No place for fake news in modern society – Marcos

by JEROME ANING Inquirer.net

MANILA – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday, June 19 called on government agencies to uphold the people’s freedom of information (FOI) as he vowed to continue fighting fake news in the country.

“Like everyone here, we too recognize as a matter of principle that fake news should have no place in modern society,” he said at the opening of the International Conference of Information Commissioners (ICIC) held at the Philippine

International Convention Center.

The ICIC is a global network linking commissioners, ombudsmen, and other authorities overseeing the implementation of legislation and policies on access to public information.

The president commended the ICIC for its efforts in fostering the right to access to information.

“The Philippines stands in solidarity with the ICIC and the entire international community in this advocacy. As a nation with a robust democracy, we reaffirm our commitment to champion this basic human right. It remains indelibly etched in

DOH: New COVID-19 subvariant detected in PH

by ANGELICA TAPAS ManilaTimes.net

ANOTHER subvariant of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was detected in the Philippines, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Tuesday, June 20.

The subvariant FE.1.1 is an XBB sublineage that was added to the list of variants that is being under-monitored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

The variant is being monitored for its increasing global prevalence and as of the moment, 35 countries across six continents had detected this according to the sequence submission in GISAID which, according to medical websites, is "a global science initiative established in 2008 to provide access to genomic data of influenza viruses." The database was expanded to include the coronavirus responsible for the COVID -19 pandemic, as well as other pathogens. Available evidence showed, however, that this variant is not as severe compared to the original Omicron variant.

The DOH had reported that as of posting time, only one case has been detected among the samples sequenced. �