Marcos greets b-day girl Sara: Ignore the tambaloslos

also working “extra hard” on processing immigrant visas or green cards.

Tips for visa applicants

For those interested in getting a U.S. visa, he shared some things to keep in mind to get approved. Applicants, he said, must stay relaxed and always tell the truth during their interview.

Getting confused and lying, he said, are noticed by their trained personnel and may lead to doubt about their application.

He also asked visa applicants to avoid scammers or those promising to have their visa approved for a fee and to protect themselves from disinformation by getting their information from the embassy website.

The embassy, he said, has a fraud team that investigates scammers. “We work to make sure the victims have a chance to receive justice,” he said.

He noted that there is no checklist or “magic list” that

45% of Filipinos see quality of life to improve in next 12 months

MANILA – Forty-five percent of adult Filipinos are optimistic that their lives will improve over the next 12 months, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

The poll conducted from March 26 to 29, 2023 also found that 42 percent of the respondents believe that their quality of life will stay the same, while only 6 percent said it will worsen.

The remaining 7 percent did not give an answer.

The net personal optimism score was +38, which was classified by SWS as “very high”.

The SWS said the latest net optimism score was six points below the “excellent” +44 recorded in December 2022, noting that the 6-point drop was due to decreases in all areas.

Optimism fell by 6 points from +43 to +37 in Balance Luzon, by 10 points from +37 to +27 in the Visayas, and by 4 points from +49 to +45 in Metro Manila.

The score hardly moved in Mindanao from +48 to +47.

The survey showed that net personal optimism stayed “excellent” among those who either graduated from college or took post-graduate studies, although down from +52 to +45.

It also stayed excellent among those who either finished junior high school, had some vocational schooling, had some senior high school, finished senior high school, completed vocational school, or attended some college, although down slightly from +46 to +42.

Net personal optimism fell for those who either finished elementary school or had some high school education from +40 in December 2022 to +35 in March 2022, as well as those who had no formal education or some elementary education from +35 to +28.

The March 2023 survey also found that net personal optimism was higher among nonhungry families at +39, and households who rated themselves as not poor at +50.

The survey was conducted using face-toface interviews of 1,200 adults nationwide. It had sampling error margins of ±2.8 percent for national percentages, ±5.7 percent each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. (PNA) n

by Helen Flores Philstar.com

President Marcos greeted his “BFF” (best friend forever) Vice President Sara Duterte on her 45th birthday on Wednesday, May 31, and advised her to ignore the “tambaloslos” around her.

“Inday, Sara, happy birthday. I hope you enjoy yourself and take a break from work,” Marcos said in Cebuano in a video message posted on his social media accounts.

“I hope you make some time for yourself and ignore the tambaloslos around you,” the president said, laughing.

Duterte posted a photo on her Instagram account on May 21, saying one should not be a tambaloslos for the sake of ambition.

“Sa imong ambisyon, do not be tambaloslos,” the vice president said. Tambaloslos is a Visayan mythical creature known for its large mouth and a penis the

Desaparecidos

AS the country faced a super typhoon last weekend, there are families that are counting the days, weeks and years since their loved ones disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.

The last week of May is marked as the International Week of the Disappeared. And there are still too many victims of enforced disappearances who remain unaccounted for in this country.

Apart from activists, 34 online cockfight enthusiasts were kidnapped between April 2021 and January 2022. Their whereabouts are unknown, despite surveillance camera footage showing some of them being dragged into vans by armed men.

The ranks of the desaparecidos were highest during the Marcos dictatorship, when causeoriented groups counted 926 activists who were victims of enforced disappearances. The restoration of democracy did not end the disappearances. The advocacy groups count 206 activists who went missing during the nine-year presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, 29 in the time of Benigno Aquino III and 20 under Rodrigo Duterte.

Accountability has been abysmal in the cases. One high-profile case at least has led to the conviction of the perpetrators. In June last year, the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction of retired Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr. and two other military officers for the kidnapping and serious illegal detention of University of the Philippines students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan.

While Palparan was sentenced in 2018 to life in

Babe’s Eye View

BaBe Romualdez

FILIPINOS worldwide were dismayed to learn about the massive fire that gutted the Manila Central Post Office building, a 97-year-old structure considered to be an architectural treasure and declared as an “Important Cultural Property” by the National Museum of the Philippines in November 2018.

It was similarly heartbreaking to watch videos of the burning building which took 80 firetrucks and 30 hours before the firemen declared a “fire out” – with damage initially estimated at P300 million.

News about the fire was carried in the United States by the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times and other media because the building carries a significant place in the relationship and shared history of the United States and the Philippines.

Designed in the neoclassical style by Filipino architects Juan M. Arellano and Tomas Mapua (who were both

Virtual Reality

FERDINAND “Bongbong”

Romualdez Marcos Jr. is the luckiest president in Philippine history.

He was elected in May 2022 with the largest number of votes garnered by any president, 31.6 million. The mandate enabled him to unify the country, combining the Solid North and the Disparate South in one full swing of an electoral exercise with a record number of participants.

He inherited an economy with strong fundamentals after coming from the deepest recession in 100 years. That strength manifested itself in a 7.6 percent GDP growth in 2022, the highest in 46 years.

The last time the economy showed higher growth rate than 7.6 was in 1976 (8.8 percent), under President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sr. In the first quarter of 2023, GDP growth was 6.4 percent, the best in ASEAN.

prison without parole together with Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado and Staff Sgt. Edgardo Osorio, the two victims remain missing. Empeño was a 22-year-old sociology student while Cadapan, 29, was pursuing a course in human kinetics and was reportedly two months pregnant when gunmen seized them from a house the students were renting in Hagonoy, Bulacan on June 26, 2006.

Palparan, dubbed “The Butcher” by human rights advocates, has maintained his innocence and is seeking the reversal of his conviction. To this day, no one knows the fate of the two UP students.

Under the new Marcos administration, rights advocates are looking for missing activists Ariel Badiang, Dexter Capuyan, Gene Roz Jamil de Jesus, Lyn Grace Martullinas, Denald Laloy Mialen, Elgene Mungcal, Ma. Elena Pampoza, Leonardo Sermona Jr. and Renel delos Santos. Rights groups say the nine were kidnapped.

The second Marcos administration is getting relatively better assessments in the human rights department compared with the martial law regime and the Duterte administration. Perhaps this can translate into justice for the missing, or at least information on what happened to them, if not a complete end to enforced disappearances. (Philstar. com)