Facebook Instagram Linkedin X Youtube
Home Blog Page 3580

Pueblo de Oro breaks ground for Courtyards Lipa project

REAL ESTATE developer Pueblo De Oro Development Corp. said it has started constructing its Courtyards Lipa residential project, which is targeted for completion by July 2027.

The project is part of the company’s P3.5-billion investment in Batangas this year, Pueblo De Oro said in an e-mailed statement last week.

The 10-hectare project will offer two-storey corner and inner single-attached houses for the middle-income market.

The homes will have a 106-square-meter floor area and a garden-courtyard for each cluster of residential blocks.

The amenities include a basketball court, playground, clubhouse, swimming pool, and linear park.

In line with its commitment to “prioritizing green living and sustainability,” the company incorporated key weather resilience features, such as a detention pond and sewage treatment plant, into their project, it said.

“Additionally, we have carefully devised smart land leveling plans based on thorough soil and flood studies, ensuring a flood-free community experience for all our future residents,” the company also said.

Courtyards Lipa is located near schools, institutions, shopping malls, hospitals, and leisure destinations such as beaches and resorts. The subdivision is two kilometers away from the New City Hall and Metro Lipa Medical Center, and it is also close to the Lipa bypass road.

In addition to its expansion in the province, the company said it is looking forward to launching the P1.7-billion Pueblo de Oro Westwoods Heights in Batangas City, featuring a 66 sq.m. floor area located nearby the toll exit. 

“Alongside our ongoing projects in Sto. Tomas, Malvar, Batangas City, and Lipa, we are actively exploring opportunities in Tanauan and other cities in the province,” the company also said.

Pueblo de Oro is the residential development arm of ICCP Group, which has business interests in financial services and property management. — Aubrey Rose A. Inosante

Sun Life launches new investment-linked plan

SUN LIFE of Canada (Philippines), Inc. (Sun Life Philippines) has launched a new peso-denominated, single-pay investment-linked insurance product, it said on Monday.

Sun Peso Maximizer (ProIncome) offers an annual income payout of 4.3% for seven years, the life insurer said in a statement.

Those who avail of the policy will be paid back their full single premium by policy maturity or at the end of the seven-year holding period.

The product also offers life insurance coverage with a guaranteed benefit of at least 125% of the one-time premium payment.

“With the Sun Peso Maximizer, clients can enjoy regular earnings even prior to the maturity of their policy. This will provide them with extra income to address various needs such as growing their wealth while preserving their capital,” Sun Life Philippines Chief Distribution Officer Al Quitangon said.

“It’s a complete financial solution. With the life insurance protection component, clients can have peace of mind that no matter what happens, a bright future is guaranteed for their loved ones,” he said.

Sun Life’s premium income stood at P13.21 billion in the first quarter of 2023. Its net income was at P2.94 billion in the same period. — AMCS

Manila Water subsidiary inks $110-M loan deal with 2 Singapore banks

MANILA Water Co., Inc. announced on Monday that its subsidiary signed a $110-million, or over P6 billion, three-year term loan with two Singaporean banks.

Manila Water Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. signed the deal with Singapore branches of Mizuho Bank and ING N.V., its parent company said in a stock exchange disclosure.

“The proceeds of the loan will be used to refinance existing debt,” Manila Water said.

Manila Water Asia Pacific was established in 2010 as the holding company for international ventures.

It is the sole shareholder of Manila Water South Asia Holdings Pte. Ltd., Thu Duc Water Holdings Pte. Ltd., Kenh Dong Water Holdings Pte. Ltd., and Manila Water (Thailand) Co.

Manila Water also announced that Boracay Island Water Co., Inc. (Boracay Water) has allocated P1.1 billion “to further intensify water and wastewater services” in Boracay Island and ensure compliance with its service obligations.

Boracay Water is a unit of Manila Water through its subsidiary Manila Water Philippine Ventures and a concessionaire of Tourism Enterprise Zone Authority.

For 2023, Manila Water recorded a consolidated net income of P5.59 billion, down 6% from P5.92 billion a year earlier.

Consolidated revenues went up by 35% to nearly P31 billion. This was attributed to the recovery of the east zone’s commercial and industrial account and the 20% increase in revenues of the company’s non-east zone businesses in the Philippines.

