US, partners create $10.6-M training program for Filipino factory workers

MANILA — The United States has partnered with manufacturing companies in the Philippines to help develop the skills of the sector’s workers for a five-year training program.

With the U.S. investing $5.3 million (P311 million) in the program, Washington has now given Manila $105.6 million (P5.8 billion) in support of its education and workforce development programs.

According to a statement from the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Unilab Foundation are collaborating on a $10.6-million (P622 million) program called the Advanced Manufacturing Workforce

Development Alliance (AMDev). Half of the funding for the program will come from privatesector partners, namely the Unilab Foundation, Amherst Laboratories, Belmont Softgel Pharma, Fastech Advanced Assembly, Western Digital Philippines, Makati Business Club, and the Investment and Capital Corporation of the Philippines Group Foundation. “We hope that this private sector collaboration will allow the Philippines to advance to ‘high middle-income’ economic status and strengthen its ability to increase suitable, inclusive, and transparent economic growth in the broader Indo-Pacific economic community,” US Ambassador Marykay Carlson said during the

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Trafficking in persons has been a problem for many countries especially as the global economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, which made life harder for many people, he said.

The Trafficking in Persons Office of the U.S. Department of State conducts a yearly assessment to monitor all countries' efforts to program’s launch in Laguna on Monday.

The government is aiming to turn the Philippines into an “upper middle-income country” in a few years as it works on postpandemic recovery.

The AMDev will open opportunities for manufacturing sector workers through apprenticeships, and immersion programs. It also opens up connections to a network of other students and professors from educational institutions near manufacturing sites.

The embassy said it aims to get its program recognized academically to allow participants to pursue higher education if they wish. (Philstar.com)

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PAGE 2 for NIMBY-ism, and my administration will take every measure necessary to hold communities accountable for combat human trafficking and provide each country with a grade according to a three-tier scale. Countries and territories under Tier 1 fully comply with the minimum standards while those under Tier 2 do not fully comply with the minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

Pandemic stress, gangs, and utter fear...

with it all over again.” and counties do their part, and those that flagrantly violate state housing laws will be held to account.” (Klarize Medenilla/ AJPress)

Diego said, and his mother once threw a toaster at his father.

"Hindi hahayaan ng administrasyong ito ang pagtapak sa karapatan ng mga Pilipino saan man sila naroroon kaya ipaglalaban natin ito sa abot ng ating makakaya (This administration will not allow the rights of Filipinos to be trampled on no matter where they may be and we will fight for this to the best of our ability)," Marcos asserted. n their failure to build their fair share of housing, “ Newsom said in a statement. “The housing crisis facing families across the state demands that all cities trauma center, the number of gunshot wounds in children under 16 has doubled in the past six years, said Dr. Selwyn Rogers, the center’s founding director. The youngest victim was 2. “You hear the mother wail, or the brother say, ‘It’s not true,’” said Rogers, who works with local youth as the hospital’s executive vice president for community health engagement. “You have to be present in that moment, but then walk out the door and deal

In recent years, the justice system has struggled to balance the need for public safety with compassion for kids, based on research that shows a young person’s brain doesn’t fully mature until age 25. Most young offenders “age out” of criminal or violent behavior around the same time, as they develop more selfcontrol and long-range thinking skills.

Yet teens accused of shootings are often charged as adults, which means they face harsher punishments than kids charged as juveniles, said Josh Rovner, director of youth justice at the Sentencing Project, which advocates for justice system reform.

About 53,000 juveniles in 2019 were charged as adults, which can have serious health repercussions. These teens are more likely to be victimized while incarcerated, Rovner said, and to be arrested again after release.

Young people can spend much of their lives in a povertyimposed lockdown, never venturing far beyond their neighborhoods, learning little about opportunities that exist in the wider world, Rogers said. Millions of American children — particularly Black, Hispanic, and Native American kids — live in environments plagued by poverty, violence, and drug use.

The covid-19 pandemic amplified all those problems, from unemployment to food and housing insecurity.

Although no one can say with certainty what spurred the surge in shootings in 2020, research has long linked hopelessness and lack of trust in police — which increased after the murder of George Floyd that year — to an increased risk of community violence. Gun sales soared 64% from 2019 to 2020, while many violence prevention programs shut down.

