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NGO launches recovery program for Odette victims

International Care Ministries (ICM), a Philippine-based non-government organization (NGO), launched a recovery program that will support vulnerable communities in Visayas and Mindanao affected by Typhoon Odette. 

“We will bring our six-week recover program to over 22,500 families in the next six months to build resilience and help them heal so they can restart their businesses and savings,” said David Sutherland, ICM chief executive officer, at the Feb. 8 project launch. 

Because ICM has over 33 operational branch offices across the country, it has been able to strengthen connections with local pastors, community healthcare champions, and savings group leaders to deliver meals and reconstruct churches, he added. 

Since the typhoon hit in December 2021, ICM’s relief efforts have reached over 63,000 families and counting. These can be viewed via a monitoring dashboard which is updated in real time.  

Relief responses from the United Nations and the United States Agency for International Development have also ramped up due to mounting damages. This includes infrastructure damage of P17.7 billion and agricultural damage of P13.4 billion as of mid-January, according to various government agencies. 

While ICM is still continuing its relief efforts, the newly launched recovery program will mark a transition towards support in rebuilding lives and livelihoods.  

“We will implement projects in communities spanning seven provinces (Palawan, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Bohol, Cebu, Leyte, and Surigao),” said Mr. Sutherland, adding that they plan to expand the program in the future. 

“From February to May 2022, we aim to reach and serve over 20,000 families from 750 communities,” he added. 

Aside from goods and services, there will also be a technical aspect to the program, with small grants for communities including business box kits for restarting livelihoods and guided assistance from community leaders and partners. — B. H. Lacsamana

Primex Corp.’s P5-B tower set for turnover in Q3

PRIMEX Corp. said the office and commercial floors of its P5-billion Primex Tower in Greenhills will be ready for turnover by the third quarter this year as the building nears completion.

“The topping-off ceremony brings the Primex Tower a step closer to full completion. Soon, locators will be able to enjoy not only its accessible location but also its panoramic 360-degree view of the whole Metropolis,” Primex Executive Vice-President Karlvin Ernest L. Ang said in a statement.

The company broke ground for its flagship glass skyscraper in 2018. It has since received a Grade A LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.

“This new mixed-use tower represents the model for our future developments,” Mr. Ang said.

Primex Tower is 50 floors high with 29 levels allocated for lease for office and commercial use. It also has a 10-floor parking area.

The building will also house a five-star hotel Pullman Manila on the top 11 floors. Pullman Manila will have 194 guest rooms, an executive lounge, meeting rooms, function rooms, an all-day dining restaurant at its sky lobby, a fitness center, and a rooftop restaurant and bar.

Primex said the office and commercial floors will be ready for turnover by the third quarter this year, while Pullman Manila will be open to the public by the end of 2023.

The tower was built on a 1,944 square-meter (sq.m.) lot at EDSA corner Connecticut and Florida streets. Primex wholly owned unit Prime Realty Corp. is in charge of its development.

“The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic during the past two years proved to be a challenging adversary for the whole nation, but we at Primex took it head-on and with the dedication and hard work of all the people involved, from the tower’s design to the development and construction process, this iconic building has come to life,” Mr. Ang said.

During the topping-off ceremony, Primex Chairman and President Ernesto O. Ang also said the company has more upcoming projects. Primex will be developing its properties in Tagaytay, Gilmore Ortigas Ave, and Annapolis Greenhills.

Primex shares at the stock exchange closed unchanged at P2.25 apiece on Tuesday. — Keren Concepcion G. Valmonte

Skier Asa Miller’s other love is baseball

FIL-AM ALPINE SKIER ASA MILLER — PHILIPPINE SKI AND SNOWBOARD FEDERATION

FIL-AM Winter Olympian Asa Miller would have been a baseball catcher if he hadn’t found alpine skiing.

The 21-year-old Mr. Miller, who will make his second Winter Games appearance in the giant slalom event at the National Alpine Skiing Center on Xiaohaituo Mountain on Monday, admitted he had spent some time behind the plate for Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon.

But as fate would have it, Mr. Miller discovered skiing through his father, Kelly Miller, who was doing community work as a member of the Ski Patroller in Mount Hood for almost three decades.

“I focused entirely on skiing as it became more serious, it’s what I love and my passion,” said Mr. Asa.

The lure of the snow on the hills of Portland were enticing that at 18 months young, Mr. Kelly said his son would frolic outside of their home in the cold of winter.

Thanks to his love and determination, Mr. Asa grew and became competitive and eventually entered races.

