Philippines News

Source: Beehive

CEBU City Police Office (CCPO) Director Colonel Ireneo Dalogdog urged on Sunday, July 16, 2023, police personnel who have personal weapons to renew their License to Own and Possess Firearms (LTOPF).

Dalogdog said he will an administrative case against those who fail to do so.

This is in line with the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) strict implementation of the program against loose firearms where unlicensed weapons are confiscated.

Dalogdog said some policemen and members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines became the subject of Oplan Katok because they did not renew their LTOPF.

"Those of our PNP personnel who refuse or insist on not renewing their LTOPF or their firearms registration are now facing an administrative case," the police official said.

Apart from this, Dalogdog said it will be most likely that they will be the target of a search warrant if they continue to refuse to renew their LTOPF, especially when the election period starts and the gun ban begins for the October barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.

Meanwhile, he advised civilians who cannot afford to renew their LTOPF to surrender their firearms at the nearest police station.

The CCPO held an LTOPF caravan in coordination with the Regional Civil Security Unit in Central Visayas on Thursday, July 13, which gave members of the public a chance to renew their firearm’s license in one day. (AYB)

A 19-YEAR-OLD tourism student at the University of San Carlos was declared dead on arrival at the hospital after the motorcycle-for-hire she was riding ran into a garbage truck in Barangay Lorega San Miguel, Cebu City.

The victim was identified as Geraldine Amad Asentitas, a resident of Barangay Labangon.

Joselito Añasco Cenabre, the motorcycle-for-hire driver who resides in Barangay Pajo, Lapu-Lapu City, was unharmed.

Corporal Rhenniel Jay Docejos of the Parian Police Station said they’ve detained Michael Rivera, the driver of the garbage truck.

Rivera told police he was crossing Imus Avenue and turning left heading for Barangay Carreta when he stepped on the brakes after the vehicle in front of him suddenly stopped.

He said he didn’t see the motorcycle-for-hire to his left.

Based on police investigation, Asentitas was thrown upon impact and suffered severe injuries that caused her death.

Rivera will be charged with reckless imprudence resulting to homicide. (BBT)

In traditional Filipino culture, communication is about transaction, a give and take of messages and responses that are mutually beneficial for and acceptable to all parties.

When the discussion gets tangled in complications that are unanticipated and often undesired, many Filipinos still negotiate to avoid confrontation.

The latest to test the limits of civility is Pura Luka Vega, who dressed up as Jesus Christ and performed in a local bar a rock version of the “Ama Namin,” the Filipino song rendition of the “Lord’s Prayer.”

Based on the 2020 Census of Population and Housing, 85.65 million of the 108.57 million Filipinos who took part identified themselves as Roman Catholics. This represents 78.8 percent of the Philippine population in 2020.

For Roman Catholic Filipinos, the “Lord’s Prayer” is one of the prayers learned in childhood. Even among Catholics living in Visayas and Mindanao, the Filipino translation of “Ama Namin” is committed to memory from eucharistic celebrations where the congregation sings the prayer Jesus Christ taught to his disciples.

The Britannica describes the “Lord’s Prayer” as a “‘canonical prayer’ of Christianity, used in nearly all denominations of the faith,” adding that the prayer “is considered a model of how to pray.”

Taking to social media, where images and posts about Vega’s drag performance first surfaced, many Roman Catholic Filipinos condemned the act as a “blasphemy.” From pulpits, priests urged in their homilies that the faithful must fortify themselves against those who attack the faith.

Given Catholicism’s hold on nearly 79 percent of the nation’s population, the drag performance had a predictable reception, applying Stuart Hall’s theory that media texts contain representations that are far from faithful reproductions of realities.

Pura Luka Vega’s drag performance of Jesus Christ performing the rock version of the “Ama Namin” was rejected and condemned by Filipinos, who, unconscious even of the artist’s statement behind the drag performance, interpreted in the act meanings that could not co-exist with their religiosity.

Hall theorized that an audience decoding a message may agree or disagree with meanings encoded by the sender. Aside from the “dominant” or “oppositional” reading, a third reading may have the audience negotiate with the sender about possible interpretations of the communicative act that create, rather than disrupt, a connection between the sender and receiver.

In a tweet last July 13, Pura Luka Vega said she “understood” the backlash over her performance but disagreed with citizens dictating how she should practice her faith or perform drag.

“It is my experience and my expression, of having been denied my rights,” commented Vega at the close of the July 13 tweet.

Beyond the perception that drag is a form of entertainment involving men crossdressing to exaggerate femininity, this form of popular culture embeds a history of resistance to oppression.

