Expanded Maternity Leave Law To Address "Multiple Burden" of Pregnancy

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Saying that pregnant women carry a "multiple burden," lawmakers from both the Senate and House of Representatives close ranks to push for the passage of a bill that seeks to double the paid maternity leave of working women.

In a press conference today in Quezon City, Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros and Atty. Joy Anne Lai, Chief of Staff of Diwa Partylist Representative Emmeline Aglipay-Villar said that the government should address the "physical, mental and economic burden of pregnancy.”

"The physical demand of pregnancy alone is challenging. A nine-month pregnant woman carries an average weight of 15 kilos. This is as heavy as a regular hollow block or mid-size microwave oven. Yet, this is but a small fraction of the multiple burden of pregnancy,"Hontiveros said.

"The mental and economic challenges of pregnancy are also daunting. The existing maternity law doesn't give enough paid maternity leave for working mothers to fully recover from childbirth, properly care for their child and establish a stronger mother-child bond through breastfeeding. An expanded maternity leave bill does not mean a vacation for mothers. We want women to have the chance to take care of their children and their health and well-being without worrying about the economic costs of being away from employment," Hontiveros added.

For her part, Lai called on Congress to reciprocate the action of the Senate in passing its version of the Expanded Maternity Leave bill. She said that the country's alarming statistics on child malnutrition are the result of a lack of a progressive maternity Leave policy. Citing a study by the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in 2011, Lai explained that 65.4% or 4.3 million of Filipino children are suffering from long-term chronic malnutrition. Malnutrition was also blamed for about one-third of deaths of children below five years of age.

"The number of paid maternity leave days granted to working women are not enough for their new-born children to be properly fed. Thus, nursing mothers who need to return to work are often forced to stop breastfeeding and shift to infant formula. Two-thirds of deaths among malnourished children are associated with inappropriate feeding practices,” Lai explained.

To dramatize the "physical and multiple burdens" of pregnancy, Hontiveros presented bags of sand and hollow blocks weighing 15 kilos each. She asked members of the media to lift them in order for them to temporarily experience the physical challenges of pregnancy.

Last week, the Senate passed the Expanded Maternity Leave Law of 2017 granting all female workers, regardless of civil status or legitimacy of her child, 120 days maternity leave with pay and an option to extend it for another 30 days without pay. 30 days can also be allotted to fathers and alternate caregivers.

 

Photo by Rence Chan

Angela Lee Retains One Women's Atomweight World Championship with TKO Over Jenny Huang

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The largest sports media property in Asian history, ONE Championship™ (ONE), made a triumphant return to the Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand for another exciting evening of world-class MMA action at ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM. Fans were treated to an amazing showcase of courage and skill, delivered by the absolute best in local and international MMA talent. In the main event, Angela “Unstoppable” Lee retained her ONE Women’s Atomweight World Championship with a masterful display of striking, stopping previously unbeaten Jenny Huang within three rounds.

Visit the official ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM photo gallery by clicking: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ivh34n9pza3q94o/AADwuMwRg-gnDecd5AIBoQyTa?dl=0

In the main event of ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM, reigning and defending ONE Women’s Atomweight World Champion Angela “Unstoppable” Lee of Singapore retained her title with a dominant striking performance, unveiling a new dimension to her evolving skillset by putting together dynamic combinations to stun her opponent Jenny Huang of Chinese Taipei. Lee overwhelmed Huang from the beginning of the bout, peppering her with a volley of punches, elbows and knees. Huang tried her best to weather the storm but Lee kept coming, stalking Huang to no end. By the middle of the third round, the champion had the challenger pinned down on the mat as Lee unleashed ground-and-pound to earn the stoppage.

Angela Lee, ONE Women’s Atomweight World Champion, stated: “Well I have had some time to work (on the striking) because I haven’t fought in a while, so it feels really great. It feels like I’m back home here in the ONE Championship cage. It feels amazing, I cannot describe what I’m feeling right now. Thank you guys for coming out. I have to say thank you to my opponent Jenny [Huang] for being such a courageous warrior. She brought out the best in me.”

In the co-main event, local hero Shannon “OneShin” Wiratchai sent a message to the lightweight division, asking for a shot at the ONE Lightweight World Championship belt after easily taking care of debuting opponent Richard Corminal of the Philippines. Wiratchai, one of the most dynamic strikers in the promotion, put his world-class boxing skills on full display, staggering Corminal with punishing lefts and rights against the cage fence. The end came fittingly as Wiratchai connected on a right hook that turned the lights out on Corminal.