He was on the Mount Meadows race team and before he knew it, he had the Philippine flag on his chest as a 16-year-old at the 2017 World Junior Alpine Skiing Championships in Are, Sweden.

He finished 39th in slalom and that opened the world of competitive skiing.

And as they say, the rest is history. — Joey Villar

SLMC offers maternal package

PIXABAY

ST. LUKE’S Medical Center (SLMC) offers free accommodations for mothers who give birth at either of its Quezon City or Taguig City branches from Feb. 7 to March 7. The offer is for regular private, deluxe private, and executive private rooms only. Patients with normal spontaneous deliveries are entitled to two nights of free accommodation; those undergoing C-section are entitled to four nights. Its maternal care package also includes a free COVID-19 RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) swab test, three-course dinner, and lactating counseling sessions. In line with SLMC’s breastfeeding advocacy, the counseling sessions aim to walk through maternity patients on the basics of breastfeeding and how to provide the best nutrition to their babies. For more information, call 0919-0577744, text 0919-1607744, or e-mail productinfo@stlukes.com.ph.

Diana musical ‘honored’ with nine Razzie nominations

Jeanna de Waal in Diana (2021) — IMDB.COM

DIANA, the film version of a musical about the late Princess of Wales, received a field-leading nine Razzie Award nominations on Monday, including worst picture and worst actress, while Bruce Willis was skewered with his own category of acting ineptness.

The Razzies, now in their 42nd year, lampoon the movies that critics love to hate, testing the thickness of Hollywood’s skin by reveling in the industry’s worst boondoggles.

This year’s Razzies took a ball-stealing swipe at basketball star LeBron James for a lame remake of Michael Jordan’s Space Jam, granting it four nominations, including worst actor for Mr. James, who can at least fall back on his $39 million-a-year day job with the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Razzies found Mr. Willis deserving of his own special category, nominating him eight times for “Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie,” listing all eight of his forgettable films from the year.

Karen, which the Razzies described as hopeless melodrama, and The Woman in the Window, deemed lifeless and pointless, earned five nominations each. Meanwhile, the so-called time-travel turkey Infinite and heist filler The Misfits came down with three each.

But the musical Diana was deemed a special level of bad, nominated for worst director, worst screenplay, and a nearly all the major acting categories, including a worst actress nod for Jeanna de Waal in the title role.

Those insults were heaped on top of injury: The Broadway show on which it was based closed in December after just 33 regular performances.

Diana got panned while two other dramatizations of Princess Diana won critical praise from the mainstream industry: the theatrical release Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart, and the Netflix series The Crown, with Emma Corrin in the role.

As usual, the Razzies ridiculed former Oscar winners, nominating helpless ham Jared Leto for House of Gucci, Ben Affleck for The Last Duel, and Mel Gibson for Dangerous in the worst supporting actor category.

The self-described “ugly cousin to the Oscars” started in 1980 as the Golden Raspberry Awards, created by UCLA film school graduates and film industry veterans John J. B. Wilson and Mo Murphy.

More than 1,100 Razzie members from across the United States and about two dozen other countries vote on the awards, according to the Razzie website. — Reuters

PLDT, Microsoft team up to combat cybercrime

PLDT, Inc. and technology company Microsoft announced on Tuesday a partnership aimed at strengthening the country’s security infrastructure against cyber threats.

“Security is at an inflection point as cyberattacks become more sophisticated and digital attack surfaces exponentially increase. We believe that anything less than comprehensive security is no security at all,” Microsoft Philippines Country General Manager Andres Ortola said in an e-mailed statement.

Under the partnership, the two companies will work together through Microsoft’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Program (CTIP), which was created in 2013. CTIP collects and distributes actionable cyber intelligence.

“CTIP data are also engineered into specific Microsoft products and services to help customers identify threats in their computing environments,” the technology company said.

The company also said that CTIP is driven by its Digital Crimes Unit, an international team of technical, legal, and business experts created in 2008 to combat cybercrime on a global scale.

“Its expertise and unique view into online criminal networks uncover evidence used as criminal referrals to law enforcement agencies throughout the world.”

The partnership also means that PLDT will have access to Microsoft’s Digital Crime Unit’s cyber threat intelligence in real time.

“This intelligence will provide better insights into criminal cyber infrastructure located within their jurisdiction. PLDT, in turn, with its network domain knowledge, can help in two-way sharing of intelligence to identify compromised infrastructure and alert impacted entities in the country to potential cybercrime threats,” Microsoft said.

According to Mr. Ortola, Microsoft’s Digital Crime Unit has completed 24 malware disruption operations worldwide to date.

This resulted in “millions of devices kept safe from cybercriminals and preventing millions in financial losses,” he added.

