PBBM vows ‘all possible aid’ to Ranara family

By Vince Lopez and Macon Ramos-Araneta

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

on Monday vowed to extend all possible assistance to the family of Jullebee Ranara, the 35-year-old household worker whose burnt body was found in a desert in Kuwait a week ago.

“I just wanted to offer my sympathies to the family and to assure them that all the assistance that they might need… for the family and for whatever else, that is my promise to them. Their child made that sacrifice to work abroad because she has dreams for her family here,” the President said as he visited the wake of Ranara in Las Piñas City Monday afternoon.

filed by the SEC seeking the reversal of the March 20, 2018 decision of the Regional Trial Court of Davao City.

The RTC declared Paragraph 3, Rule 68 of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Securities Regulation Code (SRC) and SEC Memorandum Circular No. 13-2009 as illegal.

The regional court nullified the provisions for being contrary to Republic Act 9298, or the Philippine Accountancy Act, and issued “ultra vires” or beyond SEC’s legal authority.

The provisions mandate that only an ment agencies, government-owned or -controlled corporations, government financial institutions, other national government offices and instrumentalities, government corporate entities, state universities and colleges, and local government units to adopt and disseminate the PDP 2023-2028.

They should also align their budgets and departmental or corporate programs with the PDP 2023-2028 strategies and activities.

The PDP 2023-2028 will be completed by the first quarter of 2023 and will be updated annually or as deemed necessary by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

For his part, NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said Monday the economic outlook remains “promising”, but the country should take more steps to sustain the recovery from the impact of the global health crisis.

Balisacan said the PDP should serve as the country’s development roadmap that would improve economic performance over the next six years.

But the IBON research group said the PDP 2023-2028 falls short of a comprehensive development plan, calling it obsolete and saying it needs to be reversed to pursue

Government data showed that 6,181 people were killed in Duterte’s w ar on drugs but human rights groups have questioned the figure, saying that the real figure could be as high as 30,000.

Enrile defended Duterte’s war on drugs, saying that the former President was acting within the bounds of the Constitution.

Enrile said that he and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. have yet to discuss the topic, calling it “a non-issue.”

The Marcos administration has shown no signs of cooperating with the ICC.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said the Philippine government can conduct external auditor and his auditing firm that is accredited by the SEC “shall be engaged by corporations covered by this Circular for the statutory audit of their financial statements.” an economy that benefits the many. its own probe into the drug war, saying that it has created a special task force to do so.

A fine ranging from P100,000 to P400,00 is also imposed by the SEC against auditing firms or responsible external auditors who will be found violating the accreditation requirement.

The SC noted that the assailed regulations were issued based on several provisions of the SRC and the Corporation Code, which covers corporations.

The current plan is the ninth development plan since the Marcos regime’s PDP 1978-1982, which pushed freemarket reforms as “structural adjustment” while orienting the economy towards exports and attracting foreign investments, it said.

All the development plans since then have had the same framework and have been successful in making the country more export-oriented and in attracting foreign investment, IBON said.

“Measured as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), exports increased from around 16 percent of GDP in the early 1980s to over 40 percent in the early 2000s, albeit moderating to 28 percent in the last five years,” it said.

Foreign investment has meanwhile in effect increased six-fold from inward stock equivalent to less than 5 percent of GDP in the early 1980s to 29 percent today, the group added.

Yet, IBON said the share of manufacturing has fallen to its smallest share of GDP since the 1950s, and of agriculture to its smallest in history. Their respective shares in employment are also down to their smallest in recorded history, it said.

The ICC, however, has dismissed the activities of this task force, saying it has not even interviewed witnesses but merely relies on reports.

On Monday, the Philippine National Police (PNP) called on the ICC to respect the country’s sovereignty and acknowledge the capacity of its judicial system.

PNP chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. made this remark after the ICC approved an investigation into the country’s anti-drug campaign under the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

“I told them that now that your child is gone, we will try to fulfill your dreams. All the assistance that we can give, we will give,” he added.

