Nationwide round-up

StaySafe.ph useless without at least half of population registered

MULTISYS Technologies Corp. needs at least half of the Philippines’ 109 million population to register to StaySafe.ph for the platform be fully effective as a health outbreak mitigation system, company Chief Executive Officer David Almirol Jr. said. The StaySafe.ph application, however, has so far only registered more than a million users across the country. “Nahihirapan kami sa registration. Walang silbi ang 1 million na registrants sa StaySafe, kailangan natin kahit man lang sana 50% ng population ng Pilipinas (We’re having difficulties in getting registrants. It’s useless to have just one million registrants, we need at least 50% of the population),” he said in a virtual briefing Monday. StaySafe.ph serves as a digital platform that individuals and local government units can use to report and monitor suspected, probable and confirmed cases of the coronavirus. It is also intended to speed up contact tracing efforts. Mr. Almirol explained that they are experiencing a bottleneck in the implementation at the local level as it requires technical training, which he said may be addressed by conducting a “one-time, big time” technology transfer activity. “What’s important is first, for LGUs (local government units) to be able to input the probable, suspected and confirmed cases; second, for citizens to download the application,” he said in mixed English and Filipino. Multisys was tapped by the government to develop the contact tracing application, which will later be turned over to the Department of Health and will be ran with supervision from the Department of Information and Communications Technology. — Charmaine A. Tadalan

Lawmakers say other media firms not exempt from depositary receipts probe

ALL MEDIA companies offering Philippine Depositary Receipts (PDRs), as in the case of ABS-CBN Corp. which has a pending application for a new congressional franchise, can be subject to investigation, lawmakers in the House of Representatives said. Anakalusugan Party-List Rep. Michael T. Defensor, vice chair of the House committee on good government and public accountability, said ABS-CBN is not being singled out as there are congressmen who have already expressed intent to also look into the PDRs of another broadcast firm, GMA Network, Inc. “I am very happy that some of our colleagues would like to look into GMA. I agree. But let’s not be diverted from the issue. Ang issue po dito (The issue here), was there a violation of ABS-CBN of our Constitution,” Mr. Defensor said in a hearing on Monday. The committee, along with that on legislative franchises, earlier ordered the secretariat to obtain copies of other media companies’ PDRs. The two panels are deliberating whether ABS-CBN violated the Constitution when it sold PDRs to foreigners. A PDR is a security that grants the holder the right to the delivery of sale of the underlying share, according to the Philippine Stock Exchange. Under Philippine law, media companies should be 100% Filipino-owned and managed. The committees are set to meet again on Wednesday to resume its deliberation on ABS-CBN’s franchise. There is no scheduled hearing yet on the PDRs of other media companies. — Genshen L. Espedido

Gov’t aid for OFWs cover less than half of applications

THE GOVERNMENT has released over P1.6 billion in aid to thousands of displaced overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), which covers less than half of the applications filed for the one-time P10,000 cash assistance per worker. Palace Spokesperson Harry L. Roque, in a briefing on Monday, reported that P1.44 billion out of the initial P1.5 billion budget has been distributed to most of the 145,472 approved applications. These approved beneficiaries represent 35% of the total 418,142 applications filed. Under the additional P1 billion fund allocated for the Department of Labor and Employment’s Abot Kamay Ang Pagtulong sa OFWs (AKAP) Program, 45,748 have been approved out of 92,555 applications. Of those approved, 16,230 have so far been paid. — Gillian M. Cortez