Shares in the company climbed by 20 centavos or 0.97% to close at P20.80 each. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera

2002 murder of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay was by friend and godson, jury finds

THE RUN-DMC album Raising Hell helped usher hip-hop into the mainstream. The murdered Jam Master Jay was a founding member of the group. —AMAZON.COM

NEW YORK — The godson and a childhood friend of Jam Master Jay were found guilty by a jury on Tuesday for the 2002 murder of the Run-DMC rap pioneer, who was fatally shot at his New York City recording studio in one of the most infamous killings in rap history.

Ronald Washington, 59, and Karl Jordan Jr., 40, were convicted of federal charges of murder while engaged in drug trafficking in the shooting of Jam Master Jay, the stage name of Run-DMC founding member Jason Mizell, the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn said on the X social media platform.

The verdict came after a month-long trial at the US District Court in Brooklyn, where prosecutors called witnesses who were in the studio the night that Mr. Mizell, 37, was shot dead on Oct. 30, 2002. Those witnesses included Mr. Mizell’s friend Tony Rincon, who was shot in the leg that night by one of Mr. Mizell’s killers.

“It is no mystery why it took years to indict and arrest the defendants,” Breon Peace, the US attorney for New York’s Eastern District, told reporters outside the courthouse after the verdict.

“The witnesses in the recording studio knew the killers, and they were terrified that they would be retaliated against if they cooperated with law enforcement and identified the ruthless executioners of Mr. Mizell,” attorney Peace said.

Both Mr. Washington and Mr. Jordan were well known to Mr. Mizell, who prosecutors said was killed in a business dispute over a lucrative deal to distribute cocaine in Baltimore. Mr. Washington was a childhood friend, and Mr. Jordan was Mr. Mizell’s godson. All of them grew up in the same neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.

In the 1980s, Mr. Mizell and his Run-DMC bandmates helped usher hip-hop into the mainstream with hits including “It’s Tricky” and the cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” off the best-selling 1986 album Raising Hell.

In their lyrics and stage shows, they were known to advocate against illegal narcotics. The group even recorded a “Just Say No!” anti-drug public service announcement in the late 1980s for the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

But as Mr. Mizell’s music-industry success waned in the 1990s, he turned to dealing cocaine to help fund his music career, according to prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn.

They also called witnesses who told jurors that Mr. Jordan and Mr. Washington confided to people close to them that they were the killers.

Prosecutors said Mr. Jordan and Mr. Washington conspired to kill Mr. Mizell after the musician cut them out of the drug deal in Baltimore worth nearly $200,000.

Lawyers defending Mr. Washington and Mr. Jordan both bluntly told the jury that the defendants did not kill Mr. Mizell. The defense called a single witness, an expert who testified on the frailty of human memory, in order to discredit prosecution witnesses recounting decades-old events.

Washington and Jordan face a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum of at least 20 years.

In May, a third defendant, Jay Bryant, was also indicted in the murder and is due to face a separate trial.

In the prosecutors’ account of the night of the murder, Bryant, a friend of Jordan whom Mizell did not know, entered the front door and let Mr. Washington and Mr. Jordan in through a locked back fire exit, both armed with handguns, prosecutors said.

Mr. Mizell stood up from a couch to greet his godson. Mr. Jordan shot him in the head from a few inches away, killing him instantly, prosecutors told the jury. All three defendants fled moments later, they said.

Prosecutors said Rincon and other eyewitnesses were too afraid to tell police at the time who killed Mr. Mizell, and even fled New York in fear of their own safety. — Reuters

Vaccinating against the AI chatbot hype

GOOGLE-DEEPMIND-UNSPLASH

If we want to harness artificial intelligence or AI to enhance productivity in the workplace and accelerate national development, we need to eradicate the prevailing nonsense about AI. To be clear, AI includes many mathematically based computer technologies mimicking human intelligence that we already use every day. Voice recognition, computer vision, video recommendation systems, internet searches, GPS navigation, among many others, are examples of useful AI. The main problem is the hype and resulting nonsense around the most popular AI chatbots based on large language models such as GPT-4 and its contenders. For simplicity, I will refer to these as “chatbots.”

As the AI arms race led by Microsoft and Google continues to heat up, the market capitalization of Alphabet (the parent company of Google) recently dropped by several billion dollars. The stock price drop was triggered when Google’s Gemini chatbot, the recently released successor of Bard, generated images and statements that social media users found objectionable for one reason or another.