The President said the Philippine government is scheduling bilateral meetings with Kuwait to review the Bilateral Labor Agreement (BLA) to further protect overseas Filipino workers following the killing of Ranara, allegedly by her employer’s son.

“We are also scheduling bilateral meetings with Kuwait to look at the agreement that we have to see if there are any weaknesses in the agreement that allowed this to happen and to make sure that those weaknesses are remedied so that the agreement is stronger and... will be more supportive of our workers,” the President said.

Mr. Marcos was joined by Department of Migrant Workers Secretary Susan Ople, Senator Mark Villar, and Las Piñas City Rep. Camille Villar, among others.

DMW Undersecretary Hans Leo Cacdac earlier said the National Bureau of Investigation would conduct an autopsy on Ranara’s remains.

Fuel...

From A1

While officials could not say when the new SRP Bulletin would be released, they said price hikes would be “minimal” for basic commodities like sardines, milk, coffee, and noodles. Even the price increases sought by canned meat manufacturers will be kept at the barest possible adjustment, they said.

Also, cooking gas or liquefied petroleum gas prices will likely go up by about P9.50 per kilo by tomorrow, Feb. 1, due to the higher contract price for LPG. This translates to an increase of P104.50 per 11-kilo tank used primarily by households.

LPG is sold from P824 to P990 per 11-kilo tank in Metro Manila, with prices depending on the brand, outlet, and market forces.

Meanwhile, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas asked the government to remove the VAT on petroleum products to ease the burden of consumers affected by almost weekly oil price hikes.

KMP said scrapping the oil excise taxes under TRAIN will provide immediate relief to Filipinos and help control the rising inflation. Petron Corp., Seaoil Philippines, PetroGazz, PTT Philippines, Jetti Petroleum, Cleanfuel, and Chevron Philippines made separate announcements of the latest oil price hike.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said.

The world’s largest humanitarian network said building trust, equity, and local action networks were vital to get ready for the next crisis.

WHO’s Tedros, it said, “acknowledges the committee’s views that the COVID-19 pandemic is probably at a transition point and appreciates the advice of the committee to navigate this transition carefully and mitigate the potential negative consequences.”

Even prior to the meeting, the WHO chief had suggested the emergency phase of the pandemic is not over, pointing to surging numbers of deaths and warning that the global response to the crisis “remains hobbled”.

“As we enter the fourth year of the pandemic, we are certainly in a much better position now than we were a year ago, when the omicron wave was at its peak, and more than 70,000 deaths were being reported to WHO each week,” he told the committee at the start of Friday’s meeting.

Tedros said the weekly death rate had dropped below 10,000 in October but had been rising again since the start of December, while the lifting of COVID restrictions in China had led to a spike in deaths.

In mid-January, almost 40,000 COVID weekly deaths were reported -- more than half of them in China -while the true toll “is certainly much higher”, he said.

The WHO first declared a so-called PHEIC as what was then called the novel coronavirus began to spread outside China on Jan. 30, 2020.

Though declaring a PHEIC is the internationally-agreed mechanism for triggering a global response to such outbreaks, it was only after Tedros de - scribed the worsening COVID situation as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, that many countries realized the danger.

Globally, more than 752 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported to the WHO, including more than 6.8 million deaths, though the United Nations health agency always stresses that the true numbers are likely much higher.

“All countries remain dangerously unprepared for future outbreaks,” the Red Cross said, concluding that governments were no more ready now than in 2019.

It said countries needed to be prepared for “multiple hazards, not just one”, saying societies only became truly resilient through planning for different types of disaster, as they can occur simultaneously.

The IFRC cited the rise in climate-related disasters and waves of disease outbreaks this century, of which Covid-19 was just one.

It said extreme weather events were growing more frequent and intense, “and our ability to merely respond to them is limited”.

