CDRRMO to conduct reorientation on earthquakes in Davao City’s schools

Davao City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO) head Alfredo Baloran said on Friday that they will be conducting earthquake reorientation in schools in Davao City in coordination with the Department of Education 11 (DepEd 11).

This is after 28 students in three schools in Davao City reportedly fell ill due to the series of earthquakes in Davao de Oro that affected Davao City on March 7, 2023. The students fainted and experienced difficulty in breathing.

“Mao na ang effect kung mag rattle sila. Katong mga eskwelahan nga naay mga estudyante nga naay difficulty of breathing nag coordinate dayon ko sa DepEd nangayo ko ug schedule sa ilaha nga mag reorient mi aning ma eskwelahan kay basin si teacher ang nag una una ug kahadlok. Kung mag rattle si teacher pati mga estudynate mag rattle during sa ground shaking,” Ba-

“This year may naka plano na dalawang satellite offices at sa mga susunod na taon baka mas dumami pa yan,” he said over Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR) on Friday.

The satellite offices are stra-

The OVP satellite offices cater to medical and burial assistance, libreng sakay, rice box

Rigo also commended the personnel from DOLE 11, Social Security System (SSS), Philhealth, Pag-IBIG Fund, and Department of Education 11 (DepEd) for gracing the activity intended for the FOVP, 7

400 trike drivers in DavOcc receive accident insurance

At least 400 tricycle drivers in Davao Occidental received accident insurance cards facilitated by the Drivers United for Mass Progress and Equal Rights – Philippines Taxi Drivers Association (Dumper PTDA) Partylist and Cocolife Insurance Company on Friday.

In an interview, Pacifico Paolo Argel, Cocolife senior assistant manager, said the recipients are members of Dumper PTDA.

“We offer P10,000 accident insurance to the drivers in case they figure in an accident,” he said.

The coverage is 24 hours daily, on and off the job, and will be automatically terminated when the beneficiary reached 70 years old.

Dumper PTDA partylist Rep.

F400 TRIKE, P7 dili kani tinuod. Para ang usa ka tao mamahimung epektibo nga kasambahay, daghan siya ug i- sakripisyo labi na ang iyang kaugalingong pamilya nga mamahimong dili niya maka uban sa kanunay. Ug kung malason pa gyud,mamahimu pa nga maka-experience ug pagpangabuso ang atong mga kasambahay. Busa sakto lang nga tagaan ug pag tagad ug ihanyag ang tagsa tagsa ka mga prebilihiyo ug katungod alang kanila.”

Consultant

According to John Mearsheimer, the concept of global justice does not exist in international relations. The global political order has never been governed by any standard of justice. Political realism means that way. The Great Powers dominate the world on the basis of their military might and technological superiority. The brutal reality is that there is an imbalance in political power, and as a result, millions have been displaced in major conflicts and thousands of lives have been sacrificed because of military actions and political positioning by dominant states, all because the Great Powers compete for hegemony. This has been the case since the Roman Empire. Rome was all about power and with it, controlling the world.

The reality of power is a puzzle to many. Stephen Walt explains that “the Great Powers act in terrible ways.” Political realism teaches that

The Biggest Dilemma For The West Is How To Stop Putin

states will only cooperate with other states if there is some mutual advantage. Walt argues that when it comes to powerful states, “the idea that others must threaten them in the future makes them worry about their security and lead them to compete for power.” Put into context, the background to Russia’s war in Ukraine started in a 2008 Conference in which the trans-Atlantic alliance appears to welcome its expansion near Russia’s border by considering Ukraine’s possible inclusion into North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Russian President Vladimir Putin used what he called an “existential threat” as the pretext to start his war against Ukraine. Walt thinks that condemning Putin won’t be much of help. The behavior of Great Powers is not founded on any moral precept. It is rooted in how they react, using military strength or economic leverage, when a vital interest is threatened.

Mearsheimer, the most influential International Relations theorist today, argues that there is a security competition between states, which currently explains the situation in Eastern Europe, the South China Sea, and the Korean Peninsula. States are aggressive, just like the case of Russia, in order to maintain their position. The same is done by enhancing one’s power and diminishing that of their enemies. In contrast, Mearsheimer explains how Western liberalism wants to control the world by imposing democracy on certain states, promoting a global free market economy. Mearsheimer argues, as what happened in Iraq and recently, in Afghanistan, that the strategy employed by the US failed because of ethnic nationalism. Groups adhere to their faith, beliefs, values, and tradition. The imposition of Western paradigms, in this way, is seen as inimi-

ANTONIO V. FIGUEROA FAST BACKWARD

Endemic to maritime southeast Asia, the Philippines tarsier, scientifically known as Carlito syrichta and called amas by several indigenous tribes, is a haplorrhine primate that has for so long been a curiosity in Davao region’s forest fastnesses where vegetation was largely intact.

