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Harsh punishment sought for faking birth records

PHILIPPINE STAR/ MIGUEL DE GUZMAN

By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter

SENATOR Jose “Jinggoy” P. Estrada filed on Tuesday a bill that seeks to impose a fine of as much as P250,000 and imprisonment of up to 12 years on individuals who register their birth certificates with fake information.

The harsh penalties contained in Senate Bill No. 2703 are partly aimed at deterring foreigners from securing fake government documents and identities.

Under the proposed measure, public officials who are involved in issuing birth certificates with fake information would be dismissed from service and permanently barred from holding public office.

“Through this measure, the procedure for the delayed registration of birth will be more effective and will ensure that the birth certificates are genuine and truthful representations of the identity of the person,” Mr. Estrada stated in the bill’s explanatory note.

Citing 2020 data from the local statistics agency, he said about 3.7 million Filipinos did not have birth certificates due to high costs, lack of time, and unawareness of the need to register birth.

Under the bill, individuals with delayed registrations, or registered 30 days after a person’s birth, would have to register the birth as delayed at a local civil registry office for review.

“There are a lot of syndicates now,” the senator, speaking in Filipino, told a media forum at the Senate. “There might be syndicates in the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs), those who issue passports to Chinese nationals that aren’t really Filipino, and in the civil registry with a lot of fake (documents) being issued.”

Lawmaker bats for WFH allowance

REUTERS

By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio

FILIPINOS working from home or under remote set-ups should have at least a P1,000 allowance to “cushion the impact of additional expenses on utilities,” according to a bill pushed by a congressman.

Filed by Cavite Rep. Aniela Bianca B. Tolentino, House Bill (HB) No. 10327 also seeks to amend the Telecommuting Act of 2019 to permit government employees to engage in remote work arrangements.

At present, the work-from-home (WFH) arrangement is only allowed in the private sector.

“Working from home tends to increase utilities consumption, particularly electricity. Some workers even purchase their own equipment for working at home” read part of the bill’s explanatory note.

“These additional expenses are out of the employee’s own pockets and for the benefit of the employer’s business,” it added.

Alternative work arrangements have become prevalent as the coronavirus pandemic has forced companies to permit their employees to work from to ensure business continuity.

In May, Meralco raised the overall rate to P11.4139 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) from P10.9518 per kWh in April due to the higher generation charge.

Electricity rates are expected to go up in June due to increases in ancillary service costs and tightening power supply, according to Meralco.

Companies could claim the WFH allowances as tax deductions.

Businesses violating the proposed measure would be punished with a fine not exceeding P100,000.

PHL may accept Afghan nationals

THE DEPARTMENT of Justice (DoJ) said on Tuesday that talks are ongoing with the United States Embassy in Manila for the Philippine government to accept Afghan nationals while they are still processing their US visas.

“Our government is open to exploring that vehicle by which the Afghan nationals who are at risk in Afghanistan would be processed here for the purpose of eventual immigration to the United States,” DoJ Undersecretary Raul T. Vasquez told a press briefing.

“Because the discussion is ongoing, you can say that we are open to the idea of the Philippines being a processing area,” he added, noting that Afghan nationals are given “special immigrant visas” and are not seeking refugee status.

Both parties are ironing out national safety considerations by imposing safety mechanisms.

During President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.’s state visit to Washington in May 2023, American President Joseph R. Biden brought up the idea of sheltering Afghan nationals for a certain time while awaiting their visas.

The DoJ on Tuesday celebrated the 1st National Refugee Day in its Justice Hall in Manila, affirming the Philippines’ stance in ensuring the welfare of refugees under Presidential Proclamation No. 265 series of 2023 declaring June 20 every year as the “National Refugee Day.”

“Through the very first commemoration of National Refugee Day, the Philippines sends a strong message of our commitment to our long humanitarian legacy of opening our doors and providing support to people who have crossed international borders to seek protection,” Secretary of Justice Jesus Crispin C. Remulla said in a statement.

The Philippines is home to about a thousand refugees, many of which are from the Middle East and African countries. — Chloe Mari A. Hufana

Senator’s wife named UAE envoy

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. has appointed the wife of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel, III as a special trade and investment envoy to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Ma. Anna Kathryna “Kat” Yu Pimentel took oath before Mr. Marcos on Tuesday and was accompanied by her husband, who had opposed some of the administration’s pet bills including the Maharlika Investment Fund and the proposed Charter change.