Top strawweight contender Joshua Pacio of the Philippines and former ONE Strawweight World Champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke of Thailand fought to near exhaustion, pushing each other to the limit over the course of an intense three round bout. Dejdamrong stalked Pacio all throughout the ONE Championship cage while his younger opponent looked to take matters to the ground. Once on the mat, Pacio dominated Dejdamrong, keeping the Thai fighter on the canvas with high-level wrestling. Action continued in the second round as Pacio continued to batter Dejdamrong, even scoring on an emphatic slam. In the third round however, Dejdamrong came to life and started to pressure Pacio with his world-class Muay Thai combinations. Both fighters were able to make it to the final bell with Pacio being awarded a close split decision for his efforts.

In one of the most exciting matchups of the evening, Yodsanan Sityodtong of Thailand and Ramon Gonzales of the Philippines put on a spectacular showcase of aggression to the roar of a packed crowd. Sityodtong, a former boxing world champion nicknamed “Little Tyson”, is known for his very powerful fists. Gonzales used takedowns to stay away from Sityodtong’s power, but spent a lot of energy trying to pursue a guillotine choke that Sityodtong was able to escape from. In the middle of the second round, the two fighters engaged in a skirmish at the center of the cage which left Gonzales unable to continue. Sityodtong earned the submission via verbal tapout after Gonzales signalled to referee Yuji Shimada.

Thai-Japanese female atomweight prospect Rika “Tinydoll” Ishige brought her hometown crowd up to their feet with a spectacular performance, besting Malaysian fighter Audreylaura “Ice Comet” Boniface to win by technical knockout before the end of the first round. The two women wasted absolutely no time at all, going to battle at the center of the cage with a scintillating striking exchange at the sound of the first bell. Once the fight hit the ground however, Ishige’s grappling skills took the spotlight as she stifled Boniface with a series of submission attempts. In the end, Ishige wound up in full mount and finished the fight with ground-and-pound.

Sagetdao Petpayathai of Evolve MMA was successful in his ONE Championship promotional debut, defeating game challenger Kelvin Ong of Malaysia. The local Lumpinee Stadium Muay Thai legend lit up Ong with his powerful striking, tagging the Malaysian with lightning quick kicks and thudding punch combinations. After a brief feeling out period, Petpayathai opened up his hands and drove Ong against the cage fence where he unleashed the fight-ending sequence to clinch the victory by technical knockout.

Featherweight fighters Ma Jia Wen of Tianjin, China, and Yohan Mulia Legowo of Solo, Indonesia, went head-to-head with intense striking tirades as well as high-level wrestling and grappling. Known for his fast and furious starts, Ma went straight at Legowo and opened up with a fierce punching combination, punctuated by a high kick that landed right on Legowo’s temple. In the second round, Ma turned up the aggression once again and began to tee off on Legowo, connecting on a devastating stream of punches and elbows to force the stoppage.

In the second preliminary bout of the card, Thai wrestling champion Kritsada “Dream Man” Kongsrichai of Thailand delivered a sensational performance, forcing opponent Adrian Matheis of Indonesia to succumb to strikes in the very first round. The two strawweights went on the attack as soon as the bout began and although it was Matheis who landed the more telling blows, it was Kongsrichai who put his world-class wrestling chops on display. The end came when Kongsrichai wound up on top and homed in a series of elbows to force the referee stoppage.

ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM got off to a great start when feisty strawweight contenders Rabin Catalan of the Philippines and Pongsiri Mitsatit of Thailand locked horns to the delight of the capacity crowd. After a few brief exchanges both on the feet and on the ground, local fighter Mitsatit was able to deliver a series of knees to Catalan’s midsection which proved too much for the Filipino to overcome, earning him a thrilling technical knockout victory in the very first round.

