from Berlin. Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and journalists around Europe contributed to this report.

Thursday, May 9, 2024 A13

Ukrainians struggle with grief and resolve amidst escalating war, concerns of international support

By Jill Lawless The Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine—Paintbrush in hand, Anastasiya Sereda is working on a painting of a chubby-faced panda in the uniform of a Ukrainian soldier.

Propped on her easel is the reason why—a photo of her boyfriend Bohdan, a burly serviceman with a gentle smile.

“He looks like a panda,” Sereda said in explanation, alternately laughing and choking with tears as she talked about her partner, who was killed almost a year ago on the front line in eastern Ukraine. Taking part in an art class for women bereaved by war, she’s trying to capture her boyfriend’s humor and heroism, and channel her roiling emotions onto canvas.

Many other Ukrainians also are wrestling with a potent mix of emotions—including grief, anger, humor, defiance and fear—as they face a new phase in the war with growing concern about international support for their cause. Most remain firm in their resolve to drive out the Russian invaders and decide their country’s future course. Many also worry that international attention is distracted by the Israel-Hamas war and other concerns, and that allies aren’t delivering much-needed weapons and ammunition. Foreign visitors are often told to go home with a message: Send air defenses, especially US-made Patriot missiles, to close Ukraine’s skies to the enemy.

There are many grounds for worry. Russia has thrown waves of soldiers and deadly glide bombs at Ukrainian lines, forcing Kyiv’s troops to retreat from several villages along the 600-mile (1,000-kilometer) frontline in the country’s east and south. Military analysts say Russia is pushing to take as much territory as it can before fresh supplies of arms reach Ukraine from a $61 billion US aid package approved in April.

Away from the front, air-raid sirens are a routine occurrence in much of the country as Russia attacks with missiles, rockets and drones. Sometimes the attacks hit energy plants, railways or other infrastructure. Often the targets feel indiscriminate: apartment buildings, hospitals, playgrounds. All mean more lives ripped apart.

“We really want the world to remember that people are dying right now,” said Valentyna, who works at a power station that has been repeatedly hit by Russian missiles. When air alerts send her to the plant’s basement shelter, she helps make camouflage netting to send to the troops, threading strips of green and gray cloth on a string frame.

“When there’s a siren you feel better if you’re doing something,” Valentyna said. The Associated Press agreed not to publish her full name because she works for critical national infrastructure.

Kyiv, Ukraine’s beautiful capital, is once again a bustling European city with modern conveniences from craft beer bars and hip coffee shops to ride-hailing apps and McDonald’s. Residents have adapted to war, and nowadays, few head for the shelter of the subway when air alarms sound.

But reminders of the dead are all around: in the sea of yellow and blue flags in Independence Square, and the memorial wall outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, where people leave flowers in front of photos of fallen troops.

As some Kyivites brunched on patios one spring Sunday, hundreds of others took to the streets for a demonstration to demand the release of Azov Brigade troops who were taken captive by Russia after defending the southern city of Mariupol two years ago. The weekly protests aim to ensure the POWs are not forgotten, and draw supportive honks from passing cars.

There’s a growing gap between those who serve and those who don’t, highlighted by a recent government decision to suspend passport renewal services for conscription-age men outside the country. Though human rights groups have criticized the move, many Ukrainians agree with the government that the move is a question of fairness.

And war also has brought solidarity, throwing together people from all walks of life and turning academics, scientists, writers and many others into soldiers.

Scores of people gathered in Kyiv’s central Independence Square on a rainy recent afternoon to say goodbye to Nazarii Lavrovskyi, a medical researcher turned army paramedic who was killed in April while helping to evacuate wounded troops.

University friends, fellow scientists from his lab researching antimicrobial drugs and battle-hardened soldiers all fell to one knee on the wet pavement as his coffin was carried from a hearse to the sound of military trumpet and drum.

“He joined us, and it was strange to see such people ending up in the war,” said Oleksii Palii, a veteran of Lavrovskyi’s unit, the 112th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade. “At first, he couldn’t cope at all, but later he became a combat medic. He earned tremendous respect from all the soldiers.

“Rest in peace, that’s how it turned out.”

With so much to worry about, many Ukrainians have put fears for the future on the back burner, said Anton Grushetskyi, executive director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. There is concern about what a victory for Donald Trump in November’s US presidential election could mean, given the Republican contender’s past praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But it’s not at the forefront of most people’s minds.

“People cannot (predict) their lives in a couple of months, even, because the situation is changing rapidly,” Grushetskyi said.

The Associated Press journalists Illia Novikov and Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this story.

‘Semicon imports dip signals weak exports’

By Cai U. Ordinario @caiordinario

THE country’s export earnings could suffer in the next few quarters as a result of the double-digit decline in semiconductor imports in the first quarter of the year, according to local economists.

‘NEW MODEL’ DEAL IN AYUNGIN INVALID–EX-JUSTICE CARPIO

ETIRED Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio has expressed belief that the alleged “new model” deal between China and the Philippines over Ayungin Shoal in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) was invalid. Carpio, who was part of the successful Philippine delegation in the 2013 arbitration case against China, said that the Armed Forces Western Command (Wescom), assuming it talked to some Chinese officials, has no authority to finalize an agreement with other countries without the involvement of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

He was reacting to reports that China plans to release an audio recording of a purported phone conversation with Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos, Western Command chief, agreeing to a new model for the resupply missions to the Philippine-occupied Ayugin Shoal.

ippine government has committed.’ That is not proper and it will not bind us because they are talking to someone with no authority,” Carpio added. Carpio called on the government to call out the Chinese Embassy in Manila for talking to Philippine government officials without passing through the proper channel, which is the DFA.

Atin Ito sets sail anew

MEANWHILE, Atin Ito on Wednesday announced that it is gearing up for its second civilian mission, advocating an “active citizenship model”to safeguard the country’s territorial integrity. It said the second civilian mission would be its response to China’s claim that the Philippines has agreed to its “new model” agreement concerning parts of the WPS.

rate of i mpor ts of sem iconductor s, I

see it as an i nd icator of a probable

weakening of expor ts of elect ronics i n t he next qu a r ters,” for mer Ta ri ff

Comm i ssioner George N. Manzano

told BusinessMirror

T he ma i n cont ributor to t he i nc rease i n expor t ea r n i ngs was t he double-d ig it g rowt h i n t he shipments of elect ronic products at 13.4 percent, la rgely due to t he 15. 3 -percent g rowt h of sem iconductors. However, i n ter ms of i mpor ts, it posted a cont ract ion of 7.6 per -

cent i n t he f irst qu a r ter T hi s was la r gely d u e to t h e 11.7-pe r cent decl i ne i n elect ron ic product i mpor ts, spec i f ically, t he 17.5-percent cont r act i on i n sem i cond u cto r s.