For his part, Angel T. Redoble, first vice-president, chief information security officer, and head of PLDT and Smart Communication’s Cyber Security Operations Group, said: “Our mature and sophisticated threat intelligence operations is one of the keys and most robust pillars of the PLDT group’s cybersecurity structure.”

“We are glad to partner with Microsoft to help fortify our strong cyber threat intelligence operations, and to help us better protect our customers in particular, and the country’s cyber defenses in general,” he added.

Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin

Hidilyn Diaz also has liquidation troubles with NSA

TOKYO OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST HIDILYN DIAZ

LIKE embattled Ernest John “EJ” Obiena, Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Hidilyn F. Diaz ran into liquidation problems too in the past.

But she found ways to solve it.

“For me, there is a need to talk between NSA (national sports association) and EJ to resolve this,” said Ms. Diaz during Monday’s Senate hearing presided over by Committee on Sports chair Christopher “Bong” Go.

“This should not be a problem by an athlete like EJ. This has been a practice from the start. And thankfully, Sir (Samahang Weightlifting ng Pilipinas president) Monico (Puentevella) and I have patched things up and we chose to communicate with each other and for the better.

“And we all know it resulted to me winning gold in the Olympics. And it was because we united and Sir Monico listened to what were my needs as an athlete,” she added.

Meanwhile, Mr. Go urged the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA) to prioritize athletes’ welfare.

“My priority is to avoid this controversy from happening again,” said Mr. Go.

Mr. Go was referring the spat of Mr. Obiena with the PATAFA, which accused the former of allegedly falsifying liquidations concerning Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov.

Mr. Obiena repeatedly denied it.

The lawmaker from Davao also called on the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) to mediate.

PSC chairman William Ramirez had actually initiated mediation twice but Mr. Obiena declined the same number of times.

“It’s high time for the PSC to get in the middle and mediate and not get Senate to be the referee here. We here can maybe draft and enact a law to strengthen the PSC because of this,” said Mr. Go.

“Let’s finish this and the PSC should mediate,” he added. — Joey Villar

CSMC expands mobile health program 

CARDINAL SANTOS Medical Center (CSMC) expands its mobile health program with Hospital on Wheels, a fully equipped 32-foot, ten-wheeler mobile clinic that offers services such as urinalysis, fecalysis, and complete blood count. It is also capable of specialized tests like electrocardiogram, ultrasound, and 2D-echo. Patients can also consult medical professionals. Hospital on Wheels is ideal for health exams in small to medium enterprises, private villages, and condominiums. For more information, call 0928-5543217, (+632) 87244115; or visit www.facebook.com/CardinalSantos.

Matrix co-producer Village Roadshow sues Warner Bros. over streaming release

Keanu Reeves, Jessica Henwick, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in The Matrix Resurrections (2021) — IMDB.COM

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS co-producer Village Roadshow Entertainment Group has filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros., alleging the studio’s move to release the film simultaneously on HBO Max and in theaters was a breach of contract.

In a suit filed in the Los Angeles superior court on Monday, Village Roadshow also alleged that Warner Bros., owned by AT&T, Inc. unit WarnerMedia, had moved the release date of the film to 2021 from 2022 to help HBO Max attract more subscribers.

The lawsuit pointed to other box-office winners such as SpiderMan: No Way Home that were released in late 2021 without a simultaneous streaming release.

“We have no doubt that this case will be resolved in our favor,” a spokesperson for Warner Bros. said.

Warner Bros. had announced in late 2020 that its entire slate of movies for 2021 would be available in theaters and on HBO Max on the same day.

The news underlines growing tensions between entertainment players as media companies sharpen their focus on their streaming platforms at the cost of traditional distribution platforms.

Last year, actress Scarlett Johansson got into a legal dispute with Walt Disney Co. over the film Black Widow after the company offered the movie on its subscription streaming service Disney+ at the same time the film was playing in theaters. — Reuters

Globe says 1.62M devices on 5G as of end-2021

GLOBE Telecom, Inc. on Tuesday said data traffic in its fifth-generation (5G) network continues to increase, mainly due to the growing demand for high-speed mobile broadband, especially with the rise of data-intensive applications.

“For the full year of 2021, Globe has served up to 6.71 petabytes of data in its 5G network,” Globe said in an e-mailed statement.

The company said it saw a “27x increase” in monthly data traffic in its 5G network this year, growing by “35.2% month-on-month.”

“As of end-December 2021, Globe logged over 1.62 million devices in its 5G network, as it reaches 96% of NCR (National Capital Region) and 84% of key VisMin (Visayas and Mindanao) cities in terms of 5G coverage,” it added.

