BREAKING

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Travel Soon with Philippine Airlines' Mid-Year Special Offer Promo




Wazzup Pilipinas!

After months of being quarantined due to this Covid-19 pandemic, I'm betting you are all itching to pack your bags and travel to another destination you've been longing to go, or even somewhere familiar just to get out of the four corners of your home.

Your wish is finally coming true as you can now score affordable flights with the flag carrier Philippine Airlines' (PAL) Mid-Year Special Offer Promo.

This July 13, 2020, PAL is launching the Mid-Year Special Offer for as low as P388 base fare for domestic destinations and USD99 for round trip international flights. Whether flying home to your loved ones, going on essential business travel, or planning for that long overdue holiday getaway, passengers can travel worry-free with PAL’s ‘Fly Safe’ measures.

To avail of the offer, passengers may book via www.philippineairlines.com or call PAL Reservations at (+63 2) 8855 – 8888 or visit any PAL ticketing office or any partner travel agents or through the PAL mobile app.

Travel Period: August 1, 2020 up to May 31, 2021
Booking Period: July 13 - 19, 2020

#HeartOfTheFilipino #FlySafePH

Saturday, July 11, 2020

What a True Public Servant Should Be



Wazzup Pilipinas!

Enough with the mudslinging, and pitiful are those who attack the physical attributes of someone they despise because it only makes their logic and reasoning too weak to stand on their own.

This administration is not perfect. There has never been one free of scrutiny....and though there are obvious irregularities, corruption and double standards happening, the past administrations were never clean as well.

We have been exerting all efforts to choose the lesser evil, but we keep on failing since I believe most of them just got too greedy during their "reign".

6 years is just like only 6 months when you are enjoying the luxurious life being at the center of too much power and affluence. It truly corrupts even the noblest of angels...and Duterte was never even an inkling of an angel. He was clearly identified as responsible for the Davao Death Squad yet we still put him in the Presidency, and are constantly shocked with his words and actions.

Why have our government officials gone to the deep end? Because we have pampered them with VIP treatment instead of inculcating in their minds that they are public servants who are supposed to be serving us.

What is happening is the other way around.

As public servants, they should be mingling with the people they serve, and experiencing what ordinary people have to deal with on a daily basis and not having their own chauffered and police-escorted high-end air-conditioned vehicles.

They shouldn't be given the best seats in the house. We are their bosses so they should either sit with us for equality or given the last priority on the seats since they should give way for us.

They shouldn't be getting a high salary. It only further attracted crooks to the position, add to it the additional perks and privileges they are constantly getting.

These are just some of the reasons why these top government positions are sought by those who have the wrong motivations.

Will you still run for office and spend millions on your campaign and propagandas if you follow these new arrangements?

Lessons from the Philippines' Failure Against Covid-19



Wazzup Pilipinas!

Under the Uncertainties of COVID-19

The deadly widespread COVID-19 has presented the world unprecedented challenges. It is not only a global public health emergency that has claimed thousands of hundreds of people’s lives, but also causes immediate and long-term economic impacts which have devastating effects on billions of households. Philippine becomes the second hardest-hit country by COVID-19 in Southeast Asia. As of early July, there are 51,754 confirmed cases and 1,314 fatalities reported . The number of confirmed cases has been increasing rapidly since June.

The most marginalized across the country– the 33 million children who make up around one-third population of Philippine[i] – are likely to be hit the hardest. Too many children have been denied healthcare, been torn out of school, or left in abusive homes without access to protection.

But in crisis there is also opportunity. The pandemic is a chance for regional governments to build back better, safer and greener. In July, Save the Children set out a post-pandemic agenda for the Asia Pacific region as well as Philippine – a road map for how we can use the disruption of Covid-19 to create fairer and more inclusive societies. We believe that the virus must lead to a fundamentally different world – a new social contract between governments and people, drawing on lessons from the pandemic’s impact on all of our lives.

With the COVID-19 fatality rate of 3.37%, Philippine has the second-highest fatality rate in Southeast Asia[ii]. The rapid spread and relative high death ratio of COVID-19 have shown the inefficiency of the healthcare system as well as insufficient public health management capacity of Philippine. Broadly speaking, countries with well-functioning hospitals and stockpiles of crucial supplies including Personal Protective Equipment have done better in protecting their populations from the pandemic. Philippine’s low healthcare expenditure mainly explains the low efficiency. The healthcare expenditure of Philippine as part of the GDP has been around 4.4% for several years, much lower than the world’s average level of 9.89%[iii]. Philippine also has faced a shortage of vital medical supplies. “The average number of ventilators in small hospitals around the Philippines is very small compared to what is really needed.” According to media report[iv]. While countries with better-resourced healthcare systems such as Thailand and Vietnam have done much better. For example, Thailand could provide 10,000 ventilators for a population of 70 million. The pandemic is a wake-up call for governments to target at least five percent of their GDP spending on healthcare moving forward.

The education sector has also been disrupted on an unprecedented scale, with 28,451,212 students affected in Philippine due to the nation-wide school closures[v]. To stem the spread of coronavirus, in early March, all educational institutions were enforced to close schools and classes have been shifted online[vi]. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently says he will not allow students to go back to school until a coronavirus vaccine is available, even as some other countries resume in-person classes[vii]. However, virtual classrooms are inaccessible to those without internet connections. The pandemic has exposed the sharp digital divide in Philippine, where most children living in rural and remote areas and have no access to the internet. Philippine’s network readiness index scores only 47.7, ranking 71 worldwide, compared with Singapore’s 82.13[viii], which shows the most of Filipino children are not technically prepared for long-term online learning.

Internet access is becoming more than just a daily necessity but is also crucial to fulfilling a number of children’s human rights – including access to education and information. With online education likely here to stay, the Philippine government must redouble efforts to ensure that everyone can access the internet, including in marginalized and rural communities.

The combination of lockdown and school closure has also heightened the risks of increased Violence Against Children (VAC), particularly online sexual exploitation in Philippine. The financial and psychological pressures brought about by the pandemic have increased tensions in the home, resulting in huge spikes in calls to domestic violence hotlines in Philippine. Children have been particularly hard hit by what the UN has called a “shadow pandemic”, as they have been unable to access the protection services they normally would or find sanctuary and safety in schools. The Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Cybercrime said 279,166 child sexual abuse cases have been reported from March 1 to May 24 this year, compared to 76,561 cases over the same period in 2019. The cases of internet-based sexual exploitation of children this year was an increase up to 264 percent, the Philippine’s DOJ pointed out[ix].

The government leaders must use the pandemic to strengthen systems protecting children from domestic violence and other forms of abuse. They must invest in remote monitoring systems that can better detect violence against children behind closed doors in family homes. The virus has also shown that social service workers who play a crucial role in protecting children from harm must be deemed “essential” in the same way that medical doctors and nurses are.

The pandemic has wrought havoc across war-torn and wealthy societies worldwide. In Philippine, the situation is not any better with 33 million children facing different forms of issues associated healthcare, learning and violence on different levels. We owe it to children to learn our lessons from the virus and create a world where they can not only stay alive with their families, but also grow and thrive.
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