“T h e elect r on i c i nd u st r y i s c h a racteri zed by an i nter nat ional product ion network, i.e. i n order to expor t, a f ir m mu st be able to i mpor t t he components. So, heavy i mpor ts of elect ron ic components can be an i nd icator of robu st elect ron ic expor ts i n t he f ut ure and v ice versa,” he expla i ned.

The“new model”has the approval of the Armed Forces chief of staff, Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. and Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, Chinese officials claim. Teodoro has strongly denied knowledge of any such agreement on a new model.

“No, it is not [valid],” Carpio said in a news conference of Atin Ito Coalition, the pioneering group behind the firstever civilian-led supply mission to the WPS in December 2023.

“The Wescom officer has no authority to commit because under our system of government, it is only the DFA who can negotiate and conclude treaties on behalf of the President,” Carpio said.

“What China is doing, they will just talk to everybody and say,‘Oh, the Phil-

At a news conference in Quezon City, Edicio dela Torre, president of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM) and co-convenor of Atin Ito, said the mission coincides with the farmers’ and fishermen’s month and the celebration of May as the month of Mary, revered by Catholic seamen as their guide and protector on the sea.

The mission, set on May 14-17, 2024, aims to conduct a “peace and solidarity regatta”within the Philippines’exclusive economic zone (EEZ), with symbolic markers-buoys bearing the message: “WPS, Atin Ito!” (WPS is ours!).

Among the expected participants include 200 fishermen, volunteers, foreign and local journalists, and observers. Joel R. San Juan

PRC holds drill for ‘The Big One’

By Roderick Abad @rodrik_28

IN j oi n i ng t he celeb r at ion of World Red C ross and Red C rescent (WRCRC) Day, t he Phi l ippi ne Red C ross (PRC) conducted on Wednesday a Mass Casu alty Inc idents (MCIs) si mu lat ion exerc i se i n prepa

held at its log i st ics mu lt ipur pose center was based on a mall t h at collapsed due to a 7.2 magn it ude ea r t hqu ake i n Ma ri k i na, w it h 32 casu alt ies resc ued by less t h an a hu nd red PRC volu nteers. Also si mu lated was t he a rrival of ambu lances f rom va ri

r -

gency tents were i nstalled at t he PRC Tower to accommodate injured v ict ims who need med ical attent ion and blood t ransf u sions. “Inuna namin ang  [We p riorit i zed] Ma ri k i na becau se t hi s i s on t he ea r t hqu ake fau lt l i ne,” PRC C h a ir man and C hief Exec ut ive Off icer (CEO) R ic h a rd Gordon told repor ters i n an i nter v iew prior to t he MCI si mu lat ion. “So t h e r e w i ll be b ui ld i ngs t here [t h at w i ll possibly collapse] and, t hen, t here may be seconda r y cau ses of emergenc ies or d i sasters after t he ea r t hqu ake, suc h as f ires, t r aff ic i ss ues, or ca r acc idents,” added PRC Sec reta r y General D r Gwendolyn Pang. Att u ned to t he WRCRC Day’s t heme “Keepi ng Hu man ity Al ive,” t he act iv ity st rengt hened f ur t her t h e o r gan i zat i on’s d i saste r and eme r gency r esponse capab i l i ty, coord i nat ion, and resi l ience w it h qu al ity ser v ices it prov ides. “In a t i me w h en we see so many d i saste r s and so many p r oblems i n t h e wo r ld and, espec i ally i n t h e Phi l i pp i nes, so many i ss u es u nfold i ng, it’s r eally i mpo r tant t h at yo u keep t h at mot i vat i on, t

VOLUNTEERS from the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) show

Marikina— seated on the major earth

uake fault line—during

Mass Casualty Incidents simulation

City. RODERICK L. ABAD

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Range: Php 30,000 - Php 59,999

ATOS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, INC. 5th Floor, 1880 Building, Eastwood Avenue, Eastwood City Cyberpark, Bagumbayan, Quezon City

18. NJI, XAVIER 1st Line Support Analyst/Engineer

Brief Job Description: Take and receive all customer calls in a professional and courteous manner as well as providing advice and support. Handle and reply incoming emails with timely manner each depending on accounts contractual SLA’s.

AVANTICE CORPORATION 19/f Pbcom Tower, Ayala Ave., Bel-air, City Of Makati

19. GOCHER, PRADEEP Client Delivery Executive Brief Job Description: Conduct and analyze market research.

BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM BUSINESS SERVICES PHILIPPINES, INC. 12th Floor Aeon Center, Filinvest Corporate City,

Basic Qualification: College graduate. With at least 3 years of workrelated experience in a similar industry.

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Basic Qualification: Must be native Malaysian, Taiwanese, Korean, Indian, Thai, Japanese, Indonesian, Singaporean, Vietnamese and Chinese. Fluent in English &

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Health& Fitness

Health advocates push for improved implementation of Nutrition Care Process

By Rizal Raoul S. Reyes Contributor

HEALTH advocates across public and private sectors re-

cently called for the improved implementation of the Nutrition Care Process (NCP), underscoring that access to proper nutrition is a basic human right and a potent tool to fight hunger.

Moreover, they also urged the government to craft a standardized approach utilized by registered nutritionist-dietitians (RNDs) and healthcare professionals to thoroughly evaluate, diagnose, treat, and monitor patients.

The forum, titled “Strengthening Nutrition Integration in the Health System: Evaluating the Nutrition Care Process in the Philippines,” gathered representatives from the Department of Health, the Board of Nutrition and Dietetics of the Professional Regulation Commission, as well as professionals from both public and private hospitals. Patients and advocates against malnutrition also participated in the event.

In a roundtable organized by international think tank Stratbase Institute and Universal Health Care (UHC) Watch at the Asian Institute of Management Conference Center, experts underscored the importance of nutritional care in accelerating a patient’s recovery and discharge from hospitals, emphasizing the adage “food is medicine.”

Fundamental human right DR. Jose Rodolfo Dimaano Jr., Co-Lead of

the Abbott Center for Malnutrition Solutions, underscored in the forum that nutrition is a fundamental human right, and universal access to nutritional interventions is a crucial component of addressing malnutrition.

“We believe that the Nutrition Care Process should be implemented properly and across the continuum of care. When I say continuum of care, I’m talking about when the person is not yet hospitalized. Let’s say the elderly person is still in the community. There should be preventive measures, education. Then once the patient gets admitted to the hospital, then that’s where it’s more critical to aggressively treat the patient through nutritional interventions. And post-discharge, there should be monitoring and still continuous care given to that patient,” Dimaano said.

“That’s why we believe that the NCP has a very, very big potential in giving quality of life for patients, and especially to those who are most vulnerable, especially the aging population,” he added.

