Are you keeping your distance and washing your hands? Are you wearing a face mask at all times even when you eat? Well you better be because that is the only way to stop the virus form spreading.
These young people wore their masks while feeding their village.
(Actually, we are planning to also give small relief packs but we found out that our suplemental budget was already used by the higher officials)
“Our feeding [program] started last May 6. First the money we spent is from the pocket of [our] SK Chairman Kerr Kevin Ventura,” he added.
With only P1,000, they bought ingredients of rice porridge, or commonly known as “lugaw,” for their feeding program.
A day after the first day, Reyes said that the group initiated a donation drive called “Bigas Donation Campaign” to sustain the needs of their campaign.
The SK federation conducts feeding programs twice a week and feed an estimated 150 to 250 persons in every purok (sub-village).
Reyes added that they decided to continue the project despite the lack of funds because they “don’t want their Day-Asanon to suffer from hunger” in this trying time.
As of this writing, the youth leaders already have conducted feeding programs to 10 puroks in their barangay.
They started with P1,000 but now with donations coming in they have more money and can feed more people.
More errors with the SAP money.
A supposed clerical error by workers of Barangay San Jose in Rodriguez, Rizal has denied a resident her financial aid from the national government, as the personnel supposedly listed the name of her dog instead of hers.
Nurharija Lim Rosqueta, who lives in Kasiglahan Village, told radio dzBB that she was denied her financial aid under the Social Amelioration Program because it was her dog Margarita that the barangay officials listed in the masterlist of SAP beneficiaries.
The report said Rosqueta produced identifying documents showing that the address indicated for her dog was her address, decrying how the barangay could not explain the error.
It added that Rosqueta sought to rectify the error in the barangay hall, lamenting how the “lousy” verification process made her queue amid intense wind and rains due to Typhoon Ambo for nothing.
Sounds like they didn't even give the dog money.
With the advent of COVID-19 the future of medicine is here. Telemedicine.
Vigos, AC Health’s technology arm, teamed up with Globe Telecom’s 917 Ventures to create HealthNow, a free web-based teleconsultation platform that connects patients to doctors without leaving their homes.
Christian Besler, AC Health chief digital officer, said at a press briefing yesterday that about 80 doctors were on the platform on any given day, including those who heeded the Department of Health’s call for pro bono medical services amid the public health crisis.
“We have seen a huge demand from the public in terms of requesting an appointment and scheduling to see a doctor or specialist like GPs (general practitioners),” Besler said.
HealthNow would soon be integrated into AC Health’s other digital platforms. By end-June, it would have mobile applications that should enable doctors to conduct paid consultations, Besler said.
“A lot of doctors will shift to this model but we will still keep some part of the service available for free to the public,” he said.
Raymund Paul Darroca, general manager of FamilyDoc, said apart from home services, laboratory and home vaccination offerings, the group would soon introduce drive-through labs.
“This means for elderly patients, senior patients with hypertension and diabetes, you don’t have to go down from your car, we will actually extract blood and specimen right at your car and that will reduce the [risk] exposure,” Darroca said.
That's great but it presupposes these people have a car and access to the internet. Plus there is nothing like a real doctor physically examining a patient. The internet will never replace that.
With the lockdown it was inevitable that this win charge would abuse their power.
Armed with a gun, and now with more stringent rules at their disposal, some policemen have coerced their way to get what they want from Filipino women who are forced to sell their bodies to survive.
As the lockdown dragged, these women – and men – were left with little choice but to give in to their armed tormentors.
With children and nephews to feed, Marivic knew she had no choice but to meet a married man who had been repeatedly texting her. But to get to him, she would have to walk several kilometers, get past a checkpoint, and walk several kilometers more.
Desperate for cash, she walked several kilometers for over two hours until she reached a small tent with some policemen and a familiar face. It was Andres*, one of the first policemen who gave her cash for sex when she was still a teenager.
Their first encounters were straightforward. But after several years, he replaced cash with threats of arrest to have sex.
