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(Manila Bulletin) Guided by the principle that knowledge is power, and that education can pave the way to a brighter future, Epson Philippines has teamed up with Save the Children Philippines, the world’s leading independent children’s organization.

In support of Save the Children’s Safe Schools Common Approach, Epson Philippines donated 24 printers and 90 bottles of inks to 24 schools, 8,830 learner beneficiaries, and 336 teacher beneficiaries in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). Save the Children Philippines carefully chose the academic institutions in need of technical assistance within the region for this endeavor.

Safe Schools Common Approach is a partnership between the Save the Children and the BARMM to ensure the fulfillment of children’s rights during situations of armed conflict and other emergencies, including calamities and the COVID-19 pandemic. This program is an all-inclusive, all-hazards approach to keeping children safe in and around schools. Its goal is to bridge the digital divide and divisions in communities through inclusive education & technology that promotes justice, peace, and overall development for all and future generations of the Bangsamoro people… Read More

(Daily Tribune) Last February, I went to Barangay Buso-buso and Barangay Banyaga in Laurel, Batangas with the director and staff of the Philippine branch of the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF), a non-governmental organization (NGO) providing services to underprivileged children and families.

Since I came to the Philippines in 2019, Taal Volcano has erupted at least four times and forced the residents to flee to safer places. So I was keen to know why the residents still preferred to live there, what they did to make a living and what the impacts were to live with an active volcano and to experience multiple times of eruptions.

January 2020 was the first time Taal Volcano erupted when I was in Manila, and it really came as a surprise because I never thought something like that would happen in an area only about 50 kilometers away from Metro Manila. While I had visited Tagaytay a couple of times, it never hit upon me that Taal is an active volcano and it is actually dangerous living in the area… Read More

(Journal Online) OP360 aims to hire 500+ Davaoeños for both onsite and remote roles this year as it expects to officially launch its Davao site in Q3.

DAVAO CITY, PHILIPPINES — OfficePartners360 (OP360) celebrated its expansion into Mindanao with a career open house at its Davao site on Saturday, April 2nd. Located at the Topaz Tower in Damosa IT Park, this new site marks the company’s fourth delivery center in the Philippines.

Our arrival in Davao City, the King City of the South, represents a major milestone and watershed moment for OP360 as we expand our footprint in the Philippines beyond Cebu for the first time ever.”— Ben Roberts, President OP360

Close to 100 Davaoeños attended the hiring event and expressed interest in joining OP360. After going through screening, applicants sat in on initial interviews with the OP360 Recruitment Team. OP360 President, Ben Roberts, was present to assist applicants through every step of the hybrid application process, answering questions about the company along the way. “Cebu is known as the Queen City of the South, so we couldn’t be more excited to now be operating in both the King and Queen City of the Philippines.”.. Read More

(Bulatlat) MANILA — A month before the elections, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) relaunched on April 13 its Media Safety Office as attacks against the Philippine press persist.

NUJP chairperson Jonathan de Santos said journalists have been continuously barred from covering the election, and are even put under immense pressure over their reports.

Also, since October last year alone, the NUJP documented at least three journalist killings.

“This makes the relaunch of NUJP’s Safety Office very timely,” he said.

The recent case was a broadcaster in Lanao del Norte, Audrey Estrada, who was found dead in her house last March. She sustained 15 stab wounds. Last December, Pampanga-based journalist Jesus “Jess” Malabanan was shot by unidentified gunmen while inside their store in Calbayog City, Samar.

Through its reactivated Safety Office, the NUJP can better monitor, document, and respond to the different forms of violations to press freedom.

“The increased capacity of the Safety Office will mean quicker and closer monitoring of these attacks against our colleagues,” said De Santos.

NUJP also introduced three new safety officers for the major island groups in the Philippines… Read More

(VOA News) SAN FRANCISCO —
Lockdowns of Chinese cities to contain the spread of COVID-19 are snarling imports and exports, according to economists. They say those hitches are slowly raising prices abroad while lowering demand in the world’s largest market for inbound merchandise.

The well-off port city of Shanghai, with a population of about 25 million people, began phasing in lockdowns last month as COVID-19 cases rose on their way to more than 200,000 as of Tuesday. Those restrictions followed the shuttering of China’s tech megalopolis, Shenzhen, in March.

Seaports in both cities have slowed because of a lack of workers and a quarantine on inbound crews of cargo ships from abroad, analysts said. Shanghai is the world’s largest container port and Shenzhen ranks fourth.

At Chinese factories, a backbone of the domestic and world economy, “limited” amounts of labor, plus suspended transportation, mean operators can “only rely on onsite inventory to barely meet the needs of production lines,” Taipei-based market research firm TrendForce said in an April 11 research note emailed to VOA… Read More

(Kuwait Times) A Hong Kong television show has ignited anger over a Filipina character played by a local actress who darkened her skin, in the latest incident of “brownface” in Asia. Broadcaster TVB cast Canadian-Hong Konger Franchesca Wong to play a Filipina domestic worker for its series “Barrack O’Karma 2” which, despite its name, is a suspense thriller series and not about US politics. Wong appears in the show with visibly darker skin and a clip posted by a colleague on Instagram showed her applying make-up to her legs. “I am transforming into another person,” Wong said in the video, affecting a Filipino accent. “I am sun-tanning right now,” she added. Local media reviews this week of Wong’s portrayal have been largely favorable and skipped discussion of race.

But the decision to darken her skin—and the casting choice itself—have sparked criticism, particularly among the city’s Filipino population. “I don’t think it’s appropriate that she had to darken her skin for the role,” Sabrina Man, a Chinese-Filipino former actress working in Hong Kong as a model, told AFP. “Domestic workers have done so much for Hong Kong, and I think it’s disrespectful to them and to Filipinos in general to do this,” she added. “It wouldn’t have been difficult to look for someone with Filipino heritage to play the role,” she said… Read More

(Journal Online) In line with its commitment to promote safety culture, Aboitiz Construction achieved 8.3 million safe man-hours for a mining project in Taganito HPAL Nickel Corporation (THPAL) in Claver, Surigao del Norte from September 2012 to February 2022 and 3.2 million safe man-hours for the ongoing Tecnimont and JGC Philippines Joint Ventures (TJJV) project in Brgy. Pinamucan Ibaba, Batangas City from January 2019 to February 2022. Both records are without lost-time injuries.

“These achievements prove that we are committed towards safety and we value teamwork in delivering quality output for our customers. We are doing our best to adhere to the safety standards set by the company, Department of Labor and Employment, and the client,” said Alex Garciano, Vice President for Construction Operations of Aboitiz Construction.

In order to promote safety in the workplace, both sites have been conducting a series of precautionary and preventive drills, hazard and risk mapping, safety awareness training, site inspections and audits, checking of personal protective equipment and tool box meetings to discuss safety matters… Read More

(NPR) As search and rescue efforts increased with the arrival of equipment, the death toll has risen to at least 56, with 28 others missing, after a summer tropical depression that unleashed days of pounding rain caused landslides and floods in the central and southern Philippines, officials said Wednesday.

Nearly 200 villagers were injured mostly in the landslides in the hard-hit city of Baybay in central Leyte province over the weekend and early Monday, officials said. Army, police and other rescuers were struggling with mud and unstable heaps of earth and debris to find the missing villagers.

More rescuers and heavy equipment, including backhoes, arrived in the landslide-hit villages in Baybay. Its mayor, Jose Carlos Cari, said the weather cleared Wednesday, allowing the search and rescue work to go full force.

“We’re looking for so many more missing people,” Cari said and added that authorities would do a recount to determine how many villagers were really missing and believed buried in the landslides… Read More