Child rights upheld

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

I am one of those who continue to despise the return to politics by the Marcoses, making them again influential and powerful, as if the family headed by the late ousted dictator hasn’t done this country and its people grievous wrong.

But, because we are forgiving people with short memory, they are back in their glory days in politics even when their ill-gotten wealth has not been fully recovered and some remaining victims of the Martial Law years are gradually dying without receiving compensation.

That is, however, neither here nor there.

For once I am applauding Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for planning to file a bill that will punish armed groups, whether government forces or rebel groups, who will use children in armed conflicts.

“Children deserve utmost protection from all forms of danger. All efforts must, therefore, be exerted to ensure that they are sheltered and protected at all times. Under this proposal, there is a comprehensive treatment of children in armed conflict, including their rescue and demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration,” Marcos said.

Other prohibited acts under his planned bill include the use of children as hostages or human shield, denial of humanitarian access and assistance to children, recruitment and involvement of children in armed conflict, and attack of schools, hospitals, place of worship, evacuation centers and settlement and other public places where children can usually be found.

Here, as in conflicts abroad, like in Syria, the reality of child abuse in war-torn countries has been recently reported by Leila Zerrougui, a U.N. special representative on children in conflict, saying that her office had received “verified reports that Syrian children are killed or injured in indiscriminate bombings, shot by snipers, used as human shields or victims of terror tactics.”

This simply confirms the U.N. report cited by Marcos that “tagged” the New People’s Army (NPA), Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) as among 29 groups in the country that are “persistently perpetrators” of the use of children in armed conflicts.

Marcos said that children who are exposed to armed conflict “experience severe physical and psychological trauma and the innocence of the youth is violently robbed and replaced by the terrors of violence, hatred, and pain.”

The bill seeks to impose a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and a fine of not less than Php2 million but not more than Php5 million for anyone found in violation of its provisions.

Hope this will materialize in the 16^th Congress as child protection in times of conflict has been long overdue.

Syria civil war continues despite G8 summit

 

The Group of Eight (G8) is a forum for the governments of eight of the world’s eleven largest national economies. It is presently held at the Lough Erne resort in Northern Ireland and is being hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron. The leaders of United States, Japan, Canada, Russia, Germany, France and Italy are in attendance. Not included are the leaders of China, Brazil and India.

While they may be discussing the world’s economy, of which the G8 countries account for 50 percent of the output, on the sideline, however, the civil war in Syria is one hot topic to be discussed and resolved.

But, as it appears, it is very unlikely that the leaders will go home with the conflict resolved, much less a compromise being reached just so the destruction, killings and influx of refugees out of Syria will stop.

What is more likely to happen is that the war will worsen, even as the US and Russia share interest in stopping the violence and atrocities committed, now with use of chemical weapons.

With Russia having Syria as its closest Middle Eastern ally and a trusted friend in President Bashar al-Assad, there is no way Russian President Vladimir Putin would allow the Western powers, led by President Barack Obama, to have Syria’s leader taken out of the equation in resolving the crisis.

Even before the summit started one could already deduce what the outcome would be with regards to Syria.

During talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron in London on the eve of the summit, Putin renewed his criticism of the West’s position in startling tones, describing Assad’s foes as cannibals.

“I think you will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines, in front of the public and cameras,” Putin said at a joint news conference with Cameron.

“Are these the people you want to support? Is it them who you want to supply with weapons?”

This had reference to the US decision to send weapons to the rebels, saying Assad’s forces had crossed a “red line” by using chemical weapons.

For sure, Putin wants to achieve a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria, but not at the expense of the despot Assad to whom Russia has been sending weapons, including the planned shipment of the advanced S-300 air defense system, which will be a potential deterrent to any enforced no-fly zone thought of over Syria in the future.

Peace is, has been, and will continue to be elusive in Syria. And for as long as Assad continues to be in power there will be no meeting of the minds between the Russian leader and the rest of the G8 leaders.

China granted concession to build Great Nicaraguan Canal

Trying to equal and/or surpass the might and achievements of the USA in terms of armaments, economy, science, technology, production, construction and what have you, now China is on the verge of building a monumental legacy in shipping when Nicaragua’s National Assembly voted to grant Hong Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. (HKND Group) the exclusive right to study and build the Great Nicaraguan Canal (GNC).

Like the US-built Panama Canal that was undertaken late in the 19^th century, the GNC across Nicaragua will be another engineering feat in the history of construction with the shipping channel linking the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.

