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(LA Times) Nestled in a clearing between rye fields and lush jungle, the bases on one of the few baseball diamonds in the Philippines’ Tanauan City sat in sludge.

In video taken by scouts visiting the area, a rooster crowed in the background and a dog watched from behind a rusty foul-line fence.

Baseball dreams hardly exist there, where kids play with fraying gloves and a cracked yellow bucket of cowhide-less baseballs. Yet to representatives visiting last summer from the Philippines national baseball team, the field represented promise.

“There is endless possibility out there,” said Bill Picketts, head coach of the Philippines national team. “There’s nothing. There’s no facilities.”

There are hundreds of kids with unbridled joy for the sport, as Picketts — also the head coach at L.A. Pierce College — saw during a summer trip to Tanauan City. Vince Sagisi, a former Major League Baseball scout of 13 years who’s now the Philippines national team’s recruiting coordinator, said he stumbled upon a 14-year-old with a wipeout three-pitch mix and a shortstop “making throws like Derek Jeter” on a six-week trip to the islands… Read More

(SurinameTimes) A paedophile who directed sex attacks on girls in the Philippines from his home in the Scottish Highlands has been jailed for 12 years. Gary Campbell, 59, paid for abuse to be carried out by adults as he watched and recorded it on the internet from his home in Lochinver in Sutherland. Campbell’s youngest victim was thought to have been four years old. He admitted 13 charges including rape, assault, and inciting children to become providers of sexual services. A the High Court in Edinburgh, Lord Beckett said: “Over a period of more than two years you were intermittently sexually corrupting young children. “You will appreciate these are grave crimes indeed, for which there is no alternative to a prison sentence.” Campbell’s crimes were committed between June 2012 and August 2014. The high court heard that police raided his home in May 2021 as part of a child sex abuse investigation… Read More

(Asia Pacific Report) The Philippines and the United States will hold their largest Balikatan exercise this year, with 17,600 troops expected to participate in the annual combined joint exercise next month, says Armed Forces of the Philippines.

This follows recent an announcement by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr that the Philippines was rolling back history to open four new bases “scattered” around the country to US forces after Subic Bay naval base was closed in 1992.

Balikatan spokesperson Colonel Michael Logico told reporters that about 12,000 US troops and 111 more from the Australian Defence Force would participate in this year’s exercises, along with 5000 Philippine soldiers… Read More

(PhilStar) MANILA, Philippines — Filipino-American Hollywood actress Vanessa Hudgens is set to visit the Philippines for the first time this month to film a travel documentary exploring her Filipino heritage.

Paul Soriano is attached to the project as the producer, executive producer and director.

According to a report by Variety, the High School Musical star will be visiting her mother’s birth country as filming for the project begins in Manila and Palawan at the end of this month.

The untitled documentary will focus on Vanessa’s relationship with her sister Stella, and Filipino mom Gina, who left the Philippines for the United States at the age of 25.

“I feel like ours is such a relatable story to so many women all over the world. The more that we can share, the more we can lift each other up,” Vanessa was quoted saying in the report… Read More

(RawStory) MANILA – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Wednesday that four new military bases under a defense agreement with the U.S. would be located in various parts of the Philippines, including in a province facing the South China Sea.

Last month, Marcos granted the U.S. access to four sites, on top of five existing locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which comes amid China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan.

“There are four extra sites scattered around the Philippines – there are some in the north, there are some around Palawan, there are some further south,” Marcos told reporters at the sidelines of the Philippine army’s founding anniversary.

The EDCA allows U.S. access to Philippine bases for joint training, pre-positioning of equipment and building of facilities such as runways, fuel storage and military housing, but it is not a permanent presence… Read More

(Interaksyon) MANILA — A leaking fuel tanker that sank off the central Philippines three weeks ago has been found using an underwater robot from Japan, a provincial governor said on Tuesday, as authorities sought more foreign help to address the oil spill.

The discovery of MT Princess Empress, which was carrying about 800,000 liters (211,338 gallons) of industrial fuel oil when it capsized on Feb. 28 and eventually sank, was deemed crucial in stopping the spill, which reached shorelines in three provinces.

Plugging the leaks and extracting any remaining oil from the tanker was urgent, Oriental Mindoro Governor Humerlito Dolor said in a media briefing… Read More

(BusinessMirror) The country’s debt service payments last year amounted to P1.293 trillion, the highest in 36 years, based on data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).

The BTr data indicated the country’s debt service payments in 2022 were 7.4 percent higher than the P1.2 trillion posted in 2021.

Prior to 2022, the largest debt payment was recorded in 2021 while the lowest was posted in 1986, when it reached P34.813 billion, based on existing government data.

However, the debt service payments last year were slightly lower than the initial target of the government. For 2022, the government programmed debt payments to reach P1.298 trillion.

BTr data indicated that amortizations rose 2.02 percent to P790.32 billion in 2022 from P774.64 billion in 2021… Read More

(BusinessMirror) THE industrial oil from the sunken MT Princess Empress is threatening to affect the Verde Island Passage (VIP), a region described by scientists as the center of marine biodiversity in the world.

According to Conservation International, the VIP is “one of the most productive ecosystems in the world.” From fishing to shipping, the VIP provides food, livelihoods and other benefits to over 2 million people.

It is also home to “charismatic species such as whale sharks, sea turtles, nudibranchs, and an impressive array of corals.”.

More importantly, Conservation International declared that the strait is “the backbone of the local economy, thriving upon coastal tourism, fisheries, and as a shipping route to the international ports of Batangas, Manila and Subic Bay.”More importantly, Conservation International declared that the strait is “the backbone of the local economy, thriving upon coastal tourism, fisheries, and as a shipping route to the international ports of Batangas, Manila and Subic Bay.”… Read More