Even as the dusts of the last electoral battle have not yet fully settled down, the advocates of the RH bill are already making lots of noises. They are beating their breasts and bragging that most of the politicians who are staunch supporters of the bill were reelected thereby showing that the Church campaign against them and against the RH bill was a failure. This is however misleading and not entirely correct. Read the rest of this entry »

MANILA, Philippines – Workers in Metro Manila are likely to get the much-awaited increase in their daily take-home pay within the week. Read the rest of this entry »

The Anti-Violence Act Against Women and their Children

Republic Act 9262, or the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children, defines abuse against women as the following: 1. Physical violence refers to bodily harm. Read the rest of this entry »

Speak Out Against Domestic Violence

Depression, anxiety, isolation, bruises, broken bones and even death. No one should ever have to endure the brutality of domestic violence but it happens and sadly more frequently. Everyday there are 29 women who become victims and so many more are unaccounted for. Breaking the cycle of violence is possible and it starts by speaking out. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Giovanni Tapang, chairman of the well-respected organization AGHAM, the Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Sambayanan, which was founded in 1999, wrote extensively in his The Manila Times column the serious vulnerabilities of the Commission on Elections-Smartmatic Automated Election System.

Below is his assessment of how the AES fared. Read the rest of this entry »

Chairman Jose Melo of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and his fellow commissioners are satisfied that the first Automated Election System (AES) experience of the Philippines has been a success—they are now deciding whether top purchase the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines or just lease them from Smartmatic- Total Information Management (TIM) in the next elections. Read the rest of this entry »

The consensus among Filipinos seems to be that the recent automated and electronic counting and canvassing and transmission of results of our May 10 national and local elections were a good step toward the right direction. Though E-voting (electronic voting) is relatively new to the Philippines, it has been around since the 80s. Read the rest of this entry »

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec), Malacañang Palace and the leaders of both houses of Congress are all agreed—as most of the Filipino people seem to—that the May 10 elections were a success. They have declared that the first Automated Election System (AES) experience of the Filipinos resulted in credible elections. And Comelec is now deciding whether to buy Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines or lease them from Smartmatic for the next elections. Read the rest of this entry »

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Agriculture is setting up 84 units of automatic weather stations (AWS) and upgrading its 10 agro-meteorological (agromet) sites nationwide as part of the government’s sustained initiatives for the agriculture and fisheries sector to better adapt to climate change. Read the rest of this entry »

MANILA, Philippines – Over 200 environment officials and experts from Asia and Europe have cited the reforestation program of the Philippines, tagging it as one of the “low carbon pioneers” in the world in efforts to confront the challenges of climate change. Read the rest of this entry »