Jorge Banal Sr., president of the Federation of Senior Citizens Association of the Philippines-National Capital Region, said “policies aimed at enhancing health outcomes for seniors are indeed of great importance,” considering that the elderly are often marginalized and underrepresented.

Rupert Paul Manhit, COO of the Stratbase Group, said a population’s nutritional status is critical in achieving economic security.

“Undernutrition negatively affects the physical health and cognitive development

of our country’s children, hindering their ability to effectively contribute to the nation’s long-term sustainable growth,” Manhit said.

Effective vs medical conditions

AGUEDO “TROY” GEPTE IV, a nutrition consultant and author of a policy paper commissioned by the Stratbase Institute to assess the integration of NCP within the Philippine healthcare framework, said the NCP has proven to be an effective method for treating various medical conditions.

“There is a high level of awareness and positive attitudes toward the NCP and NCP terminology. However, actual implementation varies and is influenced by several factors, both individual and contextual,” Gepte said.

Gepte identified several barriers to implementing the administrative order, including inadequate staffing, limited experience, and conflicts with existing hospital nutrition care systems. He also stressed the need for legislation to facilitate the universal implementation of NCP in all hospitals.

In 2019, the Department of Health issued Administrative Order No. 20190033, outlining the protocols for NCP. It mandates that upon admission, patients should undergo nutrition screening by registered nurses. Patients identified as requiring medical nutrition therapy are then referred by the physician to the RND for assessment.

Virgith Buena, Chairperson of the Board of Nutrition and Dietetics at the Profession-

TBy Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco

HE 2023 Philippine Statistics Authority report showed that cancer ranked as the second leading cause of mortality in 2022.

Meanwhile, the Global Cancer Observatory of the World Health Organization identified the leading sites that comprised the majority of new cancer cases in the Philippines in 2022, namely: breast, lung, colon, liver, prostate, and cervical cancers.  Cervical cancer, when detected early, is curable.

With this the Department of Health (DOH) in collaboration with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) supported by Jhpiego Philippines will launch the Organized Cancer Screening Services on May 10, 2024, at the DILG Central Office in Quezon City.

With the theme “Babae, Mahalaga Ka! Magpa-cancer screening, na!” the activity aims to raise awareness about cancer prevention, provide accessible screening services to eligible women, and emphasize the importance of workplace screening. It is specifically designed to address the needs of women in our communities.

The DOH said that cervical cancer is a type of cancer affecting the cervix. It is considered a preventable disease and is

AS part of its corporate social responsibility program, The Medical City (TMC) South Luzon staged the second edition and highly successful Friendship Golf Cup Tournament at the Ayala Greenfield Golf and Leisure Club in Calamba City on April 17, 2024. TMC South Luzon was able to achieve its objectives including fostering camaraderie between TMC South Luzon organization, patrons, industry and corporate partners, and friends, engaging with the local government unit through a

curable when detected early.

“However, it remains as the second most common type of cancer among Filipino women ages 15 to 44 years old,” the DOH said.

Symptoms PATIENTS don’t usually have any symptoms during the earlier stages of the disease, according to the DOH.

By the time the individual has symptoms, the cancer may have already spread. These symptoms include: Abnormal bleeding from the vagina: irregular bleeding, heavy menstrual bleeding, or bleeding /spotting after sex

Unpleasant vaginal discharge: whitish or blood-stained Pain during sexual intercourse

Other symptoms which may point to a more advanced cancer include: Pelvic pain

Difficulty urinating

Swelling of the legs

Screening for cervical cancer include having a Pap smear done every three years and /or an HPV test every five years.

The DOH reminded that screening should start at 30 years of age but may begin earlier especially for high risk individuals.

WBy Roderick L. Abad Contributor

ITH the continuous rise of the heat index, the City Government of Muntinlupa has taken a necessary step to ensure the health and well-being of its residents.

It has launched the “Libreng Inuming Tubig to Beat the Heat” campaign, providing free drinking water in public areas.

“We provide free drinking water to places with high foot traffic to help, especially commuters, drivers and workers, fight the  extreme heat this season and prevent heat stroke,” Mayor Ruffy Biazon said.

Beating the heat is free

THE local government unit of Muntinlupa has set up six distribution points equipped with mobile water dispensers in the following areas all over the city: Laguerta PNP, Plaza Central, Soldiers Hills Outpost, Alabang Central Market, Alabang Terminal, Upper Sucat Police Station.

To give more comfort to the constituents, ice is also provided by 1Munti

al Regulation Commission, stressed that nutritional diagnosis differs from a medical diagnosis as it involves identification and labeling of an existing nutrition problem by an RND, which may evolve over time.

Next steps

DR. Ricardo Adriano, a board member of the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines representing over 700 member hospitals nationwide, recognized the potential of legislation in tackling challenges related to NCP implementation. However, he said funding is needed.

Dr. Gabrielle Ann Dela Paz-Tolang, Chief of the Policy, Planning, and Program Development Division at the DOH Health Facility Development Bureau, highlighted that facilitating the NCP program would not only reduce hospitalization costs for patients, but it also has the potential to generate revenue for the hospital.

“We are now trying to shift the notion that it’s an expensive intervention. Rather, we want the hospital management, and the public sector or our leadership to realize it’s a good investment,” Dela Paz-Tolang said. Recommendations in Gepte’s policy paper include adoption of standardized nutrition screening tools, mandatory training for all professionals involved in nutrition care, augmented budget allocations, improved inter-professional communication, integration of the NCP into the Universal Health Care law, regular compliance audits, policy incentives for NCP implementation, and increased stakeholder engagement.

Party for those who prefer their drinking water cold. Trained personnel are present at each station to help citizens and ensure the quality of the water provided. Hygiene and safety protocols are strictly followed.

Residents are encouraged to take advantage of this initiative and stay hydrated during the sizzling summer days. They are guaranteed that the City Government of Muntinlupa remains dedicated to providing essential services that improve the quality of their lives.

FBy Rory Visco Contributor

OR most women, couples, and families, the news of pregnancy of a member of the family is almost always a welcome development.

Generally, the idea of another life coming into this world to add to the number of family members brings joy, excitement, anticipation. Many even think of creative ways to make a pregnancy a joyous and momentous occasion like the now-popular “gender reveal party.”

But while positive feelings may be elicited by a pregnancy, there is also a concomitant worry or fear that anxiety and nervousness while the child is inside the mother’s womb, that something may go wrong along the way.

Aside from miscarriage, there is also the idea of stillbirth or neonatal death, situations that can be utterly devastating for a mother, most especially, and even the family.

Stillbirth, miscarriage, neonatal death

THE Centers for Disease Control (CDC) defines stillbirth as the “death or loss of a baby before or even during delivery,” or the “loss of a baby at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy.” A miscarriage, on the other hand is described by the CDC as the “loss of a baby before the 20th week of pregnancy.” The agency said that stillbirth “affects one in 175 births, and each year about 21,000 babies are stillborn in the United States.”