According to MasterClass.com, men impersonating women in plays to work around the ban imposed on female performers was practiced during ancient Greece until Shakespeare’s time.

In the 1990s, drag culture was embraced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and others community as part of the Gay Liberation movement asserting gay pride, rights, and empowerment to resist marginalization.

While men, often gay or queer, dominate drag culture, trends show an openness to include transgender and cisgender women as drag queens, notes MasterClass.com.

From expressing a host of issues from self-acceptance of one’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression to living with human immunodeficiency virus and hate crimes, drag artists use art to reach beyond the campy and entertaining: advocacy for voices that are stifled, ignored or erased.

A FEMALE TEACHER was allegedly caught in flagrante delicto with a mechanic inside a lodging house in Barangay Poblacion in the northern town of Compostela, Cebu on Saturday, July 15, 2023.

Patrolman Renan Relampagos of the Compostela Police Station said the incident took place around 4:20 p.m.

He said the teacher’s 45-year-old husband, who is a supervisor at the Department of Education in Central Visayas, had sought their help.

Last Saturday’s operation was led by station chief Captain Roy Mamaradlo and personnel of the Women and Children’s Protection Desk.

During the arrest, the teacher said she decided to have an affair after she found out that her husband was involved with another woman with whom he had two children.

Police brought her and her lover to the station, where she suddenly drank a whole bottle of liniment oil.

Police took her to the hospital but brought her back to the station after she was declared out of danger.

The teacher and her lover will be charged with adultery. (BBT)

LOCAL government units (LGUs) can work with private and public stakeholders to expand the range of options in financing smart city initiatives, according to a research paper published by the think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (Pids).

“The conduct of PPP (public-private partnership) smart city projects should be explored more as an additional option, given the emphasis placed on its potential in the reviewed literature and cases of international cities,” it said in a paper.

The Pids said LGUs can work with the PPP Center to build their capacity to implement PPP projects and conduct feasibility studies.

As smart city development is recognized as a potential solution to urbanization issues, the Pids said engagements with stakeholders also open opportunities in terms of financing relevant projects.

“Ultimately, engagements with stakeholders in smart city initiatives, including those implemented by the private sector, should be supported by ordinances, resolutions, and/or MOAs (memorandums of agreement) to help ensure sustainability,” it added.

The paper said some private sector stakeholders involved in smart city initiatives were interviewed, including four development organizations and seven businesses.

These interviewed development organizations are supporting smart city development’s infrastructure and data phase through networking, financing, and providing service and technical support.

“Those involved in the infrastructure phase help capacitate LGUs and even link them to businesses that can provide infrastructure technology involving focus areas of quality environment. In contrast, those in the data phase provide data-relevant technology involving safety, security, and built infrastructure,” it added.

Also among the recommendations in the Pids study is for the country to consider branding its cities as smart.

“Regardless of the potential pitfalls, branding should still be considered an enabler because of its ability to attract investments,” it said.

“Establishing a brand for technology and innovation-powered Philippine cities can unlock opportunities to gain additional investments for government projects. The brand should be echoed by complementary policies to reflect the commitment to realizing the vision,” it added. (PHILEXPORT)

More than 25% of employees could be replaced, a report by OECD has claimed 

The artificial intelligence (AI) "revolution" could jeopardize more than a quarter of jobs in the 38-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the group warned in a report this week.

Jobs that c

The vessel tilted after a tire of one of the 16 rolling cargoes on board exploded and broke the lashing. 

The NDRRMC said in its bulletin that the two weather disturbances have affected 1,638 individuals from Ilocos region, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Mimaropa, and Western Visayas.

CEBU City is one step closer to hosting the nationwide Palarong Pambansa as it awaits the final decision following the fourth and final phase of the bidding process.

The Queen City of the South keeps its fingers crossed for the hosting of next year’s Palarong Pambansa, which would be the third hosting after the 1954 and 1994 Palarong Pambansa.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama together with City Councilor Dondon Hontiveros, Cebu City Sports Commission chief John Pages, and Department of Education in Central Visayas (DepEd 7) officials led by Director Sal Jimenez with DepEd Cebu City Assistant Schools Division Superintendent Adolf Aguilar and City Schools Division Superintendent Nimfa Bongo.

Three local government units vied for the Palaro hosting including Negros Occidental and Antique Province.

“Vice President Sara Duterte, the DepEd secretary, was not in attendance but all the top Palaro board members, composed of DepEd Undersecretaries and Asst. Secretaries, were present. Representing the PSC, which holds a seat in the Palaro board, was PSC Commissioner Walter Torres,” said Pages.

