by admin | Mar 30, 2016 | National News
MANILA, Mar. 29 (PIA)–Gipahinumdom sa Commission on Elections (Comelec) sa mga lokal nga kandidato alang sa Mayo 9 nga piniliay ug sa ilang mga dumadapig nga sundon gayud ang mga gipatuman nga campaign rules.
Kini, agi na usab sa gipaabot nga pag-arangkada og maayo karong semanaha sa kampanya sa mga kandidato sa mga lokal nga posisyon.
Matud pa sa tigpamaba sa Comelec nga si Atty. James Jimenez, kinahanglang sundon sa mga kandidato ang nakalatid sa Republic Act 9006 apil na ang implementing rules and regulations sa poll body.
Gawas sa mga migadan nga kandidato, miingon si Jimenez nga angay makighiusa usab ang mga dumadapig sa mga kandidato.
Gikumpirmar usab ni Jimenez nga adunay mga reklamong nakaabot sa Comelec niadtong Biyernes Santo, diin gidili ang pagpangampanya.
Marso 25 o Biyernes Santo natunong ang pagsugod sa campaign period, apan gi-atras kini ug gihimong Sabado de Glorya.
Matud pa ni Jimenez, may mga misumbong sa paglapas sa campaign ban nga gi-imbestigahan na karon sa komisyon.
Subling gi-awhag ni Jimenez ang publiko nga mahimong magbinantayon ug bukas sa pagpaabot sa Comelec sa mga reklamo pinaagi sa social media hotline og poll body nga #SumbongKo. (ecb/PIA7-Bohol)
by admin | Mar 29, 2016 | Headlines, National News
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Philippine Center of Entrepreneurship Foundation Inc. (PCE) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to enhance and green micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
Signing for the DTI is Regional Operations Group (ROG) Undersecretary Zenaida Cuison-Maglaya and Executive Director Ramon Lopez for the PCE.
Also present during the MOU signing are Bureau of Small Medium Enterprise Development (BSMED) Officer-in-Charge Director Jerry Clavesillas and Dr. Volker Steigerwald, Project Manager of the Promotion of Green Economic Development (Pro-GED).
The DTI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the PCE and Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to provide supportive input and information to micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and enhance their competitiveness by including the Green Economic Development (GED) approach in their businesses.
Present during the MOU signing were DTI-Regional Operations Group (ROG) Supervising Undersecretary Zenaida Maglaya, Bureau of Small Medium Enterprise Development (BSMED) Director Jerry Clavesillas, PCE Executive Director Ramon Lopez, and ProGED Project Manager Dr. Volker Steigerwald.
Undersecretary Maglaya said that mainstreaming, enhancing the competitiveness, and greening the MSMEs are some of the initiatives of DTI for MSME development.
“It is really important that we look at ways and means to make our SMEs more competitive through the Green Economic Development (GED) strategy and mainstream the learnings in programs catering to MSMEs,” Maglaya emphasized during the MOU signing.
The DTI-ROG Undersecretary added that such partnership would enable the MSMEs to become competitive and world class, especially with the growing number of established Negosyo Centers, which provide mentoring program for entrepreneurs.
Through this partnership, the DTI with the help of GIZ, will enhance the messaging of PCE events with GED approaches, sensitize participating entrepreneurs on topics of Green Economy/Green Growth, and provide inputs in the form of general information and basic capacity building on green business strategies.
Meanwhile, the PCE through the Go Negosyo will include GED in the PCE Enterprise Summits, Negosyo Seminar (NEGOSEM) activities, Go Negosyo Building Enterprise Students for Tomorrow (BEST) events.
Further, DTI and PCE shall jointly ensure that the objectives of the MOU are met and their respective undertakings are performed effectively and efficiently, and asses the quality and outcomes of the cooperation.
Lopez asserted that with the PCE’s assistance, entrepreneurs will learn to have a more sustainable way of doing their businesses and become environment-friendly, adding that their business “is something that they (entrepreneurs) could take to the next level.”