I was not surprised by the Gemini fiasco since it is just the most recent in a string of chatbot scandals since the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November 2022. The rush by the top technology firms to market AI products guarantees that corners will be cut, and adequate testing will not be done. What is disappointing, however, is how people persist in their misconceptions about chatbots and how the technology companies keep promoting these misconceptions through mindless, misleading, and exploitative hype. This leads to people having flawed mental models of chatbots, causing the repeated cycles of hyped expectations and scandalous disappointments since the release of ChatGPT.

At De La Salle University, we aim to teach critical thinking, defined as “examining information to bring to light assumptions and evidence behind them before accepting or acting on them.” Critical thinking is the vaccine we need to stop the spread of chatbot nonsense. We badly need critical thinking and discussion in order to deeply understand how chatbots work and what they can and cannot do.

The challenge is that discussions around this topic often trigger more emotion than clarity because as humans, we are deeply invested in our mental models. However, we need to continue such discussions and be less sensitive about them because they will reveal our assumptions about AI and challenge us to present evidence to support these assumptions. As a result, we will have a genuine, not artificial, understanding of chatbots.

Taking the critical thinking vaccine against AI chatbot nonsense simply means remembering two basic things in mind:

A chatbot is programmed to be fluent, but not necessarily factual. People who are disappointed by the mistakes of chatbots (technically referred to as “hallucinations”) assume that chatbots are supposed to give factual answers. This is simply not true. The programming and training of chatbots aim to produce fluent and human-like answers to questions based on statistical patterns derived from huge amounts of digital texts. Since the texts used to train chatbots have not been checked for factual accuracy, why do we tend to expect these chatbots to produce factually accurate output? The fluency and seeming confidence in their outputs lead our minds to assume that the chatbot is sticking to the facts. Actually, any factual statement produced by a chatbot is a statistical accident.

A chatbot is a statistical statement generator, but not a search engine. Because chatbots are trained using internet data, people assume that their outputs must contain statements that actually exist on the internet. This is not the case. A moderator for a conference where I was to give a talk used ChatGPT and introduced me as a doctoral graduate from Oxford University, a consultant to the World Bank, and the Chairman of the Asian Institute of Management. None of these are true. A Google search will not produce a single web page that claims these as facts. So, where did these claims come from? The chatbot generated them from statistical patterns. Simply put, the chatbot made them up!

In conclusion, chatbots are powerful tools for language processing and generation, but they are not truly intelligent. Users must approach chatbot content critically and verify information using other sources. For their part, chatbot developers should make accurate, transparent, and verifiable claims about the capabilities and limitations of their products and services. As the field of AI progresses, ongoing critical thinking and dialogue among developers and users, accompanied by continuing education for all stakeholders, are essential to bridge the gap between human expectations and the true capabilities of chatbots.

Meanwhile, let’s stop the nonsense.

 

Dr. Benito L. Teehankee is a full professor at De La Salle University and co-chair of the Shared Prosperity Committee of the Management Association of the Philippines.

benito.teehankee@dlsu.edu.ph

How do Filipinas fare in terms of legal gender equality?

LEGAL AND ECONOMIC gender equality in the Philippines is the second highest in Southeast Asia, the World Bank  said in a report. Read the full story.

How do Filipinas fare in terms of legal gender equality?

How PSEi member stocks performed — March 4, 2024

Here’s a quick glance at how PSEi stocks fared on Monday, March 4, 2024.

Marcos: Philippines to push back against China

PRESIDENT FERDINAND R. MARCOS, JR. — PHILIPPINE STAR/KJ ROSALES

By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Monday said the Philippines would cooperate with China despite increased tensions but would push back when its sovereign rights in the South China Sea are ignored.

Ties between the Philippines and China have soured since Mr. Marcos took office in 2022, with repeated spats over disputed features in the South China Sea at a time when Manila has been forging closer defense ties with the United States.

Speaking at a Lowy Institute forum during a visit to Australia, Mr. Marcos said too much emphasis was being placed on the superpower rivalry between the US and China, at the expense of legitimate maritime interests of other countries in the region.

“It distracts us from calling out aggressive, unilateral, illegal and unlawful actions for what they are — attacks against the rule of international law and the principles of the charter of United Nations,” he said.