The project is estimated to cost upwards of $40 billion, and will include also a new rail line, an oil pipeline, two deep water ports, two international airports, and a series of free-trade zones along the canal.

The prospective GNC will dwarf the Panama Canal not only because it will be three times longer than the 50-mile Panama Canal, but the supertankers and other mammoth vessels that are unable to pass presently through the Panama Canal can now be accommodated in the much wider and deeper GNC.

Many of today’s largest vessels that cannot fit in the canal leave them with no other option but to take the notorious Cape Horn route around the tip of South America.

Unlike the Panama Canal, which was built using enormous number of laborers that threatened lives and limbs, the mechanization and advanced technology in global positioning and satellite imagery is going to make the building process of the GNC much safer and easier.

There are valid questions raised, however, by the environmentalists and critics of Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega over the ambitious construction of the GNC.

While supporters of Ortega believe that the project could uplift the lives of its poor people by bringing tens of thousands of jobs to the country and fueling an economic boom, just as it happened in Panama, critics are thumbing the project down because of its environmental destruction and questionable economic viability.

Environmentalists say it would devastate Lake Nicaragua, the country’s primary source of fresh water, while shipping experts say that it may be an economically unfeasible power play by China.

“We’re at a crossroads because either you use Lake [Nicaragua] for floating boats or you use it for drinking water, but you can’t use it for both things at once,” Victor Campos, assistant director of the Humboldt Center environmental organization said.

“It’s addressing a need that definitely is not here now and I’m not sure if it’s ‘a build it and they will come’ sort of thing,” Rosalyn Wilson, a senior business analyst at the Delcan Corporation, a Toronto-based transportation consultancy and author of the U.S. logistics industry’s annual report commented. “I wouldn’t invest my money in it.”

Wilson noted that the global economic slowdown led to a lower demand for massive container shipping, and that climate change means that the Arctic could become a viable alternative to crossing Central America by canal.

Experts are skeptical whether or not there will be enough increase in shipping between Asia and the Western Hemisphere to justify a new canal.

“There’s going be some growth in world trade. The big question is: What routes is that trade going to move on? That’s the real challenge that Nicaragua faces,” he said. “It’s very easy to say trade is going to grow, but that doesn’t mean that Nicaragua is going to be in a competitive position to take advantage of it. … I’m not convinced right now.”

If a route is decided on soon, construction on the Great Nicaraguan Canal could begin as early as 2015

If it completes the canal as agreed, HKND Group will be granted a 100-year concession to operate the canal.

India will overtake China as most populous country by 2028

 

India, the world’s largest democracy and second most populous country emerged as a major power in the 1990s. It is militarily strong, has major cultural influence and a fast-growing and powerful economy.

A nuclear-armed state, it carried out tests in the 1970s and again in the 1990s in defiance of world opinion. However, India is still tackling huge social, economic and environmental problems.

But, be that as it may, the United Nations (UN) recently published a report by the World Population Prospects saying that India’s population is expected to surpass China’s around 2028 when both countries will have populations of around 1.45 billion.

Subsequently India’s population will continue to grow until the middle of the century, while China’s slowly declines.

The UN also estimates that the current global population of 7.2 billion will reach 9.6 billion by 2050.

Developing countries, particularly in Africa, are expected to spiral upwards the population growth, according to the UN.

“Although population growth has slowed for the world as a whole, this report reminds us that some developing countries, especially in Africa, are still growing rapidly,” commented Wu Hongbo, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

The report found that most countries with very high levels of fertility — more than 5 children per women — are on the UN list of least developed countries. Most are in Africa, but they also include Afghanistan and East Timor.

But the average number of children per woman has swiftly declined in several large countries, including China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Brazil and South Africa, leading to a reduction in population growth rates in much of the developing world.

In contrast, many European and eastern Asia countries have very low fertility levels.

John Wilmoth, director of the Population Division in the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said the projected population increase will pose challenges but is not necessarily cause for alarm. Rather, he said, the worry is for countries on opposite sides of two extremes: Countries, mostly poor ones, whose populations are growing too quickly, and wealthier ones where the populations is aging and decreasing.

Wilmoth’s statement seems to reassure the world that there will be food available, even to the third world countries, but only if population  growth is prudently controlled by government.

Philippines still mired as ‘least peaceful’ country

 

Isn’t it ironic indeed that for a country that has become the envy of many Asian countries for having the fastest growing economy for the first quarter of 2013, it still continues to remain in the list of the ‘least peaceful’ countries in the world?

