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The government will start deactivating unregistered mobile numbers on July 26, insisting that it has given enough time for subscribers to enlist their SIM.

Follow this page for updates on "Egay," the fifth tropical cyclone to enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility.

(Photo credit: Cody Scanlan/Hollannd Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK) Cheyenne Knight and Elizabeth Szokol broke a tournament record for alternate-shot play to grab a three-shot lead after three rounds of the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational on Friday in Midland, Mich. Knight and Szokol teamed up to shoot an 8-under 62, the lowest round of alternate shot the event has seen in its four years of existence. That put them at 18

Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. has lifted the state of public health emergency over COVID-19 in the Philippines, local media outlet ABS-CBN News reported on Saturday.

Source: CGTN

July 22, 2023 7:20 AM

They say Pyongyang has been evading UN sanctions by using Chinese territorial waters.

Two Alaskan Malamutes donned traditional Javanese outfits at a fake ceremony in Jakarta, sparking an uproar about the owners ‘wasting money and defying God’.

July 22, 2023 7:00 AM

This is the latest North Korean missile launch since it fired two ballistic missiles on Wednesday.

AS EARLY as now, tourism stakeholders will need to think of ways to spare destinations and businesses from the rising heat index caused by climate change that may result in the loss of tourism attractiveness.

Antonio Gabriel La Viña, associate director at Manila Observatory, warned tourism players on Thursday, July 20, 2023, of the soaring temperature now experienced globally that could prompt a shift in tourist habits, picking cooler destinations instead.

67 degrees Celsius

La Viña said countries all over the world are already experiencing intensifying hot temperatures, whose impact and mitigation are something that the Philippines has not meticulously studied yet. He cited, for instance, the escalating heat in the Middle East, which has gone up to 67 degrees Celsius, double the temperature of Cebu.

“We have to expect and prepare for the worst,” said La Viña, who was one of the speakers during the first day of the Tourism Summit held in SM Seaside City Cebu. The Tourism Summit is one of the activities of the Cebu Business Months organized by the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Building code

“If we don’t do something about this, then in 20 years, easily we will also reach 60 or even 70 degrees Celsius. And you can’t wait for that to happen to change your building codes, and transportation networks, even the poor will have aircon facilities and so will all schools,” said La Viña.

As for tourism, La Viña, known for his climate change and environmental expertise, urged stakeholders to prepare ahead as it may take 10 to 20 years to put up infrastructure that would respond to what looks like the biggest impact of climate change.

“It is not storms, not even floods because we are beginning to manage that. Drought and water are also problems in Cebu, but I know lots of thinking has been going on about how to deal with these. But the pure high temperature?... This is something that we did not anticipate 20 years ago,” he said.

Citing the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, La Viña said global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius and two degrees Celsius will be exceeded during the 21st Century unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions occur in the coming decades. The report warned that if global warming transiently exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius in the coming decades or later, then many human and natural systems will face additional severe risks.

People living in coastal areas will be severely affected as well as industries like agriculture, fisheries and biodiversity, compromising livelihoods which may lead to more social conflicts. Workability and livability will also be affected in South Asia like in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan where extreme heat and humidity are observed.

Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam in Southeast Asia will have extreme increases in heat and humidity by 2050 and extreme precipitation events.

This year’s highest heat index of 50 degrees Celsius scorched Legazpi City, Albay on May 12, according to Pagasa. Cebu also had its highest heat index recorded on March 31 at 41 degrees Celsius.

With the onset of the rainy season, Pagasa suspended its daily issuance of head index information on June 2 and announced that its daily monitoring will resume on March 1, 2024, which coincides with the hot and dry months in many parts of the country.

La Viña said there is still time to do things properly to lessen the impact of climate change on destinations and tourism businesses. He enjoined all tourism stakeholders to look at their respective business operations and see which processes they can turn green and transition to cleaner energy.

“We need to reduce emissions,” he said. He also suggested embarking on nature-based solutions that emphasize biodiversity and food security when dealing with climate change.

La Viña also warned of overdevelopment as this could lead to the depletion of natural resources. Proper waste management could also help mitigate the impact of climate change. (KOC WITH CNU INTERN KATE ANGEL LEDUNAS)

THE operator of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) is eyeing direct connectivity between Cebu and destinations like the United States and India.

Athanasios Titonis, Aboitiz InfraCapital (AIC) chief executive officer assigned to MCIA, on Thursday, July 20, 2023, named India as an upcoming market for MCIA, describing the most populous country with 1.42 billion in population as a market with “huge potential.”

