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PAL cancels Darwin flight after eruption

 General
May 312014
 
PAL cancels Darwin flight after eruption

By Jerome AningPhilippine Daily Inquirer 11:26 am | Sunday, June 1st, 2014 FILE PHOTO MANILA, Philippines—A Philippine Airlines flight to Darwin, Australia, was cancelled Saturday night after the airport there was shut down due to the ash cloud coming from Indonesia’s Mt. Sangeang Api, which erupted on Friday. Cancelled was PAL flight PR-221 to Darwin, Northern Territory, which was supposed to leave at 10 p.m. and arrive at 4 a.m. Darwin time.  The second leg of the flight to Brisbane International Airport was also cancelled. The Smartraveller website run by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the ash plume had drifted over parts of northern Australia and had “the potential to cause disruption to commercial aviation in Indonesia and Australia in the coming days.” Air travellers were advised to consult their airlines and the Australian meteorology bureau’s website for flight disruption information. Australian media quoted Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss as saying that depending on wind and weather conditions, the ash might also affect flights to and from other airports such as Brisbane. Mt. Sangeang Api, located on Sangeang island in Indonesia’s Lesser Sunda Islands, erupted at around 4 p.m. on Friday, local time. RELATED STORIES     PAL launches new routes to Australia, China, Middle East PAL launches more flights in Australia   PAL starts flying to new routes in Australia Follow Us Other Stories: Navy bases for defense of West Philippine Sea suffer lack of funds Hong Kong textbook depicts Filipinos as ‘domestic helpers’ Japan says Read More …

TFC launches ‘Galing ng Filipino Dance Move Promo’

 News
May 252014
 
TFC launches ‘Galing ng Filipino Dance Move Promo’

• 20th anniversary campaign invites Filipinos to submit own video versions REDWOOD CITY, California – Following the success of its 20th year anniversary gala in April and the official launch of its anniversary music video performed by Gary Valenciano with son, Gab, on the Philippines’ number one weekend variety show, “ASAP 19,” The Filipino Channel (TFC) is inviting all Filipinos overseas to join in the celebration via the TFC20 Galing ng Filipino Dance Moves Promo. In the music video for the song “Galing ng Filipino,” which pays tribute to the “innate greatness of Filipinos” that enables them to thrive and excel wherever they are in the world, the choreography showed Gary and Gab executing specific dance steps for the last two lines of the chorus: “Oh oh oh, oh,oh (3x) Angking galing, ipagpatuloy mo!” The Valenciano father-and-son tandem does its own dance interpretation of the line that encourages Filipinos to “march on with their greatness,” making circular motions to represent continuing movement as they step to the rhythm and the beat of the song. TFC challenges global Filipinos to submit their own video versions of the “Galing ng Filipino” dance move. Exciting prizes await entries that are adjudged best renditions, according to TFC. “The song composed by Jonathan Manalo and Jay Santiago and arranged by Gary himself can be interpreted by Filipinos around the world in a million ways and that’s the beauty of it,” said ABS-CBN Global Chief Marketing Officer Jojo Ines. He explained, “While for this promo, we Read More …

PH pleased by Vietnam’s plan to challenge China

 News
May 242014
 
PH pleased by Vietnam’s plan to challenge China

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines is heartened by Vietnam’s plan to challenge China’s sovereignty claims over the South China Sea. Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr.. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said this was proof the Philippines’ advocacy for the peaceful settlement of maritime disputes was “gaining credence and support.” “If it comes to pass that another country other than the Philippines brings that issue to the tribunal, then it broadens the base for those that believe and adhere to the rule of law and to the concept of peaceful settlement of disputes,” Coloma said in an interview. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung had said that his country was considering legal action against China. Two Vietnamese diplomats had said that Hanoi might file its own appeal and join Manila’s legal challenge against Beijing. Vietnam has tangled with China over the latter’s deployment of an oil platform in waters within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, a move that sparked riots against Chinese nationals across Vietnam. China claims 90 percent of the 1.35-million square mile South China Sea, while the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan claim parts of it. The Philippines filed on March 30 a memorandum, also called a memorial, in the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (Itlos), asking it to rule on Beijing’s claims over most of the South China Sea. It asserted that the Chinese stance was illegal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), and that it interfered with Read More …