Andres was notorious for abusing prostituted women in their town. During the lockdown, he and other policemen would knock on prostituted women's houses and rape them, Marivic told Rappler.
Marivic knew Andres would not let her pass unless she gave him what he wanted. So she had to once again strip down and submit to Andres just to provide for her family.
Andres drove her back to her house to be raped. "Nakakahiya pero desperado na talaga ako noon eh (it's embarrassing but I was really desperate at that time)," Marivic told Rappler.
After the rape, Andres gave her a loaf of bread and P150. Then he offered her a ride to get to her customer.
This was their arrangement during the lockdown: trading sex for an ECQ pass plus transportation.
That article continues
with several
other stories in the same vein. PNP Chief Gamboa's reply to this story was that the women should name the cops who abused them. That is easy to say but not so easy to do when those same men can easily take your life.
It's certainly exciting to see the Philippines catching up technologically with the rest of the world sine the pandemic hit. It's not like their is much of a choice though. One town is using this new technology to track citizens.
Consolacion, a town in northern Cebu, is using technology to keep track of the movements of the residents now that they are under the general community quarantine (GCQ).
Town Mayor Joannes Alegado said that an artificial intelligence (AI)-based application called Conan is utilized by the municipal government to form a database of all residents leaving and entering the town.
He said since the municipality of Consolacion has been placed under GCQ, more residents, especially workers, are expected to leave their homes. The application would help monitor the residents location’s for a particular day.
Quarantine passes, which contain QR codes, are scanned every time the holder goes through checkpoints, which would be downloaded to the database, forming a catalog of the movement of the residents.
Through Conan’s location logger, the mayor noted that the database would help in the contact tracing of positive COVID-19 patients.
Quarantine passes with scannable QR codes to track the movements of all citizens. The picture
with the Stormtrooper scanning a man really fits this story.
Actor Dingdong Dantes is now on the frontlines battling COVID-19.
Actor Dingdong Dantes and his fellow reservists of the Marine Affiliated Reserve Combat Service Support Batallion (MARCSSBn) handed out food packs, personal protective equipment (PPEs) and other goods to frontliners stationed at checkpoints in Pasay City.
Dantes, a lieutenant commander of the Philippine Navy, took to Instagram yesterday, May 21, to share with fans a glimpse of him in uniform and thank other reservists and frontliners manning checkpoints throughout Luzon.
The food distributed by Dantes and his colleagues were prepared by the actor’s wife, Marian Rivera. The actress has been using her cooking skills to help frontliners since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nothing self-serving here. It's all about self-sacrifice.
With jobs being lost due to the lockdowns people are having to try different things.
Some get to cook dishes without even getting garlicky hands because of the labor of garlic peelers like Cherylyn Lacosta and other women of Parola in Tondo, Manila.
Manual peeling like what Lacosta does -- using small cutter blades -- is painful on the hands, and the pay is small -- P70 pesos for every 14 kilos of peeled garlic -- but it's the only source of income that she can have as jobs are hard to come by in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lacosta said her husband has not been able to work, and thus, have no income, for the last two months since the lockdown.
There is about 20 garlic bulbs in a kilo which means this lady will have to peel 280 bulbs for a measly 70 pesos. Slave labour basically.
The PNP is hard at work around the country manning checkpoints and making sure people are wearing face masks in public. It's a thankless task. Mostly.
Arguing or explaining rules to hot-tempered individuals is a scene that is no longer new or shocking to policemen, who are assigned in one of the quarantine control points (QCPs) in Minglanilla town, Cebu, during the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and now general community quarantine (GCQ).
So when Police Master Sergeant Christopher Cesa, assigned in Barangay Tungkop QCP of the town, saw a black card on their table beside the box where identification cards for those entering the town are placed, he thought it was a death threat card.
But Cesa was moved when he got to read the card as it turned out to be a letter thanking the policemen of their efforts of keeping the town safe.
(I did not expect that it was a letter because we have a lot of people who argued with us because we would allow them to enter or pass through the QCP because of the one time pass.)