Country mission

In fact, in August 2022, MCIA, GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC) in partnership with the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority, the Civil Aeronautics Board, and local carriers Cebu Pacific Air and Philippine Airlines went to India for a country mission.

MCIA, the second busiest airport in the country, is currently being jointly managed by AIC and GMCAC.

As of June 2023, MCIA recorded 3.757 million domestic passengers and 1.081 million foreign passengers.

India is the 12th source market for the Philippines. Beaches in Cebu are the top draw for Indian tourists.

Besides India, Titonis said they are also looking at developing the US market, following the entry of United Airlines, which is going to offer daily nonstop flights between Manila and San Francisco beginning in October this year.

The US is one of Cebu’s tourist source markets alongside South Korea, China and Japan.

AN INTERNATIONAL organization dedicated to ocean preservation disagrees with a report that points to the Philippines as the source of one-third of the world's plastic waste that ends up in the oceans, but admits that the country has a solid waste management problem that contributes a sizable amount of pollutants to the waters—pollutants that kill marine life and also pose risks to human health.

The group also warned about the consequences of not acting, with the volume of solid waste to grow as the population rapidly increases by a projected 25 million people in a little over two decades.

Liza Osorio, acting vice president of Oceana Philippines, said the report published by the scientific online publication Our World in Data in May 2021 that the Philippines is responsible for one-third of the plastics that wind up in the ocean, is inaccurate and far from the data that most environmental groups follow.

Osorio, a lawyer, added that a separate study by Ocean Conservancy that also puts the Philippines and other Asian countries in a bad light as top waste contributors to the oceans was retracted on July 10, 2022, seven years after the publication of the report.

Overproduction

While she agreed on the concerning amount of plastic garbage around the world, Osorio said the research ignored the overproduction of plastic from Global North countries, which even the United States-based Ocean Conservancy now agrees with.

The Global North encompasses the rich and powerful regions such as North America, Europe and Australia.

However, Osorio said that on an individual level, the Philippines still needs to improve its waste management as she considers it concerning.

“We have poor waste management practices. Even though we throw it (waste) away and we segregate at our houses, it ends up in the dumpsites that are not managed properly and these are usually found in waterways and coastlines," Osorio told SunStar Cebu on June 6, 2023, as the Philippines celebrated Environment Month.

Osorio also said the country’s efforts to eliminate the use of single-use plastics, which contribute largely to the solid waste that the country produces, is not given much effort.

Open dumpsites

She said the major source of leaked garbage after collection is open dumpsites which are typically near waterways. When solid waste reaches the bodies of water, it is called marine debris.

Section 37 of Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, prohibits the operation of dumpsites.

"No open dumps shall be established and operated, nor any practice or disposal of solid waste by any person," the law states.

However, there are still a number of dumpsites operating in the country. There are only a few sanitary landfills in existence, the only kind of disposal facility permitted by law.

Sanitary landfill

Sanitary landfills are a sort of disposal site where waste is kept away from the surrounding area. Typically, this is done by burying the trash in a sizable pit that is walled with clay or thick plastic. To stop waste-generated liquids from seeping into the ground, it frequently includes a network of pipelines.

According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), 233 open dumpsites were still operating in the country as of January 2021.

The regions with the most number of open dumpsites are Western Visayas with 48 dumpsites, Mimaropa with 35, Central Visayas with 27, Bicol Region with 23, and Davao Region with 20.

Meanwhile, there are already 189 established sanitary landfills in the country.

Solid waste generation

Citing the audit report issued by the Commission on Audit last May 2 about the government’s solid waste management implementation, Osorio said the country generated 16.63 million metric tons of solid waste in 2020.

This was an 83 percent increase from the 9.07 million metric tons of solid waste generated in the country in 2000.

This figure is projected to increase steadily in the next two decades with the rapid increase in population, economic growth and industrialization, she said.

The population of the Philippines was 117,419,140 as of July 18, 2023, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.

The population of the country is expected to reach 142 million by 2045, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The PSA said this equates to 49 million people added to the country's population between 2010 and 2045, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of 1.21 percent.

In 2021, the average Filipino generated 0.4 kilos, or close to half a kilo, of solid waste every day, according to the DENR.

Marine debris

According to Osorio, around the world, there are around 14 million tons of plastic added to the plastic waste in the oceans every year, with 80 percent or 11.2 million tons being marine debris that goes deep down and the rest remaining on the surface water.