A few months ago Secretary of Socioeconomic Planning of the Philippines Arsenio Balisacan confirmed the report issued by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) that the country’s gross domestic product grew by 7.8 percent in the first quarter of 2013, faster than China (7.7 percent), Indonesia (6 percent), Thailand (5.3 percent), and Vietnam (4.9 percent).

NSCB attributed the 7.8 percent increase in the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country to the strong performance of the manufacturing and construction sectors, as well as the increase in government and consumer spending.

Yet, in a recent Global Peace Index released by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) in June 11, the Philippines ranked 129^th out of 162 nations in the list of ‘least peaceful’ countries in the world.

One can’t simply reconcile the fact that if a country is seen to be having the fastest growing economy, wouldn’t being considered, at the same time, as ‘least peaceful’ adversely affect the economic growth of the country?

Among countries in Southeast Asia, the Philippines was seen to be the third worst, next to Myanmar, which was ranked 140th, and Thailand, which took the 130th spot.

The index is calculated using scores in 22 indicators that reflect countries’ status in terms of ongoing domestic and international conflict; societal safety and security; and militarization.

The Philippines bagged a score of 2.37 in the index, which describes peace in countries with scores close to 1 point as “very high.”

Now, how could it be that high if the country’s domestic problems with insurgencies are isolated? Besides, whatever internal conflict the country has is being taken cared of as peace negotiation is being established.

It is not as if there is war going on in the country’s capital or turmoil is happening in major cities to make the country ‘least peaceful’.

The fact that the economy is growing at an unprecedented rate only means that there is peace and stability in the country.

Singapore was the highest-ranked Southeast Asian country at 16th place. It was followed by Malaysia (29th), Laos (39th), Vietnam (41st), Indonesia (54th) and Cambodia (115th).

Considered the most peaceful countries in the report were Iceland, Denmark, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, Japan, Finland, Canada, Sweden and Belgium.

At the bottom of the list meanwhile were Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, North Korea and the Central African Republic.

Pope Francis on “culture of waste”

Pope Francis

“Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of those who are poor and hungry.”

Is this a new and startling revelation by Pope Francis during his audience at the Vatican?

Well, not really because we see how people are wasteful in restaurants, in parties at home or elsewhere, and in any event or celebration that calls for food to be served, even as the poor in our society feels it.

I am sure it is much, much worst and appalling in highly developed countries.

I am also sure that the UN World Food Program have facts and statistics to show how this “culture of waste” described by Pope Francis is and has been affecting the world’s poor.

But the fact that the leader of the 1.2 billion Catholics has always showed concern for the poor by calling for global financial reform and, recently, by strongly denouncing the “culture of waste”, that his voice will be heard by heads of governments and reverberate all over the world so that not only world agencies tasked to ensure that food reaches the world’s poor will act accordingly, but that the affluent and fortunate among the peoples in the world would take cognizance of the plight of the poor while food is wasted.

“This culture of waste has made us insensitive even to the waste and disposal of food, which is even more despicable when all over the world, unfortunately, many individuals and families are suffering from hunger and malnutrition,” Pope Francis said.

According to the United Nations’ food agency, around 1.3 billion tons of food (one third of what is produced for human consumption) gets lost or wasted every year.

A U.N. backed study released said that simple measures such as better storage and reducing over-sized portions would sharply reduce the vast amount of food going to waste.

To appreciate better why it is about time the world has to resolutely solve and eradicate this “culture of waste”, take note of some of the following dreadful facts taken from the Hunger Statistics of the World Food Program:

-          The vast majority of hungry people (98 percent) live in developing countries, where almost 15% of the population is undernourished.

-          Asia and the Pacific have the largest share of the world’s hungry people (some 563 million) but the trend is downward.

-          Undernutrition contributes to 2.6 million deaths of children under five each year – one third of the global total.

-          One out of six children — roughly 100 million — in developing countries is underweight.

-          One in four of the world’s children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.

-          80 percent of the world’s stunted children live in just 20 countries.

 -   66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.

Embittered Enrile resigns

Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile

Senator Juan Ponce Enrile did the right thing in choosing the honorable way of giving up the Senate Presidency, while he still could, rather than suffer the lose of face and faith of most of his colleagues when the 16^th Congress convenes next month.

Enrile was so embittered in his privilege speech announcing his resignation that he stood down frothing against his detractors, notably, Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Miriam Defensor-Santiago and to some extent, Sen. Antonio Trillanes, for maligning his person that helped erode the public trust on the Senate under his leadership.

