Archive for January 2009
White House smoking ban? Obama can learn from RP mayors
By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak
January 22, 2009
The new US President, who has promised to keep the White House tobacco-free, should pick up a thing or two from mayors who did it for Makati and Davao city halls.
Testing public sentiment toward Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay running for president in 2010, his camp has been packaging him as the counterpart of the popular new American President Barack Obama. They both have dark complexion, they say, and Binay could be the Philippines’ first “black” president, like Obama is the first president of color to be elected in the United States.
There’s one distinction between them, however, that Binay would be glad to emphasize: he doesn’t smoke; Obama’s struggling to kick the habit. That makes the mayor of the country’s richest local government better at keeping his workplace smoke-free than the chief executive of the world’s most powerful country.
“JCB doesn’t smoke,” said an ally of Binay in the United Opposition, the national coalition of political groups against President Arroyo. “So it’s literally a breath of fresh air that you get when you go to the Makati city hall. It smells clean. It’s the best-smelling city hall I’ve been to.”
The success of an anti-smoking ban is more dramatic in Davao City. It’s Mayor Rodrigo Duterte himself—a former heavy smoker who turned anti-smoking advocate—who sometimes accosts violators. Establishments that didn’t comply, including a casino, have been shut down.
The White House has implemented a total ban on smoking since the administration of President Bill Clinton.
“The big issue about health is so paramount to me that I don’t think we should permit smoking,” First Lady Hillary Clinton was quoted by newspapers in 1993. She said White House visitors who wanted to smoke would have to do it outdoors.
Prior to Clinton’s announcement, smoking in the White House was prohibited only in the kitchen, maintenance areas, and locker rooms.
Language experts, educators nix House bill for all-English teaching
By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak
January 16, 2009
The proposal to adopt English as the primary medium of instruction (MOI) from Grade IV to high school appears to be gaining support in the House of Representatives. Language experts and educators however are pushing for a multi-lingual education (MLE) policy that puts emphasis on the use of child’s first language as language of teaching.
Language experts said Thursday in a forum at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City that instead of adopting English as the teaching language from Grade IV to the secondary level, Philippine schools should use the language first learned by a child (L1) as MOI from pre-school to Grade 6 because it facilitates the child’s learning.
“One’s own language enables a child to express himself or herself easily, as there is no fear of making mistakes,” said Ricardo Nolasco, a linguistic professor at UP and head of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino.
Nolasco said that MLE encourages active participation by children in the learning process because they can easily comprehend what is being discussed by their teachers.
“They can immediately use L1 to construct and explain their world, articulate their thoughts and add new concepts to what they already know,” Nolasco said adding that MLE would yield better results than instituting English as MOI.
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Photo Credit: www.newsbreak.com.ph
BPOs can absorb laid off workers–but they should be trained first
By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak
January 23, 2009
Workers who have been affected or will be affected by lay offs triggered by the global economic crisis can be re-trained so they can be absorbed by the business process outsourcing and information technology industries, outsourcing experts and industry players said.
During the pre-event press conference for the 2009 e-Services Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition to be held in February, industry experts said that retrenched workers from the manufacturing sectors are welcome to join the BPO industry as long as they meet the skills needed by the outsourcing firms.
The statement came after news that 1,800 workers of Intel Corp., the world’s largest manufacturer of micro-processors, will lose their jobs as the company is set to shut down its plant in Cavite.
“BPO and IT industry are looking forward to basically absorb them,” said Lauro Vives, chief executive officer of information and communications techonology research firm XMG Asia Pacific.
Vives, however, said that not all workers are suited to jobs in the BPO and IT sector and the government should help them by providing them training. (abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak)
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Pacquiao fights, hikes in prices are 2008 most-followed news
By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher,Newsbreak
January 14, 2009
The fights of Filipino boxing champion Manny Pacquiao and the spikes in the prices of rice and oil were the most-followed news events of 2008, the survey review of the Social Weather Stations showed.
The fight between Pacquiao and Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez and the increases in the prices of the staple food were the most followed news event last year, with 81 percent of respondents who followed the news.
Among the other most followed events of the respondents for 2008 were oil price increases, Pacquiao’s fight against boxer David Diaz, and melamine food scare.
