...the living heroes

Duterte: Every Filipino is a hero


Edith Regalado
Philippine Star
27 August 2019

DAVAO CITY, Philippines — President Duterte said there is no mistaking that every Filipino is a hero.

A family walks past a mural of hero and Katipunan founder Andres Bonifacio in Manila as the country celebrated National Heroes Day yesterday.

“I truly believe that every Filipino is a hero who can build on our vibrant legacy of fortitude and resilience,” the President said in his National Heroes Day statement yesterday.

Duterte called on Filipinos to reflect on the history and honor of those who sacrificed their lives and fought for the freedom and democratic ideals upon which the Philippines was founded.

“Let us make our forebears proud of our triumphs as a people by being everyday heroes who will reach out to those who are in need, especially to the ones neg-lected by society,” he said.

The President stressed that the collective sacrifice of the country’s forebears has made it possible for Filipinos to enjoy the blessings of liberty, and to continue strengthening the great nation they have left behind.

“We recognize their heroism not only by erection of statues in their honor but also by uplifting the welfare of the poor and marginalized for it is through our small deeds that their spirit of valor can live on,” he further said.

Citing the importance of solidarity in facing the future together, he encouraged everyone to “embody solidarity and sustain our momentum towards positive change not only for ourselves but for the succeeding generations as well.”

For her part, Vice President Leni Robredo stressed the importance of camaraderie, noting that no single leader could alone change the country for the better.

“Today, we remember the bravery of our heroes who sacrificed their lives for the freedom we enjoy now. Today, we remember not a single hero. Whether they were famous or not, have identities or not, we honor all those who made their contributions for the freedom of our country,” she said in Filipino.

She hopes the commemoration of National Heroes’ Day will serve as a reminder that no single hero can save the country from where it is now.

“The solutions to all our problems are not in the hands of one person and there’s no single leader that could give us a good life,” Robredo said.

“The Filipino is the hero of his fellow Filipino. You are the hero of your fellow countrymen and you have the power to make significant change on your country and on the life of other people,” she said.
Robredo also urged Filipinos to stand together for the country’s freedom, which their forefathers have died for. “In these times when we face threats against our democracy and sovereignty, let’s continue to stand firm for our freedom. It’s time for us to continue what they have started.”

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, who together with Vice Admiral Gaudencio Collado Jr., the Armed Forces of the Philippines vice chief of staff, led the wreath-laying ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, urged Filipinos to “recommit ourselves to the choice to sacrifice and to love our country.”

“Their ultimate sacrifice will never be in vain. We, in our daily lives, learn to embody their courage in small deeds of heroism. And that will touch the lives of our countrymen, especially the poor and the marginalized,” Cayetano said in his speech.

He underscored that Philippine heroes are not limited to those who are honored in history, “but more so the overseas Filipino workers who have left their families in order to give their children a better future.”

AFP chief of staff Gen. Benjamin Madrigal Jr. also called on Filipinos to be heroes themselves by doing their part in serving and protecting the country and its people.

On Sunday, Philippine Army chief Lt. Gen. Macairog Alberto did his part in recognizing the living heroes by pinning the ranks and awards to soldiers who fought in battle and are still confined at the Army General Hospital.

Brig. Gen. Bernard Banac, spokesman for the Philippine National Police, said the country and the police force would never run out of heroes as he stressed that someone will always rise to the challenge to defend and protect.

It was a different take for Sen. Imee Marcos though as she asked if the holiday is not actually a misnomer.

“Here’s a historical fact that will shock most Filipinos. The reality is that, officially, we have no heroes. Little do most Filipinos know that ever since the Philippines gained independence, the government has never officially proclaimed who our national heroes really are even if it has been taught as early as grade school that the likes of Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio are among them,” she pointed out.

Marcos said that the Philippine National Heroes Committee officially recommended several people for the designation in 1995, including Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Aguinaldo, Apolinario Mabini, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Sultan Dipatuan Kudarat, Juan Luna, Melchora Aquino and Gabriela Silang.

However, the issue deteriorated into a debate involving regional interests and was never resolved. – With Helen Flores, Michael Punongbayan, Emmanuel Tupas, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Delon Porcalla, Rhodina Villanueva

...the top social media bugs

Filipinos spend more hours on social media than the rest of the world—report

Aileen Cerrudu

UNTV News & Rescue

27 August 2019

Filipinos spend more time on social media compared with the rest of the world, according to a recent report of Global Web Index.

The Philippines tops the list with an average of 4 hours a day spent on social media. Brazil ranked second with 3:45 hours spent while Nigeria and Colombia tied in the third spot with 3:36 hours spent.