Although the causes of stillbirths remain unknown, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) pointed to pregnancy and labor complications, placenta problems, fetal genetic problems, and infection, among others, as among the most possible causes of stillbirth in the United States.

According to the CDC, there are various classifications of stillbirths. One is “early stillbirth,” which happens between 20 and 27 completed weeks of pregnancy; “late stillbirth” or those that happen between 28 and 36 weeks; and “term stillbirth” for those pregnancies that have completed 37 or more pregnancy weeks.

As for neonatal deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that in 2022, 2.3 million children died during the first 20 days of life, and globally 2.3 million children died in the first 20 days of life that same year. There are approximately 6,500 newborn deaths every day, amounting to 47 percent of all child deaths under the age of 5 years. Most neonatal deaths, or about 75 percent of them, happen during the first week of life, while around one million newborns die within the first 24 hours. Among the leading cause of neonatal deaths include premature birth and birth complications like birth asphyxia or trauma, neonatal infections and congenital anomalies that collectively account for almost four in every 10 deaths in children under five years of age.

In the Philippines, the 2021 World Health Organization country key indicators showed that the Philippines has a stillbirth rate of 10.17 per 1,000 births, and a neonatal mortality rate of 12.28 (0-27 completed days of life) per 1,000 births. Moreover, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said through an article published early last year that the country posted an annual record of more than 25,000 stillborn babies.

Nursing and Psychology

WHILE there are no existing policies yet in the Philippines in terms of bereavement care for mothers who experienced stillbirth and neonatal deaths, a groundbreaking research study, the first in the Philippines, will see the collaboration between two disciplines, namely, nursing and psychology, in looking at the social determinants of stillbirth and neonatal deaths to parents.

The Far Eastern University (FEU), one of the country’s premier learning institutions, will take the lead in this first research on stillbirth and neonatal deaths in the country. Called “COntinuing care in COVID-19 Outbreak: A global survey of new expectant and bereaved parent experiences (COCOON),” this research initiative is led by FEU since the Philippines is one of the contributing countries.

“COCOON Philippines is a collaborative project between FEU and the University of Q ueensland, a global project conducted in different countries. We are also collaborating with Mater Research Institute, King’s College London, and International Stillbirth Alliance,” according to Dr. Joemer Maravilla, supervising coordinator of COCOON and adjunct faculty of the FEU Nursing Department.

Through its University Research Assistance Grant (URAG), a universitywide research time and financial assistance to FEU academic researchers, FEU will fund COCOON Philippines until 2026, which is headed by Asst. Prof. Joycelyn Abiog Filoteo of the Nursing Department as principal investigator, together with project co-head Dr. Ana Nelia Lopez Jumamil of the Psychology Department.

No specific projects

MARAVILLA pointed out that the Philippine government has no specific projects yet with regard to bereavement care for mothers who lost a child either through stillbirth or neonatal death. Thus, this puts COCOON Philippines at the lead in gaining access and understanding what bereaved parents went through in the loss of their child, their issues, concerns, and other experiences, and be able to come up and develop suitable support services.

“The focus of the country, at the moment, is to help mothers with safe deliveries but in cases of loss, we have no guidelines or in-depth data on it in the Philippines. We know there are cases of stillbirth and neonatal losses, but we do not know the solutions, the coping strategies we can introduce to help the grieving parents. And that is one of the expected outcomes of our study,” Maravilla explains.

COCOON Philippines targets to talk to 1,100 pregnant women, women who experienced stillbirth and neonatal death, and their partners, and will receive P250 as a token of thanks for their participation. Data will be collected using both a mixed self-administered online survey and face-to-face survey in the National Capital Region and Region IV-A (CALABARZON).

COCOON Philippines already has an official Facebook ( https:// www.facebook.com/cocoon.pinas) page for those who want to join this global initiative to improve women’s health and bereavement services. Since the study is quite sensitive, links to the online survey will not be released publicly and will only be given to the successfully screened participants.

Editor: Anne Ruth Dela Cruz

Parentlife BusinessMirror

Happy summer learning grade-school edition

LAST week, I shared summer learning focus on our grade-school kids who are in

remember seeing my son a bit hesitant to go to school

was coloring or drawing, so I would wake him up 15 minutes earlier so he would have these minutes to I was aware of the transition our preschoolers were full day schedule. There will also be more interaction with classmates and teachers. Since there were more subjects, I was concerned my child might not be

fun in what they were learning, so they would listen well, rather than being forced the teacher to focus out of fear.

So during the start of the summer headed to grade school, I focused on equipping my children with these 1. Socio-emotional skills. During summer, I would bring my children to work a lot, where they get to interact with a lot of adults. I arranged more and longer play dates where I saw them have fun but also

was great to not intervene and let them work out the issues for themselves. When we would go to the mall, I would guide them to say, “ate” or “kuya” to the servers or store attendants and order their food, as well as say,

I had a conversation with both kids a few weeks before starting grade school that they were “small play a big role in how they would live their adult

do well in high school and have a better chance of entering a good university. It might seem a lot for a accountability in their future actions in school. My son was never in the honor roll in preschool. I was surprised that he suddenly became an honor student

2. Intrinsic curiosity for information. I always believed that this curiosity built the foundations for

we travel, I focused on zoos, aquariums and science museums. I treated every car ride as a chance for them to learn something new about what they saw ask me questions, then we would Google the answer and a magnetic drawing board in the car, we would also enjoy making up stories together or even do basic math on the car window.

3. Enjoyment in communication. Communication is one of issues that parents are

it is good to have a separate “alone-time” with each of your child. No gadgets. No shopping. Just a good meal and fun activities my child gets to pick. They are being it best to have that one time a week when they get

to decide. I would let them decide on the restaurant then let them bring their favorite game, puzzle or art

Some of the summer activities I suggest for grade schoolers are:

1. Summer “steam”: S.T.E.A.M. is Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math. It is good matters in a play-based manner before they learn it in the classroom. This fosters familiarity and less math you can start playing Mathlinks blocks with

2. Summer buidling good habits: Continuing to play with their pretend-play toys, then connecting them with child to learn good habits early can use your Melissa & Doug Salad Set and Food Groups to start teaching your child how to have a balanced diet. Then also plan their daily menu, and even prepare these meals with them starting this summer.

3. Summer sports: Starting

summer. According to the Mayo overall health and your sense of well-being, which puts more pep in your step every day. But

up your endorphins.” I also see way to reduce screen time.