Singapore fund invests P10B in MVP hospital unit

 General
May 182014
 
Singapore fund invests P10B in MVP hospital unit

MANILA, Philippines—Government of Singapore Investment Corp. (GIC) is investing P10.2 billion in the Metro Pacific group led by businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan, coming in as a strategic partner in the hospital business where it could choose to acquire an interest of as much as 39.9 percent. Pangilinan-led Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) signed a deal with GIC that allowed the sovereign wealth fund to invest P3.7 billion for an initial 14.4-percent stake in Neptune Stroika Holdings Inc. (NSHI), a wholly owned subsidiary that will be the holding company for all of its hospital investments. On top of the outright purchase of shares in NSHI, the Singaporean fund will also advance to MPIC some P6.5 billion through an exchangeable bond that it can swap for an additional 25.5-percent stake in NSHI in the future, subject to certain conditions. The deal, which is subject to a few conditions and expected to be completed sometime in the middle of this year, allows MPIC to keep a controlling stake in the hospital group while raising fresh funds for an ongoing group-wide expansion program. Proceeds from the bond would be used by MPIC for continuing investments in roads, power and water, MPIC said. “We are very happy with this new relationship with GIC, a highly reputable global fund manager. We are looking forward to developing a long-term partnership with them,” MPIC president Jose Ma. K. Lim said. NSHI and MPIC hospital group president Augie Palisoc Jr. said: “Over the last few years, we have been Read More …

PH diplomat Buenaflor Cruz, husband facing human trafficking raps in Canada

 News
May 102014
 
PH diplomat Buenaflor Cruz, husband facing human trafficking raps in Canada

Philippine Daily Inquirer 6:45 am | Sunday, May 11th, 2014 Department of Foreign Affairs building INQUIRER FILE PHOTO MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Saturday said it was investigating a Filipino diplomat and her husband who were charged in Canada for alleged human trafficking involving the exploitation of a 26-year-old Filipino woman they had hired from the Philippines and brought to Canada as a nanny. “The department is conducting an inquiry into the matter and, through the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa, has extended its full cooperation to the extent defined by international law,” said DFA spokesperson Charles Jose in a statement. “The department takes very seriously any allegations of misconduct of its employees,” he added. Canadian federal police said Friday they had brought charges against the diplomat, Buenaflor Cruz, and her husband Robert Cruz for mischief, uttering threats, withholding their nanny’s identification documents and human trafficking. The police cited “third-party allegations” that the nanny was being “exploited… for financial and material benefits” and that the Cruz couple had threatened her “by withholding or destroying her documents,” The Canadian Press, Canada’s national news agency, reported. It said the suspects had left the country while the nanny, who worked at the couple’s Ottawa home between July 2009 and December 2013 but was not identified, had been “relocated to a safe location” in Canada. Jose said Buenaflor Cruz was formerly assigned to the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa but has since been reassigned to the home office in Manila “as part of Read More …

Burma showcases reforms at diplomatic debut

 News
May 102014
 
Burma showcases reforms at diplomatic debut

NAYPYITAW, Burma—Burma, also known as Myanmar, will parade its once isolated capital to international leaders this weekend, hosting a landmark summit of Southeast Asia’s regional bloc as reforms see the country strut onto the world stage. Teams of local workers plucked weeds from manicured lawns while police practiced security checks on convoys of proxy diplomatic cars in Naypyitaw late Friday, in last minute preparations for the arrival of leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) ahead of Sunday’s meeting. “We are now fine-tuning, everything is ready,” government spokesperson Ye Htut said. The summit is the first top-level function held as part of Burma’s yearlong Asean chairmanship,  a debut for the country despite its 17-year membership of the bloc, because rights concerns during the former junta era kept it on the sidelines. A new quasi-civilian regime that took power in 2011 has thrust the country into the international limelight, with reforms including freeing political prisoners and welcoming opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi into parliament. Burma has taken the Asean helm under the slogan “Moving Forward in Unity to a Peaceful and Prosperous Community.”   Regional tensions But its first major diplomatic role is likely to be dominated by regional tensions after tempers flared this week between Beijing and Asean members Vietnam and the Philippines over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Hanoi on Wednesday accused Chinese ships of attacking Vietnamese patrol vessels near a controversial oil rig in contested waters. On the same day, Philippine maritime police Read More …

Joker Arroyo: Clever ruse skirts Charter

 News
May 032014
 
Joker Arroyo: Clever ruse skirts Charter

Sen. Joker Arroyo. FILE PHOTO MANILA, Philippines—The Aquino administration has “cleverly” gotten around the constitutional prohibition on the establishment of foreign bases in the country by allowing the use of Philippine military facilities by United States forces under a new agreement on defense cooperation, former Sen. Joker Arroyo said on Saturday. “The Constitution forbids foreign bases. [But] this is even worse. You allow your bases to be used by the American forces,” Arroyo said in a phone interview. The mere act of allowing US forces “unimpeded access” to Philippine military facilities constitutes basing, which is prohibited by the Constitution, he said. “What you can’t do directly, you can’t do indirectly … What is forbidden is forbidden,” Arroyo stressed. He said the constitutional prohibition does not make a distinction between small or big bases. “It simply says bases.” The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca), signed last Monday in time for US President Barack Obama’s visit to the Philippines, grants US forces unimpeded access to and operational control of “agreed locations.” So far, the US has requested access to its former bases in Clark and Subic, as well as Poro Point, La Union, and the Camp Aguinaldo military headquarters, sources in the military said. Defense Undersecretary Pio Lorenzo Batino, who headed the government panel that negotiated the new agreement, insisted that the Edca was not a treaty that would require Senate ratification. The new agreement merely continues the policies set forth by the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the US, he said. Read More …