The letter said Cesa, commended the policemen for performing their tasks well even when it was not an easy one.
According to Cesa, they never met who the sender of the letter was as it was only left in their table, but the small gesture has made the day for him and his fellow policemen.
(We feel energized knowing that there are also people who see the efforts of our security force and not just those whom we often argue along the way.)
Cesa said that their hearts were really touched by the gesture, and this made them realize that their efforts did not go to waste and unnoticed.
Somebody left what at first glance appeared to be a death threat on the table of the checkpoint the PNP are manning and was able to do so unseen? Why was nobody at the table? Where were the cops?
Senior citizens have been hit hard by the lockdowns.
An 82-year-old man from Rodriguez, Rizal had to walk for six kilometers just to ask for cash aid after his wife suffered from a stroke.
According to Maki Pulido's report on "24 Oras," Gracias Frivaldo started walking at 4:30 am just to reach the municipal hall and seek aid.
Linda Jimenez, 78, was also there on behalf of her only child, who likewise suffered a stroke.
The two of them were among the many senior citizens who waited for hours outside the municipal hall to seek aid amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
However, they were told the mayor was not around and other employees of the municipal social work development were also out of office.
A senior citizen who survived a stroke was reduced to begging for alms just to survive amid the general community quarantine in Rodriguez, Rizal.
In Maki Pulido's report for "24 Oras," Esther Vargas, 77, said her child lost their job when the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdowns were imposed.
She did not receive aid from the Social Amelioration Program (SAP), so she has no choice but to ask strangers for help.
Residents of Rodriguez, including many senior citizens, have been visiting the municipal hall in the hopes of getting some assistance.
However, they have yet to speak to anyone from the municipal social welfare department (MSWD).
It appears the government is not in a hurry to help these people. Thank goodness for Filipino hospitality right? None of them will go starving thanks to that! At least that is how it is for one community.
After learning about the inconveniences that their neighborhood was facing during these trying times, a 40-year-old Barangay Tisa resident stepped up to help the community by feeding them everyday with porridge.
Ghen Camañero of Sitio San Miguel, Barangay Tisa, Cebu City told CDN Digital that for almost a month she has been giving out food to their community after learning that some of them were having a hard time getting something to eat during this pandemic.
“Some families have lots of kids but parents (having) no permanent jobs they were struggling even more when the ECQ happened because they had no savings at all then, No Work No Pay,” she said.
“The subsidy from the government was still not enough, (there were) lots of hungry kids in our sitio. Some families didn’t receive the subsidy for some reason. That’s why I tried to organized a feeding program in our sitio and ask help to all friends in social media, and thanks for them for trusting me,” she said.
Camañero started the feeding program just this May and has been feeding the residents in their community every day from 8 to 9 in the morning.
“For those who would want some porridge for their family they can come to our house bringing their own containers, with face masks and should observe social distancing before we can give them the food,” she said.
In a day they can feed at least 60 to 80 individuals in their community.
Camañero was able to pull off the feeding program with the help of her friends and some private individuals online who extended their help.
Camañero said that as long as there would be funds to support their cause they would be extending their help to their community even with just one simple meal everyday.
How many more Good Samaritans are you there feeding their
communities
?
More cops have been caught violating the liquor ban.
Police Staff Sergeant Joe Marc Ebon, 37, was arrested by his superiors at the quarantine control checkpoint in Barangay Velasco, Lemery, Iloilo at around 2:30 p.m. of May 21, 2020.
Policemen seized 69 boxes of Tanduay Rhum (375 ml) from the vehicle.
69 boxes of Tanduay Rhum! Who is their suppler?
Police Col. Paul Kenneth Lucas, chief of the Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO), said that Police Staff Sergeant Jose Digcabo-on Jr. was one of the two people caught in Guimbal town last May 20.
Digcabo-on, who is assigned to the Regional Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit (RPHAU) of Police Regional Office (PRO-6), is the third policeman in Iloilo to have been arrested for this violation.
He was arrested with 47-year-old Leo Faldas who was driving the white van that was stopped for not having a travel pass.
