by anyajulia | Nov 25, 2009 | Foreign Exchange, Headlines, Major Events
2009 CNN Hero of the Year, Efren Peñaflorida, the Filipino “pushcart classroom” educator will also be receiving the Order of Lakandula Award in the hero’s welcome by Malacanang. The ceremony will be lead by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself.
Peñaflorida’s selection was revealed by CNN’s Andenson Cooper at the conclusion of the third annual “CNN Heroes: An All Star Tribute” at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood on November 21.
The Filipino CNN Hero of the Year who will receive US$100,000., is in addition to the US$25,000 he is entitled of as one of the top ten nominees, to continue his work with the Dynamic Teen Company.
He announced that 10% of his winning will go to his Parish in Cavite, the others will be for the children who are beneficiaries of his kariton klasroom.
The other top ten CNN Heroes include Brad Blauser who provides hope and mobility to disabled children and their families in Iraq. Army veteran Roy Foster started Stand Down House to help veterans struggling with addiction and homelessness in Florida.
Bartender Doc Hendley is providing clean water to communities worldwide. Breast cancer survivor Andrea Ivory is bringing early detection to the doorsteps of uninsured women.
Zimbabwe native Betty Makoni founded the Girl Child Network to provide a haven for young victims of sexual abuse. School bus driver Jorge Munoz is helping hungry New Yorkers make it through tough times by handing out free meals from his mobile soup kitchen in Queens. (PIA)
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by anyajulia | Nov 19, 2009 | Foreign Exchange, Headlines, Major Events
The Arroyo Administration’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) gets the needed boost as World Bank grants US$ 405 million loan to support poverty reduction.
The Washington-based lender said that the loan grant will strengthen the capacity of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) as the project implementer and as a social protection agency, finance part of the new conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, and establish a national household targeting system to identify the poor and improve targeting in social protection programs.
The program is focused on the poor families in the various municipalities and provinces of the country and it is the DSWD that chooses the program beneficiaries through the conduct of a survey called the Proxy Means Test that is conducted to determine the poorest of the poor families.
Transfers to some 376,000 households are covered by the World Bank loan, the rest being financed from the Philippine government’s own budget resources. (PIA)
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by anyajulia | Nov 19, 2009 | Foreign Exchange, Headlines, Major Events
The Department of Education (DepEd) and the University of Auckland (UoA) in New Zealand sealed an agreement to push for reading proficiency among selected public elementary schools in the country.
The partnership will push for the “Reading Recovery in the Philippines” Project, a research-based early literacy intervention that successfully decreased the incidence of reading and writing difficulties among children across a range of linguistic, ethnic, and cultural-social groups in New Zealand.
In the agreement, the UoA will train Philippines Reading Recovery trainers and tutors, who will be selected by DepEd. As the Department implements the Reading Recovery Project, partners from New Zealand will facilitate the project through advisory and support visits. The project is also comprised of research for moderation and evaluation and wider academic collaboration. (DepEd)
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by anyajulia | Nov 19, 2009 | Foreign Exchange, Headlines, Major Events
The United Nations seeks US$143.7 million to support the Philippine Government in revised appeal for typhoon disasters.
The $144 million will cover the work of UN agencies, the International Organization for Migration and several non-governmental organizations from November until March 2010.
Only $26 million was received following the early October requesting $74 million, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Financial Tracking Service (FTS). (PIA)
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by anyajulia | Nov 18, 2009 | Foreign Exchange, Headlines, National News
The United Nations (UN) World Food Summit on Food Security started on November 16 in Rome,
The various world leaders unanimously adopting a declaration pledging renewed commitment to eradicate hunger from the face of the earth sustainably, at the earliest date. They also committed to reverse the decline in domestic and international funding for agriculture and promote new investment in the sector, to improve governance of global food issues in partnership with relevant stakeholders from the public and private sector, and to proactively face the challenges of climate change to food security.
FAO says the share of international aid that is allocated to agriculture has steadily declined over the last three decades. While the summit agreed on the need to increase agriculture’s share of international aid, it did not allocate the $44 billion annually — 17 percent of overall foreign aid — the FAO says is necessary to feed a population that is expected to grow to 9 billion by 2050. (PIA)
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by anyajulia | Nov 18, 2009 | Foreign Exchange, Headlines, Major Events
The Philippines proposes the adoption of common visa among citizens of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in a bid to boost investments, particularly in the tourism sector.
The Philippines, through the Bureau of Immigration, is hosting the annual meeting of ASEAN immigration chiefs and consuls from the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei Darussalam and officials of the Australian immigration and citizenship office.
Under the proposal, he explained that foreigners holding an ASEAN common visa can travel freely to any ASEAN member-country without the need to secure an entry visa. (PIA)
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