Rakuten Viber, Share Treats join forces to deliver unique gifting experience in PHL

A GLOBAL leader in private and secure messaging and voice-based communication and a leading chat app in the Philippines, Rakuten Viber has partnered with Korean online-to-offline casual mobile commerce company Share Treats to introduce the first-of-its-kind gifting experience in South East Asia with “Treats on Rakuten Viber”. Filipinos can now greet and treat the special people in their lives directly in the Rakuten Viber app, as well as request gifts for any occasion, be it a birthday, a regular fine day, or an upcoming holiday like Mother’s Day.

Thanks to their partnership with Rakuten Viber, Share Treats has become the first company to introduce the gifticon technology (a combination of “gift” and “icon”) in the Philippines. With this technology, which originated in South Korea, online gift-giving is as easy as sending a message—and comes with a plethora of options to suit every taste and budget.

With Treats on Rakuten Viber, users can now send online gift cards to their friends and family: from beloved food chains, like Jollibee, Dunkin’, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Auntie Anne’s, The Bistro Group and McDonald’s—to essential staples like the convenience store giant 7-Eleven and trusted pharmacy Mercury Drug. They can also share online gift passes for shopping destinations, such as The SM Store and Lazada, or services, like the FoodPanda food delivery and motorcycle taxi app Angkas. They can even give vouchers for e-wallets such as GCash and Maya, or gift codes for GrabGifts.

To start giving and getting gifts, users need to subscribe to the Treats on Rakuten Viber chatbot, or look for it via the app’s search function. They can also subscribe to the bot simply by clicking “Send Birthday Treat” in the one-to-one chat when they see a birthday notification for a person in their contacts. Once subscribed, users can pick a brand and a specific treat. They can proceed to payment through options like GCash, Maya and GrabPay. After payment, users can select a Rakuten Viber friend and send the treat. Similarly, to request a treat, users can simply choose a brand, or an item from the brand, and then click “Request” and send it to any contact. As Mother’s Day approaches, Share Treats and Rakuten Viber provide a way to express love and gratitude to mothers—and a variety of options to make the day truly special. Users can now send heartfelt gifts with just a few taps on their smartphones, seamlessly and regardless of distance. Soon, users will be able to create and see their contacts’ WishLists to make the gifting experience even easier.

“It is a significant milestone in digital gifting that allows Filipinos to send greetings with treats, while prioritizing ease of use, security and efficiency,” says Hong Bae Lee, CEO and president of Share Treats Innovation. “Rakuten Viber already has millions of Filipino users who are relying on this superapp to stay connected with their loved ones. It’s an essential part of everyday conversations. Adding the Share Treats experience to the app allows them to give gifts as easily as sending a message.”

What you eat could alter your unborn children and grandchildren’s genes and health outcomes

University of North Dakota

of genetics has undergone a profound transformation. Genes, regions of DNA that are largely responsible for our physical characteristics, were considered unchanging under the original model of genetics pioneered by biologist Gregor Mendel in 1865. That

shattered this notion.

occur without changes to the DNA sequence. Some epigenetic changes are an aspect of cell function, such as those associated with aging.

their genetics.

For instance, identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg, and as a result, they share the same genetic makeup.

One twin may eat a healthy balanced diet, whereas

the other may eat an unhealthy diet, resulting in a role in obesity, helping the former twin have lower body fat percentage.

factors, such as air quality. Other factors, though, are that coming from plastics, pesticides and burning

Another factor is nutrition, which has given rise to is concerned with the notions that “you are what you eat”—and “you are what your grandmother ate.” In short, nutritional epigenetics is the study of how your diet, and the diet of your parents and grandparents,

children, epigenetics may provide motivation for making better dietary choices.

studies how diet and lifestyle choices can help keep people healthy.

Our research team is comprised of fathers, so intimate familiarity with the transformative power of

parenthood.

diets have on their children and grandchildren. They also serve as a powerful motivator for would-be parents and current parents to make more healthy dietary choices, as the dietary choices parents make

Meeting with a nutrition professional, such as a registered dietitian, can provide evidence-based recommendations for making practical dietary changes for individuals and families. There are still many unknowns about how diet starting to show about nutritional epigenetics is a powerful and compelling reason to consider making lifestyle changes.

There are many things researchers already know about the Western Diet, which is what many Americans eat. A Western Diet is high in saturated surprisingly, Western diets are associated with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

A good place to start is to eat more whole, unprocessed foods, particularly fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and fewer processed or convenience

foods—that includes fast food, chips, cookies and candy, ready-to-cook meals, frozen pizzas, canned soups and sweetened beverages. These dietary changes are well known for their

change, particularly when it involves food. Motivation is a key factor for making these changes. Luckily, this

governments, food producers and distributors, and with epigenetic changes that have been linked to negative health outcomes such as diabetes, obesity and depression.

genes of their children and grandchildren. So when you pass up a bag a chips—and choose fruit or a veggie generations to come. THE CONVERSATION

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos

GEORGE OPTICAL OPENS FIRST ZEISS VISION CENTER IN THE COUNTRY

VIPs

GEORGE OPTICAL, the country’s premier eye care provider trusted by Filipinos for more than six decades, raises the bar anew with the launch of the first ZEISS VISION CENTER at the Ground Floor of Greenhills Mall in San Juan City. Done in partnership with ZEISS Vision Care, a German company with over 100 years of experience as a pioneer in lens technology and state-of-the-art refraction coupled with a comprehensive portfolio of customizable lenses, the ZEISS VISION CENTER BY GEORGE will set a new perspective on excellent vision. Its mission is to create a new and elevated in-store shopping experience that includes precise vision analysis, in-depth lens consultation and a selection of perfectly fitting lenses and frames.

“We are always hungry to offer nothing but the best in terms of eye care for our customers hence this collaboration

with ZEISS. Leveraging the proven reputation and expertise of ZEISS in the field of optics, George Optical is able to deliver advanced solutions for any visual challenge,” said Dr. Geoffrey Co, CEO of George Optical, Inc.

Esteemed guests during the launch were impressed by the store’s well-appointed interiors and marveled at the different cuttingedge ZEISS optical instruments on display. Some of them even signed up for the unique “My Vision Experience by ZEISS” which is how ZEISS VISION CENTER BY GEORGE professionally organizes every touch point of the eye care journey.

The first step in the process is Vision Needs Analysis where the ZEISS eye care professional asks the customer about his or her daily routines to determine which glasses will suit his or her lifestyle. Next is the Precise Eye Profile that makes use

Paco Park presents ‘Mayo, Bisperas ng Liwanag’

IN celebration of National Heritage Month, Paco Park hosts “Mayo, Bisperas ng Liwanag,” a musical adaptation in Filipino of National Artist Nick Joaquin’s beloved short story “May Day Eve”. Scheduled on 24 May 2024 (Friday), the show starts at 6:00 PM at the St. Pancratius Chapel in Paco Park. The adaptation features the libretto of National Artist Fides Cuyugan-Asensio and music by Professor Rey T. Paguio. The production, directed by Alegria Ferrer, a multi-awardwinning performer and a current faculty member of the University of the Philippines College of Music, brings forth, according to Ferrer, “the neoromantic composition of Paguio and the lyricism of Cuyugan-Asensio.”

of the ZEISS i. Profiler that creates a map of the eye using wavefront technology. The third step is the Eye Health Check where the doctor checks the health of the customer’s eyes and documents the results of the eye pressure, quality of the ocular tear film or the condition of the cornea.

