Editorial 6/3/16 (Philippines, politics, slavery, dengue, Duterte)
Philippine Star "Modern slavery"
Here’s another downside of the migrant worker phenomenon: many of those 10 million Filipinos overseas work under conditions likened to modern slavery. Australia-based Walk Free Foundation released this week its 2016 Global Slavery Index, in which the Philippines ranked 19th among 167 countries in terms of absolute number of people living in conditions of modern slavery, and 33rd in terms of proportion of the population. The study estimated that 401,000 Filipinos, most of them working overseas, are trapped in modern slavery – up from 261,200 in the 2014 index, when the country ranked 103rd in terms of proportion of population. The study, initiated in 2012 by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest to draw global attention to the problem, estimated that 45.8 million people worldwide live in modern slavery, with the greatest number – 18.35 million – residing in India and two-thirds of the total in the Asia-Pacific. [full text]Sun.Star Cebu "A problem like Mary Joy Tabal"
A STORM is brewing around the recent feat of the country's marathon queen, Cebu's own Mary Joy Tabal. She broke the Olympic qualifying time of 2 hours, 45 minutes by clocking 2 hours, 43 minutes and 31 seconds in the Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon in Canada. Ideally, that would have been enough for her to join the Philippine delegation to the Olympics to be hosted by Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August. But Tabal may not realize her dream of joining the Rio Olympics if Philip Ella Juico, president of the Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association (Patafa) will have his way. Juico is now lobbying with the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) to deny Tabal's entry to the Olympics if she does not kowtow to the Patafa demand that she seek reinstatement as national team member. [full text]Mindanao Times "Fighting dengue in schools"
THE CITY Health Office is reminding public schools and day care centers to use the chemically-treated mesh fabrics to fight against dengue-carrying mosquitoes at the onset of the rainy season and the opening of classes. In the city, the districts identified as vulnerable to dengue are Buhangin, Talomo, Toril, Tugbok, Agdao, Sasa, and Bunawan. The Department of Health has given the city P24 million-worth of anti-mosquito fabrics which, according to Beth Banzon, Tropical Disease and Prevention Control coordinator, was distributed to 285 public schools since April this year. There are also 555 day-care centers in the city that received the mesh fabrics treated with permethrin, an insecticide used against dengue-carrying mosquitoes..[full text]Inquirer "Trigger-happy"
Last Tuesday, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte presented his Cabinet-in-waiting to the public for the first time. The rite of political passage was quickly overshadowed, however, when Duterte’s news conference took a by-now-familiar turn for the bizarre. He complimented a TV anchor/reporter in the cringe-inducing tradition of Dirty Old Men, catcalling her as she stood up to ask a question and pretending that she was trying to catch his attention for other reasons. And he answered another question about journalist killings by impugning the integrity of the victims and justifying their deaths as corruption-related. Strictly speaking, he did not “endorse” journalist killings, but he justified them, called them impossible to prevent, undermined the protections guaranteed by the Constitution, and in the end failed to even so much as hint that he, the mayor with the iron fist, would use the long arm of the law to prevent more killings and render justice to the aggrieved. In other words, he gave the signal to those with an axe to grind against journalists to start grinding that axe into journalists’ skulls. [full page]