In a departure from his predecessor’s pro-China stance, Mr. Marcos has accused China of aggressive acts within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the waterway, including the use of water cannon and collision tactics to drive away Philippine vessels in areas China claims as its own territory.

Under Mr. Marcos, the Philippines has nearly doubled the number of its bases accessible to US forces, including three new sites facing Taiwan.

US-Philippines military exercises have taken place regularly for decades, but maneuvers have extended recently to include joint air and sea patrols over the South China Sea and close to Taiwan, actions China has seen as provocations and “stirring up trouble.”

China, which claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, has accused the Philippines of repeatedly trespassing on its territory, while urging dialogue to prevent mishaps.

“There are those who sometimes justify such provocations under the pretext of geopolitics and mischaracterize the remedies availed of by the aggrieved as mere tactics in this grand strategic game,” Mr. Marcos said.

“Our independent foreign policy compels us to cooperate with them on matters where our interests align, to respectfully disagree on areas where our views differ, and to push back when our sworn principles such as our sovereignty, our sovereign rights and our jurisdiction… are questioned or ignored,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said joint patrols in the South China Sea are legal.

“Activities that infringe upon the Philippines’ sovereignty and jurisdiction in Bajo de Masinloc (Scarborough Shoal) and its surrounding territorial sea are violations of international law, particularly UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law on the Sea) and the 2016 arbitral award,” Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ma. Teresita C. Daza told reporters in a WhatsApp message.

China’s Defense Ministry earlier said the patrols threaten regional peace.

Last month, the Philippines started patrols around Scarborough Shoal as China continued to block Filipino fishermen from their traditional fishing ground that Beijing has occupied since 2012.

This came after Chinese Defense spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said Philippine joint military exercises and patrols would jeopardize regional peace and stability and violate the principles of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.

In 2002, member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China signed the declaration that aimed to “enhance favorable conditions for a peaceful and durable solution of differences” in the waterway.

A United Nations-backed tribunal in 2016 said China’s claims were illegal.

Also on Monday, the US government through its Trade Development Agency (USTDA) would give the Philippine Department of Transportation a P55-million grant to boost the Philippine Coast Guard’s maritime traffic monitoring capacity, the US Embassy in Manila said in a statement.

“The USTDA grant will provide the DoTr and PCG with the necessary technical expertise and cutting-edge US solutions to implement the project,” US Ambassador to the Philippines Mary Kay L. Carlson said during the signing ceremony in Mandaluyong City.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique A. Manalo told a maritime forum in Melbourne that the Philippines would continue pushing cooperation and diplomacy over the use of force in the South China Sea.

“For the South China Sea and the seas and oceans of the Indo-Pacific to be unifying domains of peace, stability and prosperity, we need to gather more strongly around a collective responsibility, as well as a shared sense of stewardship,” he said in his speech, a copy of which was sent to reporters via WhatsApp.

“The shared stewardship of the seas and oceans in the region behooves us to unite in preserving the primacy of international law so we can ensure equitable and sustainable outcomes for all.”

“The Philippines and China continue to engage each other through dialogue and diplomacy,” DFA said in a separate statement.

“However, the Philippines abides by the principle of respect for sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in accordance with international law and the rules-based international order.” — with Reuters

PCG sends ship to Benham after China vessels show up

OCEANA.ORG

THE PHILIPPINE Coast Guard (PCG) on Monday deployed a patrol vessel for a two-week mission to Benham Rise, days after the country detected the presence of Chinese research vessels there.

The 84-meter BRP Gabriela Silang was deployed to patrol the northernmost province of Batanes and Benham Rise, it said in a statement.

The mission seeks to “intensify Coast Guard presence in Northern Luzon and monitor local fishermen,” it said. “We will also check the reported Chinese research vessels in Benham Rise.”

PCG said air assets were on standby for possible augmentation “specifically in performing aerial surveillance.”

A US-based think tank last week said two Chinese research vessels were loitering around Benham Rise, an extinct volcanic ridge in the Philippine Sea about 250 kilometers east of the northern coastline of Dinapigue, Isabela.

The research vessels left Longxue Island in Guangzhou on Feb. 26 and were “loitering east of Luzon in the northeast corner” of the Philippine Rise, Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation fellow Raymond M. Powell said on Mar. 1.

