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(GMA News) Two Senate hopefuls running under the ticket of presidential aspirant Panfilo Lacson and vice presidential candidate Vicente Sotto III aired their views on separate matters on Thursday: the Commission on Elections’ restrictions during in-person campaigning, and the government importation of agricultural products.

‘Worse than the IATF’

At a press conference at the Lacson-Sotto headquarters in San Juan, senatorial candidate Dr. Minguita Padilla said the rules imposed by the Comelec are worse than the guidelines released by the government’s inter-agency task force that handles the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Perhaps, you can ask Comelec what is the basis of all these rules because it’s worse than the IATF,” Padilla said.

“Bawal mag-selfie kahit lahat bakunado naman, ang daming bawal, even to hand out pamphlets,” she added.

(The candidates are not allowed to take selfies even if we are all fully vaccinated. A lot of things are prohibited, even handing out pamphlets.)

Citing medical studies, Padilla said that it is “very unlikely” to contract COVID-19 from objects.

“There’s so many rules that they gave which we don’t know what’s their basis. Will they be more flexible as our alert level goes down? Will they reconsider their rules because it is very difficult to control the people,” she said in mixed Filipino.

Prior to Padilla’s statement, Sotto asked the poll body how they will sanction those who violate their restrictions… Read More

(BusinessWorld) The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday rejected three consolidated lawsuits seeking to disqualify the son and namesake of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos from the presidential race this year.

In a 41-page decision, the election body’s First Division ruled former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr.’s conviction for tax evasion in the 1990s did not involve wicked, deviant behavior.

“Is the failure to file tax returns inherently immoral? We submit that it is not,” according to a copy of the ruling written by election Commissioner Aimee P. Ferolino. “The failure to file tax returns is not inherently wrong in the absence of a law punishing it.”

Commissioner Marlon S. Casquejo, who signed the ruling, also wrote a separate 12-page opinion in which he said Mr. Marcos’s crime did not involve “moral turpitude.”

“We cannot justify such omission necessarily results in injustice; this is an overkill,” he said in his opinion, referring to the presidential bet’s failure to file tax returns. “We cannot link such omission to contravention of morals; this is an exaggerated innuendo.”

Former First Division Presiding Commissioner Maria Rowena V. Guanzon released .. Read More

(CNN Philippines) Metro Manila — The Department of Health on Wednesday reported that the entire country is now at low to moderate risk for COVID-19, except for Soccsksargen, which remains at high risk.

This was after the region registered a 56% two-week growth rate in cases, the DOH said.

Last week, the department de-escalated the Philippines to the moderate risk classification following the drop in new infections.

As of Wednesday, 16 out of the 17 regions nationwide are also at either low to moderate risk after recording negative growth rates in the past 14 days.

“All regions reported fewer cases on Jan. 27 to Feb. 9 than on Jan. 13 to 26, except for Region 12 (Soccsksargen),” the DOH said.

The department added that the total bed and intensive care unit utilization rates in all regions, including Soccsksargen, are currently at low to moderate risk.

Based on the government’s last update, the number of active cases in the country – or people currently sick with COVID-19 – dipped to 96,326. It’s the first time in a little over a month that active infections were less than 100,000. New cases were at 3,651.

The independent OCTA Research group said it expects daily COVID-19 infections to again drop to three digits by March… Read More

(BusinessWorld) PHILIPPINES posted 6,835 coronavirus infections on Monday, the seventh straight day the tally remained below the 10,000 mark.

This brought the total to 3.6 million, the Department of Health (DoH) said in a bulletin. The death toll hit 54,538 after 12 more patients died, while recoveries rose by 16,330 to 3.45 million.

The agency said 19.1% of 36,773 samples tested positive for the coronavirus on Feb. 5, way above the 5% threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

There were 116,720 active cases, 7,806 of which did not show symptoms, 103,900 were mild, 3,184 were moderate, 1,495 were severe and 335 were critical.

DoH said 98% of the latest cases occurred on Jan. 25 to Feb. 7. The top regions with new cases in the past two weeks were Metro Manila with 949, Western Visayas with 822 and Central Visayas with 624 infections. All of the deaths occurred in January… Read More

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) Metro Manila — The country’s presidential adviser for COVID-19 response admitted Monday that the government is preparing for a potential “slowdown” in vaccination in localities, just a day before the campaign period for national candidates starts.

Vince Dizon, also the National Task Force Deputy Chief Implementer against COVID-19, was asked in an interview with CNN Philippines’ The Source whether vaccination efforts will be hampered this election season.

“I hope not. But we are preparing for a potential slowdown in vaccination efforts since most of these are in the LGU level,” Dizon said.

He noted that the government intends to decentralize vaccination by authorizing more clinics, pharmacies, and even other private sector facilities like gas stations and toll booths to “unburden” local governments during poll season… Read More

(CNN Philippines) Metro Manila — The total number of COVID-19 infections in the country surpassed 3.6 million on Saturday after 7,689 more infections were recorded by the Department of Health (DOH).

Of the newly reported cases, 88% or 6,777 occurred in the past 14 days, or from Jan. 23 to Feb. 5.

The regions with the highest number of new infections in that period were Central Visayas (1,022 or 15%), Davao Region (830 or 12%), and Metro Manila (748 or 11%).

The tally is at 3,601,471 with 3.8% or 136,436 active cases or currently sick patients. Of the active cases, 124,476 have mild symptoms, 7,069 have no symptoms, 3,106 are in moderate condition, 1,468 have severe symptoms and 317 are in critical condition.

Only one fatality was added to the death toll now at 54,214 or 1.51% of all infections. The lone fatality was traced back to May 2021. It was belatedly reported due to late encoding of information to the COVIDKaya data storage system.

Meanwhile, 22,539 others got well, increasing the recovery count to 3,410, 821, which is 94.7% of the case total.

The DOH said it reclassified one initially tagged survivor as among the dead after validation and deleted 205 duplicate cases, including 116 recoveries and one fatality… Read More

(PhilStar) MANILA, Philippines (Updated 2:01 p.m.) — Kingdom of Jesus Christ, The Name Above Every Name founder and President Rodrigo Duterte’s spiritual adviser, Apollo Quiboloy, is now wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation along with two others over trafficking charges.

The FBI released wanted posters for Quiboloy and KOJC officials Teresita Dandan and Helen Panilag following their indictment in November 2021.

Quiboloy was indicted for conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion and sex trafficking of children; sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; conspiracy; and bulk cash smuggling.

The FBI said Quiboloy is wanted “for his alleged participation in a labor trafficking scheme that brought church members to the United States, via fraudulently obtained visas, and forced the members to solicit donations for a bogus charity, donations that actually were used to finance church operations and the lavish lifestyles of its leaders.”.. Read More

(BusinessWorld) FIVE PRESIDENTIAL aspirants attended a widely broadcast presidential forum to lay down the specifics of their six-year plan if they are elected as executive chief in May.

During the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) Presidential Forum, which stretched out over three-and-a-half hours on Friday, the five presidential aspirants who attended discussed a wide range of topics, from unemployment insurance to housing, from corruption to the situation in the South China Sea.

Vice-President Maria Leonor “Leni” G. Robredo said she plans to focus on providing assistance to small businesses and strengthen local industries.

Public employment programs and unemployment insurance programs will also be enforced to provide for those who lost their source of livelihood, especially during the pandemic, she said.

She vowed that under her leadership, discrimination in jobs will be removed as the age of an individual and their educational degree will no longer affect their right to work… Read More