The hours spent on social media in the Philippines increased from 2:49 hours in 2012 to 4:01 hours in 2019. The country also has remained the top country that spends the most hours on social media for seven years.

Meanwhile, the top motivations of internet users to use social media is to be up-to-date with the latest news and current events (40%), staying in touch with friends (39%) and finding funny or entertaining content (38%).

However, 47% of the 16-24 year old  age group said that finding funny or entertaining content is their top motivation for using social media. 46% answered “to fill up spare time” while 43% answered “to stay in touch with friends.”—AAC

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...the biodiversity hotspot

‘Like spaghetti’: Worm-slurping, hopping rats discovered in the Philippines


Nandita Chandraprakash
Mongabay.com
26 August 2019

• The highly biodiverse island of Luzon in the Philippines has yielded up two species of rats new to science.
• Both are found high up on Luzon’s mountains, where they’ve evolved to feed on the earthworms that abound in the lush, wet habitat.
• Researchers say they hope the new discoveries, the latest of dozens made here since 2000, will help shine a spotlight on the importance of conserving Luzon’s unique habitats and wildlife.

As you explore the high altitudes of Luzon Island in the Philippines, you’ll encounter plenty of earthworms. There’s an abundance of them. So the ecosystem did exactly what nature does to bring balance: it evolved predators. And the most common earthworm predators here are rats. Two of them, in fact, are new to science, having only just been described in a paper published in July.

“They’re quite bizarre,” says lead author Eric Rickart, a curator at the Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah. “They hop around on their sturdy hind legs and large hind feet, almost like little kangaroos. They have long, delicate snouts, and almost no chewing teeth.”

The scientists caught one of these new “tweezer-beaked hopping rats” when they set traps with a regularly employed bait: peanut butter. The first capture, however, happened quite by chance as the rat wasn’t interested in the peanut butter. However, it did slurp up an earthworm when the scientists offered it one as an experiment. Subsequently, when the team, led by the late Danilo Balete of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, set traps with live, wriggling earthworms as bait, they came across the two new earthworm-loving rat species.

Scientists named the new species Rhynchomys mingan and Rhynchomys labo after the mountains they’re respectively found on, Mount Mingan and Mount Labo. Their genus name comes from the ancient Greek rhyncos for “snout,” due to the rats’ long pointed noses, and mys for “mouse.”

The rats catch earthworms by quietly hop-stalking little trails they make among the mud and humus of the forest. Once they detect an earthworm, they quickly pounce. They then brush the dirt off and swallow the worm whole, “like a long spaghetti,” according to the scientists.

“One of the things that’s striking to see was their reflexes — they’re lightning quick,” says Lawrence Heaney, a curator at the Field Museum and co-author of the study. “It later became obvious why they’re that fast. They’re trying to catch a nimble earthworm that's partly in a hole.

The research team and porters at the beginning of the hike to Mount Labo, where one of the two new species was discovered. Heaney, Balete and Alviola are in the front, center. Image by TKTK.

Island evolution

Luzon is the largest Philippine island and, at 27 million years old, one of the oldest oceanic islands in the world with never any direct dry-land connection to continental Asia. With volcanoes and mountain ranges, life in Luzon has rich resources and undisturbed geographical diversity to evolve uniquely. Today, all native animals and plants of Luzon are descendants of ancient species that colonized the island by crossing formidable water barriers. The tweezer-beaked hopping rats of the Rhynchomys genus evolved from a single ancient colonization event 7 million to 9 million years ago. They are found nowhere else on Earth.

These “earthworm rats” had to adapt to the prey available: earthworms. They quietly hop trails, dig deep in the soil, work through leaf litter, or go up the trees among orchids and other epiphytes, all in search of the best sustenance available. The worms are common in Luzon’s high, wet altitudes, with a forest floor covered in fallen plant material that takes a long time to decompose.

An example of the mossy forest habitat where species of Rhynchomys live in northern Luzon. Image by L.R. Heaney.

Scientists find Luzon particularly fascinating because it’s a natural laboratory for studying evolution.

“These interwoven processes occur everywhere, but they can be studied most readily on islands because of the effects of isolation,” Rickart says. As for the rats, they have adapted uniquely to take advantage of the rainforest’s abundance in earthworms and provide a great example of how evolution works as generations of a species are isolated in confined pockets.

Scientists have described 30 new species of mammals in Luzon since 2000 and expect to find more. In that same period, just one new mammal species was discovered in all of Europe, a land mass 92 times larger than Luzon. Rickart and his team say they believe Luzon has the world’s greatest concentration of endemic mammals on the planet.