Ms. Pimentel has participated in various international fora hosted by the UAE, including the World Government Summit last February and the Dubai Airshow and Dubai Watch Week in 2023, among others.

She also participated in the United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP 28 last December.

The UAE was the country’s 6th largest source of remittances, 17th major trading partner, the 21st largest export market, and the 16th largest source of imports. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza

DSWD uses AI vs cyberattacks

REUTERS

THE DEPARTMENT of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said on Tuesday that it receives 25,000 cyber incidents monthly and employs artificial intelligence (AI) to deter most of them.

“We get 25,000 incidents every month. A huge percentage of this incident gets priority that gets validated by AI, leaving only a few, needs to be validated manually,” DWSD Assistant Secretary and Chief Information Officer Julius B. Gorospe said during a Palo Alto Networks media briefing. Only an average of 20% of said cyber incidents are validated by a human, he said.

Mr. Gorospe said cyber incidents refer to attempts to hack the system or a software running that tries to steal passwords but excludes social media account hacking.

Mr. Gorospe said this is in response to the rising number of incidents when there’s only a “handful” of cyber team members in the DSWD department.

Last year, the DSWD National Capital Region office’s account was hacked and posted a fake announcement of the distribution of cash aid under the DSWD’s Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP). This led to parents and students flocking to the DSWD NCR office. “Unfortunately, Facebook is outside of our system. Dealing with social media companies Facebook, and Twitter, sounds difficult because they have their own policies to take down a post for example,” he said when asked about the mentioned attacks.

In response, DSWD has its own security operations center (SOC) which directs to DSWD Secretary Rex T. Gatchalian.

“We are building a team at a SOC team in-house. We don’t want to outsource it, we would like to develop our own talents eventually,” said Mr. Gorospe, also noting that the department has technology partners such as Palo Alton Networks that supply educational assistance to address the skills and cybersecurity personnel gap.

According to Palo Alto Networks Regional Vice President for ASEAN Steven Scheurmann, AI is important to win the fight against cybercriminals.

“We want to secure AI by design, we’re embedding precision AI in our portfolio. We want to simplify that cybersecurity is important in a country like the Philippines,” Mr. Scheurmann added.

He is referring to Palo Alto Networks’ Precision AI™, which incorporates machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) with generative AI (GenAI) for real-time applications, to defend against AI-supported threat tactics.

According to the cybersecurity firm, it partners with DSWD using its Incident Response (IR) services, and AI-driven solutions like Cortex XSIAM and Cortex XDR to combat threats. — Aubrey Rose A. Inosante

Visa-free travel to Taiwan till ’25

UNSPLASH

TAIWAN’S Ministry for Foreign Affairs on Tuesday announced that it is extending its visa-free entry program for Filipinos to July 31, 2025 starting August this year.

In a statement, the ministry’s Bureau of Consular Affairs said the agency decided on the extension, which also gave visa-free entry to citizens from Thailand and Brunei, during an April 12 meeting with other government agencies.

Taiwan launched the visa-free entry program in September 2022 and was originally set to expire by July 31, 2023 but had been extended to the same date this year.

The ministry said the move was to promote the government’s New Southbound Policy, which aims to boost Taiwan’s relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Those with diplomatic or service passports, and Filipino vessel or aircraft crew will not be eligible for the visa-free travel program.

“MOFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) will continue to review and fine-tune visa policies, with a view to strengthening bilateral exchanges and attracting more visitors while ensuring border and public security,” Taiwan’s Bureau of Consular Affairs said. — John Victor D. Ordoñez

BIR gets tough on vape stamps

PHILIPPINE STAR/EDD GUMBAN

THE BUREAU of Internal Revenue (BIR) said that it will seize and file criminal cases against vape manufacturers and sellers that do not adhere to the use of mandatory revenue stamps.

“The BIR will now presume that any vape product not bearing BIR stamps to have not paid the required excise tax,” it said in a statement on Tuesday. “Violators of the mandatory internal revenue stamps on vape products will result into the seizure of the illicit vape products and criminal cases against the businessmen and possessors of those illicit vape products.”

Earlier, the BIR said that all vape products being sold in the country must bear the stamps starting June 1. 

