by anyajulia | Apr 13, 2009 | Headlines, Major Events
ASEAN Plus Three has agreed in principle on how to reach the $120 Billion ASEAN emergency fund. This was agreed upon during 14th ASEAN Summit in Thailand. The emergency fund is intended to battle future financial crises.
The agreement was that – ten ASEAN member nations will contribute 20 percent of the total amount of the emergency fund while partners China, Korea and Japan will contribute the rest.
The launching of the emergency fund called ‘Chang Mai Initiative Multilateralization’, is set in the month of May.
The Chang Mai Initiative Multilateralization is a bilateral currency swap scheme set up after the 1997-1998 financial crisis. Under the new scheme, the swaps will be multilateral, making it easier for countries under stress to borrow emergency funds. (PIA)
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by anyajulia | Apr 13, 2009 | Headlines, National News
Department of Education (DepEd) topped the approval survey conducted by Pulse Asia dubbed the “Ulat ng Bayan” survey. DepEd was also ranked as the least corrupt among government agencies. Secretary of Education Jesli Lapus also received the highest performance rating among cabinet members.
DepEd’s sixty two percent (62%) approval was the same rating notched by the Department of Health. Next was the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Lapus’ forty six percent (46%) approval rating was a significant reflection of the trust and confidence reposed on DepEd, adjudged the least corrupt among government agencies at twenty percent (20%). (DepEd)
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by anyajulia | Apr 13, 2009 | Headlines, National News
PASSENGER empowerment is the recent solution Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) has over manpower shortage in enforcing applicable maritime laws.
By empowering, MARINA means allowing passengers themselves to be government sea travel authority partners for ensuring passenger and sea vessel safety.
Marina Administrator Elena Bautista explained that passengers can help prevent overloading or report unruly or unbecoming behavior of seamen on duty; through its Pasa Hero program.
Aside from getting assistance by partnering with vigilant passengers, Bautista said Pasa Hero also addresses Marina’s problems on budget and personnel by finding partners in implementing maritime laws.
Under the Pasa Hero program, passengers can report to Marina violations committed by shipping lines.
Aside from overloading, other violations include drunk shipping officers and absence of lifejackets and directional signs inside ships.
Once reports are validated, passengers are rewarded with P50 worth of cellular phone load from the Marina.
To report, passengers can just text marina_sumbong_name/location/violation/vessel name to 2985. (rachiu/PIA)
by anyajulia | Apr 13, 2009 | Headlines, National News
SMALL but terrible brontispa finds a dose of its own medicine.
The blight that has shaken the country’s coconut industry has finally found a nemesis, microorganism that lay their larvae on the brontispa and parasitize on them.
And like how the pests infest on a coconut palm and parasitize on them, its nemesis also do the same on its host insects.
The cocofarmers’ new-found ally are entomopathogens, or micro-organisms that cause disease in the infestation-affecting insects.
These micro-organism are being subjected to further tests against the insects wreaking havoc on the country’s coconut industry, sources from the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) reveal. .
The country’s coconut industry stirred recently in alarm over reports the infestation of insect parasite brontispa logissima which has hit 1.8 million coconut plantations across the country.
Since its infestations, the country’s authorities have been attempting to put up defenses and the first endemic solution was deployment of earwigs in infested areas, reports the PCA.
In further search for more solutions, PCA has discovered new parasitoid insects.
According to PCA Administrator Oscar G. Garin, the PCA research center in the Davao City has identified two indigenous small insects that parasitize Brontispa by laying their eggs in the larva or pupa of the pest”
The administrator revealed that the PCA-Davao Reseach Center conducted a Field Release Evaluation where a total of 1,948 parasitoid adults were released in infested barangays in Region XI and parallel laboratory tests.
“The parasitoids collected in the field inflicted about 30-50 percent parasitism on the pest’s larva or pupa” Garin noted adding that laboratory results showed that around 7 to 47 adult parasitoids emerged from one larva/pupa 18 to 26 days from injection for parasitization.
Over this, Garin has said “with the earwigs, we now have three indigenous species for biological control of this foreign pest”
However, he still underscored the need to adopt a long-term integrated pest management system and a more proactive solution to respond to the threat.
The administrator stressed also that chemical insecticides administered through trunk injection should only be in severe cases and at first treatment, with the long term and sustainable approach to be comprised of biological control, use of entomophatogen fungi, good farming practices and strict quarantine controls. (rachiu/PIA)
by anyajulia | Apr 13, 2009 | Headlines, National News
FIVE days after baring the Youth National Service (YNS) plan for the country here in Bohol last April 1, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo eyes enlisting grandchildren of World War II veterans as first beneficiaries.
The presidential announcement during the Araw ng Kagitingan rites at the Dambana ng Kagitingan in Bataan has also elated survivors of veterans who were ineligible for the cash windfall from the US stimulus package recently.
In Bohol where many of such youth have either been unemployed or underemployed and want to seek additional source of income to keep themselves afloat in these tough times.
Over this development, the President instructed Defense Undersecretary Ernesto Carolina to “identify grandchildren of Filipino World War II veterans” who can be recruited to the National Service Corps.
The recruits, who would either be unemployed or under-employed, would undertake two-year national service commitment in service programs for the community, for a modest pay.
“It shall be geared to the unemployed or underemployed skilled youth or college graduates. It will focus on their contributions to education and community service programs with a modest stipend,” the President said at the Bohol Wisdom School last April 1.
On recruiting the siblings of veterans, she said this should be one way of helping the veteran’s families.
The National Service Corps is similar to the Peace Corps of the United States targeting youth aged 18 – 24 years old, she said.
Moreover, she assed that while the Department of Social Welfare and Development is undergoing national poverty mapping project to locate the poorest of the poor across the country, the short-term jobs may also be a good entry point for the unemployed youth.
The Php 1-Billion Poverty Mapping project serves some sort of a GPS locator to guide government in delivering cash transfers, rice subsidies and other assistance to deserving families, she explained.
“The DSWD needs an army of field engineers in assembling a concise picture of the poverty grid and coordinates of where poor households are,” said the President.
“This project is a major component of the government’s ‘YES’ or Youth Employment in Summer.
With help from the branches and satellite offices of the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, President Arroyo hopes that mapping project will find the poor families of WWII veterans
She stressed that giving special attention to the surviving veterans and their siblings and those survived is a way of remembering and honoring their courage and incomparable patriotism. (rachiu/PIA)