“The PCE has been consistently helping in nation building through entrepreneurship development, creating an entrepreneurial culture, the right mindset and especially the know-how competencies of SMEs,” Lopez said.
For more information on the services of the DTI, log-on to http://www.dti.gov.ph
by admin | Mar 28, 2016 | Local News / Bohol Balita
TAGBILARAN CITY, March 28, (PIA)— Mikabat sa 38,801 ka bubong sa kabalayan gikan sa 8 ka kalungsuran sa Bohol nga biktima sa linug ang nakadawat sa hinabang alang sa housing materials gikan sa National Housing Authority (NHA).
Kinatibuk-ang P388 milyones ang nagasto sa kagamhanan pinaagi sa NHA alng niini, ug aron sa pag-abag sa mga Bol-anon nga makabarug human sa katalagman, segun pa sa NHA.
Subay sa taho sa NHA Visayas Management Office nga nabase sa Sugbo, nakadawat ang mga benepisaryo sa kalungsuran sa Maribojoc, Antequera, Carmen, Tubigon, San Isidro, Catigbian, Loon, Sagbayan ug Calape sa kinatibuk-ang tag P10, 000 nga bili abag alang sa housing materials.
Matud sa NHA, ang tananag hinabang nadawat na ug nadapat na sukad pa niadtong 2014, segun sa taho ni Engr. Carolyn Mae Maceda, NHA senior engineer.
Sa walo ka lungsod, ang Loon ang may labing daghang gitabangan sa NHA diin mikabat sa 8,190 ka banapisaryo sa tag P10,000.00, matud ni Gavino Fuguracion, NHA Regional Manager.
Sa Tubigon, 7,183 ka banapisaryo ang midawat sa tag P10,000.00 alang sa materyales, samtang sa Catigbian, 4,241 ka house beneficiaries sa NHA ang natala.
Sunod na usab ang Sagbayan, diin ang sentro sa linug miguba sa panimalay sa 4, 130 ka banapisaryo sa NHA.
Sa laing bahin, sa Calape, 3,833 ka bubong ang natabangan sa tag P10 mil samtang sa Maribojoc, 3,347 ka households ang nakadawat sa tabang sa kagamhanan.
Sa Antequera, 3,178 ka households ang natabangan sa NHA ug sa Carmen, 2, 820 ka bubong ang may tag P10,000 alang sa housing materials gikan sa NHA. (rac/PIA-7/Bohol)
by admin | Mar 28, 2016 | Headlines, National News
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) encourages venture capitalists to invest in local startups as the country continues to improve its global innovation index.
On the 2015 assessment of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Philippines climbed 17 notches and now ranks 83rd from its 100th ranking in terms of global innovation index.
DTI Industry Promotion Group (IPG) Undersecretary Nora K. Terrado sees opportunities to enhance and develop the country’s national innovation ecosystem.
“There is no better time for the Philippines than now,” said Industry Promotion Group (IPG) Undersecretary Nora K. Terrado on the current promotional initiatives for startups and innovation in the country.
Aside from the impressive climb on the global innovation index, the Philippines’ strong compliance to the intellectual property rights protection also poses a viable qualification to be the next innovation hub in Asia. On a regional scale, the country ranked 2nd for both patent protection and IPR protection in 2014.
One of the country’s top Philippine innovations is the Salamander by H20 technologies, an amphibious flood faring utility vehicle. As the world’s first amphibious tricycle, H20 Salamander is a 6-seater urban flood utility tricycle that has two variants. One is electrically powered and the other powered by gasoline. Driven by the global crisis on climate change, Salamander was developed to address the call for reduced carbon emissions and flood problems in the country.
“There are stories of success in the Philippine startup scene. What we can do is to encourage these startups, link them to venture capitalists, and help them to improve their capacity to enter the global economy by creating an environment supportive of their persistence,” Terrado added.
With over 30 Filipino inventors holding 23 patents assigned to 12 foreign companies, DTI sees startups as viable catalysts to the information era. As one of its core objectives, DTI now aims to develop a new breed of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through innovation.