Digcabo-on allegedly tried to intervene and tried to stop his fellow policemen from arresting Faldas and himself.
No word on how many boxes of booze were in that van.
We all know about the brouhaha over the closure of ABS-CBN but did you know the PCOO is telling the government to help bail out the media because they are losing money due to the pandemic?
Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar urged government agencies to allocate funds for advertisement to help media companies survive from the economic impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.
Andanar made this remark after receiving reports that some private media companies have started reducing manpower due to quarantine measures imposed in the entire Luzon on March 16 to contain the Covid-19 outbreak.
“Ipaglaban niyo ang iyong advertising budget niyo, allocate niyo and distribute equally sa private media (Fight for your advertising budget, allocate it and distribute it equally to private media),” Andanar said in a meeting with the heads of private media in Baguio City on Saturday.
He said private media’s capability to find news and disseminate them has been affected due to economic reasons.
“Pag sarado ang negosyo, walang advertisement, walang pangkabuhayan ang media company. Kung walang pagkukunan ng revenue, walang pangpasweldo (If businesses are closed, there is no advertisement, so media company has no source of income. If there is no revenue, there is no funds for salaries),” Andanar said.
He also encouraged the government media to help their private counterpart in disseminating news and information.
It seems rather hypocritical in light of the ABS-CBN shutdown and Congress' refusal to fast track a bill to grant them an operating franchise.
Another superhero has appeared in the midst of the pandemic. This one does chores.
Locked down inside his home due to the spiraling coronavirus pandemic, a “superhero” is left with nothing to do but maximize his special powers to carry out ordinary tasks in his bid to kill boredom.
This fictional storyline apparently came to life when a Filipino photographer created a photo set portraying himself as a superhuman who uses his extraordinary powers to perform usual household chores like preparing food, cleaning the house, and doing the laundry.
Michael Perfecto, a freelance lensman based in Quezon City, told Inquirer that his creations were inspired by his penchant for food and product photography, and simply from the idea of being stuck at home because of quarantine restrictions.
Perfecto also said he drew motivation for designing his content from the new Netflix series Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
The
pictures are very good. Nice trick photography.
Many PNP officers have contracted COVID-19 and have been placed under quarantine. This has affected the day-to-day operations of two stations.
As the Carbon and the San Nicolas Police Stations’ personnel still await for the clearance to get back to work after two to three weeks under quarantine, buy-bust operations and community engagements for these two police stations have stopped for the meantime,
Both Police Captain Alvin Llamedo, Carbon Police station (Police Station 5) chief, and Police Major Eduard Sanchez, San Nicolas Police Station (Police Station 6) chief, said that aside from the paperworks, they were now limited to only monitoring the security in their area and relying on the augmented personnel who were tasked to perform regular duties on the streets on behalf of the personnel under quarantine.
The Carbon Police Station policemen including Llamedo, who are 47 all in all, have been placed under quarantine for at least two weeks now.
Meanwhile, all 56 police officers of the San Nicolas Police Station have also been placed under quarantine in the same period.
Sanchez said that of the 56, 36 were under office quarantine while the others were placed under home quarantine.
He also said that five of the station’s police officers were also found positive of the virus.
Sanchez said that all newly arrested persons were being detained in a bus that had served as a detention cell for their station as of the moment.
Has a situation like this ever happened before? This real world experience
will hopefully give the PNP ideas on how to face situations like this in the
future.
Manning ECQ checkpoints is not an easy job.
A volunteer at a COVID-19 checkpoint at the village of Mambaling here was killed after being beaten up by three still unidentified men early on Monday (May 25).
The victim, identified only as a certain Agu, suffered multiple wounds and bruises.
He was brought to the hospital but was declared dead on arrival there.
Cpl. Noel Timagos, of the Mambaling police station, said the victim was beaten up around 1 a.m. on Wednesday in his house at the village. Mambaling is among COVID-19 hot spots in the city.
Agu, Timagus, was not familiar to the residents of Mambaling since he did not have relatives in the village.