Next is the Vision Performance Analysis where the customer undergoes eye refraction using a contactless instrument. It is followed by Frame Selection with the help of the ZEISS VISUFIT 1000 Platform that virtually places frames on the customer’s avatar and get accurate measurements for precise lens customization. The system suggests a selection of frames suited to the customer taking into account the shape of the head, hair color, facial skin tone, and frame preferences previously entered. Step six is fitting of glasses to ensure the eyeglasses align with all the parameters and promote a perfect fit.

Next up is lens consultation and selection where the optical consultants discuss the most suitable lenses for your lifestyle. Step number eight is collection of glasses which gives them the opportunity to adjust the glasses to properly fit the customer’s face. And the ninth and final step is Service and Follow Up where advice and support continues even after purchase.

“I would like to personally invite everyone to come visit our flagship store and experience above standard eye care. We are committed to providing you with comprehensive eye care solutions, top-quality products, and advanced lenses that cater to your unique visual needs. Come and experience unparalleled eye care services like never before.” said Ms. Menchie Castillo, Chief Merchandising Officer.

For more information about ZEISS VISION CENTER BY GEORGE, visit its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ zeissvisioncenter.sanjuan.greenhills or its Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/ zeissvisioncenter_greenhills

to celebrate National Heritage Month

It is a production that tells the story of romantic love and longing, but also of dedicated nationalism, as Ferrer details the contrast between the two main characters, Badong and Agueda, and the motivations that spur them to emotion and action.

With thematic elements of magical realism being prominent in Nick Joaquin’s original story of “May Day Eve,” Ferrer states that “Magical realism in my production of Mayo, Bisperas ng Liwanag is all in the mind. What can be more magical than the images from one’s mind?” She further highlights the invitation or challenge of the musical, and how it would “ask the audience to have a critical mind and open acceptance,” according to Ferrer, given her own interpretation and direction of the piece.

Join us this May 24, 2024 for an unforgettable evening at Paco Park, as we celebrate the magic of “Paco Park Presents: Mayo, Bisperas ng Liwanag.”

Brought to you by the Department of Tourism and National Parks Development Committee, in cooperation with SX Manila, admission is free and open to the public.

upgrades to the current FPV drone model.

Known for their dedication to innovation, DJI consistently pushes the limits of what drones can do. Offering a diverse range of drones to suit various needs, DJI has made aerial imaging accessible to everyone, revolutionizing fields like filmmaking, agriculture, and search and rescue. Offering new aerial experiences though FPV drones, DJI

introduces the Avata 2. Boasting an all thrills, no frills experience, users are presented with a safer, fully immersive enhanced FPV flight experience, an upgraded sensor to improve image quality and increased flight time. The Avata 2, paired with the Goggles 3 and the RC Motion 3, also features new Real View PiP, AR Cursor, and Wi-Fi Screen Sharing, 1/1.3-inch image sensor and 4K/60fps HDR video capabilities, a maximum flight time of 23 minutes, and supports PD fast charging, which can recharge the battery up to 80% in just 18 minutes that ensures all users to have an extraordinary flight experience.

The Avata 2 can be ordered and purchased at all DJI authorized retail stores and at DJI Experience Stores in SM Aura, SM Mall of Asia, SM Megamall, SM North EDSA, SM Seaside Cebu, SM Palawan, and One Ayala. They can also be purchased online via Tiktok Shop (@djiphilippines), Shopee (https:// shopee.ph/djiphilippines/) and Lazada (https:// www.lazada.com.ph/shop/dji-official-store/).

Priced at P47,900 for the Avata 2 single battery, and P55,900 for the Avata 2 three battery in the Philippines, the DJI Avata 2 is set to redefine the aerial experience for drone users at an affordable price.

For more information you may visit https:// www.dji.com/, Facebook: facebook.com/djiofficial, Instagram: @dji.philippines or Tiktok: @djiphilippines

Paranaque Business Club’s Members’ Date Night a Resounding Success with Mary Grace owner

THE Paranaque Business Club announced the overwhelming success of its inaugural Members’Date Night, held at the Palms Country Club Filinvest on April 26, 2024. This landmark event highlighted the club’s ongoing dedication to fostering a robust community of entrepreneurs and business leaders.

The evening’s program featured a compelling keynote address by Mary Grace Dimacali, the visionary founder of Mary Grace Foods, which underscored the club’s commitment to celebrating and nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit in Paranaque.

The event drew a spirited crowd of business leaders and emerging entrepreneurs eager to gain insight from Dimacali’s transformative journey from a passionate baker to a powerhouse in the food industry with 140 nationwide outlets. Her heartwarming 30-minute narrative detailed Mary Grace Cafe’s ascent from its first bazaar in 1994 to its status as a beloved national brand, emphasizing resilience, quality, and authenticity as the cornerstones of her success.

The audience was deeply engaged by Dimacali’s open and honest discussion of the challenges and victories she encountered in building a business synonymous with outstanding quality and heartfelt customer service. Her success story, bolstered by familial support and a strong spiritual foundation, provided attendees with profound lessons in perseverance and brand integrity.

The event also served as a dynamic forum for both seasoned and novice members to forge valuable connections and showcase their ventures.

The induction of nearly 20 new members, who had the opportunity to introduce their businesses, was a testament to the club’s expanding influence and collaborative ethos.

Don Munoz, President of the Paranaque Business Club, expressed his delight with the turnout and the positive impact of the event, remarking, “The enthusiasm and feedback from our members affirm the immense benefits of these gatherings, which strengthen community bonds and inspire entrepreneurial pursuits.” He further elaborated on the club’s strategic vision aimed at fostering growth, collaboration, and a lasting community impact.

Established in June 2015, the Paranaque Business Club has become a pivotal force for local

entrepreneurs in Paranaque City. The Club provides a robust platform for its members, offering a diverse array of opportunities that include networking events, educational seminars, and workshops, all designed to foster professional growth and business cooperation. Beyond business development, the Club is deeply committed to social responsibility. It actively engages in community service, organizing impactful initiatives such as medical missions and charitable drives that benefit the underprivileged sectors of the community. These efforts reflect the Club’s core belief in the power of businesses to effect positive change.

The Paranaque Business Club extends a warm invitation to business owners and entrepreneurs who are eager to contribute to and benefit from a dynamic network that champions both commercial success and community impact. Join us in shaping a legacy of prosperity and generosity in Paranaque City.