Koreans turn Filipino vet’s funeral into celebration and thanksgiving

 News
May 032014
 
Koreans turn Filipino vet’s funeral into celebration and thanksgiving

Cebuanos and Koreans based in Cebu province wave Philippine flags to welcome the arrival of the 300 Korean soldiers at the Mactan Air Base on Friday. CARMEL LOISE MATUS/INQUIRER VISAYAS FILE PHOTO PALO, Leyte—The death of a Korean War veteran here offered a rare chance for South Korean soldiers who are helping in post-“Yolanda” reconstruction, to honor a Filipino comrade-in-arms who fought for their country in the 1950s conflict. The moving and emotional funeral service for Technical Sgt. Pedro Pedrosa at Palo Cathedral here last week became an impromptu celebration of his life as his family and soldiers from both countries traded speeches and anecdotes, a reflection of the close relationship between the two wartime allies. The 89-year-old Pedrosa, who died on April 15 of respiratory failure, was a member of the 19th Battalion Combat Team of the Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea (Peftok), the Philippine Army contingent of the United Nations forces that came to the aid of South Korea when it was invaded by communist North Korea, supported by China and the Soviet Union, in 1950. The war ended in 1953 in a permanently divided Korea, a democratic south and communist north. “If my father were alive today, he would be happy to see his Korean comrades present here today,” said Anastacia Petra P. Esquilona, the late veteran’s 50-year-old daughter. Veterans’ sacrifice “My country would not have reached its present state of development if not for the sacrifice of Mr. Pedrosa and the other brave Filipino Korean War Read More …

Syria most dangerous country for journalists, PH 3rd—watchdog

 News
Apr 162014
 
Syria most dangerous country for journalists, PH 3rd—watchdog

This photo released by Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar TV Facebook page, shows a combo picture of three Al-Manar TV journalists, cameraman Mohammed Mantash, left, reporter Hamza al-Haj Hassan, center, and technician Halim Allaw, right, who were killed while covering the battle between the Syrian government forces and rebels, in the Syrian town of Maaloula, Syria, Monday, April 14, 2014. AP/Al-Manar TV NEW YORK— Syria is the world’s most dangerous country for journalists a US-based watchdog said Wednesday as it published its annual impunity index tracking unsolved killings of reporters. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists reported a “rising number of targeted killings” of reporters in Syria as a recent threat to journalists operating in the war-torn country. “With unprecedented numbers of abductions and high rates of fatalities in combat and crossfire, Syria was already the world’s most dangerous country for journalists,” CPJ said. Iraq remained on top of the rankings with the worst record for solving murders of journalists. Somalia came in second with the Philippines third, the watchdog announced. Iraq, with 100 percent impunity in 100 cases, has topped the rankings ever since the survey began in 2008. Since then, 2012 was the first year that no journalists were killed in relation to their work in Iraq, but 2013 saw a spike to 10 journalist killings, nine of them murders, CPJ said. There were four new murders in Somalia in 2013. “Elusive armed insurgent groups have terrorized the media beyond the reach of Somalia’s fragile law and order institutions, but Read More …

Japan says visa-free entry still a plan

 News
Apr 162014
 
Japan says visa-free entry still a plan

Kyoto path. FILE PHOTO MANILA, Philippines—Not so fast, don’t buy that plane ticket to Tokyo just yet. The Japanese Embassy in Manila has clarified that the proposal to waive the visa requirement for Filipino tourists to Japan remains to be a plan, saying that such a policy would require bilateral talks between Tokyo and Manila. Miwa Yamatoya, press officer at the Japanese Embassy, said the visa waiver would require “comprehensive consideration” between the two countries. Japanese news agency Kyodo reported on Tuesday that the Japanese government and its ruling coalition “are making arrangements” to exempt tourists from the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam from the visa requirement in an effort to boost tourism. “At this point, the exemption of visas for these three countries and the possibility of including this in the ‘action plan’ has not reached any conclusion,” Yamatoya told the Inquirer. Yamatoya said the embassy was “unable to confirm” the Kyodo story. “While promoting us as a tourism-oriented country, the Japanese government has recognized there are demands to relax the policy on visas. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also intends to promote tourism more,” said Yamatoya, responding to a query via e-mail. “However, regarding the visa issue, there will be comprehensive consideration, such as the bilateral relationship between countries and diplomatic purposes. There also will be a need for talks between the government ministries concerned,” she said. The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has yet to issue a comment. 61-percent increase According to the Kyodo report, the visa Read More …

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