The Philippine Navy on Sunday confirmed the report and said the vessels had left the area.

The United Nations in 2012 declared Benham Rise, which is on the eastern side of the Philippines, as part of the country’s continental shelf. Manila renamed it Philippine Rise in 2017.

The Chinese research vessels entered the area without the Philippine government’s permission, National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Malaya told a news briefing on Monday.

“The Philippines is the only country that has rights over that area,” he said. “They do not have the rights to do research there or do any exploration without the expressed consent of the Philippine government.”

While the vessels had the right to innocent passage, they did not have the right to loiter in and explore the area, Mr. Malaya said.

He said the Philippine Navy and Philippine Coast Guard have been ordered to investigate whether the Chinese research vessels were conducting studies or simply passing by.

Meanwhile, Speaker and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez said the government would not compromise its territorial integrity.

“The Philippines will not compromise its territorial integrity or allow any encroachment upon its sovereign rights,” he said in a statement. “The Philippine Rise is unquestionably within our exclusive economic zone, and we will assert our authority to safeguard our maritime domain.”

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez also urged the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to file a diplomatic protest over the presence of Chinese vessels in the area.

“The intrusion of Chinese survey ships into the Philippine Rise east of our country, which is inside our exclusive economic zone, is concerning,” he said in a separate statement. “The government should lodge a protest with Beijing every time they trespass on our territory, whether in Benham Rise or the West Philippine Sea.”

The Chinese research vessels were identified as Haiyang Dizhi Shihao and Haiyang Dizhi Liuhao.

Chinese survey ships were spotted in the region in 2017, and ex-President Rodrigo R. Duterte suggested that the plateau be renamed to emphasize Philippine sovereignty over the area. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza and Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio

DepEd, CHED disagree on opening up education to foreigners

PHILIPPINE STAR/ WALTER BOLLOZOS

By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio

THE DEPARTMENT of Education (DepEd) and Commission on Higher Education (CHED) found themselves on opposing sides on the issue of opening up the education sector to foreign investors.

DepEd rejected the proposal at a House of Representatives hearing on Monday, saying it could affect the sense of nationalism of students. On the other hand, CHED said liberalizing the sector could make local colleges and universities more competitive.

“The proposed amendments by both houses of Congress have far-reaching consequences and serious implications with respect to the mandate of the department and the exercise of its function,” Education Undersecretary Omar Alexander V. Romero told congressmen.

He said allowing foreigners to run local educational institutions could dilute “fundamental aspects of Filipino identity, culture and values.”

But CHED Chairman Prospero E. De Vera III said allowing foreign ownership in the sector would help colleges and universities become more globally competitive.

“The commission does not object to the constitutional amendment that will open up control and administration of educational institutions to foreign nationals,” he told the hearing.

Mr. De Vera noted that while the law provides limited educational internationalization activities by local institutions, it remains ineffective in attracting foreign institutions compared with neighboring countries with a fully liberalized education sector.

The Philippines is one of the strictest countries when it comes to foreign ownership compared with its neighbors, according to a report by the Second Congressional Commission on Education.

“Only the Philippines has full ownership, establishment and enrollment restrictions stipulated in the Constitution,” commission chief legal officer Joseph Noel M. Estrada told congressmen.

Allowing foreign ownership is the first step aside from state incentives and policy adjustments by DepEd and CHED in fully realizing the benefits of education liberalization.

Meanwhile, House Deputy Speaker and Quezon Rep. David C. Suarez said proposed changes to the 1987 Constitution should be approved by plebiscite separate from the midterm elections next year to avoid politicizing the issue.

“We cannot allow the Constitution to undergo political mudslinging and be politicized by what happens during the midterm elections where politicians go back and forth,” he told a news briefing.

Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. earlier said that his government might hold a plebiscite on Charter change (“Cha-cha”) alongside the midterm elections.

But Bataan Rep. Geraldine B. Roman said this would be “counterproductive.” “Holding the plebiscite earlier would be much better as it would allow the people to truly understand [the issue],” she told the same briefing.

“It’s a bit difficult to trust the same people who are part of the same previous coalitions whose push for Charter change has been mostly comprehensive, pro-administration and rarely backed by appropriate technical inputs from all affected sectors,” Ateneo de Manila University political science lecturer Hansley A. Juliano said in a Facebook Messenger chat.

