Maniolas

Retired Supreme Court Justice Lorenzo Relova passed away Thursday at age 98, the high court’s public information office said. In posts on its Twitter account, the SC PIO said Relova, born on Jan. 20, 1916, served as the high court’s 103rd associate justice. The high court said Relova served from May 14, 1982 to Jan. 19, 1986. He taught law at the Ateneo Law School for more than four decades, it added. Relova was inducted to the Professors of Law Hall of Fame in 2012, the SC said. The SC said Relova’s remains will lie in state at Magallanes church starting at 4 p.m. Friday. –Joel Locsin/KBK, GMA News

By Ana Maria Villanueva-Lykes In almost every corner in the world you will find a little Chinese restaurant. Like the famed dumplings, Asian treats like sushi, pad thai, kimchee, curry, or pho have forever enjoyed the warm spotlight on the international dining table while our humble adobo grows cold in the shadows. But soon all that may change. Filipino cuisine, a melting pot of flavors from different cultures, is about to make its global debut, steaming and bursting with fresh flavors. Multicultural ingredients Filipino fare may be a bit strange to the foreign tongue, but the world is craving for new unusual flavors. According to an article in Thrillist, America is looking for a new East Asian food obsession and “signs are pointing to a boom in Filipino food.”  The spark of that flavor explosion started a few years back when Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods told Today.com that two years from now Filipino food is “going to be the next big thing.” He revealed this in 2012. That was about two years ago which means that the time for adobo is now. Pig and Khao’s version of sisig. “It’s just starting,” Zimmern explained. “I think it’s going to take another year and a half to get up to critical mass, but everybody loves Chinese food, Thai food, Japanese food, and it’s all been exploited. The Filipinos combined the best of all of that with Spanish technique.” Add our Indonesian, Malaysian, and even American influences are thrown into the pot Read More …

Hong Kong accepts Erap apology. Hong Kong Chief Executive Chun Ying Leung (right) accepts on behalf of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government the apology delivered by Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada on Wednesday, April 23, over the 2010 Manila hostage crisis. With it, Hong Kong adjusted the Outbound Travel Alert (OTA) for the Philippines from Black to Amber. Standing behind Leung are the relatives of the victims and some of the survivors of the tragedy. Ason Cañete After nearly four years, families of victims of the bus hostage crisis in 2010 are getting some closure with the apology presented by the Manila city government in Hong Kong this week. The families were presented with the scrolls bearing the Manila city council’s apology for the incident, Hong Kong’s The Standard reported Thursday. The city council vowed to commemorate the deaths of the eight Hong Kong tourists with two days of prayer every year – on Aug. 23 and on the 14th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. But The Standard also reported that while the families found the apology acceptable, they also deemed it “not completely satisfactory.” Former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada led the Philippine “delegation” that presented the apology to Hong Kong officials. The gesture prompted Hong Kong to lift sanctions on Philippine officials as well as downgrade a black travel alert on the Philippines. Acceptable but not completely satisfactory The Standard quoted Tse Chi-kin, brother of dead tour guide Masa Tse Ting-chunn, Read More …

MANILA, Philippines – Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi, is supporting the Department of Health (DOH) for the effective establishment and implementation of a National Laboratory-Based Surveillance for Dengue at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) through the Asian Foundation for Tropical Medicine Inc. (AFTMI). The joint agreement will substantially augment the information on dengue and will ultimately enhance knowledge and awareness throughout the Philippines. The cooperation aims to strengthen the formation of a self-sustaining, routine, systematic, and geographically representative dengue serotype surveillance using existing Real Time RT PCR equipment in the subnational laboratories.  The allocated funds from Sanofi Pasteur — spanning across three years — will cover the training of subnational laboratory staff in dengue test methodology and practices and its quality assurance, and set up and training of staff at 20 sentinel sites for specimen collection and transport. This partnership shall significantly contribute and complement the efforts of the DOH in addressing dengue. “It is our privilege to be a partner of the DOH and RITM for an initiative that will further expand the dengue surveillance system in the Philippines. Furthermore, the generated data will help us in defining the right strategies and actions on how to control the disease and reduce the burden that it gives to the country,” said Ching Santos, country manager of Sanofi Pasteur Philippines. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Sanofi Pasteur has been engaged in dengue vaccine research for almost 20 years and is committed to helping Read More …

By Kristine Angeli SabilloINQUIRER.net 3:21 pm | Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014 Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma. Photo from http://pcoo.gov.ph MANILA, Philippines – Amid the perception that the defense pact between the Philippines and the United States was being rushed, Malacañang denied any knowledge if the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) will be ready in time for United States President Barack Obama’s visit to the Philippines. “We have no information on any signing activity,” Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said in a press briefing on Wednesday. The spokesperson said the agreement, which already went through eight rounds of bilateral talks, is still being discussed by the US and Philippine governments. “In the last update I gave you last Monday, I told you that inter-agency vetting is still ongoing—that’s for the Philippine side,” Coloma told reporters. The EDCA will allow US military rotational presence in the country and access to the facilities of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The defense pact, which builds on earlier treaties, is supposed to be mutually beneficial to the two countries. Critics, however, are wary that it will become a lopsided deal, especially since details of the agreement have yet to be released to the public. As an executive agreement, it will not need approval of the Senate, though many lawmakers are questioning its constitutionality. Some are questioning the speed of the negotiations, saying it is being rushed in time for Obama’s visit to the country. Obama is currently on a multicountry trip in Asia to reassure Read More …