“Internal revenue stamps on vape products are now mandatory. Violators will not only suffer the seizure of their illicit vape products, the businessmen and possessors of these illicit vape products will also face criminal cases,” BIR Commissioner Romeo D. Lumagui, Jr. said. — Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson

IP communities get El Niño aid

KORONADAL CITY — Up to 15,750 ethnic Blaans and non-indigenous settlers in Tampakan town, South Cotabato benefitted from the joint El Niño relief missions in the past three weeks of tribal leaders, local executives and a private mining company.

Thousands of Blaan farmers in the mineral-rich Tampakan town lost their upland rice, corn and other short-term crops due to the prolonged drought because of the El Niño weather pattern.

Tribal leader Nora D. Sukal told local radio on Tuesday that rice, food packs and other relief supplies have been distributed to Blaans in secluded areas of Tampakan since May by local executives and the Sagittarius Mines Incorporated. 

Domingo N. Collado, an appointed Indigenous People’s (IP) Mandatory Representative to the municipal council of Tampakan, separately told reporters on Tuesday that officials of their local government helped facilitate the SMI’s outreach activities, also supported by the administration of South Cotabato Gov. Reynaldo S. Tamayo, Jr.

“Blaan farmers and their non-Blaan neighbors had no income in the past four months from farming due to the drought,” Mr. Collado said.

About five more tons of relief supplies were also distributed to drought-stricken communities in other towns of South Cotabato last week, he said.

Two local officials, Vice Mayor Bai Naila M. Malinta of Columbio, Sultan Kudarat and Mayor Maria Theresa D. Constantino of Malungon, Sarangani, confirmed on Tuesday that the SMI, contracted by Malacañang to operate starting next year the Tampakan Copper-Gold Project in Blaan ancestral lands in Tampakan, already spent in the past six years more than P2 billion for its corporate social responsibility projects in tribal enclaves in their municipalities, in Tampakan and Kiblawan, Davao del Sur. — John Felix M. Unson

CoA flags Maragondon funds

PHILIPPINE STAR/ MICHAEL VARCAS

THE COMMISSION on Audit (CoA) has flagged the municipal government of Maragondon, Cavite over unliquidated cash advances from confidential funds totaling P6.2 million between 2009 and 2014.

The cash advances for confidential funds made in 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2014 remain outstanding under the local government unit’s 2023 books despite the submission of liquidation reports to CoA.

Whilst these were during the tenure of three different former mayors, the CoA said Maragondon’s accountant should update the municipal’s liquidation of the cash advances for confidential funds.

The municipal government of Maragondon did not immediately respond to a request clarifying the matter.

Local government units are allowed to have confidential funds to bankroll their peace and order and public safety plans.

Meanwhile, state auditors also flagged the local government’s P180,000 worth of cash advances meant for the seminar and traveling expenses of four municipal officials.

“Cash advances for seminar and traveling expenses totaling P180,000.00 of four municipal officials… remained unliquidated in the books of accounts as of Dec. 31, 2023,” CoA said.

CoA auditors recommended that Maragondon’s local government withhold the municipal officials’ salaries until they provide a liquidation report of their cash advances. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio

PHL detects variant blamed for COVID-19 surges

PHILIPPINE STAR/WALTER BOLLOZOS

THE PHILIPPINES on Tuesday said it had detected a variant believed to have spurred COVID-19 infection waves in other countries, including Singapore.

The Department of Health (DoH) said the country had detected two cases of KP.2, 30 cases of JN.1, and two cases of JN.1.18, citing recent sequencing data by the University of the Philippines – Philippine Genome Center (UP-PGC).

KP.2 and KP.3 variants, which are both descendants of JN.1, are nicknamed in other countries as “FLiRT” to describe amino acid changes in the COVID-19 virus’ spike protein.

“It may be likely that there are earlier KP.2 cases, but because of limited sequencing we have not detected and reported this earlier,” the DoH said.

DoH said the earliest sample collection date for JN.1 in the Philippines was November 2023. For KP.2, it was May 2024.

It said JN.1.7, JN.1.18, KP.2 and KP.3 are all considered variants under monitoring.

“Their detection along with the slow increase in the number of new cases and the plateau in number of occupied COVID-19 beds aligns with the international observation that the new variants under monitoring continue to be clinically mild and manageable,” DoH said.

All Philippine regions remained at low risk from COVID-19 as of May 27, and the DoH said it “still does not see any need for travel restrictions.”