Cayetano and Santiago, on the release of funds for “maintenance and other operating expenditures” (MOOE) authorized by Enrile just before Christmas, and, Trillanes, on topics ranging from the bill dividing Camarines Sur to the Chinese intrusion at Scarborough Shoal, which Enrile had a heated public debate with.

“Old age may have physically impaired my vision. But let me assure all of you: I can still see and read clearly the handwriting on the wall. I need not be told by anyone when it is time for me to go,” Enrile said.

Long before the May mid-term elections there were already attempts to unseat Enrile but the numbers just didn’t add up.

Not until after the elections was over and the trending of the senatorial winners was favoring Team PNoy, 9-3, against the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) of the 3 kings – Binay, Estrada and Enrile – did Enrile realized what his fate was going to be. This was the writing on the wall.

But more than the personal hurt inflicted by Santiago, Cayetano and Trillanes, which as a seasoned politician he could very well take and defend himself, as he did in his privilege speech, what really disillusioned and embittered Enrile was the fact that his son, Rep. Jack Enrile, did not make it to the winning circle of senators elected.

Enrile’s perception is that his son lost because of him.

He said the “common analysis of observers” showed Jack’s candidacy “suffered from fallout and bitter criticism hurled against me by those I displeased” just as the senatorial campaign was about to take off early this year.

He went on to say that he “endured in silence the pain of seeing my son suffer because of me. He carried on his shoulders the weight of all mud thrown at me as I stayed and watched quietly on the sidelines. My heart bled for him.”

This, I consider a melodramatic of an opinion by a father towards his son, if I ever heard of one.

Thus, I can’t help but disagree with Enrile, the father.

My premise for disagreeing is that if Enrile himself was running for reelection during the May election, he would have won and landed somewhere in the middle of the magic twelve, despite his alleged wrongdoings.

That is how marketable he is even in his old age and considering his handling of the Corona impeachment case before the Senate. The people could not have easily forgotten his competent role during the trial.

Therefore, if Jack Enrile lost, it is not because the people love Cayetano and Trillanes and the rest of Team PNoy candidates more

Jack Enrile lost because he is not like Juan Ponce Enrile.

Jack Enrile lost because he is not a pedigree member of a popular clan of movie actors.

Jack Enrile lost because he has his own demons to exorcise.

That is all there is to it.

China’s questionable safety standards

Whether it is food for and well-being of people, China’s safety concern remains questionable.

We have heard of the infant formula milk contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine that poisoned Chinese babies.

There was also the case of the toxic bean sprouts treated with sodium nitrite and urea, as well as antibiotics and a plant hormone called 6-benzyladenine. The chemicals were used to make them grow faster and look fresh in the market stalls.

Reports also emerged of another milk contamination scandal, this time using leather-hydrolyzed protein which, like melamine, appears to boost the protein-content of milk, thereby enhancing its value.

‘Sewer’ oil

Who can forget the scandal of the ‘sewer’ oil uncovered by a professor from Wuhan Polytechnic University in March 2010, who estimated that one in 10 of all meals in China were cooked using recycled oil, often scavenged from the drains beneath restaurants.

Other food safety scares include the water melon bursting from a surfeit of growth enhancers and oranges that were too orange to be true.

In March this year China was again very much in the news scandalizing the world with tens of thousands of dead pigs fished out from one of its rivers that happened to be the source of drinking water.

Could there have been sickly pigs slaughtered and sold to minimize losses?

A few days ago reports said that fire gutted out the Baoyuan poultry processing plant in Dehui in Jilin province leaving around 55 workers dead. There were said to be 300 workers at the time the fire broke out.

About 100 workers had managed to escape from the plant. The number of workers trapped inside has to be determined yet.

Speculations are rife that the blaze might have started with an electric spark in the plant. Eyewitnesses, however, avers having heard a blast and suspected a leak of liquid ammonia.

Unless Chinese companies show more concern for the quality of their products, whether raw or processed, and uplift the welfare of its workers by improving work conditions and safety standards, it is always a certainty that fatal incidents/accidents are bound to happen in industrialized China.

(Poultry fire update: The provincial fire department attributed the blasts to a leak of ammonia, a gas that is kept pressurized as part of the cooling system in meat processing plants.The poultry plant is owned by  Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Co., one of the bigger chicken processing plants in China. The fatality has rose up 119 people and 54 people were being treated in hospitals. – Quierosaber)

Melinda Gates and reproductive health education

Melinda Gates

Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has called for women to be given better access to high-quality health education, health services and contraceptives.