As early as 1912, American records already had accounts of tarsier encounters in several areas of Davao where scientific expeditions, mostly US-funded, were focused. In line with good conservation practices, the anthropologists gathered only a few specimens and kept them away from intruding natural habitats where these nocturnal creatures live.

After the war, two scientific explorations were launched in the region in 1947 separately led by Dr. John N. Hamlet, biologist from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and Dr. Harry Hoogstraal, ‘the greatest authority on ticks and tickborne diseases who ever lived’ who was assistant curator of insects of the Chicago Natural History Museum.

Hamlet’s team, however, is particularly interesting given that he was joined in his special zoological research by Dr. Charles Heizer Wharton, a research ecologist who was in Manila at the time writing some articles for The National Geographic Magazine.

Dr. Wharton’s interest in joining the Davao research is the tarsier, which he termed as his ‘chief quarry.’ To ensure he could securely get one live specimen, he hired catchers to scour different areas and paid them for each piece. Not too long thereafter, he obtained news from Madaum, Tagum City, of a cal to the way of life of local folks and seen as adversarial to their sense of identity.

Walt says that Putin, “bears accountability for this war, liberals have produced the opposite results by dismissing Putin’s protests.” In a 2016 talk at the University of Chicago, Mearsheimer, explains that the Ukraine war was a result of fundamental and precipitating causes. The primary cause, he alleges, appears to be the expansionist paradigm of NATO. The events in Ukraine sometime in 2014 precipitated the resolve of Putin to invade the country. Mearsheimer thinks that the changing of the regime in Ukraine in 2014 caused Putin’s so called “war of choice.” The greater danger, of course, is that Putin is ready, willing, and able to escalate this conflict should NATO intervene. Russia, being a nuclear state, possesses around 40% of the nuclear stockpile in the world.

Walt notes, however, that Putin may have miscalculated the political resolve of Ukrainians, especially its young and charismatic president. Zelensky has vowed to stay the course and die with his soldiers to protect Ukraine. The West, in fact, bears the moral obligation to support him, but is also aware of the risks that a nuclear war can bring into the continent. Indeed, there is no justification for the Russian invasion. Walt thinks that Putin also overcalculated the “West’s hostility towards Russia.” Putin’s biggest mistake, so far, is thinking, that “this war will be swift and easy”. According to Walt, the biggest dilemma for the West is how to stop Putin. The economic sanctions have not deterred Putin, who has vowed defying Western sanctions. Walt argues that “sanctions are ways of weaponizing interdependence, but they do not change the resolve of an aggressor.”

DAVAO IS TARSIER’S PARADISE

tarsier caught in the plantation of the International Harvester Company. To reach the area, he borrowed a wobbly jeep, ferried two rivers, and rode on carabaos to reach the destination before the fragile creature had expired.

He later joined Dr. Hoogstraal’s expedition in Sarangani where a band of curious Mano-bos approached them, asking them what they were looking for. In his September 1948 article, he wrote: “Imagine our surprise when three natives ran up about two hours later, each bearing a tarsier in his hands. The creatures regarded the scene through their incredible yes, the pupils now reduced to tiny horizontal slits by the bright sunlight. A six-month catch in two hours.”

In appreciation, Dr. Wharton committed a blunder by offering $5 for each mammal, the equivalent of two-week plantation labor. The prospect of earning more income from catching tarsiers literally sent the Manobos to the thick forest in a frenetic search. Not long thereafter, a number of catchers returned with 20 tarsiers carried inside wire cages.

For some reason, Dr. Wharton did not stop the collection of live tarsiers which, in a mat-ter of weeks would balloon to a hundred. The hefty population, to the ecologist’s nightmare, means finding also suitable food for the sprightly creatures. He wrote:

“Most of the tarsiers were caught by natives. Sometimes a whole family of Manobos would troop in with two or three tarsiers they had surprised while clearing the family gar-den. Usually, they tied the little fellows around the waist in the manner in which monkeys are often tied, or they carried them in some cleverly made container.

“Of the more than a hundred recorded captives, at least half were caught clinging in small trees near the ground, in a crotch, or when otherwise in plain view during the day.”

Excessive hunting, destruction of habitats, logging, incursions, and collecting them as pets would eventually decimate the tarsier population, making them an endangered species to-day.

In recent years, tarsiers were spotted in certain areas of the region. In 2013, two separate colonies were found in Barangay Bobon, Mati, Davao Oriental, and in Barangay Suaon, Ka-palong, Davao del Norte. And in 2020, sightings were reported in Megkawayan, Calinan, Davao City, and Tadeco banana plantation in Davao del Norte.