"Poor management practices in the country because this is really the root cause of plastic leakage in the country that ends up as marine plastic debris," she said.

Marine debris, often known as marine litter, is human-made trash that has been intentionally or unintentionally dumped into a sea or ocean. Floating maritime debris tends to build near the centers of gyres and along coastlines, where it frequently washes ashore and becomes known as beach litter or tidewrack.

She said the Philippines contributes around 0.25 up to 0.75 metric tons of marine plastics every year.

"If we think about it, we contribute barely one percent or less than one percent of the total marine plastics. That is the data we rely on," she said.

Injures and kills

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States, marine debris injures and kills marine life. It also interferes with navigation safety and poses a threat to human health.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), microplastics from marine debris have been found in tap water, salt and other drinks, which are present in all samples collected in the world's oceans.

It said the chemicals used in the production of plastic products are known to be carcinogenic and to affect the body's endocrine system, causing developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune issues in both humans and wildlife.

IUCN also said marine debris is consumed by marine species. These contaminants enter their digestive systems and accumulate in the food web over time.

The transfer of pollutants between marine organisms and people via seafood consumption has been identified as a health risk.

Lack of management

"You tend to ask 'Why are there many plastics in the oceans? Do we necessarily throw our garbage there?' But no, it really is because our solid waste management, landfills and dumpsites are not managed properly, and we are not managing plastics well," she said.

Osorio said aside from managing solid waste, the country also needs to work on its extreme usage of single-use plastics.

According to her, a person uses a single plastic for an average of only 12 minutes and immediately throws it away.

"In fact, there is a study that says that we generated a total of 164 million plastic sachets, 45.2 million plastic labo or thin-film bags, and 48 million shopping bags daily," she said.

Single-use plastics

Osorio hopes the National Government will take steps to eliminate the usage of single-use plastics, such as by using alternative shopping bags.

Republic Act 11898, or the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Act of 2022, requires large-scale companies to establish a mechanism for the recovery of their plastic packaging.

Osorio believes that big companies have the burden to collect the plastics; however, she said "the law is not fully implemented yet by these billion-dollar companies, but on a staggered basis.”

She said the problem with the EPR Act is that this does not cover micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) but only the large companies.

"This is not the silver bullet. This is not the answer to our problems, but it can be part of the solution as well, if it is done and fully implemented properly and efficiently," she said.

She believes that the problem of plastic waste can be ended by stopping the use of single-use plastics, which can be started by banning the unnecessary single-use plastics, including drinking straws, coffee stirrers, plastic utensils, thin-film shopping bags, styrofoams, water bottles and plastic cups.

Not enough

Osorio lauded the initiatives of local government units (LGUs) to ban single-use plastics; however, she believes this should be implemented at the national level.

"The problem is not having a national policy, which is supposed to be done by the National Waste Commission, headed by the DENR, to set these national guidelines," she said.

"There are variations of these local ordinances, these local initiatives. They are not the same," she added.

Citing data from the DENR, she said only 315 LGUs in the country implement an initiative against the use of single-use plastic; however, it is not uniform.

"There are different forms of implementation. There are two days in a week, one day in a week," she said, adding that implementing it as a national policy will encourage more LGUs.

According to the PSA, there were 33 highly urbanized cities, 108 component cities, five independent component cities and 1,488 municipalities that comprised the LGUs in the country, as of 2020.

July 22, 2023 5:00 AM

With 20 million road cyclists in China, the industry is expected to be worth $21.8 billion by 2026.

July 22, 2023 12:29 AM

Films in Pakistan need to be cleared by provincial boards.

Oil companies are expected to implement another round of price hike for gasoline next week.

The water levels of Angat and four other dams started to drop again after days of improvement, according to latest monitoring of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.

The International Criminal Court cannot expect the Philippine government to cooperate with its investigation into the Duterte administration’s controversial war on drugs, President Marcos asserted yesterday.

With Congress set to resume its second regular session on Monday, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri has vowed to shepherd 20 priority measures to enactment by yearend.

The country’s police force received an added boost to its capabilities in securing President Marcos’ second State of the Nation Address on July 24 in the form of drones donated by Okada Manila.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration yesterday said that a low-pressure area (LPA) east of Southern Luzon has developed into Tropical Depression Egay and may turn into a super typhoon, adding that many areas in the country should prepare for the potential cyclone that has a radius of 550 kilometers.

President Marcos has directed newly installed Armed Forces chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. to “recalibrate” internal security operations to ensure that basic government services reach the remotest areas and poorest communities.