5G technology, which offers speeds up to seven times faster than 4G, currently provides the fastest mobile connectivity and download speeds.

“It also has ultra-low latency, greater bandwidth, superior network reliability, and the ability to connect to more devices,” Globe noted.

The company has fired up more than 2,000 5G cell sites and upgraded 12,900 cell towers nationwide.

“Of the total number of 5G sites, over 1,400 cell sites are in Luzon, over 300 are in the Visayas, and over 230 are in Mindanao,” it said.

Globe recently reported that it was recognized by global standard Opensignal for having “the largest uplift in mobile multiplayer gaming experience, with an improvement of 65.2%.”

“5G Video experience with Globe was also elevated to a rating of excellent, with an uplift of 32.8% better than 4G,” it said in a separate statement. — Arjay L. Balinbin

Wesley So closes in on world chess championship

US chess player Wesley So — FIDE.COM

STEP by step, Philippine-born Wesley So is inching closer to realizing his dream of becoming world classical chess champion.

After a slow start, Mr. So found his groove and won two straight games including a fourth-round victory over fellow American Leinier Dominguez-Perez Monday night to zoom to the top of Pool D in the FIDE Grand Prix 1 2022 in Berlin, Germany.

The two-time US titlist, who struggled in the first two rounds due to jetlag that resulted to a pair of draws with Mr. Dominguez-Perez and Indian Pentala Harikrishna in games where the former could have lost, found his touch in the third round Sunday by smashing Alexei Shirov, a former world challenger, of Spain.

Mr. So rode on that momentum in blasting Mr. Dominguez-Perez in 39 moves of a Guioco Piano duel where the former used the f-file to seize control of the second rank where he gobbled up three pawns that sent the latter to submission.

When the smoke of battle dissipated, the former Philippine top board player in the World Chess Olympiad emerged four pawns up and about to checkmate the Cuban émigré when the latter resigned.

This catapulted Mr. So straight to No. 1 in Pool D with three points, a full point ahead of Mr. Dominguez-Perez and Mr. Harikrishna, who halved the point with Mr. Shirov, with two points apiece.

Mr. So could clinch the lone semis spot staked in his bracket if he could score at least 1.5 points against Mr. Harikrishna at press time and Mr. Shirov today.

Mr. So is eyeing to perform strongly here, the first of a three-leg series, to have a shot at claiming the two slots to the Candidates Tournament 2022 scheduled June 16-July 7 in Madrid, Spain where the winner earns a shot at Magnus Carlsen’s world classical crown.

And Mr. So, who has become world champion in Fischer-Random but not in standard chess, hopes he gets that chance. — Joey Villar

Google shares fact-checking tools

INDEPENDENT media outfit FYT and Google recently held a webinar titled “#FYTCOVID19: Fighting vaccine misinformation” to share tips on how to verify online information:  

  • Use Google Search operators — These are short commands that help filter Search results. To find exact matches, enclose Search queries in quotation marks. Using the “+” and “-” symbols between two terms will include or exclude related matches, respectively. You can also limit results from a specific website by using “site:”, or view results from a specific time range by choosing “custom range” in the Tools option. A complete list of search operators can be found at ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators.
  • Confirm when a post was uploaded — The date and time of when a post was uploaded is important when relating a source to a context. This is usually easily identifiable on some social media platforms, where hovering over the date and time or selecting “Inspect” allows you to view precise upload details. You can also use InVid to verify the exact local upload time of YouTube videos. 
  • Use reverse image search — Images or footage can be easily used in the wrong context. There are a lot of available tools online to verify the original source of an image such as Google Image Search, Yandex, Bing, Tineye, and Reveye among others. For videos, InVid’s verification plugin allows the extraction of multiple keyframes and do reverse image search on them. 
  • Identify the geolocation — Sometimes, a simple reverse image search can help identify where a photo or video was taken in order to verify if an incident took place where it claims to have happened. If not, it will be helpful to look out for street layouts, statues and monuments, architectural details, street signs and shopfronts, license plates, as well as terrains and topographies. 
  • Be keen on details when watching videos — Be sure to watch videos right through because details can be crucial. Watch out for camera movement and take time to pause to catch the decisive view you need. You may also use the apostrophe and period keys to advance or reverse frame by frame. Don’t forget to listen — you may be able to pick out place names, accents, dialects. 
    Utilize Google Maps — If you cannot be physically present in a certain location, you may use Google Maps’ Street View. You may even view old street view images of the same location through the “historical view” function.
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