Bad News

GENEVA – One hundred and thirty-four journalists and media support staff were killed while on reporting assignments last year, most of them targeted deliberately, the London-based International News Safety Institute (INSI) said on Tuesday.

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – The Philippines slid to 149 in the 179-country World Press Freedom Index of the France-based Reporters Sans Frontiéres (RSF or Reporters Without Borders).

MANILA, Philippines — Bottoms up! After ranking 15th in the world’s top porn-watchers according to an adult website, Filipinos are now involved in another kind of bottom, shot glass bottoms.

MANILA, Philippines – An anti-graft watchdog yesterday said the Philippine government was cheated of $3.85 billion in tax revenues in 2011, part of massive illicit money flows that totaled more than $400 billion in the past five decades.

MANILA, Philippines—One out of every five Filipinos from the middle to upper income groups claims to be an “expert” in money matters. But a global insurance giant recently found that members of these classes perform poorly in a basic financial literacy quiz.

MANILA, Philippines – Filipinos rule the global gin market and among the top drinkers of rum products, according to market research firm International Wine & Spirit Research (IWSR).

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines — The country remains among the “least peaceful” in the world and the Asia Pacific, improving only slightly in its global ranking, a survey by a non-profit research organization showed.

(Financial Times) — The world’s heading economies set an design on Saturday to boost expansion and jobs during a finish of a weekend of high-level meetings, yet undermined their ambitions with neatly incompatible views of a required policies.

There’s more sobering news on the state of the country’s environment, according to an environment official during Monday’s celebration of Earth Day: The Philippines has the second-lowest forest cover in Southeast Asia and its biodiversity is among the most threatened in the world; despite the country having one of the most extensive coral reef areas…

ZAMBOANGA CITY—An estimated 100,000 Filipinos in Sabah are expected to flee to the Philippines by May, according to a government “worse case scenario” following an incursion by supporters of the sultan of Sulu in February and a subsequent crackdown by Malaysian forces in the area.

The UN’s latest assessment of global cases of HIV/Aids shows there has been a further drop in new infections among children. There were 330,000 new infections in children last year – the figure is 24% lower than in 2009.

It isn’t as easy as Chicken Joy to sell the Philippines, as claimed by Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez, and not even his “It’s more fun in the Philippnes” slogan will work, because it is no fun for tourists coming to Manila with its airport being named as the worst airport in Asia.

You and I are living in a culture of performance. Comparing ourselves with the next person has become a norm. Advertising has convinced us that we should always look better, feel better and make others eat our dust.

MANILA, Philippines – Mining will be banned in protected areas and in tourism sites – including Palawan and Boracay – while no new permits for mining operations will be issued until Congress passes a new revenue sharing scheme that is more advantageous to the government.

TUCP President Ernesto F. Herrera and delegates to the TUCP Special Convention on March 16, 2012 welcomed a new project on social dialogue with the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) through the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center).

With a 70-percent rise noted in a span of 10 years from 1999 to 2009, the Philippines has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) official said.

SENSING hesitation from the Department of Education (DepEd) on using the child’s first language or the child’s mother tongue in teaching, a lawmaker championing the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE) system has called on Sec. Armin Luistro to get rid of the old language of instruction and implement mother tongue-based teaching in the first 6…

THE Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1 (NAIA 1) again made headlines in the international arena, but in a bad way. NAIA 1 was adjudged by travel guide Frommer’s as the second worst airport in the world.

TERMINAL 1 of the Ninoy Aquino International has been voted the world’s worst airport this year—down from fifth worst in April—by the online guide to sleeping in airports (http://sleepinginairports.net).

(Updated 6:09 pm.) While President Benigno Aquino III declared that foreign capitalists are “lining up” to invest in the Philippines, the United Nations’ World Investment Report (WIR) 2011 shows that the lines are much longer leading to Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

Foreign investors looking to invest in real estate-related businesses have ranked Manila as their last choice among various key cities in the Asia-Pacific.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines ranked third among 173 countries in terms of vulnerability to disaster risks and natural hazards, a study showed.

MANILA, Philippines – Filipinos are the leading shoppers in Southeast Asia, a survey by Nielsen released yesterday showed, as 80 percent of those surveyed said they enjoy shopping.

Millions of domestic workers around the world are employed in private homes, often unregulated by public authorities, making them vulnerable to exploitation. This week the ILO has been meeting in Geneva to design a convention to protect them.

MANILA: The rate of new HIV infections has seen a 25 per cent drop in the last decade. However, in the Philippines, the number of people infected has risen – particularly among call-centre workers.

Higher tablet demand and lower Netbook sales are likely to take a greater bite out of the PC market this year than expected, according to data released today by Gartner.

MANILA, Philippines –  The military’s Retirement and Separation Benefits System (RSBS) has completed a draft bill that aims to reform the armed forces’ retirement scheme and to address the government’s growing pension arrears.

The House of Representatives is in for another con-tentious debate on the issue of the divorce bill before it takes on another long recess.

MANILA, Philippines, May 13, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – President Benigno Aquino told reporters today that groups threatening or calling for a tax boycott or other forms of civil disobedience if the controversial Reproductive Health bill is passed are courting sedition charges.

These last two week, I have been in Italy to preside over graduation ceremonies of the Ateneo School of Government in Milan and Rome. In the last three years, the ASoG (of which I am Dean) has been implementing, with partners, a Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship Training Program for migrant Filipinos in Italy. We have…