“There are sky islands within the big island [of Luzon],” Heaney adds.

Conservation of the rats and biodiversity in Luzon

Only 6 percent of the tropical old-growth forests that blanketed the Philippines 500 years ago survive today. The country is losing its rainforests to oil palm plantations and other agricultural interests.

But the two new species are lucky; they live in high-elevation forests — wet, cold and steep — and are not currently threatened by agriculture or logging. Still, experts say geothermal energy development and mining could pose threats down the road. And it may not take much to endanger the new species.

“As far as we know, the two species are geographically restricted to small areas on isolated mountains, so any broad-scale disturbance to their habitat could be a great threat,” Rickart says.

The good news is that scientists have seen a steady rise in the growth of secondary forests, albeit a slow one, over the last 25 years. The earthworm rats don’t necessarily require old-growth forests but do need high-altitude habitats at elevations above 1,500 meters (about 5,000 feet).

“What we see is that as the forest regenerates, the native mammals move back in,” Heaney says.

Cloud field atop Mount Mingan. Cloud forests are believed to contain the maximum mammalian diversity. Image by L.R. Heaney/Field Museum of Natural History.

Locals understand the importance of the forests, especially old-growth ones, against the pummeling of typhoons, according to the researchers. Without forests in higher lands, and the absorbent, mulch-carpeted mossy floors that act as intact watersheds, typhoons can cause extensive damage, including loss of life, due to erosion, landslides, mudslides and floods.

“The local populations and governments want to protect the land on which they depend for water and indirect resources,” Heaney says, adding that the researchers got a lot of support from the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The scientists say they hope the discovery of the tweezer-beaked hopping rats, and of all the other creatures here in recent decades, will put additional focus on conservation in Luzon. When a new species is discovered, it provides publicity and spark, Heaney says: “It often helps a lot to promote the establishment of new protected areas and national parks.” The docile earthworm-slurping rats, it turns out, may inadvertently promote conservation in their home range.

Map of the Philippine archipelago, showing the locations of modern islands in green, Late Pleistocene (ice-age) islands in light blue, and deep seas in dark blue. From “The Mammals of Luzon Island: Biogeography and Natural History of a Philippine Fauna,” Johns Hopkins University Press. Image © Heaney, Balete and Rickart (2016).

...the Filipino artists at Katara show

Works by Filipino artist on show at Katara



Raynald C. Rivera
The Peninsula
26 August 2019

A diverse array of works by renowned international Filipino visual artist Frederick Epistola is on show at his solo exhibition titled Hugis at Kulay (Shapes and Hues) which launched at Katara Cultural Village yesterday.

Officially inaugurating the exhibition, Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti, General Manager of Katara, lauded the level of cooperation between Katara and the Philippine Embassy in Doha which has resulted to a variety of artistic and cultural activities, including this exhibition which shows visitors the stunning features of the Philippines and its rich culture.

Al Sulaiti stressed Katara’s keenness to diversify its exhibitions and host various artistic experiences that would open different cultural windows.

In his remarks, Alan L Timbayan, Ambassador of the Philippines, underlined the importance of the exhibition showcasing its several paintings, collages and sculptures depicting the historical, social and cultural changes experienced by the Filipino society to expose many customs and traditions.

Timbayan also praised the great efforts made by Katara in building bridges of cooperation and convergence between cultures and peoples.

The ambassadors of Morocco, Canada, Thailand, Vietnam, Iraq and Russia were among those who attended the launch of the exhibition.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a mixed media on wood piece, one of the artist’s latest works, dedicated to hardworking overseas Filipino workers around the world.

An abstract expressionist painter, collagist, sculptor and photography enthusiast, Epistola has produced wide ranging art pieces in different mediums from mixed media to clay to metal sculpture some of which are now part of permanent collections of museums and cultural institutions in various countries such as the US, Switzerland and Italy.

With a degree in Fine Arts Major in Visual Communications from the University of the Philippines, Epistola has been featured extensively in numerous solo and group exhibitions abroad such as Malaysia, Italy, Sweden and the US.

Apart from his art, Epistola is also known for his advocacies and innovation including initiating the Solar Power Initiative (SPIN) project which provides homes in depressed areas in the Philippines access to affordable and clean power through the use of solar energy.

The exhibition is open for public viewing from 10am to 10pm until August 30 at Gallery 2 of Katara Building 22.

...the Marvel #1000

Pinoy comic book artist Leinil Yu part of landmark Marvel #1000

Rick Olivares | ABS-CBN News

25  August 2019

MANILA -- Filipino comic book artist Leinil Francis Yu has been selected to be one of the creators whose work will be featured in the landmark Marvel #1000.