According to results of initial police investigation, Agu served as volunteer at the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) checkpoint at the village.
So if Agu was not familiar to anyone in the village then what was he doing there in the first place? How was he able to volunteer at the checkpoint if he was an unknown person?
Two Filipinos made it to the front page of the New York Times.
Two Filipino women — a cancer survivor and one who arranged feeding programs for poor children in the Philippines — were on the list of the New York Times’ historic front page memorial for nearly 100,000 fatalities of COVID-19 in the United States
Both women were also the first confirmed COVID-19 fatalities where they lived in the US — Los Angeles County and New Port News in Virginia, according to multiple reports in the US.
Both were on the front page of the NYT and both were the first in their towns to die from COVID-19. A double whammy!
More Pinoy ingenuity!
Concern over the safety of loved ones who may be exposed to COVID-19 have inspired a family of doctors and entrepreneurs to design and produce a modified disinfection unit (MDU) that sprays health workers with alcohol just before they take off their personal protective equipment (PPE).
The strong blast of 70 percent ethanol or isopropyl alcohol is intended to eliminate harmful fomites or infection-causing materials that may have attached themselves to the PPE while a health worker is on duty.
The MDUs are donated to hospitals treating COVID-19 patients by Favori Ventures Inc. (Favori).
“Even before the lockdown was announced … we were very concerned about protecting our loved ones from this deadly virus since most of them will be … front-liners,” said Mike Tripon, owner and director of Favori who comes from a family of “doctors and dentists.”
“We [also] consulted with … doctor-friends [and doctors] and dentists in the family about how we could help them with our existing technology,” Tripon said in an email.
As the quarantine wore on, Mike Tripon said discussions at mealtimes included stories of “senior doctors active on COVID floors” who were worried about having only “makeshift” doffing areas.
“These areas are not adequately equipped and sometimes there is even lack of safety officers,” he said.
Family members put their heads together and eventually designed a .27 x .27-square-meter area that is 1.8 meters tall “with sticky overlapped PVC [polyvinyl chloride] curtains to help contain the alcohol (blast) and an external box that contains a nano particle generator.”
He explained that the MDU’s generator “turns liquid alcohol into [a] nano particle-sized dry alcohol mist that doesn’t leave a wet mess like other misting systems.”
“When a health worker in full PPE steps in, the misting is activated … [it] sprays for 20 seconds and stops when the person exits. It automatically disinfects the unit before the next person enters. It is an alcohol bath chamber,” he said.
It's
good that people
are doing what
they can and making all kinds of innovative
products but it
just
goes to show how ill equipped
and backward the nation really is.
Remember the illegal hospital for Chinese COVID-19 patients?
But formal complaints have been delayed pending the issuance of a certification from the FDA that will establish that medicines recovered from the raided Fontana Villa No. 628 and a warehouse were “untested by FDA and hence illegal,” Col. Amante Daro, CIDG chief in Central Luzon, said on Monday (May 25).
The Chinese nationals, Hu Ling, who was described by CIDG as the supervisor, and Lee Seung Hyun, the supposed pharmacist of the facility, were “released on the same day of their arrest, with no charges or cases filed against them,” said Simon Wu, Fontana assistant general manager.
Does the PNP really not have probable cause to hold them until formal charges are filed? They were caught redhanded operating an illegal hospital and pharmacy! What is going on here?
The AFP drop more leaflets in remote areas this week.
“The information in the leaflets includes the symptoms, how it spreads and how it can be prevented. We already conducted aerial dropping in Sorsogon, Albay and other far-flung areas in the region,” he said.
Abad said the airdropping operations aim to reach people in remote areas in disseminating information about the prevailing health crisis.
Asked when will the next aerial dropping be conducted, Abad said there is no schedule yet "but every time we have a chance to fly and we can drop leaflets, we do it”.
Aside from leaflets on Covid-19, he said TOG-5 also dropped information materials on the deception and harassment activities of communist terrorist groups in Bicol region.
Does dropping leaflets do anything more than litter the countryside? Are they effective at all?
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