Cebu City presented first followed by Antique then Negros Occidental.

“We presented first. After, we could not listen or watch the other presentations but ours was comprised of speeches from our Cebu City representatives, led by Mayor Rama, and we showed two video presentations: the Singapore-like Cebu City video and a Palaro-Cebu City video prepared by Anna Conejero,” said Pages.

The winning bidder will be announced on Aug. 5 during the closing ceremony of this year’s Palarong Pambansa, which Marikina City will host.

Pages said the final decision will come from Duterte and the Palarong Pambansa board.

From June 23 to 26, officials from DepEd and Philippine Sports Commission visited the playing venues and billeting quarters in Cebu City as part of the technical inspection. (RSC)

I’ve written about this topic a few times a decade ago, when the Azkals went mainstream and I told myself I won’t entertain this one again. But again, it seems, Filipinos need some reminders. When the Filipinas lineup for the World Cup was announced, there went the old argument—they’re not homegrown, they’re not Filipinas, and we should have a national team of pureblooded Filipinas.

(Insert expletive) the hypocrisy!

Why do I think they are hypocrites? It’s simple. They get to share their vitriol online, they have that luxury because of our economy, an economy that was boosted by $36.14 billion from remittances from OFWs in 2022 alone. That’s P2 trillion if you convert it, almost half of the P5.2 trillion national budget of the country for 2023.

Why am I citing that? The foreign-born Filipinos whom a sector of the sports community criticizes or call as non-homegrown are the children or grandchildren of the Filipino Diaspora. Take away that P2 trillion in the economy, what are we?

It’s just saying, you can feed us. You can support my lifestyle. But don’t you dare represent us.

What is a pure Filipino anyway? Or what is it when you say, he or she doesn’t look like a Filipino? Heck, most of our movie stars or noontime show hosts don’t look like our next-door neighbors, does that mean they aren’t Filipinos? Where’s the outcry?

They can’t speak Tagalog? More than half the country isn’t comfortable speaking in Tagalog, does that mean we aren’t Filipinos?

The Filipinos are everywhere. Both the men’s and women’s national team have acknowledged this trait unique to the Philippines—that everywhere they go, there is a Filipino community, even in North Korea.

Every Filipino family has a relative based abroad. But when it comes to the national teams, we are only supposed to only consider Filipinos here?

Isn’t that a one-step forward, a thousand steps backward kind of thinking?

Our women’s national team is in the world cup. THE World Cup and instead of celebrating, some of our kababayans are asking, “Why don’t they look like me? Why do they have non-Filipino surnames?”

Ironic for a country named after the former king of Spain and whose citizens, during the Spanish era, were forced to adopt Spanish surnames.

Am I right Juan dela Cruz?

Let’s end this homegrown nonsense. This insecurity. This crab mentality.

Because if you really think hard about it, it’s all about jealousy. Most of the guys who want homegrown players in the national team? They’re insecure that the children of overseas OFWs are playing in the national team.

They’re insecure that the OFWs have improved their lives when they left the country.

“It should have been me” is what they really mean when they ask those questions.

The women’s national team, like the rest of the other national teams, is a team of Filipinos!

Period.

In a resolution in late March that was made public over the weekend, the Supreme Court said Reyes failed to show proof that the Puerto Princesa City Regional Trial Court abused its jurisdiction in ordering that his trial continue.

By ignoring the growing consensus coalescing around the Philippine victory in the West Philippine Sea arbitral ruling, the Chinese government further isolates itself from the international community.

The world has spoken: the territorial claims embodied in the so-called “9-dash line” have no basis in history or international law. Despite the name, the South China Sea is not Chinese, and the Chinese government has no special authority therein, other than as provided for in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

China’s call for the rest of the world to stay out of the territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea and respect its “territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests” is the height of hypocrisy, as the Chinese government itself all too willingly violates the sovereignty, rights, and interests of other claimant countries when it thinks it can get away with it.

As to the alleged “mastermind” of the arbitration case, I strongly urge the Chinese Embassy to at least show some basic courtesy to the Philippines, their host country, before deciding to release inflammatory statements on a day the Filipino people are celebrating a great victory. This is an affront to the Filipinos who stood up for ourselves, and had the heart, courage, and fighting spirit to take China to court.

If China keeps ignoring the arbitral ruling, the Marcos administration should seriously consider reviewing our national policy toward China.

“No destructive tsunami threat exists based on available data,” Phivolcs said. 