The IFRC issued two reports making recommendations on mitigating future tragedies on the scale of Covid-19, on the third anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the virus an international public health emergency.

“The Covid-19 pandemic should be a wake-up call for the global community to prepare now for the next health crisis,” said IFRC secretary general Jagan Chapagain.

“The next pandemic could be just around the corner; if the experience of Covid-19 won’t quicken our steps toward preparedness, what will?”

The report said major hazards harm those who are already vulnerable the most and leaving the poorest exposed was “self-defeating”, as a disease can return in a more dangerous form. AFP

Rise in COVID positivity rate ‘not alarming’

By Willie Casas

THE slight increases in COVID-19 positivity rate should not be a cause of concern now as the hospital admissions for severe and critical cases remain low, an infectious diseases expert said Monday.

Dr. Rontgene Solante made the remark after OCTA Research recorded an uptick in the National Capital Region’s (NCR) positivity rate from 2% on January 26, to 2.4% on January 27.

Positivity rate refers to the percentage of people who were found positive for COVID-19 among the total number of individuals tested. Solante also said that any surge or spike in COVID-19 infections may mean that a new variant or Omicron subvariant may have entered the country, thus continuous monitoring is important.

Last week, Department of Health (DOH) officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said that hospital admissions in the country have become manageable with COVID-19 no longer among the Philippines’ top 10 causes of deaths.

Despite this, Solante still encouraged people to get vaccinated and boosted, and comply with the minimum public health standards, especially masking.

The DOH reported that the country’s tally of active CO ID-19 cases fell below 10,000 on Sunday. The tally of active cases fell to 9,982, lower than the 10,038 reported on Saturday—the lowest in nearly seven months since the 9,703 active cases monitored on July 3 last year and the first time since that day that the total was below 10,000.

The country also had 1,206 new COVID-19 cases in the past week and 74 deaths, the DOH said. As of Sunday, 456 cases or 9.5 percent of total COVID-19 admissions were in severe and critical condition, the DOH said.

In Brief

Villar eyes granting P5k to new grads

DEPUTY Speaker and Las Pinas Rep. Camille Villar has filed a measure that seeks to grant a one-time cash subsidy of P5,000 for fresh graduates to support them as they look for employment.

House Bill 6542 or the proposed Fresh Graduates P5,000 One-Time Cash Grant Act prescribes a financial aid to all fresh Filipino graduates of Philippine tertiary institutions, colleges, universities, and training institutions which they can use for the initial expenses of their employment application and job settling-in.

“This bill seeks to compliment and help fresh graduates by giving them a one-time cash grant in the amount of P5,000 which they can use as productivity/earnest fund [for their] application for employment, transportation and settling-in amount, if they get a job soonest,” Villar said. Maricel V. Cruz

DAR sets aside

P105M for Visayas projects

THE Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on Monday announced the provision of P105.7 million worth of infrastructure projects, and farm and machinery equipment to uplift the lives of agrarian reform beneficiary organizations in Eastern Visayas.

DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella

III was accompanied by Senator Imee Marcos during the awarding of the funds.

Included in the distribution is the Sustainable and Resilient ARCs (SURE) and Major Crop-based Block Farm Productivity Enhancement project amounting to P3,716,000 to the farmers of Leyte and Southern Leyte. Rio N. Araja

PhilMech chief vows more agency changes

PHILIPPINE Center for Postharvest

Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) head Dr. Dionisio G. Alvindia vowed to initiate more changes at the agency in a bid to stop corruption and improve public service delivery.

Alvindia made the remarks to defend his move to reshuffle the eight PhilMech personnel who were under investigation for alleged links to illegal activities inside the agency.

The PhilMech official, who is reportedly under attack by disgruntled officials and personnel, vowed to be more transparent in dealing with multi-billion projects intended for Filipino farmers.

At least eight PhilMech personnel were removed from their posts and were reassigned to other areas to prevent them from influencing the outcome of the investigations being conducted by the agency. Vito Barcelo