For membership inquiries or more information, please contact: Sharon Fong at Phone: 0917 8476789 or Diane Ramos at Phone: 0917 8346877. Visit our Facebook page for the latest updates and upcoming events.

BINGOPLUS, y our comprehensive entertainment platform in the country and provider of your favorite online tongits, bingo and perya games, serves a fun-filled and truly entertaining experience for the most-awaited and prestigious pageant in the country, the Miss Universe Philippines (MUPH).

Since its establishment, BingoPlus has been known to support making the national and local pageant scenes in the country more enjoyable.

This year, the brand forged a bond with Empireph Holdings Inc. to bring an exciting and thrilling MUPH experience to both the candidates and their supporters.

To welcome this venture, the brand hosted an exclusive press conference attended by a diverse cast of 44 delegates from different parts of the country and overseas Filipino communities last April 12 and 13, 2024 at the Limapark Hotel and Batangas Lakelands, Batangas City.

During the event, the queens shared their growing friendship and sisterhood in the competition, which empowered and enabled them to build camaraderie and good relationships even beyond the competition.

Among the notable pageant veterans are Ahtisa Manalo from Q uezon Province, Christi Lynn

McGarry from Taguig City, Kris Tiffany Janson from Cebu, Stacey Gabriel from Cainta, Selena Antonio-Reyes from Pasig City, and Victoria Velasquez Vincent from Bacoor City. Joining them are national pageant newbies Alexie Mae Brooks from Iloilo City, Tarah Valencia from Baguio City, Rethiana Rosa from Camiguin, and Kayla Jean Carter from the Filipino community in Northern California. BingoPlus will make this year’s MUPH more exciting by launching its online voting campaign soon that will give the top-most-voted queen an express ticket to

grace the opening of the flagship store. In the photo are, from left, Dr. Grace Tan (shareholder), Dr. Kevin Tan (Ophthalmologist), Irene See (Vice President), Vincent Mathieu (Head of Asia-C ZEISS Vision Care SBU), Dr. Geoffrey Co (President), Dr. Jessalynn Co (Head of Professional Affairs-ZEISS PH), Ven Raman (Managing Director of ZEISS Group, Southeast Asia), Belen Co (Co-founder and Chairman-George Optical), Dr. Elizabeth Cua (Shareholder), San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora (Mayor of San Juan City), Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (Chairman and CEO of Ayala Corporation), and Dr. George Co, Jr. (Shareholder-George Optical)

Enormous crowd expected in Game 1 of All-Filipino finals

CHOCO MUCHO finds itself as the slight favorite against multi-titled Creamline when the two teams clash in Game 1 of their race-to-two Finals series in the Premier Volleyball League All-Filipino Conference on Thursday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

It’s quite an unfamiliar scenario for the Flying Titans, whose remarkable sweep of the semifinal round sans three key players put them a notch on top of their sister team.

“Despite our limitations, reaching the finals feels incredibly gratifying.

It’s a testament to the hard work

we’ve put in,” said Choco Mucho coach Dante Alinsunurin, credited with crafting a championship-caliber system that has unified his players towards a common goal.

All eyes will naturally gravitate around the explosive talents of Choco Mucho’s Sisi Rondina and Creamline’s Tots Carlos, but the performances of the supporting cast and bench players will be equally crucial in the showdown.

Game 1 is set at 6 p.m. with a sellout crowd expected at the Big Dome.

Petro Gazz and Chery Tiggo also start their own series for the bronze medal at 4 p.m.

For Alinsunurin, motivation isn’t a concern as his Flying Titans are driven by an insatiable hunger for championship glory—a desire expressed by key players

Royse Tubino, Isa Molde, Maddie Madayag, Cherry Nunag and playmaker Mars Alba.

“Our edge perhaps lies in our hunger. Choco Mucho is truly hungry to reach the finals or clinch the championship,” Alinsunurin said. “This is what the players and us coaches have long been waiting for—to achieve this.”

Yet, overcoming a team as steeped in championship experience as Creamline will require more than just hunger with the defending champions relish the opportunity to etch their names in history with a third consecutive All-Filipino Conference title and an eighth overall championship.

Creamline coach Sherwin Meneses—armed with talents Jema Galanza, Alyssa Valdez, Pangs Panaga, Michele Gumabao and setter Kyle Negrito—emphasized the team’s focus on adapting to every situation.

“Our approach remains consistent—we tackle each point as it comes, prepared for any scenario,” Meneses said. “The unpredictability of the game keeps us on our toes, and that’s where we focus our training.”

Fantastic celebration as torch arrives in Paris

The welcoming ceremony will include a demonstration by the jets of the Patrouille de France, the acrobatic team of the French air force.

“As a former athlete, I know how important the start of a competition is. That is why we chose Marseille, because it’s definitely one of the cities most in love with sports,” said Estanguet, a former Olympic canoeing star with gold medals from the 2000, 2004 and 2012 Games.

TOKYO Olympian Kurt Bryan Barbosa and Asian Games bronze medalist Patrick King Perez will banner the Smart /MVPSF Philippine team that will see action in the 2024 Asian Taekwondo Championships set May 11 to 20 in Da Nang, Vietnam.

The Philippine Taekwondo Association (PTA) said Barbosa, Perez and company will be up against the world beaters from 34 other countries that include South Korea, Iran, Jordan, Chinese Taipei, China, Cambodia and Iraq.

PTA officials are confident the team members are capable of producing positive results owing to their long and rigid training through the support of the Philippine Olympic Committee and Philippine Sports Commission.

The other members of the Kyorugi (Free Sparring) squad are Kent John Ilde Banzon (-54kg),  Legolas Penaredondo (-63kg), Sturdy Jay Gilbuena (-68kg), Dave Cea (74kg) and Justin Mark Agno (-80kg).

Smart/MVPSF taekwondo jins vie in Asian tourney

The women’s team is composed of Clarence Sarza (-46kg), Tachiana Keizha Mangin (-49kg),Baby Jessica Canabal (-53kg), Merica Lillyn Chan (-57kg), Jubilee Briones (-62kg) and Laila Delo (-67kg). Competing in Poomsae (Forms) are Rodolfo Reyes Jr., Ian Matthew Corton, Patrick King Perez, King Nash Alcairo, Darius Venerable, Justin Kobe Macario, June Ninobla, Ernesto Guzman Jr. in the men’s side and Jocel Lyn Ninobla, Juvenile Crisostomo, Janna Dominique Oliva, Stella Nicole Yape, Zyka Angelica Santiago, Sofia Ysabelle Sarmiento,  Maria Nicole Anne Labayne, Aidaine Krishia Laxa in the women’s team.