Sports is extremely interesting to the people and next is the price increases,” said Mahar Mangahas, president of SWS, in a press conference in Makati City.
Mangahas said that events that concern health issues like the melamine food scare, which started in China, were also closely followed by the respondents. “We tend to be jittery about things like this, just like SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).
Meanwhile, among the events that were followed but by fewer respondents were: the Congress’ move to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform (31%) , Senate hearing on the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (40%), the aborted Memorandum on Agreement on Ancestral Domain or MOA-AD (37% in September 2008 and 41% in December 2008), alleged road insertion by Senator Manny Villar (41%) and the disciplining of the Court of Appeals justices (41%). (abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak)
World Bank: Integrate leading and lagging regions to cut poverty
By Jesus F. Llanto
Researtcher, Newsbreak
January 12, 2009
Economic integration of highly developed urban areas and poor far-flung areas will help reduce poverty and result in inclusive economic growth, economists from the World Bank said in their World Development Report 2009.
Contrary to the belief that distributing economic activities from the urban centers to remote areas will reduce poverty and spur growth, it is the economic integration of the urban centers and far-flung areas that will boost economic development and cut poverty, said World Bank economists during a presentation of the report, entitled Reshaping Economic Geography, at Makati City today.
“The reality is that interaction between leading and lagging places is the key to economic development,” said Indermit Gill, director of the WDR and WB chief economist for Europe and Central Asia.
Gill said that economic growth tends to favor some regions and this is the reason why economic activities tend to be concentrated on some areas. “Economic growth is seldom spatially-balanced.”
“The world is not flat. Markets favor some places over the others. To fight this concentration is tantamount to fighting prosperity,” Gill added. (abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak)
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Senate is key to passing English as medium of instruction bill
By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak
January 8, 2009
The proposal to adopt English as medium of instruction from Grade III to other higher levels may be gaining supporters from the congressmen but its enactment really depends on whether the Senate can act on it before the election season.
House Bill (HB) 5619 or the Act Strengthening and Enhancing the Use of English as Medium of Instruction is the consolidated version of all the bills—HB 230 by Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte, HB 305 by Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas, and HB 406 by Cebu Rep. Raul del Mar—seeking the adoption of English as language used for teaching from Grade 3 up to high school levels.
Gullas, one of the lead sponsors of the HB 5619, told abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak that 213 out of the 237 congressmen have already expressed support for the bill.
The bill has just passed the first reading and is expected to be taken up when Congress resumes its session this month.
“It is as good as approved,” Gullas said, adding that the Congress should pass the legislation since the previous Congress also passed it.
Valenzuela Rep. Magtanggol Gunigundo, one of the critics of the bill, said that sponsors of the bill should not be confident that the bill will be passed easily.
“It’s not a walk in the park. Co-authorship is not the same as voting,” Gunigundo told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.
Gunigundo is opposing the bill. He believes that first language should be used as the medium of instruction and supports a multi-lingual education system.
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‘Obama will listen to Asia’
By Jesus F. Llanto
Researcher, Newsbreak
January 10, 2009
Barack Obama’s multicultural background is expected to bring changes in the foreign policy of the United States, a US professor who specializes in Southeast Asia said.
Vincent Boudreau, professor and chair of the City College of New York’s (CCNY) political science department, said that Obama’s background would result in a departure from the foreign policy of outgoing US President George Bush.
“He does not see other countries as small Americas training to be America,” Boudreau said Friday in a lecture at the University of the Philippines Asian Center in Quezon City.
Obama, will be sworn in as the 44th US president on January 20. His late father was from Kenya while his late mother hailed from Kansas. Obama studied in Indonesia after his parents divorced and her mother married an Indonesian.
“He spent his formative years in Indonesia and he has the perspective of Malaysia, Indonesia, and even the southern Philippines,” said Boudreau, author of “Resisting Dictatorship: Repression and Protest in Southeast Asia (2004).” The book deals with political transitions, social movements and democratization in Indonesia and the Philippines.
“He wants to come to Asia and he will listen to Asia,” Boudreau said, adding that he does not see that Obama will be telling Asians what to do. (abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak)
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Photo: www.barackobama.com