One of the most serious losses children faced during the pandemic was the closure of schools — institutions that might provide the only stabilizing force in their young lives — for a year or more in many places.

“The pandemic just turned up the fire under the pot,” said Elise White, deputy director of research at the nonprofit Center for Justice Innovation, which works with communities and justice systems. “Looking back, it’s easy to underplay now just how uncertain that time [during the pandemic] felt. The more that people feel uncertain, the more they feel there’s no safety around them, the more likely they are to carry weapons.”

Of course, most children who experience hardship never break the law. Multiple studies have found that most gun violence is perpetrated by a relatively small number of people.

The presence of even one supportive adult can protect children from becoming involved with crime, said Dr. Abdullah Pratt, a UChicago Medicine emergency physician who lost his brother to gun violence.

Pratt also lost four friends to gun violence during the pandemic. All four died in his emergency room; one was the son of a hospital nurse.

Although Pratt grew up in a part of Chicago where street gangs were common, he benefited from the support of loving parents and strong role models, such as teachers and football coaches. Pratt was also protected by his older brother, who looked out for him and made sure gangs left the future doctor alone.

“Everything I’ve been able to accomplish,” Pratt said, “is because someone helped me.”

Growing up in a ‘war zone’

Diego had no adults at home to help him feel safe. His parents were often violent. Once, in a drunken rage, Diego’s father grabbed him by the leg and swung him around the room,

At age 12, Diego’s efforts to help the family pay overdue bills — by selling marijuana and stealing from unlocked cars and apartments — led his father to throw him out of the house.

At 13, Diego joined a gang made up of neighborhood kids. Gang members — who recounted similar stories about leaving the house to escape abuse — gave him food and a place to stay. “We were like a family,” Diego said. When the kids were hungry, and there was no food at home, “we’d go to a gas station together to steal some breakfast.”

But Diego, who was smaller than most of the others, lived in fear. At 16, Diego weighed only 100 pounds. Bigger boys bullied and beat him up. And his successful hustle — selling stolen merchandise on the street for cash — got the attention of rival gang members, who threatened to rob him.

Children who experience chronic violence can develop a “war zone mentality,” becoming hypervigilant to threats, sometimes sensing danger where it doesn’t exist, said James Garbarino, an emeritus professor of psychology at Cornell University and Loyola University-Chicago. Kids who live with constant fear are more likely to look to firearms or gangs for protection. They can be triggered to take preemptive action — such as firing a gun without thinking — against a perceived threat.

“Their bodies are constantly ready for a fight,” said Gianna Tran, deputy executive director of the East Bay Asian Youth Center in Oakland, California, which works with young people living in poverty, trauma, and neglect.

Unlike mass shooters, who buy guns and ammunition because they’re intent on murder, most teen violence is not premeditated, Garbarino said.

In surveys, most young people who carry guns — including gang members — say they do so out of fear or to deter attacks, rather than perpetrate them. But fear of community violence, both from rivals and the police, can stoke an urban arms race, in which kids feel that only the foolish walk around without a weapon.

“Fundamentally, violence is a contagious disease,” said Dr. Gary Slutkin, founder of Cure Violence Global, which works to prevent community violence.

Although a small number of teens become hardened and remorseless, Pratt said, he sees far more shootings caused by “poor conflict resolution” and teenage impulsivity rather than a desire to kill.

Indeed, firearms and an immature teenage brain are a dangerous mix, Garbarino said. Alcohol and drugs can magnify the risk. When confronted with a potentially life-or-death situation, kids may act without thinking.

When Diego was 16, he was walking a girl to school and they were approached by three boys, including a gang member who, using obscene and threatening language, asked if Diego was also in a gang. Diego said he tried to walk past the boys, one of whom appeared to have a gun.

“I didn’t know how to fire a gun,” Diego said. “I just wanted them to get away.”

In news accounts of the shooting, witnesses said they heard five gunshots. “The only thing I remember is the sound of the shots,” Diego said. “Everything else was going in slow motion.”

Diego had shot two of the boys in the legs. The girl ran one way, and he ran another. Police arrested Diego at home a few hours later. He was tried as an adult, convicted of two counts of attempted homicide, and PAGE 7