The event will serve as the team’s

MEMBERS of the Smart/MVPSF Philippine team pose during a recent practice session at the association headquarters inside the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Manila.

tune-up for the upcoming 2024 Chuncheon Korea Open Taekwondo Championships, Daegu World University Taekwondo Festival, Asian Indoor Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) and World Poomsae Taekwondo Championships.   Allain Keanu Ganapin (-80kg) Nino Vince Requioma (-58kg) will see action in Para. The coaching staff are Carlos Jose Padilla V and Christian Al Dela Cruz (Kyorugi), Rani Ann Ortega, Jeordan Dominguez ( Poomsae), Gershon Bautista and Janneth Tenorio ( Para).

MOlympic swimmer Florent Manaudou has been chosen to be the first carrier of the flame in France. Manaudou won four Olympic medals and he’s the brother of swimmer Laure Manaudou, who won three Olympic medals at Athens in 2004.

“We are extremely proud,” Marseille mayor Benoît Payan said. “This is where it all begins.”

B8 THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2024

mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph

Editor: Jun Lomibao

The show will “dazzle the world,” said Payan, adding that up to 150,000 spectators are expected in the Old Port.

Marseille people “have a sense of celebration, a sense of the game, sport and Olympism in their guts,” he said, recalling that the city was founded by Greek colonists some 2,600 years ago. Payan said all efforts have been made to ensure security underwater, at sea, in the air and on the ground.

Heavy police and military presence was seen patrolling Marseille’s city center Tuesday, as a military helicopter flew over the Old Port, where a wide range of barriers have been set up.

“There are various security threats that weigh on this event,” the biggest being “the terrorist threat,” French Interior Ministry spokesperson Camille Chaize said.

“We’re employing various measures, notably the elite National Gendarmerie Intervention Group unit, which will be present in the torch relay from beginning to end,” she said.

The torch relay will start Thursday in Marseille,

ARSEILLE, France—Paris Games organizers have promised “fantastic” celebrations as the arrival of a majestic ship carrying the Olympic torch from Greece is expected to draw a huge crowd Wednesday in the southern French city Marseille, where the Old Port has been placed under high security.

Paris 2024 Olympics Organizing Committee President Tony Estanguet expressed his emotion at

More than a thousand boats will accompany the Belem’s parade around the Bay of Marseille. The ship will then dock on a pontoon that looks like an athletics track in the Old Port.

Ubas runs away with long jump gold in national championships

By Josef Ramos

ARIS Olympics hopeful Janry Ubas claimed the men’s long jump gold medal with relative ease at the start of the Philippine Athletics Championships 2024 on Wednesday at the PhilSports Sports Complex oval in Pasig City.

The 30-year-old Ubas, the undisputed in Southeast Asian Games king, leapt 7.83 meters jump to highlight opening day action under a scorching sun hot in the championships organized by Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association headed by Terry Capistrano.

“The weather was hot, but I need to perform well,” Ubas said. “I’m satisfied because we met the desire 7.80 meters to get qualifying points for the Paris.” Ubas is piling up qualification points in an effort to join an already 12-member Team Philippines to the Olympics in July—he also needs to

fans now have a day to celebrate most popular sport-May 25

clear the Paris standard of 8.27 meters.

“I really need to compete in more competitions abroad to qualify,” he said. He’s bound for the Mitchitaka Kinami Memorial in Osaka on Sunday.

Kent Francis Jardin of Adamson University clinched silver with 7.39 meters and Algin Gomez of Mapua University settling for bronze with 7.20 meters in the 34-athlete event. Yacine Guermali, meanwhile, easily won the men’s 5,000 meters in 14 minutes and 18.33 seconds, beating fellow American Sonny Wagdos (14:54.86) and Cebuano Noli Torres (15:05.00).

Adamson University’s Elizabeth Sicat captured gold in the women’s under-20 javelin throw with 33.35 meters, while 2023 SEA Games silver medalist Gennah Malapit bagged silver with 33.08 and Adamson University’s Irene Joy Veloso grabbed bronze with 32.86.

Eight-time SEA Games gold medalist Eric Cray will also target a ticket to Paris as he eyes the Olympic 400m hurdles qualifying standard of 48.7 seconds in the competition.

14-leg junior golf series gets going in Splendido Taal

THE Junior Philippine Golf Tour (JPGT) is set to ignite the passion and skills of young golfers in three age categories through a challenging 14-leg circuit beginning May 14 at Splendido Taal Golf Club in Laurel, Batangas.

The tour, featuring 18hole competitions, is managed independently under the Pilipinas Golf Tournaments Inc.

The JPGT aims to cultivate players’ development and aid them in reaching their golfing aspirations. It also strives to nurture the next generation of international representatives for the Philippines, akin to renowned players like Bianca Pagdanganan and Dottie Ardina, among others. Distinct and free from affiliation with the existing junior golf organizations, the JPGT fosters a collaborative environment, ensuring minimal scheduling conflicts and maximizing opportunities for young players to flourish.

posi-

tion” in the world of sports, El-Sonni said, “football serves as a universal language spoken across the globe, cutting across national, cultural and socio-economic barriers.” He said the game has become “a pivotal platform” championing gender equality and social inclusion, “a common ground where individuals from varying backgrounds converge, promoting mutual understanding, tolerance, respect and solidarity.” AP

rungs inside the quota of 40 in men’s 400 hurdles for Paris.

“It feels great,I haven’t competed in the nationals since Covid,” said Cray, who sits at No. 38 in the world, two rungs inside the qualification quota of

JANRY UBAS remains hopeful for a ticket to Paris.

Open to all youngsters within three age brackets, the tournament structure varies based on age. Players aged 15-18 engage in four-round clashes, while those in the 8-10 and 11-14 divisions compete in 36-hole and 54-hole tournaments, respectively.

The event boasts a stellar lineup featuring talents like Javie Bautista, Mona Sarines and siblings Lisa and Vito, Tiffany Bernardino, Jacob Casuga and Angelica Bañez, all anticipating the circuit’s challenges, particularly praising the 18-hole format.

This year’s JPGT follows the triumphant debut of the circuit last year, spearheaded by golf patron Ricky Razon, the chairman and CEO of ICTSI. The inaugural event showcased an exhilarating 18-hole tournament, alongside a drive-chip-and putt competition, designed to honing the holistic skills of young players and fueling their passion for the sport.

From Splendido, the tour journeys north to the Pradera Verde leg in Lubao, Pampanga, and then to the Pinewoods Golf Club in Baguio. Venturing to the Visayas, Sta. Barbara, Iloilo, Bacolod Country Club and Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club will stage the next three legs before returning to Luzon for the Mount Malarayat tournament in Lipa City, Batangas.

CHOCO MUCHO’S Sisi Rondina and Creamline’s Jemah Galanza lead their respective teams in a highly-anticipated championship showdown.