PREPARE to be amazed as we delve into the realm of sheer audacity and incompetence that has unfolded before our very eyes. Behold, the grand reveal of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) logo disaster and the “Love the Philippines” campaign debacle. Brace yourselves for a journey through the corridors of power where lack of respect and a stunning disregard for the Filipino people take center stage.

Grab your popcorn and witness the spectacle of those who believe they can pull the wool over our eyes because, apparently, they think we, the Filipinos, are all a bunch of gullible fools.

Million-peso logo: Putting the ‘pro’ in ‘profoundly absurd’

Hold on to your aesthetic sensibilities, folks, as Pagcor’s new logo steps into the spotlight. It’s a visual feast—of disappointment. Prepare to be dazzled by its tackiness, imbalance and utter lack of artistic appeal.

But wait, there’s more! This piece of design wizardry comes with a mind-boggling price tag of P3,035,714.28. Yes, you read that right—your hard-earned money was spent on this monument to bad taste. Bravo to the decision-makers who managed to extract every last centavo from our wallets in exchange for an eyesore we’ll forever remember.

Printplus Graphic Services: The fairy godmother of Barangay-level design

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the genius of Printplus Graphic Services, the virtuoso graphic design company that came out of nowhere. Newly registered for PhilGEPS with a red-flagged status, this extraordinary enterprise focuses its creative talents on, wait for it, the Barangay level.

Move over, world-class agencies! We have found the hidden gem that no one knew existed until a month ago. With a non-existent website and a Facebook page boasting a whopping 39 followers, Printplus Graphic Services is clearly the go-to choice for all your multi-million peso design needs. Who needs credentials when you can have a virtually unknown entity at the helm?

‘Love the Philippines’ campaign: Lesson in authenticity... or lack thereof

Get ready to embark on a journey through the captivating landscapes of the Philippines... or not. Brace yourselves for the shocking revelation that four scenes in the “Love the Philippines” campaign video were, in fact, from stock footage.

Who needs real footage shot in our own breathtaking country when we can just pull a fast one with generic imagery? Kudos to the brilliant minds behind this campaign, who clearly believe that the beauty of the Philippines can be faked without anyone noticing. We applaud your creative use of taxpayer money—P49 million well spent... or not.

A salute to incompetence and disrespect

Ladies and gentlemen, these astonishing shenanigans epitomize the pinnacle of incompetence and disrespect for the Filipino people. Our esteemed leaders seem to think that they can treat us like mindless pawns, easily fooled and manipulated. The audacity is truly awe-inspiring. It’s as if they believe we’re living in a parallel universe where logic and reason have no place, and they can get away with their brazen schemes unscathed.

Rise up, demand accountability and reclaim our dignity

It’s high time we reminded our esteemed leaders that they are public servants, entrusted with the responsibility to act in the best interests of the Filipino people. Transparency must not be an afterthought or a fleeting promise; it must be the cornerstone of their actions. We demand a system that selects contractors based on merit and expertise, not personal connections or favors. We deserve campaigns that truly celebrate the beauty of our nation, shot within our borders and showcasing our authentic culture.

As we bid farewell to the saga of the pricey logo and exotic tourism misadventures, let us not forget the lessons learned. We, the Filipino people, will no longer tolerate being treated as pawns in their game of deception. It’s time to hold those in power accountable, to demand integrity and to rebuild the trust that has been shattered. Replace the sarcasm with genuine pride.

Hello, everyone! Today, July 17, is celebrated as World Emoji Day! So get your mobile phones out, and start flooding your friend’s inbox with a ton of fun emojis—just kidding.

What is an “emoji”

According to a definition by Merriam-Webster, an emoji is “any of various small images, symbols, or icons used in text fields in electronic communication (as in text messages, email, and social media) to express the emotional attitude of the writer, convey information succinctly, communicate a message playfully without using words, etc.”

For today, we would like to play a game with everyone. Here are seven sets of emojis. Try to guess what these stand for (clue, they all have a relation to Cebu). To be able to answer them, don’t take them too literally.

Are you ready to play? Here we go!

Clues:

Happy World Emoji Day!

Police Lieutenant Colonel Ricky Reli, officer-in-charge of the Leyte police, relieved Police Staff Sergeant Rhea May Baleos and her husband Police Staff Sergeant Ver Baleos of their duties.

The memorandum said the new campaign is “characterized by a principled, accountable and dependable government.”

PAGASA said that monsoon rain will affect Zambales, Bataan, Occidental Mindoro, and the northern portion of Palawan. 

National's so-called "pothole repair fund" would raid other road safety funding to fix a problem that they created themselves, Transport Minister David Parker said today.

"This Government is spending more on road maintenance, including pothole repairs, than any previous government," David Parker said.

"The curre