Category: rePosts

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Mar Roxas and the motorcycle slide

Sabi nga nila no good deed goes un punished (for the devil is more vindictive fellow)

My past experiences have often made me a skeptic. But one thing is clear in my mind: for those six days in Eastern Samar, many people were simply trying to do their jobs to the best of their abilities: the mayor who left her hospital bed in Manila to be with her people; the planning officer, in over his head when he was made DRRM officer; the governor who deferred his chemo treatments to stay in the command center; the local and international NGOs and relief volunteers who rushed to help without hesitation; the media men and women who were on the ground reporting responsibly from the start; and many others who did their share.
Like them, Mar Roxas was merely doing his job. He was serving the people.
I know. I was there. – Rappler.com
Rep. Jose Christopher “Kit” Belmote represents the 6th district of Quezon City in the Philippine House of Representatives.
via Mar Roxas and the motorcycle slide.

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Aquino: PH to get $500M soft loan from South Korea

Aquino said that based on his bilateral meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Thursday, the Philippines will receive a $500-million framework agreement loan – a concessional loan with low interest rates – from her government for Philippine development projects.
Aquino added that the Korea International Cooperation Agency plans to implement an infrastructure development program in Mindanao to complement its ongoing capacity-building programs for the Bangsamoro.
The President said Park also informed him that her government has set aside an additional $20 million to help victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda, on top of the $5 million that South Korea had earlier sent to help in the post-disaster efforts.
“This is the result of close and deeply-rooted ties,” he said in Filipino.
via Aquino: PH to get $500M soft loan from South Korea.

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SC upholds Robredo's orders on good local governance | ABS-CBN News

The memorandum circulars provide, among others, for the full disclosure of the LGUs’ budgets.
Former Camarines Sur Governor Luis Raymond Villafuerte Jr. had questioned the legality of Memorandum Circular 2010-83, Memorandum Circular (MC) 2010-138 and Memorandum Circular 2011-08 for “lack of merit.”
MC 2010-83 pertains to the full disclosure of local budgets and finances and bids and public offering.
MC 2010-138, on the other hand, pertains to the use of the 20 percent component of the annual Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) shares.
MC 2011-08, meanwhile, pertains to the strict adherence by local government units on Section 90 of Republic Act 10147 or the General Appropriations Act of 2011.
Villafuerte claimed Robredo, who died in 2012 in a plane crash, went beyond his supervisory powers. He said the circulars violate local and fiscal autonomy.
The SC dismissed his claims, saying “it is inconceivable, however, how the publication of budgets, expenditures, contracts and loans and procurement plans of local government units required in the assailed issuances could have infringed on the local fiscal autonomy of local government units.”
“The posting requirements are mere transparency measures which do not at all hurt the manner by which local government units decide the utilization and allocation of their funds,” it added.
via SC upholds Robredo’s orders on good local governance | ABS-CBN News.

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In Manila, malls aren't passe – they are the city itself | Cities | The Guardian

That, perhaps, comes as more of a surprise than anything to westerners, particularly to an American such as myself, coming as we do from places where big, fully enclosed shopping centres, many of which have already undergone demolition, have become symbols of the increasingly passé, automobile-bound and fear-driven cold war era of urban planning.
In the postwar years, Manila repurposed jeeps, those most utilitarian American vehicles, into an iconic, useful, and flamboyant form of transit. Today, in the same improvisational manner, it has repurposed malls, those most tired of all American structures, not by building them as a substitutes for the city, but by building them as the city itself.
via In Manila, malls aren’t passe – they are the city itself | Cities | The Guardian.

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The best science fiction right now is happening in comics | The Verge

Saga is far from the only example. Another Vaughan series, The Private Eye created with artist Marco Martin, envisions a strange future where the internet doesn’t exist, yet people are even more obsessed with privacy than they are now. Trees, from Warren Ellis and Jason Howard, takes place on a future version of Earth where unexplained, towering alien artifacts have appeared all over the world. These structures do nothing (at least so far), yet their effect on the population is immense. Meanwhile, the newly launched ODY-C from Matt Fraction and Christian Ward is a psychedelic, space opera take on the story of Odysseus, with art that looks ripped from a 1970s album cover. “It just gets crazier from here,” the creators promise at the end of the first issue.
via The best science fiction right now is happening in comics | The Verge.