Travel curbs “may impair the flow of other essential health goods and services,” it added.

DoH said there was an average of 319 cases daily from May 21 to 27, higher than the previous week’s 202 but is still fewer than around 500 per day at the start of this year.

It was also fewer than the about 1,750 per day in the middle of May last year, it added.

“The average number of daily reported severe, critical, and ICU COVID-19 admissions as of May 27 is much less than its level in the middle of May 2023,” it said, adding that 22 out of the new cases reported from May 21 to 27 were severe or critical.

DoH said it had logged 20 deaths related to COVID-19, five of which occurred in the last two weeks.

It said only 14% or 174 out of 1,235 of intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients had been occupied as of May 27. It added that 15% or 1,601 out of 10,910 COVID-19 beds had been used.

“Severe and critical COVID-19 cases admitted in various hospitals total to only 185 or 10% of total admissions, based on hospital reports in the DoH Data Collect application,” it added. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza

BCDA belies looming garbage crises

BAGUIO CITY — The state-run Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) belied on Tuesday that there is a looming garbage crisis with the imminent closure of the Tarlac sanitary landfill.

BCDA Public Affairs Department Chief Zyrelle del Prado said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) Region III already came out with a report that there are two existing facilities in Pampanga that may be utilized upon the Tarlac sanitary landfill’s closure.

The Metro Clark Waste Management Corp.’s (MCWMC) 25-year contract for the Kalangitan sanitary landfill facilities in Capas, Tarlac is due to expire worrying various local government units (LGUs), including Baguio City, bringing their solid waste in the facility.

Pursuant to the legal opinion of the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC), BCDA’s statutory counsel, extending the contract between Clark Development Corporation (CDC) and MCWMC beyond October 2024 would be against the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law, the framework used in bidding and awarding the contract for the project, the BCDA stressed in a statement sent to journalists Tuesday.

BCDA maintained that a sanitary landfill is no longer consistent with the government’s vision of transforming New Clark City into a premier investment and tourism destination.

It vowed to assist LGUs, government agencies, and locators to explore alternative solutions for their waste disposal requirements to ensure non-disruption of solid waste management services. — Artemio A. Dumlao

Lawmakers urge swift funding for teaching supplies allowance

PHILIPPINE STAR/ EDD GUMBAN

THE GOVERNMENT should immediately look to fund a newly signed teaching allowance law before schools start in July this year to allow teachers to make necessary classroom preparations, lawmakers said.

“I prod [the] DBM (Department of Budget and Management) and the Department of Education (DepEd) to find ways to release the teaching supplies allowance as early as July or August so the teachers will have these funds at the opening of the next school year,” Bohol Rep. Kristine Alexie B. Tutor said in a statement.

“Early release of the teaching supplies allowance in July or August will make our teachers and schools more prepared to welcome their students in the opening week of classes,” she added.

Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Monday signed the Kabalikat sa Pagtuturo Act of 2024, a law increasing the allowance of public school teachers to P10,000 from P5,000.

The increased teachers’ allowance could be disbursed in full this year if the DBM and DepEd could immediately find available funding, Quezon Rep. Reynante U. Arrogancia said in a separate statement.

If not, he recommended the government to disburse the allowance in two tranches this year

“The sooner the allowance increase is disbursed to the classroom teachers, the better because that will reduce the out-of-pocket expenses of teachers and parents,” Mr. Arrogancia said.

He said funding for the teachers’ allowance for 2025 should also be included in DepEd’s budget proposal for next year.

“There is enough time to include the higher allowance in the budget because there’s still at least seven weeks for the Department of Budget and Management and the Department of Education to do that before the President delivers his next State of the Nation Address.”

INCREASE TEACHERS’ PAY — CASTRO
House Deputy Minority Leader and Party-list Rep. France L. Castro said the government should now look at increasing teachers’ salaries after the approval of the expanded allowance.

She proposed that teachers’ salaries be raised to P50,000 for both public and private schools.

“It’s time for the government to prioritize the welfare of our teachers, who are the backbone of our education system,” Ms. Castro said in a separate statement.

House Speaker and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez said an increase in teachers’ salaries is already “programmed” for the upcoming budget deliberations.

“We understand the need to increase the salary and allowances of teachers,” Mr. Romualdez said based on an interview transcript sent to reporters. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio

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