Seats, 4-year term

More Filipinos from Ukraine arrive in the Philippines together with their dependents on Sunday, March 6. Photos courtesy of DFA PH gov’t: 199 Filipinos from...

PAGE 1 waiting for a flight bound to the Philippines.)

However, Arriola said some Filipino seafarers are still stranded while household service workers and Filipino women who are married to Ukranian men are still staying in Ukraine.

According to the DFA official, six Filipinos have been evacuated to Poland, 33 to Moldova, 73 to Romania, nine to Austria, and 15 to Hungary.

Arriola urges Filipino evacuees to avail of repatriation to the Philippines so that they will not add to the many evacuees in European countries.

“Mas mabuti na nandito sila kaysa makipagsiksikan sila sa more than two million refugees, kasi sabi ng United Nations, over two million na na refugees ang lumabas sa Ukraine. Hindi naman po tayo refugee na maikoconsider dahil ‘yung bansa po natin ay maluwag na maluwag silang tinatanggap,” she noted. (It is better if they will be repatriated to the Philippines instead of crowding with more than two million refugees. The

United Nations said two million refugees have left Ukraine. Filipinos can’t be considered refugees because our country is freely accepting them.) “Tsaka parang tulong na rin po iyon sa mga Ukrainian. Umuwi muna po sila kasi wala rin naman silang trabaho doon dahil nakikita nga po natin sa television, grabe ang bombahan,” she added. (This is also to help the Ukranians. They should go home because they do not have work there. We have seen the bomb attacks in television.) g Peso breaches 52 vs dollar, first time...

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“Dovish comments from the central bank may have also hurt the currency with BSP Governor (Benjamin) Diokno reiterating his preference to keep rates untouched for now,” it added.

In a separate commentary, ING’s senior economist in the Philippines Nicholas Mapa noted that Diokno had penciled in a 4.7-percent inflation under a worst-case scenario when the price of crude oil would go as high as $140 per barrel.

The BSP chief has also said inflation would stay within the government’s target band of 2 percent to 4 percent if crude oil averaged at less than $95 per barrel.

“Diokno has touted his hefty supply of GIR (gross international reserves) as his reason for comfort,” Mapa said.

“He has also cited the peso’s general tracking of regional peers even if the local unit has largely underperformed and is now headed to a 2-percent depreciation for the year,” he added.

Spot market

The economist said the BSP might be expected to step up presence in the spot market to smooth out volatility.

“(B)ut we cannot rule out a scenario akin to 2018 where BSP burns through its reserves initially before relenting and turning hawkish,” Mapa said, referring to the year when the peso depreciated against the US dollar by more than 9 percent.

For his part, Diokno said the BSP was seeing a muted impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on the peso, noting that the local currency continued to trade “sideways, with slight depreciation pressure.”

“The BSP views such development as a result of the impact of the geopolitical tensions on oil prices, which likewise affected the peso,” Diokno said. “But this is in line with the behavior of other currencies in the region, which also depreciated against the US dollar.”

The BSP chief reiterated that the Philippines has a more than adequate level of foreign exchange reserves to temper any volatility in the currency exchange rate market.

The Philippines’ “external sector is supported by structural inflows from overseas Filipino remittances, receipts from business process outsourcing, and foreign direct investments which have shown resilience even amidst the pandemic,” Diokno said.g PAGE 1 exception shall not apply,” RA 11681 said.

The penalty for lascivious conduct with a minor under 16 years is a medium-term reclusion temporal.

The law also requires the Department of Education to teach age-appropriate subjects to children on their rights and protections based on the Act.

‘New law will protect kids’

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, the author and co-sponsor of the law, said this legislation will protect kids from malicious people from taking advantage of them.

“At thirteen or fourteen, our kids cannot make informed decisions about sex yet, especially sex with adults... With this law, we will be definitively drawing a line that adults cannot cross. They cannot say a kid below sixteen gave them consent. That is statutory rape, plain and simple,” he said in a statement released Monday.

Zubiri said he hopes the law will also lessen the instances of teenage pregnancy in the country.

According to him, the law broadens the definition of rape. Before, rape was defined as an act committed between a man and woman.

With RA 11681, rape is defined as an act committed by a person against another person.

Meanwhile, Sen. Richard

Gordon, who chairs his chamber’s justice and human rights committee, welcomed the passage of the law increasing the age of sexual consent in the Philippines and called it a “big step in children’s rights.” “We are thankful for the passage of this bill, which ends the stigma of the Philippines having the lowest age of sexual consent in Asia. It fortifies protection of children’s rights, and criminalizes perverted minds,” he said in a separate statement. Citing data from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Gordon said that in 2015, many victims of rape and child incest were aged 14 to below 18. g DOT hopes PH can accept all foreign...

PAGE 1 73,178 tourist arrivals. So, mainly, they’re coming from the [United States], Canada, Korea, Australia, and Japan, and Germany, and Vietnam,” Puyat said.

“It’s not big compared to the pre-pandemic levels because pre-pandemic levels, we had about 8.28 million tourist arrivals for the whole year. But, we were pleasantly surprised,” she added.

The tourism chief said more tourists are expected by June — during the summer breaks of school children, and during the winter months.

Fully vaccinated tourists from the 157 visa-free countries must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and must present a negative reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction test taken within 48 hours before departure from the country of origin. g

DIALOGUE WITH RESIDENTS. Presidential candidate Senator Panfilo Lacson gets a warm welcome from residents of Barangay Baclaran in Parañaque City on Thursday, March 10. Lacson had a dialogue with residents, drivers and Muslim vendors to know their concerns. PNA photo by Avito Dalan