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rePost::The Last is the Naruto Love Story Fans Have Been Longing For

All in all, I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed The Last: Naruto the Movie. Unlike the other Naruto films I’ve seen, this one carries real weight as instead of a non-canonical one-off, it is a vital part of the story never before told in either the anime or manga. If you’ve ever wanted a Naruto love story or wanted to see how the characters mature as adults, this film is definitely worth a watch. Yes, the villain is forgettable and much of the conflict predictable, but those weaknesses are overshadowed by what is basically a Naruto/Hinata character piece that closes the door on one generation and sets the stage for the next one to come.
The Last: Naruto the Movie was released in Japanese theaters on December 6, 2014. The film will be coming Philippines in January 2015 and to Australian theaters as well in 2015.
via The Last is the Naruto Love Story Fans Have Been Longing For.

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The costs and benefits of Pantawid Pamilya

Wow it would only take about 100 Billion Pesos per year to push up the income and practically eradicate extreme poverty in the Philippines.  This makes me hopeful. Please do read the whole article.
 
 

Another measure of poverty is the poverty gap index representing the average amount of income required by the poor to reach the poverty line, in relation to the poverty line. APIS 2013 data shows that Pantawid has increased the income of beneficiaries so that they have moved closer to the poverty line: per peso cash grant, the poverty gap has been reduced by 61 centavos.
In 2013, Pantawid beneficiary families received an average of P1,407 of monthly cash grants, if they sent their 3 beneficiary children to school, and received health services for their household members. Without the cash grants, these families had an average per capita income of P13,293, whereas the poverty line per person was P19,262. Thus, the amounts given will not really help them cross the poverty line, but are only truly “Pantawid.” About half of cash grants are used for food, a quarter (25%) on educated-related expenses, while 7% is used on health, and close to nothing is used for recreation or alcohol.
The PSA estimated that in 2012, the “income gap” of the poor, i.e. the total amount required for all poor persons to cross the poverty line (assuming we could identify them and give them just what they needed, without even considering the costs of identifying them) was P136.6 billion, whereas the full CCT budget covered P39.4 billion.
So while the CCT budget is large, when you drill to the beneficiaries, this is still not enough to help them get out of poverty.
via The costs and benefits of Pantawid Pamilya.

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Nix Nolledo: 'Xurpas is just the beginning'

Nice!!! Hoping this is the first of many!

To our friends, family, our underwriter, our investors, our partners, the PSE board and management, the SEC, and everyone who helped us through this journey. Good morning.Today is a day for thanksgiving, and a day for celebration. Today, we mark this occasion with humility and joy, knowing that we started with a dream of creating a mobile tomorrow. Today, Xurpas officially enters the Philippine Stock Exchange as “X”, on the backs of our hopes, hard work, and an initial investment of P62,500.I still remember the first Xurpas office, it was my father’s tiny apartment. We brought our computers from home and had no money to spend on new office furniture. We ate canned goods and rice to save our money. Raymond, Andy, and I poured all of our savings into this venture, armed with our skills and our aspirations of building a better future.The future has arrived. With more than 110 million mobile subscriptions in the market, Internet access reaching 40 percent of our population, and smart phone penetration about to hit half of all mobile subscribers, the future could not have looked any brighter. We’ve waited 13 years for this moment.
via Nix Nolledo: ‘Xurpas is just the beginning’.

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Chris Rock on Ferguson, Cosby, and Obama — Vulture

A thoughtful interview by Chris Rock!

Let what drop?
Just let the country flatline. Let the auto industry die. Don’t bail anybody out. In sports, that’s what any new GM does. They make sure that the catastrophe is on the old management and then they clean up. They don’t try to save old management’s mistakes.
That’s clever. You let it all go to hell.
Let it all go to hell knowing good and well this is on them. That way you can implement. You hire your own coach. You get your own players. He could have got way more done. You know, we’ve all been on planes that had tremendous turbulence, but we forget all about it. Now, if you live through a plane crash, you’ll never forget that. Maybe Obama should have let the plane crash. You get credit for bringing somebody back from the dead. You don’t really get credit for helping a sick person by administering antibiotics.
One thing that was so exciting to many people, including you and me, when Obama got in was the hope, however delusional, that his election signaled some kind of racial progress in America. When, in fact, I don’t think there’s been much at all.
Grown people, people over 30, they’re not changing. But you’ve got kids growing up.
Your own kids are all girls, right?
All girls. I mean, I almost cry every day. I drop my kids off and watch them in the school with all these mostly white kids, and I got to tell you, I drill them every day: Did anything happen today? Did anybody say anything? They look at me like I am crazy.
And you think this change is generational? That maybe it has nothing to do with Obama?
It’s partly generational, but it’s also my kids grew up not only with a black president but with a black secretary of State, a black joint chief of staff, a black attorney general. My children are going to be the first black children in the history of America to actually have the benefit of the doubt of just being moral, intelligent people.
via Chris Rock on Ferguson, Cosby, and Obama — Vulture.