Marvel #1000 which hits the racks of comic book specialty shops all over the world this Wednesday, August 28, is a landmark issue that celebrates the 80th anniversary of Marvel Comics. 

It will feature 80 creative teams from some of the publishing company’s superstar creators like Chris Claremont (Uncanny X-Men), Jason Aaron (The Mighty Thor), Peter David (The Incredible Hulk), Gerry Conway (The Amazing Spider-Man), Joe Quesada (Daredevil), as well as guest creators that include basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Taboo of alternative hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas, and filmmaking duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (21 Jump Street and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse).

Yu is arguably the most successful Filipino artist to work on American comics with his career spanning from the mid-1990s up to today. He has continued to work on high-profile projects as befitting a top name in the industry.

Of his involvement in Marvel Comics #1000, Yu succinctly said: “I’d be heartbroken if I were left out of this monumental issue.”

Yu has worked on every major character in both Marvel and DC Comics’ line as well as for independents that includes The Avengers, Captain America, The Indestructible Hulk, Wolverine, The Uncanny X-Men, Batman/Danger Girl, Superman: Birthright, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to name but a few from his portfolio.

This October, Yu’s latest work will be on the new X-Men comic with acclaimed writer Jonathan Hickman.

Marvel Comics #1000 will look back to its own origin story in Marvel Comics #1 that was first published on August 31, 1939 when the company was known as Timely Comics. The very first panel of Marvel Comics #1000 will reflect a panel from the original first issue and go on to reveal more mysteries of the Marvel Universe, featuring an enigmatic artifact known as the Eternity Mask.

During the recent San Diego Comic Con, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief CB Cebulski also divulged that Darth Vader (Marvel Comics is owned by Disney, which also owns Star Wars) will appear in the landmark issue tying in the Star Wars Universe to Marvel’s.

Marvel’s 80th Anniversary will also be celebrated locally from August 25 to September 1 at the Block Atrium of SM North EDSA and SM Seaside Cebu where Filipina superhero, Wave, will be formally launched.

Marvel Comics #1000 will be available locally through specialty shops such as Comic Odyssey, Filbar’s, Comic Quest, and Planet X.

...the Philippines in world tourism radar

DOT: ‘The Philippines has kept a high profile in … world tourism …’




Analou de Vera
Manila Bulletin
24 August 2019

The Department of Tourism (DOT) said that the Philippines is one of the most "sought-after destinations of international tourists.

“Tourism is at its most exciting times. The Philippines has kept a high profile in the world tourism radar. We are still among the sought-after destinations by many foreign travelers,” said Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat in her keynote address during the 7th Tourism Coordinating Council (TCC) meeting in Makati last Friday.

“In fact, foreign tourist arrivals to the country continue to grow by leaps and bounds,” she added.

There were 4,133,050 foreign tourists who visited the country from January to June, registering an 11.43 percent increase as compared to the same period last year.

South Korea remains as the country’s top source market with 946,025 arrivals. Ranked second is China with 866,561 followed by the United States of America with 569,204 arrivals, Japan with 326,907 visitors, and Taiwan with 159,532 foreign arrivals.

“Overall, our country reached an estimated amount of P245 billion in visitor receipts during the first six months of this year. This is a huge spike of 17.57 percent from the half-year gross revenues in 2018,” said Puyat.

Puyat said that the tourism industry, which is the “third engine of economic growth,” has contributed 12.7 percent to the country’s gross domestic product.

“It has generated new jobs that employed 5.4 million people last year, chalking up 13 percent of the total employment in the country,” she said.

Moreover, Puyat assured that the DOT will still remain “firm in its role” as advocates of sustainable and responsible tourism.

...the mighty PH economy

Philippines 'not particularly vulnerable' to China slowdown: Fitch

ABS-CBN NEWS
22 August 2019

MANILA – The Philippines is "not particularly vulnerable" to the fallout from a slowing in Chinese economy, unlike its neighbors, a Fitch Rating credit officer said Thursday.

The skyline of the central business district is seen in the morning in Beijing, China August 21, 2019. Reuters/Stringer

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea might see "ripple effects" due to their debt exposure to China, said Dan Martin, regional credit officer at Fitch Ratings' Credit Policy Group.

The Philippine economy "doesn’t come out as a model that is particularly vulnerable to China’s slowdown. And on the market side, they’re not reliant on capital inflows and they don’t do as much lending and foreign currency," Martin told ANC.

Sri Lanka and Indonesia might be affected due to their foreign currency denominated borrowings, he said.