She advocated this at the panel of the third Women Deliver Global Conference in Kuala Lumpur very recently, where she said that a year after the transformational London Family Planning Summit, she had seen so much progress in many countries, including in Senegal, Zambia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines in terms of scaling up healthcare and education access for women and girls.

Known for her passion to help women and children, she spoke of how she was amazed by the amount of political will shown by governments to protect girls and women through family planning.

It will be noted, however, that the Philippine Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) for the implementation of the controversial reproductive health law as its constitutionality is being challenged before the court. I am sure the powerful Catholic Church in the country is behind this move even if their is a strong clamor from the poor sector for its implementation.

Even then, what transpired during the conference should be an eye-opener to those opposing Republic Act 10354, which was enacted by President Benigno Aquino III in December 2012.

The three-day conference focused on finding solutions to empower girls and women, to invest in programs for their welfare, to develop action plans for ensuring that girls and women are prioritized in new development frameworks and laying out a clear, measurable road map to success.

“Nothing is more inspiring than a woman who finds the strength to raise her voice again and again until people are forced to listen and respond. To me, that’s what the fight for women’s empowerment looks like,” Gates said.

“Women who have the power to decide when to get pregnant also have the power to make a better future,” she added.

Acknowledging religion as a barrier in countries like the Philippines, Gates said such barriers has to be confronted and explained starting with the grassroots.

“We have to talk to religious leaders in the right way. We have to make sure that they spread the right messages,” she said, adding that “people need to stand up and say ‘this is what’s right.’ Men need to say ‘this is right for my wife’.”

Besides, as made clear by Rep. Edcel Lagman, the principal author of the RH law, he said that “The guarantee of freedom of informed choice is an assurance that no one would be compelled to violate the tenets of his religion or defy his religious convictions against his free will and own discernment of his faith.”

Women, therefore, should be allowed to have a say, and decide on family planning options for the sake of their well-being and that of their children.

According to a report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), every year, around 287,000 women die from pregnancy-related causes. Another 5.7 million suffer long-lasting illnesses or disabilities caused by complications during pregnancy or childbirth. The consequence of losing these women affects families in the sense that children without mothers are less likely to receive proper nutrition and education. The implications for girls tend to be even greater, leading to a continued cycle of poverty and poor health.

Isn’t going against the RH law in this country also making the person anti-Christian?

Gates said the reason her foundation invests in family planning and access to contraceptives is due to listening to women in rural areas of Africa, Asia and the United States.

‘Inferno’ book calling a spade a spade

If Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Francis Tolentino is again on a warpath against American blockbuster author Dan Brown and his latest book, “Inferno”, he is just trying to be true to himself.

In the same way that he also expressed his indignation when Brown published his best selling book, “The Da Vinci Code”, in 2006, joining the Catholic Church in its outrage over portrayals in the book, which the Catholic Church found offensive and irreverent, Tolentino has again showed his displeasure and chastised the author for describing Manila in the new book as “the gates of hell.”

This was apparently alluding to a female character in the book visiting Manila and was so aghast by the squalor of the place made worst by pollution, crime, human trafficking and the prostitution of children.

“I’ve run through the gates of hell,” the character says after her experiences in Manila, where she herself suffered the horror of being raped in the story.

If Tolentino wasn’t the head of MMDA would he have made a big brouhaha about Brown and his new and sure-to-be blockbuster of a book?

Since it talked about the pathetic social condition of Manila, could it be that Tolentino’s bloated ego had been pricked?

I find Tolentino competent in his job and I highly respect his savvy, but this is no reason to be onion-skinned and getting piqued at something that is true, but unpleasant to the ears.

Would Brown has to be invited still to come if only to disprove that the researches he made about the rueful state Metro Manila is in were full of holes?

Like in any big metropolis there are always the pleasant sites and sights and the unpleasant scenes. This is a reality and it so happen that while the book is fiction, part of the story revolves around Manila, where partly the sights, sounds and scenes described are undeniably true.

The book is simply calling a spade a spade and definitely nowhere near the “entry to heaven” as Tolentino fantasizes calling Manila.

Negating what has been said and portrayed in the book about us is not going to get us anywhere.

It is time for our politicians and leaders to act about the negative pictures painted about us and our country, whether in this book or in other venues.

It is a challenge for them as much as it is a challenge for the ordinary citizens.

This is the reason why we urge people to elect the competent, the honest, the educated and the selfless candidates to run our country and make our laws.

These are the kind of leaders we need, endowed with political will, because we can be sure that that they have what it takes to make a difference in the quality of lives of people despite contrary arguments espoused by the Catholic Church.