“The House has been composed of the same people who uncritically vote for the policy agenda of the incumbent President of the day out of reliance on patronage and budgetary insertions,” he added.

Meanwhile, Senator Ana Theresia N. Hontiveros-Baraquel said at least seven senators are likely to oppose a Senate measure seeking to ease foreign ownership restrictions in the Constitution, which would be enough to block the proposal.

“They need at least 18 votes to approve Resolution of Both Houses No. 6, so we just need seven to stop this,” she told reporters in Filipino, based on a transcript e-mailed by her office. “The situation is still fluid, but I’m very hopeful to get at least seven.”

The committee on constitutional amendments will hold a similar hearing on Tuesday where education experts are expected to speak.

Ms. Hontiveros -Baraquel said Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Martin “Koko” D. Pimentel III spoke with several senators on Charter change to gauge those in favor of amending the 1987 Constitution.

Senator Cynthia A. Villar has said she is against changing the 1987 Constitution, adding that the government should instead improve the ease of doing business in the country and deter corruption. — with John Victor D. Ordoñez

Australia warns Southeast Asian countries about ‘coercive actions’

PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD FILE PHOTO

SYDNEY — Australia said on Monday Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asian countries are facing serious defense threats as it set aside more funds for maritime security projects with ASEAN countries during a summit with regional leaders in Melbourne.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced A$286.5 million ($186.7 million) in funding for ASEAN projects in areas including maritime security, amid tensions over China’s growing assertiveness and its disputed claims to the South China Sea.

“We face destabilizing, provocative and coercive actions including unsafe conduct at sea and in the air,” Ms. Wong said in a speech at the summit, without naming China.

“What happens in the South China Sea, in the Taiwan Strait, in the Mekong subregion, across the Indo-Pacific, affects us all.”

Melbourne is hosting leaders and officials from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN) for a summit from Monday to Wednesday. ASEAN member Myanmar was excluded due to the ongoing conflict in the country.

Australia is using the 50th anniversary of its ties with ASEAN to bolster ties with the region as it deals with China’s growing diplomatic and military reach.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual ship-borne commerce, including parts claimed by ASEAN members the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 said China’s claims had no legal basis.

Speaking alongside Ms. Wong, Philippines Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo said the South China Sea was of strategic importance and had a promising future as long as “nations in the region resolved to uphold cooperation over confrontation”.

Australia and the Philippines began their first joint sea and air patrols in the South China Sea in November.

The Philippines is ramping up efforts to counter what it describes as China’s “aggressive activities” in the South China Sea, which has also become a flashpoint for Chinese and US tensions around freedom-of-navigation operations. 

MYANMAR CONFLICT
Just over a month since ASEAN foreign ministers called for an end to the bloody conflict in member state Myanmar, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the downtown Melbourne venue to call for concrete punitive action against the military junta.

ASEAN has barred Myanmar’s top generals from attending its meetings until they commit to a peace plan, but has stopped short of further action. The junta has been furious over what it calls ASEAN’s interference in its internal affairs.

One activist called for international recognition of the parallel National Unity Government, which controls militias in the country.

“ASEAN countries and Australia please act. We need action, please don’t wait for (ASEAN’s) plan, it is useless,” activist Yuyu Chit said. — Reuters

Senate OK’s rebel amnesty

BW FILE PHOTO

THE PHILIPPINE Senate on Monday adopted resolutions concurring with President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.’s proclamations granting amnesty to former rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), among other groups.

The chamber approved House Concurrent Resolutions Nos. 19, 21 and 22, which concur with Presidential Proclamations 403, 405 and 406, which all grant amnesty to ex-rebel members of MILF, MNLF and the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa ng Pilipinas-Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade.

The Senate is still set to deliberate on a separate House resolution concurring with Proclamation 404, which seeks to grant amnesty to former members of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front.

“The congressional concurrence to the presidential proclamations signifies the Filipino people’s support for the comprehensive peace efforts and genuine commitment of the government to attaining lasting peace,” Senator Jose “Jinggoy” P. Estrada, Jr., said in a statement. — John Victor D. Ordoñez

1...3,5793,5803,581...14,244Page 3,580 of 14,244
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
© 2024 BusinessWorld Publishing.
All rights reserved.
Read our privacy guidelines
Facebook Instagram Linkedin X Youtube