“As we define the innovation economy of the Philippines, we would like to focus on coming up with new breed of SMEs. It will not just be about digital startups, but we will also explore the field of agriculture, biotechnology, electronics, e-commerce, among others,” Terrado emphasized.
According to the digital startup roadmap, the country is expecting 500 startups with a total funding of $200 million by year 2020. It can have a cumulative valuation of $2 billion.
Furthermore, the development of an innovation ecosystem will also address the government’s agenda of inclusive growth through job creation. By 2020, the Philippine startup and innovation community aims to create 8,500 high skilled jobs for Filipinos.
In recent years, the Department of Science and Technology’s Information and Communications Technology Office (DOST-ICTO) has started its notable projects in capacity building of startups in the country. Since then, venture capitalists have shown great interests in Philippine tech startups and now consider the country as one of the top destinations for investments.
On April 21 to 26, DTI is set to hold SlingShot 2016 at the World Trade Center Tent. Design Innovation Talks which aims to equip, inspire and invigorate key players of the Philippine startup and innovation ecosystem will take place.
SlingShot is a program of DTI, through its Foreign Trade Service Corps, that caters to startup and innovation entrepreneurs in the country.
For more information on the services of the DTI, log-on to http://www.dti.gov.ph
by admin | Mar 26, 2016 | Election 2016, Local News / Bohol Balita, Tech Talk
By: Jerome Auza
The last few weeks has been very interesting in the campaigns of the presidential candidates for the May 9, 2016 elections. Particularly interesting is the fact that formal surveys and informal surveys have widely contrasting results.
In recent formal surveys, Poe is leading while in mock elections in different universities nationwide, as well as online surveys and even in “cup” surveys in a 24-hour convenience store show Duterte consistently in the lead. The cup survey is done using cups for drinks printed with the face and names of the different candidates. The Duterte cups always get out of stock.
The formal surveys are conducted in a scientific method and the selection of respondents are done randomly in order to come up with results that are reliable and statistically representing the whole population.
The mock elections and online surveys are non-scientific because for one, they can only cover a certain group of people. For example, university surveys would include only students. In online surveys, these include only those with Internet access. In other words, they may not really represent the sentiment of the whole population.
However, there is the fact that the informal methods are done with a much larger sample of the population. In statistics, if you take a large enough sample, the tendency of the sample data is to match the whole sample. The mock elections held in universities are done nationwide, with sample size of around 1000 each or more. If you take into account that this is nationwide and the university students are obviously the youth, then it may be safe to say that the youth vote will go to Duterte. Results are varying in percentage but Duterte almost always leads the mock election results.
Now looking at the online surveys, I would like to use the Rappler online survey for February 2016 because the number of respondents is around 100,000. Also, another reason for using Rappler is that they learned how to ensure that only valid votes are counted because in an earlier survey, they discovered that votes for Roxas surged on a specific period with the votes identified as coming from China and Russia. That obviously was an attempt to manipulate the results. So assuming Rappler’s data for the February survey is filtered of invalid votes and with the number of respondents at 100,000, then at 39%, Duterte’s lead is quite significant.
Again, because of the tendency of a large sample to represent the whole population, it may be safe to say that the Rappler survey represents the Filipinos with access to the Internet.
Two large segments of our voting population, the youth and voters with Internet access are voting for Duterte. Obviously, there is an overlap of these two segments but if you combine these two segments, they are a very large percentage of all the voters.
Curiously, the most recent formal survey now shows that Duterte is about to gain the lead. Will Duterte eventually show as the significant leader in voting preference in the formal surveys in the coming weeks?
I would review the survey data again in a few weeks time to see where the numbers are. I have two questions for now:
Will the volunteerism of the Duterte supporters prove to be a force to be reckoned with versus traditional political machineries? Will social media ads of Duterte voluntarily done by supporters beat the other candidates’ heavily funded TV ads?
It remains to be seen.