Official results for ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM

ONE Women’s Atomweight World Championship bout: Angela Lee defeats Jenny Huang by TKO (Strikes) at 3:37 minutes of round 3

Lightweight bout: Shannon Wiratchai defeats Richard Corminal by Knockout at 3:37 minutes of round 1

Strawweight bout: Joshua Pacio defeats Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke by Split Decision (SD) after three rounds

Catchweight bout (62.0kg): Yodsanan Sityodtong defeats Ramon Gonzales by Submission (Verbal) at 3:21 minutes of round 2

Atomweight bout: Rika Ishige defeats Audreylaura Boniface by TKO (Strikes) at 4:32 minutes of round 1

Featherweight bout: Sagetdao Petpayathai defeats Kelvin Ong by TKO (Strikes) at 2:20 minutes of round 1

Featherweight bout: Ma Jia Wen defeats Yohan Mulia Legowo by TKO (Strikes) at 0:59 minutes of round 2

Strawweight bout: Kritsada Kongsrichai defeats Adrian Matheis by Submission (Due to Strikes) at 2:51 minutes of round 1

Strawweight bout: Pongsiri Mitsatit defeats Rabin Catalan by TKO (Strikes) at 4:45 minutes of round 1


In case you missed the action log on to www.onefc.com/livestream for the full replay of the fights at only US $9.99.


For more updates on ONE Championship, please visit www.onefc.com, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @ONEChampionship, and like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ONEChampionship.

Broader Cloud Adoption Calls for New Approach to Security

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Fortinet, the global leader in high-performance cyber security solutions, cautions APAC organisations that traditional security solutions are no longer adequate in protecting today’s agile and highly distributed cloud environments and expanding attack surfaces.

While cloud service providers offer compelling new services, they also create isolated data silos that have to be managed separately, and impose unique security requirements on organizations. IT teams are already overburdened with managing their network transformation, and now must also learn how to deploy, configure, monitor, and manage dozens of additional cloud security tools.

The lack of additional resources, combined with the growing security skills gap, leaves security technicians with no good way to establish consistent policy enforcement or correlate the threat intelligence each of these devices produces.The result, in many cases, is that today’s hybrid cloud environments are recreating the same data center security sprawl that organizations have spent years trying to streamline and consolidate.

“For many organizations, their cloud-based infrastructure and services have become a blind spot in their security strategy. And cybercriminals are prepared to take advantage of this,” said Michael Xie, Founder, President and CTO for Fortinet. “A critical lapse in visibility or control in any part of the distributed network, especially in the cloud, can spell disaster for a digital business and have repercussions across the emerging global digital economy.”

The cloud has been a powerfully disruptive technology, transforming traditional network architectures that have been in place for decades. Housing workloads on cloud have allowed local businesses to be more agile, responsive and available than ever before. Networking experts predict that by 2020, cloud data centres will house as much as 92 percent of all workloads.According to Gartner, total spending for public cloud services in Asia Pacific is expected to increase to US$12.4 billion by 2019 with Software as a Service (SaaS) being the most progressive segment of the market with a growth rate of 22.5 percent and forecasted revenue of US$1.67 billion. (Source: Gartner)

So while organizations are re-engineering their networks, they have also begun to retool their security model and solutions. Security budgets for existing traditional networks are being reassigned to the adoption of specialized security tools, such as data center protection, web application firewalls, security for mobile devices, thin clients, secure email gateways, advanced threat protection, and sandboxes.

Fortinet advocates an integrated Security Fabric strategy that ensures data and security elements across an organization’s various cloud environments are integrated, cohesive and coherent, like a seamlessly woven fabric. Such a strategy allows companies to see, control, integrate and manage the security of their data across the hybrid cloud, thereby enabling them to take better advantage of the economics and elasticity provided by a highly distributed cloud environment.

Fortinet’s Security Fabric addressses three fundamental requirements necessary to meet today’s advanced networking and security requirements of the cloud:

1. Integration

Security, network and cloud-based tools need to work together as a single system to enhance visibility and correlate and share threat intelligence.

2. Synchronization

Security solutions need to work as a unified system for simplified single-pane-of-glass management and analysis, and enabling coordinated responses to threats through such methods as isolating affected devices, dynamically partitioning network segments, updating rules and removing malware.

3. Automation

For security solutions to adapt to dynamically changing network configurations and respond in real time to detected threats, security measures and countermeasures need to be applied automatically, regardless of where a threat originates, from remote devices to the cloud.


“To securely meet today’s digital business requirements, organizations need to be able to cut through the cloud security hype and intentionally select security solutions designed to be part of an interconnected, end-to-end security framework that can solve evolving physical and virtual IT challenges regardless of the deployment option. Security needs to be designed to meet this new challenge not only now, but into tomorrow as organizations continue to evolve towards a fully digital business model,” said Jeff Castillo, country manager for Fortinet Philippines.